I think I prefer to call what Berne calls games scripts because it de-emphasizes the games as something as a part of one's personality and puts it in a frame of a role; like something you can pick up, play, reinterpret and re-express but which still has a set of lines which come in a certain order. This is how I feel that games like this are -- they can become a part of one's identity insofar that we identify with a script. But this is exactly like a role in a play, at least as I act; I become the character, it is my identity, and I play it out into the external world of the stage being viewed by an audience, an audience which any good actor knows how to feel, to work, and to modify the highly orchestrated dance that is a play ever so slightly to make that particular audience enjoy it more.

I pretty much feel that demands on maleness and femaleness are like this -- roles that anyone can plug into and re-interpret, within the bounds of the script and to reaction (not necessarily pleasure!) of an audience.

But then there is also an aspect of identity where someone feels like a [gender] which doesn't fit into this. But such feelings don't seem to fit the game archetype to me.

The interesting question T-Clark raised was whether the violence we associate with men (I suppose from violent outbursts to wars) is reason to ridicule men in general. I believe his angle was that ridiculing a whole group of people is unacceptable if the group in question is women, but if it's men, it's ok? — frank

I have no problem with how you've characterized this, but it wasn't really my point. I was talking much more personally, how it makes me feel when men are treated contemptuously. As a practical matter, if men are as violent as it is claimed, contempt seems like a pretty ineffective weapon to wield.

The deeper question I'm seeing is about the naturalness of competitive behavior that sometimes spills over into violence. Is it natural and so to love men is to accept that aggression? Or should we see violent behavior as always pathological and so prime stuff of ridicule (when despair is maybe bottomless?) — frank

Aggression and violence are not the same thing, although they are certainly related. Part of what I love about the forum is the opportunity to compete. To put my ideas in the ring and let them duke it out with others. Good athletes want to win, but they also want to play against the best opponents they can. Philosophy is the only sport I've ever played on the first team varsity.

Are we talking about "play" with two different meanings? Three if we include Frost:
[1} Playing games - bad
[2] Playing - good
[3] Play for mortal stakes - all there is. Authenticity, integrity, humanity.

As for #2, yes, it is play all the way down. Or turtles. Or playing turtles. "Final vocabularies," if I understand what you're saying, are play. The Tao is play. We, in our nobodiness, are playing. Good playing. I guess playing for mortal stakes, so 2 and 3 are the same. — T Clark

The kind of play that 'doesn't go all the way down' (what I had in mind) is 'ironism.' All I mean by that is that I think everyone in non-extreme states takes some things seriously. I mean that a person can have a metanarrative that emphasizes play and looseness of identity, but that they only really have this metanarrative to the degree that they take it seriously. Sometimes it hurts stay open, for example, a person who prides themselves on staying open (takes it seriously) endures that hurt.

I really like what you've written. Flexible, searching, playful, serious, dedicated, honorable. Hey, wait. This is one of them metanarratives, isn't it!!!? In some ways really different from my experience of myself. You'll be someone fun to talk to. — T Clark

Thanks for the kind words. It is indeed one of those metanarratives. I'm a knight of self-consciousness in shimmering armor. I agree that we'll have some fun conversation.

Someone can be an 'adult' at one point and a 'child' at another. — fdrake

Totally agree. Modes. I think in sexual relationships this fluidity is especially evident.

I find it very exciting - I could even call it pleasurable - when someone destroys my argument and I realise that I was thinking the wrong thing. — TimeLine

Beautiful. Yes, there is a deep kind of pain-pleasure for me in these little deaths.

Similar to the time I thought I first fell in love, it was the first time I became conscious of myself, my body and my place in the world and that overwhelmed me because at the same time I realised just how oblivious I was to a number of intellectual and sexual feelings that I never actually knew was possible. :fire: — TimeLine

I like this analogy. When I really get into a new thinker, it's like an intellectual version falling in love. And of course actually falling in love for the first time is just paradise on earth.

What I fear is not intellectual, on the contrary I try my best to make it intellectual — TimeLine

I completely relate to you on this. I try to universalize trauma, learn from it, convert disaster into opportunity. As I see it, we become big dark listeners or listenings.

I strongly believe in my values because it is important to me; sometimes my values are not aligned to others and they see that as a threat to their beliefs whereas I am just simply articulating what I believe without judgement or hostility. My fear is the "mind games" that people play with me and it hurts - both in a sad way but also in an angry way - when people use stereotypes and categories as a way to shut me down and silence me, to say that I am a woman immediately makes me incapable and the worst part about it is that it is believable, — TimeLine

I can relate here too, though I haven't had to wrestle with being dismissed as a 'silly woman.' I tend to try to talk to women as equals and sometimes bump into being an 'evil man.' And I don't mean I open up to man-hating women, but that even the women who love men (and me in particular) are sometimes put off by a critical tendency that they find too heartless and abstract. I think some men make sense of this in terms of being the 'father' who must harden his heart to face danger. (In safer neighborhood or more civilized communities, this heart-hardening doesn't look good.) And there's also the 'paternal' role of just being an emotional rock, of never losing one's cool, of being able to give a freaked-out sensitive women an 'authoritative' assurance that she is good. I do not assume that all women need or want this. For me it's just part of actually existing heterosexuality. Incidentally, I've known women to be freaked-out or angst-ridden over their feminist 'duty' (as they understand it) to be more 'like a man.' They can start to feel ashamed that they can't hold back tears at work, or that they enjoy a 'paternal' tenderness. In other words, there are messages in the culture that they understand to shame them for their 'reactionary' love of the (loving) semi-traditional man.

Intellectual development is linear as it is intimately connected to the arrow of time and as such evolutionary where we are constantly developing and improving; even memories are consistently changing since our interpretations are, but those that remain 'fixed' or stuck are really those that are delusional where their belief-system is ideological. Neo-nazis represent this madness clearly with holocaust denial. You cannot ever have an argument with such a person, it is impossible, so immovable in their position that they resort to delusional answers to resolve any inconsistencies in their beliefs. — TimeLine

I agree.

Some women are very bad, indeed they can be very manipulative to a point of turning good men into very bad men and still come off appearing to be a caring and innocent woman. They have mastered appearances but underlying that is nothing but a vicious creature tricking people to think otherwise. Sorry, both men and women are scary and violence need not only be physical. It can be psychological too. The scales are tipped when we look at the outcomes of the aggression, however, and that is largely a result of our cultural and sociological attitudes to masculinity and the fact that men are physically the stronger sex making them more capable to act out aggressively. — TimeLine

I agree. And I do know some 'evil' females who just drip (in their bad moments) with a dangerous brew of resentment and self-righteous sentimentality. If they are not as frequently violent themselves, they manipulate men into violence against other men or even against themselves. Obviously a man should not lose his cool and strike a woman. But then reality is teeming with things that should not happen.

Anyway, I wonder much of the violent potential of men is cultural and how much is biological/hormonal.

Totally agree. Modes. I think in sexual relationships this fluidity is especially evident.

I'm not sure that having reflexively assumed roles is usually a good thing in relationships. If both people know what's going on and are OK with it, sure, but I don't think this happens as much as its converse. Games played are usually bad, or at least worse than an alternative.

Couples probably have the greatest need to play games with each other because they're the most vulnerable and exposed to each others' actions. I believe they therefore owe it to each other to find out where games are played and whether they should continue play upon being revealed.

Having your vulnerabilities bared while resisting becoming a victim is difficult. Becoming dependent upon your victimhood is another popular game.

@TimeLine

The laughter evoked by non-humorous jokes underlined by a passive-aggressive hostility or Othering can be amusing to bullies; when I think of this young girl who was taunted by several men, they found it funny and it evoked laughter, yet it is clearly not humour. Humour is ambiguous because it can reflect several different conditions and even then to categorise can be an oversimplification. So, I look at humour from a functional angle rather than attempting to ascertain why we find some things humorous and see that playfulness is an important part of human cognition and can bring us joy. — Timeline

I've been a bully before, one of the things I remember most acutely about it - or rather remember as conspicuous in its absence - is that cruel actions aren't seen as cruel to the target. Their humanity is suspended in the decision to belittle them. The target becomes part of the narrative of jokes surrounding them. Their needs were silenced and the dissatisfaction of those needs is their only voice, spoken in my terms; as hilarious weakness. Formally, they were not excluded by my (and friends') actions because they were already excluded from any empathy as a prerequisite to bully them without cognitive dissonance or bad faith. Truly authentic cruelty. If it wasn't so funny we wouldn't have all laughed.

We were absolutely playing and infinitely playful - the target had no recourse, anything they did was interpreted as part of the game we made of them. It was play all the way down, only it was indifferent to them all the way down. Really - how funny, to suffer.

I'm sorry to pick on you, it's only that you were conveniently at the end of the thread when I came to it -nothing personal. — unenlightened

No problem. I welcome it.

Identity is division, as what I am and what I am not. And to reflect upon that is to externalise it again, creating the third as analyst/observer. — unenlightened

Yeah, this sounds right.

Hang on, I thought you were gentle inside? But no... — unenlightened

What you relate is the opposite of what you relate to; you relate being hard on the inside but perform it gently on the outside. — unenlightened

Well let's not get tangled up in context-dependent language. I choose my words with a sense of my conversation partner in mind. For you, I'd clarify things this way. I have a strong desire to love, believe, adore. I want to be the child with stars in his her eyes. I use 'her' symbolically. 'She' becomes lovingly immersed in the beautiful object, the beautiful person. For that reason, 'she' is the eternal fool, subject to manipulation and betrayal. Her unpretentious enthusiasm is maybe even the primary target of the 'mean daddy,' who envies and despises her simple trust and love. He wants her to be believing enough to not see around his edges and yet shrewd enough to appreciate why he really is #1. (This 'he' is the non-gentle 'inside' that is sublimated intellectually. )

But only another 'master' can really appreciate his artistry from the inside, and the problem here is that the other masters-for-themselves are his rivals. Friendship is the 'magical' solution. It is homo- or same-erotic. The bros are a wolf-pack (maybe just a group of bookish idealists) with a distributed identity. They can believe in and be tender toward one another, though usually not to point of sucking one another off -- since sex acts are loaded with power metaphors and irrational/dependent tendencies that would threaten the primary objective.

The group narcissism vents aggression outward to those 'fake masters' who aren't in on the group secret. This 'secret' might be some hip new theory or something more ineffable like style or sex appeal or a pure heart or manly courage or political-ideolocial purity, etc. It doesn't have to be explicit, but intellectuals are likely to exceptionally explicit, since their mastery is 'decadent'/civilized and sets itself above a might that sneers at the 'pussies' who need reasons to feel superior. I think you can see this pure inarticulate pride in economically disadvantaged young men. They know that they don't know the fancy words, but they also understand a passage of Hegel without having read it. The willingness to risk and bring death to avoid humiliation is the naked essence of mastery.

'Hardness on the outside' is just moving in the public world with a readiness for a more or less sublimated kind of war. 'Softness on the inside' is a complimentary tenderness that manifests in safe spaces like the home. Workspaces vary. Some of them are gentle or sophisticated enough so that one can be charming and warm. I do realize that many educated men (usually from different backgrounds and perhaps with different body types) are less in touch with this dominating, negative energy.

What I want to get to through this triple nature of psychology is something that has been both demonstrated and expressed in the thread, that a psychological theory is always itself analysable psychologically through a meta-theory, or through itself. The transactions of a a thread on transactional analysis are being analysed. Curiously, or not, this does not require a fourth element, but merely takes the superior position of adult/analyst/observer/ charioteer, to comment on the interactions of the participants, just as I am doing here. Personally, I don't much like Berne, his theory is just an emasculated version of Freud, with the gloss of capitalist universalism as rational, or perhaps irrational self-interest. — unenlightened

I strongly agree with the underlined part. Theories are just tools, bluffs, fragments in the whirlpool of a unstable identity. I think of this 'ironism' as a late manifestation of mastery. It absorbs the earnest theories of others without losing itself in them. By clinging to nothing but dis-identification itself, it offers a small target while simultaneously forbidding itself no weapon.

I'm not sure that having reflexively assumed roles is usually a good thing in relationships. If both people know what's going on and are OK with it, sure, but I don't think this happens as much as its converse. Games played are usually bad, or at least worse than an alternative. — fdrake

What I mean is that sometimes lovers are equal partners dealing with the business of life. At other times one lover wants to show off and be admired by the other ('I'll be the child and you be the impressed parent.') Of course the unpleasant stuff is one partner trying to parent the other oppressive. Or trying to play the child when the partner is in the mood either for adult-adult conversation or are themselves impatient to be the adored child.

In my experience, a (successful) couple gets better at reading the right moments for the right roles.

My beef was that, when the discussion veered into this area, it immediately started ragging on those wacky men. TimeLine brought out her experiences in the office, which she's discussed before. @csalisbury says "Oh, no, I'm just like that, I feel so guilty." :joke: @syntax chimes in with what his (I think you're a guy, right?) girlfriend says. :razz: . As I said, I like men. It appears to be easy to make them look ridiculous. — T Clark

These were my thoughts. It's sort of male caricature talk, supported by personal anecdote, and sort of off-putting, as I'd imagine a woman might feel if men sat around the cooler talking about how women were this and that. Some insights might be true, but stereotyping doesn't help with individual situations.

It's like men are purely worried about protecting their fragile egos at all costs. I suppose that describes the bahavior of those with fragile egos, male or female.

I've been a bully before, one of the things I remember most acutely about it - or rather remember as conspicuous in its absence - is that cruel actions aren't seen as cruel to the target. Their humanity is suspended in the decision to belittle them. The target becomes part of the narrative of jokes surrounding them. Their needs were silenced and the dissatisfaction of those needs is their only voice, spoken in my terms; as hilarious weakness. Formally, they were not excluded by my (and friends') actions because they were already excluded from any empathy as a prerequisite to bully them without cognitive dissonance or bad faith. Truly authentic cruelty. If it wasn't so funny we wouldn't have all laughed. — fdrake

Boy. This is hard to read. I'm trying to think of myself in similar situations. The only times I can remember having a reaction similar to what you're describing is the contempt I have sometimes felt for people, usually boys or men, acting, being weak, vulnerable, pitiful. Thinking back, it's probably always boys or men. Not a good feeling. Looking back on it from many years in the future, I came to realize my feelings of contempt happened because I recognized the same weakness in myself. It was shame. Is that what you're describing, or is it something else? Is it purely social behavior - something you do with a group of friends - or would you do it when it was just you?

These were my thoughts. It's sort of male caricature talk, supported by personal anecdote, and sort of off-putting, as I'd imagine a woman might feel if men sat around the cooler talking about how women were this and that. Some insights might be true, but stereotyping doesn't help with individual situations. — Hanover

Absolutely - I've heard women talked about in a similar fashion and I don't like it, but this is more personal. It's me they're talking about. Worse, it's a whole class of people I value. I like maleness. I'm comfortable with it. It's me. I like being around men.

The kind of play that 'doesn't go all the way down' (what I had in mind) is 'ironism.' All I mean by that is that I think everyone in non-extreme states takes some things seriously. I mean that a person can have a metanarrative that emphasizes play and looseness of identity, but that they only really have this metanarrative to the degree that they take it seriously. Sometimes it hurts stay open, for example, a person who prides themselves on staying open (takes it seriously) endures that hurt. — syntax

I think you and I have really different ways of looking at this. This discussion, and the metanarrative one, have been eye opening to me.

Q: What food makes women lose interest in sex.

A: Wedding cake. — T Clark

It's funny, but I could see that being described as the food that makes men lose interest in sex. Or as a joke on the tendency for relationships to be become less thrilling (but hopefully also warmer. )

It's funny, but I could see that being described as the food that makes men lose interest in sex. Or as a joke on the tendency for relationships to be become less thrilling (but hopefully also warmer. ) — syntax

Πετροκότσυφας said the same thing. I think maybe it's the difference between married men and unmarried ones. It is a fact, or at least a stereotype, that sexual activity decreases when people get married. It is a fact, or, again, a stereotype, that it is not because men want sex less frequently.

the contempt I have sometimes felt for people, usually boys or men, acting, being weak, vulnerable, pitiful. — T Clark

I think you nailed it. I know this contempt. It's all there in the word 'pussy,' which in a crude vocabulary serves as both the primary kind of sinner and the officially sanctioned object of desire. A rough theory would be that men repress their vulnerability and find it again at a safe distance in a woman (in the heterosexual case.) He is the shell. She is the shameful but delicious goo inside.

I think you nailed it. I know this contempt. It's all their in the word 'pussy,' which in a crude vocabulary serves as both the primary kind of sinner and the officially sanctioned object of desire. A rough theory would be that men repress their vulnerability and find it again at a safe distance in a woman (in the heterosexual case.) He is the shell. She is the shameful but delicious goo inside. — syntax

I'm curious to see what @fdrake has to say. I have a feeling there's more to it than that. From previous discussions, I think @TimeLine sees it differently too. I'm walking in unfamiliar territory.

The only times I can remember having a reaction similar to what you're describing is the contempt I have sometimes felt for people, usually boys or men, acting, being weak, vulnerable, pitiful. — T Clark

If social norms designate certain conduct for anything, whether it be boys not cry, that you applaud at a play, sit silently at a funeral, or whatever, your contempt or disapproval at the violation of the norm is a normed social response in order to reassert compliance. If your contempt is excessive to the point of bullying, your cure was worse than the disease.

And so our norms have changed to where men are no longer expected to be John Wayne and women not expected to faint when offended. My own view might be antiquainted, but I do still think we need John Waynes, and I might not be as accepting of traditional female behavior on a man. I think we lost something when we stopped celebrating masculinity.

I think you and I have really different ways of looking at this. This discussion, and the metanarrative one, have been eye opening to me. — T Clark

I've had this theory for a long time, and I'm not sure if anyone has ever found it all that palatable. I see similar theories here and there in certain philosophers, but it's still never been a popular theme in my experience. It's subversive, corrosive. I'd also say liberating, but 'freedom isn't free.' For me, it's a view that evolves because or from that contempt for weakness. Fixed identities are targets not only for others but also for the self that wants to expand and consume perspectives and experience. I think of 'finite' personality as a stuffy costume that the 'god' in us wants to rip off. But this is one part of us ripping off another part of us, so it hurts. Yet it's ecstatic, too. (Love's Body gets this kind of scary-nasty-deep.)

I'm curious to see what fdrake has to say. I have a feeling there's more to it than that. From previous discussions, I think @TimeLine does too. I'm walking in unfamiliar territory. — T Clark

What's funny is that I read this as a non-assertive, non-masculine response, as in "stop telling me you're nervous and anxious about being in the deep end of the pool, fucking jump in and swim." True story. Ironic I spose

If social norms designate certain conduct for anything, whether it be boys not cry, that you applaud at a play, sit silently at a funeral, or whatever, your contempt or disapproval at the violation of the norm is a normed social response in order to reassert compliance. — Hanover

Yeah, well, no. Not with me. I pay attention. It's more personal. It's not social control, it's hiding from my shame. As I've said, I like men and masculinity. I'm not sure we need more John Waynes, but it's nice to at least talk to someone who knows who John Wayne is.

What's funny is that I read this as a non-assertive, non-masculine response, as in "stop telling me you're nervous and anxious about being in the deep end of the pool, fucking jump in and swim." True story. Ironic I spose — Hanover

Don't understand. Is it my response that's non-masculine and non-assertive? Am I the one that's supposed to be nervous and anxious?

For better of for worse, this is the most stressful thread I've ever participated in. A conversation about patterns of conversations. Every post is both part of the conversation and also an object to be talked about as example within the conversation....ahhhh

.

For better of for worse, this is the most stressful thread I've ever participated in. A conversation about patterns of conversations. Every post is both part of the conversation and also an object to be talked about as example within the conversation....ahhhh — csalisbury

I've been finding the discussion disturbing. I find myself wanting to turn away from it. I guess that means I find it stressful.

For better of for worse, this is the most stressful thread I've ever participated in. A conversation about patterns of conversations. Every post is both conversation and an object to be talked about as part of the conversation....ahhhh — csalisbury

Indeed. I tend to enjoy this kind of thing, but not without a sense of danger. That's the 'saturnine' aspect mentioned above. It's sweet hellfire. For me all of this self-consciousness leads toward a 'contempt' for words that reaches for words nevertheless in order to share and flaunt itself. The friendly aspect of this sharing/secret-handshaking is the genuine desire to for a mutual recognition of this transcendence of words in another 'master.' A possible unfriendly aspect of this sharing/flaunting is a gloating over those who still think the message is the message.

And all of that babble of mine above is more spirit-meat for the ideology grinder?

I've been finding the discussion disturbing. I find myself wanting to turn away from it. I guess that means I find it stressful. — T Clark

We have entered the dragon. :fire:

If it ain't disturbing/thrilling, then it's just algebra?

Don't understand. Is it my response that's non-masculine and non-assertive? Am I the one that's supposed to be nervous and anxious? — T Clark

You qualified your post at the end by saying you were in unfamiliar territory, hedging a bit. It struck me as less than bold is all.

It's a weird thing. This thread has caused me to kind of mainline self-reflection. I realize that my approach to posts is to do a sort of meta-reflection on them - not agree or disagree but... flip things around and recontextualize stuff in a meta way. I'm not the only one who does this. @unenlightened does it too, and you have a penchant for it as well. But in this concentrated crucible type of thread, all of that breaks down. It's a little bit like a storm. Or 'sweet hellfire.' My gut reaction is to pull back and be like, whoa whoa, actually we need some boundaries, or limitations on this meta-stuff. But this is kind of hypocritical considering my usual m.o. It's something like: I want most people to not be doing the meta-stuff, so I can do it comfortably. The meta-position is a position of power, right, or like @unenlightenedsaid, it's the view of the charioteer. It's kind of freaky when everyone seems to be in on it. It's like someone came in and turned all the lights on, bright flourescent. Suddenly everyone can see my trick, and dammit, I don't like it.

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