We can be rational, but so often are not. — Bitter Crank

Says who? The Holy Inquisition?

Why narcissism? Why neuroticism? Free floating aggression? Etc.???

Because people need labels and the justifications that come with them. You can't just burn someone at the stakes; instead, you need to make it look justified, such as by saying, "She's a witch!"

Since the Holy Inquisition isn't particularly en vogue anymore, but people still have a need to scapegoat, to be intolerant, to lash out, to absolve themselves of the responsibility for how they treat others, they've invented labels that enable them to go on in those old ways.

The primary function of psychiatric labels is that they absolve the "normal" folks from any responsibility for how they treat those on whom they pin those labels. People apparently need freedom like that.

There was backlash before as well. So what does it matter. — Xtrix

Do you want to be effective or not?

Goodwill doesn’t last forever. — Xtrix

Then it wasn't goodwill in the first place. It was pity.

Then it seems such to you ...

So, I take it you don't enjoy your life at all, or at least not very much? — Janus

What on earth makes you think that?

Well, sounds like you enjoy righteous indignation at least. It's an acquired taste; you have to bracket off the great annoyance caused by what you are indignant about or else it's more aggravating than enjoyable I'd say..

Nah. Righteous indignation rocks! People are addicted to it, it's orgasmic, and then some.

And blaming them is helping you how exactly?
— baker

Helping with what? — Xtrix

Changing them.

They are to blame, bringing everyone down with them, and patience is rightfully wearing thin.

Goodwill doesn’t last forever.

Again, there's that authoritarianism.

Patience and empathy have their limits. If you don’t listen to reason, evidence, and argument — you leave little recourse. — Xtrix

You treat people like they are your underlings. And you think they should just accept that, submit to you?

Patience and empathy have their limits. If you don’t listen to reason, evidence, and argument — you leave little recourse. — Xtrix

The thing is that you see yourself as the arbiter of rationality.

If you don't see the problem with that ...

Well, expect backlash.

My point is that as long as one is looking for happiness outside, one is going to be faced with an endless amount of problems.
— baker

Well, I never took you for an optimist. This reads like early Woody Allen.

And yet despite everything you say there I have known many people who are happy and found happiness readily achievable. And they weren't rich or powerful. They just went about their business taking an interest in some matters and not others, working, raising a family, gardening, reading and finding humor in many things. And sure, it's hard to do this is a warzone or when sick, but frankly it isn't impossible. — Tom Storm

Working, raising a family, gardening, reading and finding humor in many things needn't necessarily be done in an effort of looking for happiness outside.

My reference was to the Buddhist concept of looking for happiness inside. This means that one's happiness doesn't depend on how the world is, or how one manages to make it. Looking for happiness inside doesn't mean that one stops engaging with the world, on the contrary, one still engages with it, it's just that one doesn't believe that working, raising a family, gardening, reading and finding humor in many things is what is going to make one happy.

Quite the opposite. I have— they haven’t. — Xtrix

And blaming them is helping you how exactly?

I need people that disagree with me in order to improve my ideas. — Cheshire

It's more mundane than that. Imagine if you were to boycott the products and services provided by anyone who isn't particularly enthusiastic about vaccination. You'd be hungry, cold, homeless, and naked.

The people who aren't particularly enthusiastic about vaccination are still people who are making the economy possible. So to dismiss them just like that (either as subhuman, or as irrational or childish) is to dismiss the work they otherwise get done, and from which you benefit.

My question is whether we should engage with them -- assuming I'm correct about their irrationality. — Xtrix

If you try to engage someone whom you believe to be irrational, then you are the one who is irrational, and at fault.

Here's part of the problem, for me: is time better spent organizing/mobilizing those who agree, or perhaps with those who are "on the fence"/ those who are more persuadable, who really just want to understand the issue and weight the evidence?

Unless you're a high politician or otherwise influential, this question is beside the point, you're just spinning your wheels, wasting time that would better be spent otherwise.

contempt.

In this context, I find that thought a bit chilling. — Srap Tasmaner

Of course. In cultures where contempt has been normalized, vaccination tends to go slowly, despite there being enough of the vaccine. And things are going from bad to worse.


Instead, look at a country like Denmark: they have officially ended the pandemic, all restrictions have been cancelled. Marvelous things can happen when people don't insist on contempt.

This is true, but in the American culture war, if that's part of the topic here, it goes both ways. — Srap Tasmaner

Sure. But the pro-vaccers are trying to present their contempt as justified, and as if people who are not enthusiastic about vaccination (and they are a very versatile group) are somehow obligated to accept this contempt.

This is simply megalomania on the part of the pro-vaccers. If they really are trying to make a difference, one would expect that they would go about it more constructively, instead of using medieval methods of coercion.

Taking the 'high road' in the moment looks like weakness, but we forget it's a choice. It is often frustrating to play by the rules while the opponent would cheat at every turn. — Cheshire

It's not about "taking the high road" -- and it's telling that people conceive of it this way.

It's about employing a strategy that may have a better chance of success, with less collateral damage.

Contempt breeds contempt. If you attack people, they will fight back, what else? That's not a way to change them, or at least not for long.

People get persuaded by goodwill, not by arguments, nor by force.

Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers, Covid-19 deniers, et al have the specifics of their quirky views tied to deeper fundamentals. Those who found a home for all their various resentments in the person of Donald Trump can't change their views about vaccinations for the virus. Election fraud and disease hoax are welded together. Getting vaccinated is tantamount to accepting that there was no fraud in the 2020 election. — Bitter Crank

It's not just that.

Given the combative culture that has been present in so many societies for quite some time, and which capitalism thrives on, to do what another person tells you to do amounts to admitting defeat, it amounts to submitting oneself to another person, to enslave oneself to them.
And this is what some people are fighting against, not the vaccination.

What is sometimes happening now is that if a person who previously wasn't particularly enthusiastic about vaccination gets vaccinated, the pro-vaccers interpret their decision as "Finally, you have accepted the truth" or "Finally, you have decided to listen to science" and such. And this is what is so offensive: not being allowed to own one's intentions for one's actions. You bet people are going to fight against that.


The chance for a constructive approach to the covid pandemic was wasted long ago, somewhere around the time when capitalism was enshrined as the only good and just world order. We're now reaping the fruits of having normalized capitalism.

Good to know I’m not alone in my empathy fatigue. — Xtrix

Should other people work hard to earn your empathy?

Replying not to just this point, but in general to your quest:

When it starts to effect society, the education of future generations, and the future of the planet, then I don't take this position anymore. I think it should be called out -- but whether one should bother spending time running through claim after debunked claim, that's a different question entirely. — Xtrix

The issue aren't the specific claims (whether the topic is slavery, climate change, or the pandemic, or whatever), but the basic mode of interaction.
On your part, and on the part of so many who are enthusiastic about vaccination, this basic mode of interaction is combative, it's contempt. What is more, this hasn't come into being in this pandemic, it's been there for centuries. It's become normalized.

And what many people are actually replying to, is precisely this combativeness, this contempt. That's why arguments about what ostensibly seems to be the topic are irrelevant. You have not demonstrated goodwill toward them, and that's why they don't listen to you.

Since a combative culture is already in place, one that has been combative for so long (remember, you had a civil war and multiple civil unrests), it will be very difficult to change things at this point.

President Biden will likely succeed with forcing people to get vaccinated, but this will likely only further cement the combative culture. Forcing people to get vaccinated may help to weather the covid pandemic, but it's questionable whether such force will help in the future crises that are sure to come.

My question is whether we should engage with them -- assuming I'm correct about their irrationality. — Xtrix

new agey, pseudo-Buddhistic bullshit. — Xtrix

Do you really think that farting a few quips of contempt in the general direction of those you don't like is going to make them change their minds and become more to your liking, err, "finally see the truth"?

You want the world to be the way you want it to be -- but what are you willing to invest?
What are you willing to do to change the world?

Some people who want to change the world amass wealth, armies, they seamslessly inflitrate themselves into people's lives, they take decisive action, they make an effort. But what are you doing? You just expect others to be other than they are, as if they owed you that. What if someone treated you that way? Would you change? If someone considered you a child, irrational, you'd tell them to fuck off, wouldn't you?

*sigh*
Have you ever read a book of advice (or a book that can be read as a book of advice) and thought that in order to put that advice into practice, you'd need to be an entirely different person, with a different socio-economic status? That in your current state, acting on that advice is impossible for you, or would even be detrimental for you?

Do you think cunning is a virtue? Do you strive to build your cunning? Do you encourage cunning in others?

You choose. What you choose tells us about you. — Banno

Your questions and your formulation indicates that you're a proponent of ethical authoritarianism.
You are very much in favor of rules: your rules.

Since Gautama wrote nothing, how many of his earliest attributed "sayings" are already misattributions? — Janus

Does that mean that we can attribute to him whatever we want to?

Do read my post above yours.

Do you disagree that righteous indignation is a great feeling?

My point is that as long as one is looking for happiness outside, one is going to be faced with an endless amount of problems. Even if you were to opt for the final solution (as some in the past did) and executed it in full (as those in the past haven't succeeded), so that you'd be left only with like-minded people, you'd still be living on a planet where there are volcano eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, dangerous animals, unwelcome genetic mutations, limited natural resources, and at that a planet that is on collision course with some asteroids, in a solar system whose sun will eventually explode. IOW, living on such a planet and looking for happiness outside, you'd still be miserable.

My take is that they're sick in some way, even if just the sickness of stupidity. — tim wood

Goshdarn, righteous indignation is the best feeling there is!!!

Sometimes it's worth it to ask yourself what your motivation really is. — frank

Yes.

At worst the worst of adjectives properly apply. And that leaves the question, are such people necessarily part of the price of living in a free society? — tim wood

Throughout history, men of great acumen and power have devised final solutions to such problems ...

Are you at peace with the fact (or at least the option) that you're living in a dangerous world?

So. I maintain that a certain American businessman/politician who sometimes gets branded as a narcissist, is not a narcissist, but that he only plays one.

Are you agreeing with Humpty or with me? You can't have both. — Banno

Both of you say that the meaning of a word is in its use. Except that Humpty Dumpty goes further and specifies which use (the one of his choice; the one that prevails).

You're looking at things from the perspective of one who is birthed into and thereby embedded within, at the very least, one language, and from this vantage I of course agree with you. I looked at the "which came first" question a bit more literally in the ontological sense. — javra

Unless you subscribe to a kind of biblical "and then God gave man language", you're always looking at matters of language as someone who is birthed into and thereby embedded within, at the very least, one language.

I assume that just like there is unbroken evolutionary continuity that spans through time to our present state, from our ancestors who lived in the sea to ape like creatures to H. sapiens, so there is unbroken evolutionary continuity of language, where at each t + 1 we use what was already there at t and make other things out of it (but which cannot rightfully be called "new"). It's not recycling, but it's also not invention.

I don't see how the "which came first" question can be asked meaningfully.

f you are saying we should not disregard the importance of socioeconomic needs out of some lofty notion of wisdom then I agree. — Fooloso4

Absolutely.

You seem to hold a rather naïve view of life. Which is probably why it seems everything always comes down to powerplays for you. Thoughts? — Tom Storm

A sigh.

Having worked closely with people who live 'dysfunctional' and distressed lives - who suicide and overdose and slash themselves with broken glass and tend to be dead by 40 - I see little evidence of strategizing and play acting.

Duh. Not everyone who gets branded as a narcissist is one.

shouldn't this be: What came first: use of pre-established symbols or the intentional creation of symbols we use? — javra

True novums are extremely rare. Normally, we use existing language material (or, more generally: symbol material) and make something other out of it.

Hence, the "which is to be master" part:

Humpty Dumpty is refering to which particular meaning of the word is the relevant one, the one that prevails.

words that create the limits of concepts with which we think or the agency to express concepts we choose to think via words.

I think this is a misleading dichotomy. I think the relationship between the two is mutual, they are mutually interdependent, and that we cannot meaningfully talk about one without the other, nor assume that one came first and is the condition or requirement for the other.

Don't agree.

It's probably easier to think of some other people as "flawed" or "mentall ill", rather than to consider the possibility that humans are capable of this level of strategizing and play-acting, and more, that one is oneself capable of this level of strategizing and play-acting.

Interesting insight, I think it is true that narcissism can be attractive, provided it comes in a reasonably attractive package. — Bitter Crank

Donnie was reasonably attractive when he was younger.

We do like to believe in people who believe in themselves.

Of course, and this preference is a potential vulnerability that others can exploit.
Hence: Nihil admirari!

I struggle with it because of the stakes. — Xtrix

The problem aren't those other people and whatever stances they hold or the things they do. The problem is that you take for granted that you're entitled to live in a safe world that is obligated to accomodate you.

ay, there's the rub:

The meaning is the use. — Banno

Millennia of philosophy of language settled in one short passage.

- - -

Meaning isn't use. That one can assign different meanings to a word doesn't, in any way, imply that all there is to words is how we use them. — TheMadFool

Indeed. For use to have the potential to define the meaning of a word, the word must already have some previous definition (the result of a previous use?). (Except for true novums where an entirely new, non-onomatopoetic, non-abbreviating sequence of sounds is produced; such words are extremely rare.)

It seems that the meaning of a word consists of two components: a relatively static one and a relatively dynamic one, and that the two are in a temporal mutual relationship.

For example: mouse, as in computer mouse. The relatively static part is the meaning of mouse, as in mouse the animal. The dynamic part is in using this word to also name a part of computer equipment which in shape and movement somewhat resembles mouse the animal.


The other point is that for a particular use of a word to become its meaning, it must gain enough social traction. We have a computer mouse, but not a computer turtle.


(But it seems that the actual question that such inquiries are trying to answer is something like, What came first: use or definition?)

I think in the first place this may have to do with the fact that it is impossible to establish with 100% certainty which quotes can be attributed to the historical Buddha.
/.../
Fourth, Buddhist teachings may also have been distorted for political reasons. — Apollodorus

Certainly, there are text-critical issues, as with any text, and esp. with older ones. I am in no way suggesting that the authorship and authenticity of the Pali Canon (or any other religious scripture) is a matter that can easily be resolved, a trifle.

But the issue is this: If someone says "The Bible says X", or "The Koran says Y", it is perfectly normal to expect them to provide a reference to the Bible or the Koran, respectively, by name of book, chapter and verse. But this standard of reference is so often ignored when it comes to Buddhism. And with such confident ease!

(Granted, I've observed similar with Hindus and the Vedas: They confidently insist that the Vedas say this or that, but couldn't provide a reference if their life depended on it. Not to mention how deeply offended they feel that someone would request an actual textual reference, rather than just taking their word for gold.)

Second, the Buddhist texts form a large corpus that few Westerners bother to read.

And possibly don't even know about.