From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 11:46:11 MDT
On Friday, May 23, 2003 12:15 PM Michael Wiik mwiik@messagenet.com
wrote:
> I would like to see more emphasis on the psychological,
> especially the notion of 'props', things which hold us up
> psychologically. For instance, I'm overweight and plain
> looking, but also (modestly speaking) supposedly
> possessed of genius-level IQ, so my pride in my own
> intelligence is (to me), a 'prop' which lets me believe
> I'm superior to most people. (It wasn't till I started
> working with computers that I had people around me
> who I didn't think were friggin' idiots).
I've run into many, many people with the same sort of prop. Of course,
there are many others.
I think in order to use "prop" correctly, too, one must be able to
disagnose some sort of personality pathology -- i.e., that the prop is
actually harmful. E.g., one wouldn't, I hope, call something a prop
that is psychologically healthy -- whatever is meant by the latter term.
If so, then anything which supports self-esteem becomes a prop --
reducing all of this to relativism and, further, allowing those with the
defective supports to continue on their way without fear of criticism.
> Picture Joe Sixpack though, working in some
> factory somewhere, and he has to call his boss
> 'sir'. On TV he sees reporters asking the president
> questions, and the reporters are far from
> deferential. Sometimes (though not much of late)
> they seem downright hostile.
I can understand the import, but I actually prefer the hostility to the
deferential attitude. I wish the Press were like that all the time --
rather than when it has ideological motivations. Instead, those in the
Press are -- surprised? -- human too.
I also understand the rest of your comments. The fact that people don't
learn to think of each other as, at least, subjectively rational --
i.e., rational within the context of their beliefs and attitudes -- is a
problem. But unlike Huemer, I see this as not a fatal problem. As I've
mentioned in other contexts, only a small %age of people or maybe
everyone a small %age of the time needs to be rational for things to
work out. How many people were enlightened during the Enlightenment?
Only a small fraction, but enough to change the whole world.
Another comment. The more immediately irrationality has a negative
impact on success, the more quickly it's rooted out. When you're on a
desert island, so to speak, you can't afford to be very irrational.
There's no one there to catch you when you fall. When you live in an
advanced society, there are all sorts of irrational things people can
get away without causing to much trouble to themselves. In essence, to
a large extent, this is both the blessing and curse of our advances:
they allow us to do stupid things and survive. (Yes, there are points
when such advances allow the stupidity to be magnified too and cause
more havoc than it would have in a less advanced state. But the balance
seems to be a system that can tolerate much more stupidity. The problem
is to insure that stupidity is not allowed to affect critical aspects of
society -- or, when it does, that counterveiling forces are in place to
limit or undo the damage. To this end, we have taken over key processes
in society and will continue to work behind the scenes... Oops!
Perhaps I'm saying too much.:)
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri May 23 2003 - 11:50:10 MDT