Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Let's Dope the Shy People

Oxytocin is a new drug/hormone that scientists are giving to shy people to make the less shy. Great. So now being shy is a bad characteristic? Come on now, does anybody else see how preposterous this seems?

I firmly believe that shyness is a positive tool with which people are naturally endowed to promote successful social relationships. Shyness is what keeps you from dancing on top of the table in a room full of strangers. Shyness is what stops you from wearing clashing clothes to business interviews. Shyness is what makes you hide your unflattering habits on a first date. Shyness is what helps you to appear calm, cool, and collected in high pressure situations. A world without shyness would be like having permanent drunken fools hopping and skipping around us at every moment.

Shyness is hardly such a bad thing, and in fact, I almost think some people could afford to take a drug that would make the MORE shy. Thank you.

Most disturbing to me, This is London and The Telegraph reports:
It could have other commercial benefits. For instance, it could be sprayed in restaurants to put diners at ease, or be used as an alternative to tear gas to calm rioters.
Does anyone else feel a sort of post-apocalyptic mind-control eeriness to this whole dope the shy people plan? I know I do.
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Also, with my love of the Spanish language and all, I was thinking "I am shy" in Spanish is "me da vergüenza." And, when translated back into English more literally it means "it gives me shame." This seems an like significantly more severe way of expressing timidness. Is it possible that cross-culturally or cross-linguistically the social stigma of shyness is even greater?