Because your examples are like apples and archaebacteria! Positing that changing jobs or starting a company is similar to changing your family or a new system of government is absurd.
Getting new employment happens every few years. A family unit is a lifetime commitment. And governance is measured in multiple lifetimes. That is why I lose your train of logic–short term issues require different patterns than long term issues. And for the love of the FSM governance had better be long term.
Random thought:
Maybe you’re wrong.
“I” am not anything. When I put forth ideas or observations, you refute those, not my person. In fact, anybody can posit a number of exclusive scenarios simultaneously, so how would this make them “wrong”? I suspect that people are often just too immature to juggle disparate concepts while maintaining the pretense of their preferred personal identity. That’s too bad. But it’s hardly an excuse to be rude. And by my estimation, making personal remarks and calling names is a rude practice. And even worse, is not the slightest bit elucidating.
Random indeed. I suppose I should flip a coin. Meanwhile, this will give you time to think of something more compelling than random.
You can bury your head in semantics all you want: Sometimes people are wrong. Sometimes I’m wrong. I’m not even saying you’re wrong, but you’re asking the question, “Why do people tend to leap down my throat on X, Y, Z issues?” If nowhere in your list of possibilities is that you may have a blind spot, then you’re wasting your time by asking.
Well, it might not even be a case of right or wrong. It might be a case of just dismissing others position and views as irrelevant? Which, although I know that @popobawa4u isn’t trying to do, often comes off like that. It’s a general problem with human beings, that our consciousness sits inside these stupid skulls, and sometimes getting out of that, and seeing something from another perspective, is not just tough, but almost impossible for some. The issues on sex/gender or race are especially tricky because of that. We find means to deal with them that work for us, and if things are working out well, we often can be dismissive of what others say from their own perspectives. It’s just part of our psychological make up that we down play the struggles of others and don’t think they are as critical as our own, especially if it’s something we’ve ourselves felt we’ve overcome or have never experienced. We tend to be like, well, “I got over that, why can’t you.” And American culture/capitalism/modernity/urban living not only encourages that, but almost demands it - the neoliberal social structures teach us that we are individuals, and our struggles are not the struggles of others. And on some level, if we let ourselves, we’d get so bogged down in the shit of the world, we’d never see the good and get anything done. But the more we go down this spiral of individualism, the worse off we’re all going to be, I’d imagine. It was collective solidarity that has been at the root of good things in this world, I’d argue.
But why do you get to decide that one’s identity is a pretense? Are you saying all identity is pretense? Why is that so? Identity can be a pretense, sure, and plenty of people put on false airs. But given our utter inability as human beings to REALLY see what reality is, what else are we to do? Our identities give us comfort, protect us, give us the ability to connect with others around us, gives us community, a buffer zone, etc. This might just be because of the world we live in, but that doesn’t mean they are all false in the sense of lying to others around you. But basically, what you say when you say “preferred personal identity” is that the only way people can get defined is from the outside, by others. Because if we can’t define ourselves and shape our identities, then what’s the point, exactly.
I think the idea that a person can be “wrong” is meaningless. That is a matter of identity, not accuracy. Nobody ever knows what a person IS, all a person can know about them is their behaviors at any given time, whether or not one can translate what comes from them in a way that makes sense. If I say “this is cat, this is also dog”, then I am not wrong, I have not changed. I made a statement which could be wrong, as to say, inaccurate. Or maybe it’s a special case. Or (in this case) a rhetorical device.
I hate to break it to you, but I almost always explicitly state where the things I say come from. I usually acknowledge the subjectivity of these before I even say anything. To tell me that my opinion or observation is wrong would be asinine. So it’s not really my opinion? Or, perhaps, it’s an opinion of mine you don’t agree with? Maybe there is no meaningful distinction between these to you, but for me there is.
I agree that I would be wasting my time by making definitive statements. But when do I ever? The “blind spot” is built into the human perceptive faculties, and once aware of it, is IMO hardly worth dwelling upon. Such as the location of the optic nerve in the retina, the observer effect in experiments, or people’s fascination with confusing fact with opinion through projection of subjective factors. People also seem to rage when I explain that I do not feel any need to identify with or believe anything said by anyone. Because they seem to assume (despite my statements to the contrary) that I mustn’t include myself with similar ambivalence. But I do.
This might essentially be a total derail, and I don’t want to speak for @popbawa4u here, but what do you think it is like to be different from that? If there are people out there (I have a friend, see) who have a lot of trouble identifying with themselves and don’t particularly think that their problems are more important than other people’s problems then just imagine how bizarre and pointless nearly everything everyone does must seem to those people.
This is just another kind of blindspot for the person who doesn’t really get identity, but as the bizarre minority that has had to fit into the world of the majority, at least they are fluent in both languages. People who do have strong identities mostly don’t seem to know there is another possibility (where “mostly” means I’ve my friend has never met a single other human being who seems to understand this idea).
But whether someone comes to this kind of thinking because that’s just how they are built or whether they come to it by being objective about their own identity, I can see why the phase “pretense of their preferred personal identity” is a sensible one to use. That may actually be the same thing as saying “their identity” but referring to someone’s identity directly might leave out some edge cases of people who have to choose to behave as an identity in social situations or who unknowingly adopt identity fragments from the people around them at any given time.
Edit because @popobawa4u just posted above: (again, not speaking for him, but he made me want to add this to my list of things you could do other than having an identity) Or someone might actively reject the notion of having to have an identity at all, and not even pretend for other people’s benefit.
Okay. All those climate change deniers aren’t wrong, they’re just “epistemically-displaced persons.”
Look, I speak English, and in the English language, the phrase, “You’re wrong,” has a clear and well understood meaning within a given context. If it lacks the precision necessary to compel your understanding, that’s really not my problem, it’s not worth it to me to work that hard for you.
Yes, that would be a polite way of saying it!
I observed it from a very young age, that people’s sense of self is very important to them, despite them often not knowing what it is, or how it works. Decades of experience - picking apart my own psyche, the contradictory accounts of others, some study of logic and cognitive science - have not persuaded me otherwise. I find it interesting, if a bit unsettling at times. Quite a few have posited that ego is a fiction people create automatically as a defense mechanism, but most seem to consider this more of an academic rather than day-to-day reality to consider. It’s no longer very controversial to acknowledge, unless one tries to do anything about it.
No, not necessarily. But I think it can be argued that in doing so we lie to ourselves, which might be worse. At best, it is a limitation most people choose to be comfortable with. But when a person opts to undo their own illusion, others become acute in their anxiety. It’s no fun to walk on eggshells to stave off others (ultimately unnecessary) existential crises.
It seems to me to be a tightrope act. People do define themselves, but their identity lies about it. Looking at a painting which was given to us instead of a mirror. If you think it is a mirror, you’d be confused! Instead then we can rely upon other clues to know who we are, and where we are. The scary thing is that the self is in flux. There might be a time with no self to speak of. The self you finish your day with might not be the one you started with. A person might juggle numerous distinct identities while speaking to people at a party without any conscious notion that they are doing it. In many ways, I think people are much more like networks, and hence more social, than their fairly constant identities would suggest. But, not unlike any other sort of “ego dissolution”, people cling to the illusion for dear life, for their very survival, because to lose it is to lose their self as they have imagined and would choose to be. But it’s just an image! The point is life itself,
There are ways to use language to avoid giving someone the impression you are stating their opinion. I know that gets me when people do so.
It is a matter of discussing things in terms which are not concrete. Avoid the always, the never, the all, the non, and keep to what may be instead of what -is-.
I dunno. I find it helpful
I never believe what people tell me about themselves. People are what they do.
I think pretense is only pretentious if i have to pretend along. (thus the -may be- above, which invites one to imagine, rather than telling one to). (Consent matters in a lot of contexts it turns out)
I hate to break it to you*, but this is impossible**. Unless ludicrously simple, as in a constructed neural network, humans do not have coherent knowledge systems – we hold a multiplicity of conflicting ideas/beliefs.
* No, I don’t.
** IMHO*
*** Not really.
**** I don’t believe that for one minute. 100% pure, unadultered truthiness.
I first saw this noted in Douglas Hofstadter’s Metamagical Themas and I’ll be d*****d if I can find an online citation right now. I don’t have the right search terms.
I’ve posited before that you work from a position that everything is logical, and we can fix things with logic, if only everybody would be logical. Which is nice in theory, but like the spherical cow, doesn’t even exist in the laboratory. People are soft, squishy, and a-logical. It would be nice if everything was logical, for certain limited definitions of the term “nice” that tend to include boring places like Camazotz.
If identity is pretense @popobawa4u, and we should never believe what people tell us about themselves @AcerPlatanoides , and only believe what we observe, where do you fit trans-gendered people into the soft equations?
This sounds suspiciously like the “well, why can’t I wear pajamas to court” argument someone was making…
Ugh, this is like saying “the only axiom is there can’t be axioms”. Being correct or incorrect, which in English are generally considered synonyms for right and wrong, is provable. Look, you are an intelligent person, and the only issue I have is the apparent cognitive dissonance that phrases like that appear to show.
I come from a place of respect and sincerity. And I concede I am wrong (heh 
) quite often.
This is very much what I was try to (poorly) explain. Saying that I was being “explicit” might seem an overstatement for emphasis. But what I meant was that when I state that something is but one of numerous opinions, by one of numerous people, that there are no claims of it being “reality” - mine, theirs, or anybody’s. I am (as it were) aware (more or less) that subjective/objective, fact/opinion are not straight, reality-splitting dichotomies which comprise any bedrock of existence. But I have always found it more accurate to use language which acknowledges and assumes that there is a boundary between this organism and all else, even if this boundary appears to be shifting, permeable, and temporary. If for no other reason to make as explicit as possible that my models are not reality.
This sounds more inflexible than I’d like. It might be more accurate to say that when “the outside world” is a factor, I am more trusting of checking things by means of some formal reasoning. But this is just a helpful error-checking mechanism rather than anything absolute. When it’s just me and my thoughts I don’t mind indulging in surrealism, mysticism, or that which is even more blatantly irrational - just for fun.
I could write a whole book about what I think gender really is. The easiest thing to do is simply ask people what their gender (or race, or anything else) might be. As for the performative “you are what you do” as put forth by AcerPlatanoides, I agree. But mapping of a person’s subjective state to one’s own models of inter-personal interaction is a difficult process with no certainties - hence all of the stereotypes we encounter. It is hard to say that one knows how a person performs their gender in any definitive way.
People who embody gender polarity I think of as being twins. They are composed of two (usually) principles or aspects which have both their own, internal dynamic - and also interact with the internal poles of other people. Any labels people associate with these, such as masculine/feminine, gay/straight seem to be completely arbitrary. For example, in the Hindu tantras, the “male” is the passive principle, while the “female” is the active principle. In the Buddhist tantras, these roles/labels are reversed. How I think this works with regards to gender identity is that most people have no idea, at any given time, which pole is participating in themselves, or the other. A person can assume they are “straight”, yet their male body is embodying a male principle which is attracted to the corresponding male principle in a female’s body - so is it a straight or gay relationship? These polarities can even change over time within the same partners. Likewise, a person who appears “gay” may be involved with the opposite polarity within their partner, as might be implied in some top/bottom relationships. My experience is that those who are decidedly, adamantly masculine/feminine, gay/straight are choosing an identity rather than being aware of this flux of polarities. Some who appear more fluid might be monopoles, duals who never stay constant, or truly polyvalent. People seem to like their dichotomies. But the content of them is often superfluous, the poles could be lemon/lime, chocolate/vanilla, or nearly anything else.
My post of 40 minutes ago looks overly bellicose to me now.
But we’re different people.
I don’t pretend it’s okay for anyone to wear pajamas to court, any more so than I think a passenger should steer a ship. People are totally welcome to suffer the logical consequences of not giving a darn what other people think!
Right and Wrong are also synonyms in English for Good and Bad.
So, lets stick to correct and incorrect, so the potential insults are -two- leaps away instead of one?
I come from a place of respect and sincerity. And I concede I am wrong (heh ) quite often.
I agree!!
Oh, whoah, it’s dacree Judge: no pajamas, no money from underwear in court
I thought the pajama-guy was gone. Nope. I just have a short memory.
Would it surprise you to learn that we are arguing again.
It must be the day. If you speak to me online today, I will argue with you. If you drive a car, I will tax the street.
I don’t have to. I just have to act equal. See how easy that is?
You can’t be right or wrong, only your ideas or behaviors can, but those aren’t you. It is tempting to assume that we know reality, and do this more or less accurately. But it seems more likely that we create models of it. Those models can change over time, or even cohabit with other, contradictory models. People more often than not seem to compartmentalize apparently incompatible ideas for their daily convenience. I’d say that this is a process it helps to be aware of, and that it doesn’t make the person right or wrong for doing it.
The problem, I think, is that the phrase - although well-known - carries the baggage of older, inaccurate ways of thinking about thinking. This is the very basis of the ad-hominim remarks which often occur - that it is easy to confuse the idea for the person, and critique the person. Since the process bears so strongly upon how people frame social problems and personal relationships, I suggest that the distinction goes beyond simple semantic nitpicking.
For example; consider, if you would, in cognitive/behavioral therapies the distinction made in helping people to recognize and work with the subjectivity of their states. A person who asserts that “people are making me feel this way” gives up a degree of their agency, self-control, and capacity for meaningful action. Rather than modelling the process, transaction, or whatever - they become rigid and reflexive, assuming a direct emotional transference between others and themselves. Taking a step back, they might consider that “somebody did something, and then I felt a certain way about it”. Which in contemporary psychobabble might be called “owning your feelings”, or some such thing. The same mechanism becomes apparent when trying to modify one’s own less-than-desirable behaviors. How would this even be possible if we couldn’t draw a distinction between our self, and our behaviors? Otherwise, I AM my addiction, my ignorance, or my tendency to pick my nose at business meetings. And if that distinction exists between myself and my behaviors, how much of a leap is it to assume that this might apply to others as well?
