Flyboy: Repugnance is a reaction that happens in us, with the question as an external trigger. Therefore if the question becomes repugnant rather than just a trigger for that reaction within us then we’ve set a dangerous precedent for projecting our reactions out into the world as real things, rather than recognising that they’re a facet of how we understand the world.
Any time I notice something that provokes a reaction in me that extreme I question the reaction as much as the thing that provoked it, sometimes more. There are also many times that I’ve stood up for what I’ve believed to be right when I haven’t had any visceral internal reaction. Our feelings are interesting sources of feedback about ourselves, but I’d never trust them as a reliable source on which to build my conception of what is right and wrong. Feelings come and go, they’re important to pay attention to but not in the way people seem to be talking about in this thread.
On the subject of moral absolutes… most of the time I act as if they exist, rather than believing they exist. I care about people. That is the basis on which my ideas about people are directed (I hope. I try. In my defence when I fail, I’ve sometimes been known to act like an idiot). Hence my continued assumption that people are more important than ideas: if the best of our ideas exist to protect and value life, then surely those ideas must be continually upgraded and adapted to service that goal. In other words, the constant beliefs about the value and worth of all people are at a deeper and more integral level than the belief structure that we build around them in order to give that core precept a means of operating in our actions. And if, in the execution of those ideas we fail to care about people, then we’ve rather missed the point of why we chose to believe that in the first place.
It’s a lot of hard work, soul searching and patience that’s required, and it’ll likely hurt us in the process. That’s why a lot of people don’t do it. And why everyone screws up.
a kind of apolitical speech that is either therapeutic, spiritual or both No, it’s just a description of how we project meaning and mistake it for having an existence outside of ourselves. I would hope it’s of use when you’re talking to anyone, anytime, anyplace. It’s something that we all do. As an example, you’ve projected the meanings “apolitical,” “spiritual” and “therapeutic” so that you can better understand what I’m talking about. It’s a misunderstanding, but I have to assume equal responsibility for that (because you may not have misunderstood if I’d stated it differently).
The point is, I and many other people have made the choice to draw a line when it comes to Barbelith and say “in this field, I will not concede ground to the forces of reaction any more than is necessary”. Good. Did you think I was asking you to?
But I strongly resist the idea that a negative response is always a result of too much personal investment, or of a choice – consciously or otherwise – to “find” offence where none is “meant”. Not what I meant. You’re imagining hypothetical, shallow causes of our responses to stimuli without relating that process to something real.
Each time I notice a pattern in my strong reactions to something I go on a process of questioning and getting to know myself and where that reaction has come from. If something makes me angry then I’ll want to respond in a way which shows an appropriate amount of anger, directed at the right person, for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right context. If I’m angry it will be for a reason, and it won’t be something as useless and facile as “investing too much personally.” When I understand the reason I have a clue how to proceed without necessarily dumping my private psychic baggage onto someone who doesn’t warrant it, even if they meant to cause offence.
Sometimes even the speaker isn’t aware of the deeper layers of what they are saying (I often notice huge amounts of content which is sometimes too literal for people to notice, a wood for the trees situation). This is where things become tricky, because if nothing has a meaning outside of the way in which it is interpreted (even by the person supposedly creating that meaning), and we can hide much of the meaning from ourselves, then we have to be extraordinarily careful when we are communicating anything to anyone! It’s a miracle we can talk to each other at all.
Am I making it clear by the way I’m relating to what you’re saying that I can both engage with complex meanings which aren’t always apparent and believe that there’s not necessarily any meaning that exists outside of the way in which we see the world as individuals? That’s not precisely what I do believe, but it’s close enough to make the point.
The respect I have for you prevents me from using a phrase involving the word “hippy” and some swearwords. And this sentence essentially says that you’re calling me a hippy and swearing at me while appearing to claim respect. I’m not a hippy, I don’t merit your swearing, and I don’t care much for the way you claim to respect me when your manner of expression is disrespectful. It gives with one hand and takes with the other, while appearing on the surface to be a perfectly reasonable thing to say. File under, “I’m not calling you a cunt, but…”
If you want to have a go at me, do it overtly. It’s much kinder than passive/aggressive tactics. Or you could just engage with the ideas and leave the name-calling to one side. |
