proximoception (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
proximoception) wrote2008-11-21 02:31 pm
proximoception) wrote2008-11-21 02:31 pm
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We take such pains to control what we realize.
Our tendency is to simplify the ideas of others into brief phrases, then connect each idea, where we find no immediate reason to agree with it, to some recognizable fault or inadequacy in its holder. This destroys rival conceptualizations at both root and bud. It is a very useful filter and always at least partly accurate: every formulation is imperfect due to limitations of the formulator. But, since life teaches us so few things directly, applied overscrupulously this practice walls us off from almost everything there is to know--such as most of the few things learned by each of the billions of other human beings.
So we learn to suspend disagreement now and then. With our enemies, say, or at random, on Whatifyou'reright days. WhatifI'mwrong is of surprisingly limited value, I think because it connects up to our self-esteem, therefore is subject to our astonishingly subtle and powerful self-esteem defenses. I might be wrong elides to Oh no I'm wrong, I must be bad, waaah! Which we don't ever mean: we deliberately overstate a case against us or against that which is of crucial importance to our sense of self (i.e. nearly everything we feel like arguing about) so that the proposition in question no longer makes sense, therefore cannot be meant, need not be thoughtfully answered. The effort at self-critique is answered by a burst of emotion which, unlike our sense of the facts, will run its course and disappear. Humble-me is a straw man we set up to avoid truly arguing with ourself. Rather, a straw man who immediately agrees with our self-criticism, but in impossibly distorted terms, thus killing the critical exchange through a drama of parody. This works with others, too, no? Insincere agreement is resorted to to end a heated discussion--usually vague half-agreement so we don't have to admit to ourselves that we're trying to lie the issue away. Naturally we don't let ourselves realize when we aren't letting ourselves realize something.
So deliberate self-effacement or critique generally won't work, but half-forgetting ourselves in sympathetic immersion in the other person's words and thoughts often can. This is one reason why style is important: the easier you make it for someone else to understand you and yours more exactly, the better off you'll both be.
This is one reason literature is important.
Our tendency is to simplify the ideas of others into brief phrases, then connect each idea, where we find no immediate reason to agree with it, to some recognizable fault or inadequacy in its holder. This destroys rival conceptualizations at both root and bud. It is a very useful filter and always at least partly accurate: every formulation is imperfect due to limitations of the formulator. But, since life teaches us so few things directly, applied overscrupulously this practice walls us off from almost everything there is to know--such as most of the few things learned by each of the billions of other human beings.
So we learn to suspend disagreement now and then. With our enemies, say, or at random, on Whatifyou'reright days. WhatifI'mwrong is of surprisingly limited value, I think because it connects up to our self-esteem, therefore is subject to our astonishingly subtle and powerful self-esteem defenses. I might be wrong elides to Oh no I'm wrong, I must be bad, waaah! Which we don't ever mean: we deliberately overstate a case against us or against that which is of crucial importance to our sense of self (i.e. nearly everything we feel like arguing about) so that the proposition in question no longer makes sense, therefore cannot be meant, need not be thoughtfully answered. The effort at self-critique is answered by a burst of emotion which, unlike our sense of the facts, will run its course and disappear. Humble-me is a straw man we set up to avoid truly arguing with ourself. Rather, a straw man who immediately agrees with our self-criticism, but in impossibly distorted terms, thus killing the critical exchange through a drama of parody. This works with others, too, no? Insincere agreement is resorted to to end a heated discussion--usually vague half-agreement so we don't have to admit to ourselves that we're trying to lie the issue away. Naturally we don't let ourselves realize when we aren't letting ourselves realize something.
So deliberate self-effacement or critique generally won't work, but half-forgetting ourselves in sympathetic immersion in the other person's words and thoughts often can. This is one reason why style is important: the easier you make it for someone else to understand you and yours more exactly, the better off you'll both be.
This is one reason literature is important.
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The most I usually conclude - well, I'm thinking of a particular recent instance where I got into an argument with a classmate who felt, strongly, that "there are no non-violent drug offenders! Their families cover for them! I've watched Intervention!" and thus that these drug offenders should all be incarcerated. I concluded that he had very little idea of what the prison system was actually like, and has some thing he's reacting to about Justice. I don't know what this thing is or why he has it.
The stuff we said on either side about drug offenders and offenses was basically shadowplay.
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