If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Issac Newton understood the importance of building upon the knowledge and wisdom of those that came before him. Mark Twain did when he said:
There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.
The nature of scientific research is that we take what is already known and test and explore new avenues, but it is very rare that anyone has a valid new idea. We live in a world of intellectual hand-me-downs.
Launches of new mobile devices are littered with remarks that Apple or Android did it first, Star Wars is just a Hollywood remake of an Akira Kurosawa movie, Fifty Shades of Grey is just Twilight which is a bit like the Anne Rice books which is Dracula.
We are the sums of our experience, each of us either accepts or rebels against events in our lives to become the person we are today. I have accepted the politics I was exposed to whilst rejecting any religion, but it was the fact that I was given these familial heirlooms in the first place that created the person I am today.
I am who I am because of what I was given, I may have reclaimed these beliefs when I received them to create my own moral table. It will be my responsibility to pass them on to my children, who will be coloured by these ethical heirlooms but will have the same opportunity to accept or reject them.
It is important that they get a choice, no hand-me-down idea should ever be forced on a child. To create clone of another is personality-murder, you are making the suggestion that they should give up on their own identity and become a duplicate. It is a suggestion that they are not as good and don’t deserve first dibs, they are a second class person with second class thoughts.
As they develop their personalities they can have clothes that suit, when they become real people we will find our their interests and beliefs.
That being said, she got a dinosaur jacket as a hand-me-down, maybe passing on things aren’t all bad.
Especially if it means she wants to continue with that style.
Viva Ergo Sum 