Key excerpt:

Primary and secondary education will always be a matter of familiarizing the young with what their elders take to be true, whether it is true or not. It is not, and never will be, the function of lower-level education to challenge the prevailing consensus about what is true. Socialization has to come before individuation, and education for freedom cannot begin before some constraints have been imposed.

But, for quite different reasons, non-vocational higher education is also not a matter of inculcating or educing truth. It is, instead, a matter of inciting doubt and stimulating imagination, thereby challenging the prevailing consensus. If pre-college education produces literate citizens and college education produces selfcreating individuals, then questions about whether students are being taught the truth can safely be neglected. — Richard Rorty

I've lived for a good portion of my life as a recluse from society. My idealized dream is to live alone in some forest away from people and their enviousness, deceit, lack of trustworthiness, two-facedness, and whatever you can insert here. — Posty McPostface

Your consistent attempt to instigate intimate social interaction here by openly revealing and discussing the personal details of your life belies your claim that you wish to live as a hermit without social interaction. It sounds like you have limited social interaction and you therefore don't have long-term friends, work friends, church friends, or other sorts of friends you'd make by just exposing yourself to the world, and that lack of friendship causes you some amount loneliness. Your general pessimism also isn't terribly conducive to forming long lasting friendships because there's nothing appealing about it.

You don't just get to declare yourself pessimistic, hopelessly passive, misanthropic, and socially isolated as if that's the way things must be, Just decide to change and change and stop being lazy and accept responsibility for your state of affairs. If, though, all of this is out of your control and you're just telling us you're a one legged person forced to hop about ten steps behind the rest of us your whole life and it really sucks, then I'll cry for you if it makes you feel better.

Your consistent attempt to instigate intimate social interaction here by openly revealing and discussing the personal details of your life belies your claim that you wish to live as a hermit without social interaction. — Hanover

That's not entirely true. The life we experience here only is fundamentally different than real life interaction. What does that say about me? A lot, and little (I hope we can leave it at that, as I also am aware of certain boundaries). I already, in an inverted manner, explained the reason why I prefer online contact over real-life confrontation.

Speaking about boundaries, I find the internet a medium where artificial boundaries are dashed away. I could be a woman posting on this forum, or a serial killer. You really don't know that. But, you can infer that my intentions and alter-ego is true and accurate based on the consistency of my posts about myself and life which you touched on.

Again, elaborating on boundaries, I believe that the internet abolishes them, an interesting phenomenon. I might have no social circle (again, a circle establishes the very concept of a boundary), but, I'm quite fine with that.

Just decide to change and change and stop being lazy and accept responsibility for your state of affairs. If, though, all of this is out of your control and you're just telling us you're a one legged person forced to hop about ten steps behind the rest of us your whole life and it really sucks, then I'll cry for you if it makes you feel better. — Hanover

Oh, dear. I hope you don't start calling me a snowflake, Sir/Ma'am or whoever the person behind your alter-ego of "Hanover" is. Anyway, if you've followed my posting here, then I suppose it bears repeating that I'm a disabled individual due to mental health. As much as I'd like to pull myself up from my bootstraps, my metaphorical "back" isn't in great shape, and never will be. Hence my lamentation, wallowing, reclusiveness, escapist tendencies, and resignation from life.

Oh, dear. I hope you don't start calling me a snowflake, Sir/Ma'am or whoever the person behind your alter-ego of "Hanover" is. Anyway, if you've followed my posting here, then I suppose it bears repeating that I'm a disabled individual due to mental health. As much as I'd like to pull myself up from my bootstraps, my metaphorical "back" isn't in great shape, and never will be. Hence my lamentation, wallowing, reclusiveness, escapist tendencies, and resignation from life. — Posty McPostface

And I do respect that, which brings up my callous but true conclusion, which is that if you are disabled to the point where nothing can be done about it, then what do you ask I (or anyone) do other than feel bad for you? I can share my insights, be nice, be mean, make jokes, pontificate, or whatever, but you are telling me that you have but one leg and will never be able to run. Well, I'm sorry about your one leg. What else do you seek?

In case you are not aware, I'm seeking others who feel the same or are in a similar predicament. This isn't only about 'me'.

Do go on. I am interested. What are your thoughts about children prior to puberty. I don't see the development of the prefrontal cortex by age 25 as that big a deal as long as the individual doesn't deviate from the norms of what you call socialization.

My perspective of how I have lived my life over past 60 years is that I have been too agreeable and tolerant and although this has meant avoiding confrontation, I have been taken advantage of. I am not at the extreme of this, as I also know people who are even more willing to please and I see myself pushing them around. My approach has always been ‘virtue is its own reward’, and through work and community service I perform I have tried to live by this. Now I see these as being social indoctrinates, rather than an innate capacity for good in myself. I want to be socially judged as being a good person and well liked. However, I am also not interested in social small talk, so I volunteer in a bar so I can be productive in a sports oriented group, without having to stand around for hours making small talk. Its taken a while, and people regard me as slightly eccentric. Its not that I don’t like people, in fact I do, and easily engage in deep meaningful conversations, however these have limits once I have learned as much as I can from the other people. I am the person who at parties will find the bookcase and find that books interest me more than small talking the other guests.
As a result of these realisations and I have becomes far less tolerant, and though I still perform community work as I have for many years, I serve my own needs far more. I still enjoy mentoring and helping people, but as much of my community work deals with the public, I am often appalled by how thoughtless and ungrateful people can be, and their sense of entitlement about what someone doing community work owes them. In my mind I made an excellent citizen, paying taxes, obeying the law, as virtue was its own reward, I gave as much as a I could. I used to mentor new employees in corporate business on my own time, asking that all I wanted in return was for them to mentor two others in their time, so that society would progressively become better, first in our company and then in society – this is a pay it forward type concept – and you note how concepts like these get publicised – because it would be great if everyone else behaved unselfishly.
I have also changed my ideas on the roles and equality of men and women in society over the past couple of decades. I assume from my well educated mother and not having sisters, I grew up with a sense that women were somehow special, and generally had less advantages than men, when they probably deserved more. However I was puzzled by the fact that men who had the most control in society , lived shorter lives, committed suicide 4x as often as women, made up 90% of prison populations, were more likely to be homeless, and died violently more often. If men were in control how come women got more of these significant benefits? Once again I think there is a social indoctrination at work based upon power dynamics between all sectors of society, men and women, children, adults, the aged etc, all trying to get the best for themselves and get others to contribute as much as they can.

Posty - Your post comes close to what I am trying to understand when an individual goes through socialization while trying to maintain individuality or the socialization vs individualization problem.

This only seems like a problem that children or teenagers face when confronted with sexual maturity.

We have been social far longer than we have been human, with the common ape ancestor split 6-8mya, if we regard sexual reproduction as social this began over 1billion years ago, and while there are some quite advanced species that are asocial, like polar bears, leopards and cheetahs, they still socialise for sexual reproduction and raising their young. I mention this to show how deeply social we are and although we get socialised by our specific social environment, it has also evolved over countless generations of ancestors. Despite this most animals and plants still do their best to stay in control of their lives, even at a cost to others. This is expressed either by doing something to stay alive or reproducing. This means that the social/individual dynamics run far deeper than simple social constructs. Puberty signals the point where sexual reproduction becomes possible and instead of just trying to keep alive as an individual, we are now trying to replicate our DNA through the process of sex.
Having said that from birth we imitate language , accents, moral values, fashion before we have any awareness. I believe that many ideas about individuality are fostered by society. Consider the movie industry, people watch an average of 5 movies each year, movies provide escapism from everyday life, and a strong theme in films is individuality winning against social indoctrination. There is usually a sense of a good little guy/gal winning against a big corporation, this seems to inspire people and movie studios deliver the escapism we require. Most books read are similar, the general junk fiction tries to reassure people life has meaning and good and truth will prevail. This is of course pure bullshit, good and truth are just social slogans, and social constructs themselves. Aside from humans they don’t exist in other animals, yet most of our fundamental behaviors and motivations are the same ones we see in animals.

Now, I agree with this; but, it neglects to mention the fact that children are extremely malleable. At that age, a great deal of plasticity is in play. I believe that this is an important factor in professing my 'hope' about children.

Agreed that children and people are malleable, and I see the following questions arising
What does success look like? How will we recognise and define a perfect child? What will they behave like? Law abiding, obedient, and productive citizens? Doing unto others as……Turning the other cheek…..? These are reasonable but still difficult question questions to answer but the next question is even more difficult.

Once we have the perfect picture of the perfect child/adult, what perfect mechanism do we use to achieve this? After all the existing education and civic systems are (in theory) supposed to produce educated and productive citizens. Communism, socialism, fascism, Nazism, nudism, religion all these have been set up my various individuals and groups to achieve some utopian human society, but as far as I am aware none have been perfect, in fact far from it. This means its not a new idea to try and mould society, George Orwells 1984 and Animal Farm, Huxleys Brave new World are well known caricatures of what society might become. History consists of nothing but people trying to promote their own selfish interests or those of their group. The concept of the group has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. Womens rights, sexual orientation and identity, racial equality, childrens rights, animal rights, disabled rights, mental health rights and many others have meant we have expanded our concept of the ingroup whose well being needs to be promoted. Its still a work in progress with plenty of bumps along the way, but we can expect that human society and life will continue be defined as what is important and whose needs should be promoted. This means their must be a cost to individuals and sub groups, I cant see how tradeoffs can be avoided through this process.

Also note that malleable does not have to be limited to our minds, we have already been moulding human and animal bodies through selective breeding, medicine, IVF and now we are getting into proactive gene manipulation. This means that not only are we likely to greatly extend life expectancy but we can manipulate the unborn, either before procreation or after, but certainly before they are born. Since all this is being done for the greater good, we should promote it? I am being facetious here, however this process is not stoppable by conscious process. The first IVF baby was a major scandal, now it raises no comment. The first heart transplant raised moral questions, now we think nothing of it and do lungs, kidneys and will end up doing brains. We have cloned domestic animals and will certainly clone humans at some point. All this will only stop if an asteroid hits us, or we nuke ourselves, otherwise its unstoppable and we will adjust or moral standards (as we have always done) to help it on its way.

What an exciting time to be alive.

What an exciting time to be alive. — tmb

Indeed. Thanks for posting!

Your consistent attempt to instigate intimate social interaction here by openly revealing and discussing the personal details of your life belies your claim that you wish to live as a hermit without social interaction. — Hanover

And I do respect that, which brings up my callous but true conclusion, which is that if you are disabled to the point where nothing can be done about it, then what do you ask I (or anyone) do other than feel bad for you? I can share my insights, be nice, be mean, make jokes, pontificate, or whatever, but you are telling me that you have but one leg and will never be able to run. Well, I'm sorry about your one leg. What else do you seek? — Hanover

I don't like or understand the motivation for Hanover's derogatory tone.

I suggest:that you accept the fact that you naturally, by inclination, avoid people. ...as do I. There's nothing wrong with that, and it needn't be harmful to your life. Of course you just live your life in recognition of, and working around, that natural inclination.

I don't believe that it is a disability or a malady.

You might very well have the "Asperger's" attribute. That isn't a bad thing*, contrary to the implication of the word "syndrome".

*though it results in serious vulnerability to intimidation and bullying by parents and the ambient cultlure, during childhood.

I suggest not reading any more Schopenhauer. His metaphysics of the Will-to-Life makes sense, as a start that could lead to Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism, but his negative view of how things are is way wrong.

Michael Ossipoff

I suggest not reading any more Schopenhauer. His metaphysics of the Will-to-Life makes sense, as a start that could lead to Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism, but his negative view of how things are is way wrong. — Michael Ossipoff

I just got in the mail his Volume I of The World as Will and Representation. I also got his Essays and Aphorisms. I think I will soon study him in detail.

I don't like or understand the motivation for Hanover's derogatory tone. — Michael Ossipoff

My only motivation was to say what is true. This is a philosophy forum afterall. Posty acknowledged his motivation was only to find kindred spirits who could identify with his plight, which simply means I don't satisfy his criteria in this thread.

This is a philosophy forum afterall. Posty acknowledged his motivation was only to find kindred spirits who could identify with his plight, which simply means I don't satisfy his criteria in this thread. — Hanover

The antecedent belies your claim. Since this is a philosophy forum which can consist with kids who score on the above range of intelligence, I mean genius level, then this is an open platform where we exchange ideas. I was hoping someone else might have an idea similar or better refined than my own conception of some manner or form.

Your OP asks what do I tell the misanthrope. Why would I be kind to a hater of people? You suggest I ought to be kind because your hate is beyond your control, so I ought pity you. Okee doke, I'm crying my eyeballs out for you.

I don't believe that he said that he hates people--merely that he tends to avoid people. But you exemplify the familiar and dismal fact that there are people who need to be avoided or ignored.

Michael Ossipoff

:blush:

don't believe that he said that he hates people--merely that he tends to avoid people. But you exemplify the familiar and dismal fact that there are people who need to be avoided or ignored. — Michael Ossipoff

Your comment that I need to be avoided is belied (a word that must be used in this thread as much as possible) by your speaking to me and falling victim to my charisma.

This thread is expressly about "misanthropy" which is literally a hatred of people. But, if you read my most enlightening posts, I did question whether @Posty McPostface was a misanthrope, saying that his outreach here belied (BAM!) his claims to misanthropy. He made a comment then about the mask that he wore here allowed social navigation otherwise inaccessible to him in the direct contact real world. I do agree with that, although I think we all wear masks wherever we are, and what he points to is more social difficulties than misanthropy. My hesitation in exploring the extent of and cause of his social limitations is based upon my acknowledgment that it is impossible to psychoanalyze others from afar, especially those with a complex history of mental illness..

My hesitation in exploring the extent of and cause of his social limitations is based upon my acknowledgment that it is impossible to psychoanalyze others from afar, especially those with a complex history of mental illness.. — Hanover

Yet, your attempts to psychoanalyze me in this thread belies your intent to psychoanalyze. Anyway, I don't care if you do try and psychoanalyze me or not. That doesn't bug me.

But, if you read my most enlightening posts, I did question whether Posty McPostface was a misanthrope, saying that his outreach here belied (BAM!) his claims to misanthropy. — Hanover

I admit, that I am not a classical misanthrope. Rather stipulatively I use this word. If you find that vague, then I will say that I do interact with people online much more than in real life. That indicates that I feel more comfortable with online interactions than the small chit chat I would do with people in real life.

But, that's not indicative of misanthropy per se. It's rather the fact that I can effectively find more people online that share my common interests. And hence I post here. So, your assumption that my posts belie my stipulative misanthropy, is ill-founded.

What more can I say about this straw man you've created of me?

Other than my girlfriend, I practically never talk to anyone, except for the minimal business-talk needed in daily life.

There just aren't conversations in person. Nothing to answer, nothing to say.

Online, there are conversations already going on, and it's a whole other environment that invites everyone's contribution.

Michael Ossipoff

Online, there are conversations already going on, and it's a whole other environment that invites everyone's contribution. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, that environment interests me. What can you say about it?

People often say that non-verbal communication is at least 60-80% of real communication... Does that make online communication a futile effort? What kind of communication is online communication, then?

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People often say that non-verbal communication is at least 60-80% of real communication... Does that make online communication a futile effort? — Posty McPostface

What it really does is make clear what bullshit that 60-80% figure really is. We can communicate sometimes more fully and clearly in writing. That's why it's sometimes better to write a letter.

It's easier to communicate online for some because of social limitations, anxiety, fear of rejection, and embarrassment to name a few. That's why online dating is so popular.

It's easier to communicate online for some because of social limitations, anxiety, fear of rejection, and embarrassment to name a few. That's why online dating is so popular. — Hanover

I guess you can make a straw man and say that the internet is composed of such individuals. I certainly would fall into that category you are describing though. To each his own?

Read Nietzsche he's a cheerful misanthrope. Might help. I don't really like people either.

irrelevant and immaterial