Tag Archives: social analysis

English

Doubt

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Not talking about doubt process, no…

How many times have we heard the expression: “benefit of the doubt”? A lot, surely. But what does it mean..? It’s called benefit because we want to consider someone innocent until proven guilty? So far, so good. The question is another.

How many times have we heard the expression: “Stop judging that YOU may not be judged”? Even more often. And we all agree that among a pool af sinners it does not have much sense pointing finger at someone. But again:

How many times have we heard the expression: “All things are clean to clean [persons]. But to [persons] defiled and faithless nothing is clean, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.”?

 

Now let’s put to a system these three equations (note that in mathematics as well they would be called ‘expressions’). What conclusion can we come to?

Firstly, for human beings judgment is something that travels along with their look. Evrything we hear, see or think, it is automatically classified as white/black/gray (simplifying). Only who has no moral values to refer to can exempt from this mental process, i.e. a baby. Remarkable is indeed we call him/her “innocent”! Why innocent? Because, it’s clear, evil is so only if it’s accomplished on purpose. Or better, crime is imputable only if you are aware of the law (while, on the contrary, state’s law does not admit ignorance). I am saying this deliberately irrespective of the fact that we are imperfect, then we tend to do what’s bad.

Then?

Then we have to fight this tendency with active mental processes. For example, as it’s so often said, it is good practice to keep for ourselves our judgements (without starting to argue about their supposed good quality) (and here we could link to rumors). After this, we have to enact a process. Inside our heads. But careful: NOT to verify “truth” (“what is truth?” from the human point of view, Pilate was certainly right), but to LISTEN THE WITNESSES, that is to strive to imagine opinions and points of view different from ours, to weigh up their reasonableness, to examine their reasons, and so on… In the end, besides if we have “liked” all this, we have to archive the session record and put our soul to rest, aware that possible judgements are a lot, and that:

A) we do not have enough elements to pass one.

B) more important: we do not have the authority to pass one.

The christian is called to keep his conduct on the base of principles, not of laws. This difference in naming, only, should let us guess that there is a difference legally-esecutively talking too. Since there are no precise rules of conduct, everyone is called to judge only himself. Once we have a clear coscience before our only Judge, our assignment ends. Then everything our neighbor or our brothers will do will be pure (that is we will bestow them a real benefit of doubt). Otherwise, if we measure with any meter, everything, i say everything our brothers will do will be wrong (or potentially wrong) in our heads. And we know this is wrong too. It is not healthy for us. It would be the curse, of doubt.

 

From free (“truth will set YOU free”)…

…to slave (“They bind up heavy loads and put them upon the shoulders of men”).

English

Am I asocial…?

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Am I an asocial guy?

Don't think so.

You guys saying this are the asocial ones.

What are we talking about? Exchanges, communication. Precisely: nowadays. Now I am not going trough a detailed review about "social networks", it would be so long-winded, and even useless.

I did not joined any "social network". And I am proud of it. Sure, it's far more comfortable to committ to an external structure (virtual/cybernetical as well as physical/istitutional) the management (both quantitatively and qualitatively) of one's human relationships. But this does not mean that it's right, correct, healthy and convenient. Here's the reversal trick: those who are like me are often referred to as asocial, different, alienated, while the opposite is true. It's all you guys depending on these media to be the alienated one. The asocials. The social being (as man supposes he is) needs interpersonal relationships, public relationships as friendship, acquaintance, love, etc. But these have to be authentic! Both in their nature, and in their contents!

The real social network is out there, is made of every person you meet. Your friends are the servers, the hubs, the nearest sites. Data is exchanged through words, through actions, through emotions. Others will really know you only if you let them really know you this way! Not a pun.

Massive use of these media is a sickness, a deviance. It's not healthy. One thing is using a media to be allowed to get a new or otherwise unattainable level of communication, another is using it to partially – or even mainly – substitute more effective media!

Get out of your shells, let your fears go, and start living for real, exchanging with others what you have! Remember that "there is more happines in giving than there is in receiving". You do not know what you are missing!

Without generalizing: they are trying to frame you.

English

Role playing as misconduct or psycopathology

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Everybody plays a role, it's known.

When we go to work, or if we we have a duty involving authority or responsibility at a certain degree… then, virtually always.

Now we can't define every degree of pretense the individual adopts in various circumstances, nor this is the moment (I really do not have time) to mark which are the roles that are good to play, or to which we are called to stick to for our own good and happiness, nor to reason about how role-playing in a certain extent is even healthy for the individual.

Anyway, we have to spend several words about a danger I have seen becoming clear and present in some cases.

We assume that the roles we play, generally, are just "interfaces" or "modulations" or a series of rules in which express our personality, our functions and activities. On the other hand, it often happens that the individual inverts perception of what he/she internally is with what he/she is on the surface; that is he exchanges or confuses the substance with the interface, his real persona with the role he's playing, the face with the mask (to use a term already used, see post about communication, we could also say he's confounding the internal meaning of himself with the words used to express it). And this, even if it could seem an obvious and thin distinction since Pirandello, it makes a terrible difference.

At this point we could draw in the concept of honor. Don't you dare to mistake it with omerta. Strictly, a man of honor (or a woman, of course) is firstly faithful to himself. There's no honor without coherence. There's no loyalty. (One day we will talk thoroughly about this too).

Now: the individual who does not have clear in mind the difference between "objective self" and the roles he plays, either he is in a state of mental and psychological confusion, or he's one of the cases that I put under "stealth psycopaths", that are folks mentally ill – literally – but appearing perfectly normal in daily life and even to acquaintances and close relatives. And I assure you they are far, far more than you think.

How can this individual stick to moral values? His values change according to circumstances. How can he have certainties? He will only have illusions, built above cloudy concepts, because he can not admit the existance of one absolute truth, a concept needed for the existance of all relative truths you want (yes, I have to update the post about relativism tautology: "all is relative" = self-confessed nonsense).

How can a person like that behave according to his conscience? It's clear that a conscience can't work properly in a mind like that. It does not have a real point of reference, or landmark. Or, worse, he think he has it, but not barely in himself, nor from God, though in the kind of persona he's playing at that very moment, and this is an aberration! It makes come to my mind the pseudo-sentient dolls à-la Philip Dick (or Ghost in the Shell), you are warned…

 

Let's pay attention to these cases; they're loose cannons in social/affective relationships.

Ideas

Ursula 2

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“Poiché qui non c’è altro che gli Stati e le loro armi, i ricchi e le loro bugie, e i poveri e la loro miseria. Non c’è modo di agire rettamente, con un cuore trasparente, su Urras. Non c’è nulla che possiate fare in cui non entrino il profitto, e la paura di una perdita, e il desiderio di potere. Non puoi dire buongiorno a un’altra persona senza sapere chi di voi è “superiore” all’altro, o senza cercare di dimostrarlo. Non puoi agire come un fratello verso le altre persone; devi manipolarle, o comandarle, o obbedire loro, o imbrogliarle. Non puoi toccare un’altra persona, eppure non ti lasceranno mai solo. Non c’è libertà. E’ una scatola… Urras è una scatola, un pacchetto, con tutta la sua meravigliosa confezione del cielo turchino e dei prati e delle foreste e delle grandi città. E tu apri la scatola, e cosa ci trovi dentro? Una cantina buia piena di polvere, e un uomo morto. Un uomo cui fu troncata la mano perché la tendeva agli altri. Sono stato all’inferno, infine.”

from “Dispossessed. An ambiguos utopia“