Dignity, and nothing else

Do you remember talking about relationships based on intimidation and fear?

I do. Your assessment was that some people are so used to the mode that they do not see it as anything bad.

It is convenient for many---which is rather scary, in my opinion---because it spares people from making judgments on their own. Some others have done the thinking for them, and they are willing to follow suit without careful consideration.

I'm afraid such people will always be with us. It does not necessarily have to be intimidation and fear; it could be crowd psychology which has its uses. Without it, we may never reach some kind of consensus.

I beg to differ. Every one of us can think independently, and still reach agreement through compromises. That is what democracy is all about. If we do not discourage crowd psychology, that amounts to allowing seedlings of totalitarianism to grow among us.

What about the problem of personality, though? You have implied that, in the end, what matters is personality, and that the strong ones dominate the others. We have to learn to live with that imperfection.

I agree. In other words, the problem is how to deal with strong characters which tend to steer the system to their liking. We should be equipped with penalties for dictator types.

Ah, that sounds like another avenue to totalitarianism, though, because in the ideal situation, nobody should be dominating or dominated, which suggests that everyone should be alike.

What we need is diversity and value criteria that do not favor the loud and the manipulative over the rest.

I can see that the loud is obviously so, but detecting the manipulative may not be as easy. It will be similar to asking a liar if s/he lies.

Talking about manipulative persons, I have noticed that most people don't mind being friends with them. First of all, manipulation requires intelligence, and that can be useful to the manipulated.

The manipulated is so, precisely because they are less cunning or smart than the manipulating. The manipulating can use their intelligence to the true good of the manipulated, if they wish so.

In other occasions, they use the intelligence to do damage. The interesting thing is that the manipulated count the manipulating as friends, even good friends.

Oh, s/he is sometimes not so nice, but other times s/he is. Is this how the thinking goes?

I presume so. They take it as a fact of life that people are not nice all the time.

But it is.

That may be so, but the problem here is that the manipulating is in total control of the emotional ups and downs of her/his targets.

Isn't that one of ignorance-is-bliss cases?

Could be. For me, it is painful and frustrating to see that some people's happiness is subject to the whims of the manipulating, who belong to the category of the wicked and the evil.

When you are smarter than others, it's difficult not to be manipulative, even if you are against such behavior. We know that one, right?

Children are manipulated by grown-ups, I think we can say that.

I'm not sure whether manipulation is a good term. We make use of child psychology, and that is different from manipulation.

On paper, they are not the same, but in the real world, there are many borderline cases.

Borderline cases... your favorite!

Think about a parent who wishes her/his child not to take up horse riding. The parent can complain about the bad smell---existent or nonexistent---after riding lessons until the child is totally convinced that s/he should stop going to the stable if s/he wants to keep her/his friends.

But then again, isn't the outcome dependent on the personality of the parent versus that of the child?

It is, but that does not take away the fact that there is manipulative element in what we call education and discipline. Recommendation alone can be used to encourage or discourage children to think in certain ways.

Well, education and discipline are, after all, imposing on children what adults think best; we cannot get rid of what could be considered manipulation.

We should, however, recognize that factor and try our best not to force any idea down the throat.

It sounds almost impossible. How can you teach ethics, for example? Usually, our minds are not negotiable when it comes to what is good or bad.

You could present your ethical values as the best possible system that you know, which could be improved upon. Certainly, it should not be taught as the universal truth.

Isn't that rather weak?

I think not. It is always good to know that your thoughts may have some unknown shortcomings. And, it is possible to openly admit so while maintaining firm belief in them.

Are you trying to tell me how to graciously change my ideas, if need be?

Not allowing leeway for yourself could put you in a quite awkward or ugly situation. Plus, it is difficult to trust people who go from one extreme to another, I think.

But extremes are attractive because of their simplicity.

Certainly. Extreme positions are often crowned with the adjective, 'pure'... Getting back to relationships, it surprises me that most people seem to think that slighting and hurting each other is a normal element in any relationship.

If people could stand psychological manipulation, it's not so surprising, is it?

True, the biggest surprise for me may be that people fail to recognize the manipulative and the abusive motives. They are also ready to go on as if nothing had happened after they hurt each other. That astonishes me as well.

Let me guess, you do not want any slighting or hurting, needless to say manipulating. That's not quite possible, you should know that.

In my mind, slighting, hurting, abusing, manipulating, etc. preclude close relationships if they know what they are doing. What if someone puts you down because s/he wants to feel better about her/himself?

That one again...

If someone is capable of doing so even once, trust for that person cannot be re-established, I would think. Consider a rather complicated case in which a friend of yours and you talk about relationships and you agree that such an act would destroy any relationship forever.

Good that we have like-minded people around.

What if that very person engages in that act of taking out her/his insecurity on you?

If we have talked about it explicitly, that is indeed serious.

What if s/he happens to be one of your best friends?

Does that change how wrong the act is?

It doesn't, but the impact is bigger, because it is someone whom you trusted. There is another case which happens, I suspect, more specifically to me.

Which is...?

They start with an assumption that I am ignorant and stupid.

What can I say---who can blame them?

In my mind, they have made an inexcusable mistake at that point already, namely, they have violated the rule of treating every person so as to preserve her/his dignity.

Tell me the next offense.

They are very aggressive toward or dismissive of my opinion, until one day, they realize that I am not that dumb and start treating me a bit more nicely.

Shouldn't they be forgiven then?

I would say this is a variant of intimidation and fear. Only after they learn that I have the mental capacity that is equal or superior to theirs, I emerge as a full human being in their world.

At least, they acknowledge it.

There is another problem. If they happen to put me in their very-smarty category, they start taking my views as the best without examining them.

From one extreme to another, eh?

We do more or less the same with the information that we have no means of verifying. We all have favorite television and radio programs, newspapers, and websites, and we take what they present as accurate, unbiased description of the topic, most of the time.

How can we be absolutely sure that it wasn't Bill's double who went to Pyongyang? The rumor has it that the one who talked to Kim Jong-Il did not crack a single joke.

Comrade, that is not worth pursuing... Anyway, if the concern is something to which we have roughly equal access in terms of relevant information, we should not cede our right and duty to think and make a judgment on our own.

I see, they turn unnecessarily submissive from being wrongly dismissive. In short, they commit three grave crimes.

There's more.

Oh, no!

What if they become frustrated because I do not want to be friends with them?

You may have to forgive, you know.

Forgive? Should I be friends with people who turn nice only after I was able to appear---and that in their eyes---not as a total idiot, and who are most likely to commit the same crimes against others?

Perhaps some of them have changed for good.

The soul of a three year old until a hundred. What is learned in the cradle is carried to the grave. Ce que poulain prend en jeunesse, il le continue en vieillesse. Lo que se aprende en la cuna, siempre dura.

Shhhh, calm down. Shall we talk about experience, learning and all that next time?

It's about dignity, the most important thing in our lives. How come that most people don't care, their own or others'?

That may be because dignity as the most important aspect in life is your universal truth, and not the universal truth, you see...

Dictated by internal math

It looks like you survived another session of personal details.

After all, we all eat, sleep, and play, work or study. Most of us have friends and families. Our experiences ought to be similar. In turn, it means that we should be able to identify and sympathize with almost anyone on earth.

If I remember correctly, you could no longer bear listening to what you just described as common experiences of humanity.

I can explain myself better. It's the dose...

The very best food stays that way only if you stop eating it while you still want more of it.

...and the perspective that are crucial.

The view, the light, the angle... Anything can be interesting when its picture is taken by a gifted photographer, put on stage by a talented company, performed by an artistic musician, or told by a skillful storyteller. Come to think of it, the adjective, oblique, means indirect or evasive.

If something is not of an oblique angle, it is of a right angle or a multiple of a right angle.

I don't think it implies that being direct is correct.

It certainly depends on the situation, but I am of the opinion that insinuations are much more effective in the long run than making your thoughts too clear.

Think about the chill that runs along the spine when the message is finally understood!

That chill can be from joy or... It is effective, because it makes you realize that you had stayed ignorant up to that point. In other words, you have made a fool of yourself. Since the message is indirect, you start examining the situation yourself, and that gradually. It is almost like taking slow-working medicine/poison unknowingly before going to bed every night.

And one day... Quelle horreur ! Ah non, quelle joie ! It could be that, too, I hope.

It is powerful, because you reach the conclusion on your own.

We would not want to put a good friend in that position if the message is negative, do we?

That is true, but there are limits, as always. I don't want to tell a person that I get tired of listening to the-tip-of-my-cat's-tail-hasn't-been-quite-right, I-am-spending-too-much-time-on-the-phone-but-I-don't-know-what-to-do, I-thought-Barber-A-was-decent-but-he-isn't-and-I-much-prefer-Barber-Z-now, all-my-neighbors-are-either-boring-or-nasty, my-distant-relative-who-lives-far-away-ran-away-from-home, etc., etc., etc. That would make me an evil person.

It's all about you, eh? Don't you care about the person to whom you would be saying that?

As I said, I would never say anything like that. I know that I would feel very bad, thinking about the psychological damage that I would have inflicted. And, that is the deterrent.

Put differently, you don't want to make someone feel bad, because that would make you feel bad---correct?

The most reliable source of our actions is biological impulses that directly concern ourselves.

Not again!

Sadly, we will always go back to that one. But don't get it wrong, it certainly does not mean that we are all destined to act like savages.

I thought almost everyone expect us was a savage...

The trick is to how to program morality into your biology.

How can you do that?

Emotions are based on biochemical reactions, and we can train ourselves so that we would feel psychological pain when we envisage engaging in immoral acts.

Do I have to sign up for a brain-washing camp?

Some of our psychological reactions are innate, but we can also experience an event that creates a response pattern to similar ones.

The stronger the emotions invoked by an event are, the more entrenched that pattern would be. If it is too negative, it can wreck you for good. Is this how it works?

In order to make use of our biological processes to meet our needs, conscious management of our emotions is required.

May I ask how you manage yours, ahem?

It may sound trivial, but just summarizing your experience in words in your mind reinforces your view of it.

This was good, I would like to do it again. That was bad, I hope I don't have to get into that situation any more. If I do, I would like to act differently. That kind of stuff?

Exactly, our thoughts are based on biochemical reactions, just as emotions are.

Thinking about what you want to do would help realizing it. I think we talked about this one.

That was more about life goals, but the principle applies to mundane acts as well. Anyway, are you now convinced that the very source of our behavior is biology, but the mechanism is alterable by our conscious efforts to do so?

Doesn't it mean, though, that we only do what brings us pleasure?

In effect, yes.

I know that I wouldn't feel good if I leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight, but I occasionally do.

I would say that the pain of washing the dishes immediately is larger than the pain of seeing them next morning still dirty. It may appear like a stupid act, but I don't think it is.

Really?

Lately, I have been amazed how complicated a calculation we carry out on deciding what to do.

Aren't the calculations sometimes wrong?

I used to think that way, but I no longer believe so. You may not be able to verbalize how you reached your conclusion, but your mind with all the biological inputs have done the intricate calculation for you. You choose to let the dirt on your dishes cake overnight if the biochemical output says so.

Where is my consciousness, then?

It is possible that on certain occasions you think, "No, I don't want to see caked food on my dishes tomorrow morning. I am going to do the dishes tonight." Your conscious thinking makes you overcome your unconscious thinking.

If both thinking are biochemical, shouldn't the result be the same at any time?

I guess your willingness to wash the dishes right away is weak. Not entrenched, so to speak. Sometimes the chemicals work to make that feeling strong, other times not. If you think about it more strongly, I am sure that you will be able to trigger that reaction every time.

What about drug addiction and such? Many people do want to quit, but many also do not manage.

We do need our will, but the environment affects it. For example, what if there is no prospect of finding a job, even for drug-free people? It is better to stay addicted and feel good. There is little incentive to quit, and that diminishes our desire to do so.

I'd say that is the same with people who engage in one crime after another.

I agree. Some people know that there is little to lose by engaging to criminal acts. They may not be able to explain it so, but their desperation is supported by nothing other than their biochemical reactions in their mind. We all do intricate math in our heads without knowing its precise mechanism.

We can run without being able to explain how to move which muscle at a given moment. It's akin to that.

We also know people who remain in so-called bad relationships. I'd say that they have done their calculations, too, and the outcomes tell them to keep the relationships.

You can listen to others' complaints and pretend that you are a nice person, as long as you can complain to me about them---is this what you are implying?