Humiliation
Here's the version of 20th century history I was taught. WW1 was a pointless fuckup. The Germans lost and had to accept loss of territory, harsh reparations, limits on military and general humiliation and economic privation. Add the depression, and so Fascism, as an attempt to regain lost dignity.
But let's get personal.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/21/sleeping-with-the-far-right-review-could-you-move-in-with-a-man-too-racist-for-ukip?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR2u07SmnmQvlWVUcUIs7PgxJZGNLfNGO_CFuXZEhZWv8AuPIEk-8ofIIJU
The program is worth watching if you can, otherwise there's the review.
I wonder if anyone else can see a connexion with this? ...
Or this? ...
[quote= His Bobness]A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin, " they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.[/quote]
Sen was born Dilip Sengupta to a half-Indian, half-South African father and English mother, we are told. Irony, that a mixed race kid bullied by Jews and homosexuals becomes an extreme right advocate of racial purity. Irony and paradox.
Perhaps there is nothing much to be said. "Therefore the sage is generous in victory, and does not humiliate his opponents."
But let's get personal.
Most notable of these is when Sen’s mother lets slip his original name, and Levine asks why he changed it. What was never a particularly amiable mien changes to a furiously aggressive one; Sen demands that this be removed from the film as an utter irrelevance. A tale of being bullied at a largely Jewish school in the US emerges that made it clear to him that: “You have the right to be fearful” of those different from you, and that multi-ethnic societies “are toxic. You keep to your own. And I don’t have an own”. It was a pattern replayed when he found his musical major at college dominated by “unbearable, crass” homosexuals.
Another person might have come to an entirely different conclusion after the same experiences, as Levine points out. But Sen has found his own, now, and the last section of the film is of him and Nick Griffin spewing vitriol about and at Levine as an indoctrinated racist against the white man, an idiot, obnoxious and ignorant. Vast new depths of rage and hatred are revealed and suggest still more beneath. The closing scenes are of Levine and Sen having their publicity shots for the programme taken as he mutters venomously.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/21/sleeping-with-the-far-right-review-could-you-move-in-with-a-man-too-racist-for-ukip?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR2u07SmnmQvlWVUcUIs7PgxJZGNLfNGO_CFuXZEhZWv8AuPIEk-8ofIIJU
The program is worth watching if you can, otherwise there's the review.
I wonder if anyone else can see a connexion with this? ...
Pbxman: "I'm sick and tired to this anglo-centric forums in which only this USA hero UK (its fave PET) view is allowed and it not they censure you! You talk to people from Russia and Iran and they have totally different world view. How Can I remove my account from this crap?"
Arkady: "If he/she is acquainted with Russian or Iranian culture, the notion of censorship should be pretty familiar. I would think this forum would feel comfortingly familiar, if he/she perceives it to be a censorious place."
Baden: "Thick coat of irony there, alright."
Or this? ...
[quote= His Bobness]A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin, " they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.[/quote]
Sen was born Dilip Sengupta to a half-Indian, half-South African father and English mother, we are told. Irony, that a mixed race kid bullied by Jews and homosexuals becomes an extreme right advocate of racial purity. Irony and paradox.
Perhaps there is nothing much to be said. "Therefore the sage is generous in victory, and does not humiliate his opponents."
Comments (64)
Said with faux regret fifty times a week on a gameshow near you. If dignity is a zero sum game, then humiliation is how the dignity one is self-evidently born with is taken from one. Distinguished quite clearly from the self-deprecating humility adopted voluntarily by 'we' philosophers, white-men, winners; adopted proudly - I am so fucking cool, I don't mind making a fool of myself. Another humiliation for the peasants.
What you do not need if you have it, you will die and kill for when it is taken away. This is identity as the absolute meaning of life, the sine qua non of existence itself. Identity is tribe. We are the champions.
Then equality is a pipe-dream for we can only increase our freedom by taking other's away? If that is the case, then it's survival of the fittest.
It isn't a zero sum game. I don't believe it is because I can talk highly of myself without bringing others down, and if others feel threatened by me talking about myself in a positive light, then that isn't my problem, but a problem with their own self-image. There is this thing called "jealousy" that throws a wrench into your idea. Many people like to be the center of attention and any attention others might get takes away from their perceived rightful amount of attention. It seems to me that we can all treat each other with dignity and respect at first and then change our minds when that person shows that they didn't deserve it in the first place.
One's identity is the core "who I am" which we start building early in life. Large parts of it remain stable throughout life, and some parts may change, but it remains the core self which lasts a lifetime. Who we are is a compound of genetics, experience, family, and community. A secure identity is a component of a healthy personality.
Maybe a dozen components, give or take a few, make up one's identity. Sex, sexual orientation, and Christian are three major parts of my identity. I grew up in a rural community and longed to leave it. When I landed in Boston at 22, I knew that "urban dweller" had been a missing part of my identity. "gay" and "male" became much more important without displacing other parts of my identity.
I identify as a midwestern American. I have given myself several different political party names over the years, but what I really believe is that politics are possible, important, and matter.
I identify as a descendent of Europeans. They were the people that populated my family, my town, my county, 90% of my state, and at least 90% of the region of the country I grew up in. They were the people who were by far the most prominent in media, education, government, business, religion, and culture of my first 22 years.
I have, most of my life, been involved with media, education, government, business, religion, culture, and personal social life where descendants of Europeans are most prominent. Some of my best friends have not been black, Asian, South American, or aboriginal North Americans. They have all been descendants of Europeans. Most of them, further more, have been gay men. (Some of my worst enemies have also been gay men -- crass homosexuals, in fact.)
Some people here will take this as the confession of a white racist. It isn't, and I am not. I am white and I like who I am. That's all. I hope blacks, asians, hispanics, American Indians, et all like who they are, as well. There is nothing wrong with racial pride, any more than there is something wrong with personal pride in being a great cabinet maker or a barber.
There's no point winning against a lesser foe is there? If the opponent is equal or greater the better the taste of victory and in that case there's no humiliation for the loser too.
You made your own skin? Well, I think you did a great job. Well done. :D
I don't personally think it's necessarily racist to be proud of one's race. And in cases where a race has been historically denigrated and oppressed, it seems an appropriate balancing response to socially and politically coordinated attempts to inflict shame. In other cases, it ranges from benign to nefarious depending on the associated beliefs.
@unenlightened
To humiliate is to undermine social power, normally in a way that causes emotional pain. It's justified or not depending on the type of social power being undermined and the type being elevated. You are right that it can sometimes be counterproductive. It depends on the context. Anyway, your focus on identity is spot on and humiliation in the broader sense of an eliding of identity (especially in a background institutional sense) deserves attention.
My identity has changed quite a bit over my life. My first identity was son, and then I was a brother. I eventually became a friend, best friend, boyfriend, and eventually a husband and father, with all of these identities being cumulative. I was a Christian, but now I'm an atheist. I'm a Systems Administrator, student and coach, among other things. My race, sex and orientation are just minor parts of my identities. Out of all of these identities, I'm the most proud of being a husband and father.
I write a lot about identity. Most of my threads are about various aspects. And this is, I think one of the best ways of discovering it. This is why I included that little moment from the banning thread in the op. If you have ever been enraged your own behalf, if you have ever felt the pain of humiliation, then you have begun to notice your identity. It is always personal, always a sensitivity, and always a status, always social.
I'm not looking for personal anecdotes here, butI think it s safe to assume that everyone has them, and probably as humiliator as well as humiliated. So I think this thread especially of mine will have a visceral clarity for everyone.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Allow me to probe a little with this scalpel; it won't humiliate a bit.You are someone who has been much humiliated, and has built up many layers of armour, which you call a 'healthy personality'. Bluff, genial, self-deprecating, man-of the world, BC is the sock puppet who can afford to be honest because he is unreal and therefore invulnerable. He is a suit of armour of many components marvelously articulated and probably worn even in bed. He is a mechanical man made of components and cannot be hurt. Of the real vulnerable person beneath the armour, not much can be said beyond hurting, frightened, lonely.
Quoting Baden
No one is proud of having five fingers; no one is humiliated by having five fingers; no one identifies as five-fingered. But one's skin, one's size, one's hair, one's nose, lips, specs, t-shirt, can become targets of pride and humiliation, and matters of identity. This is what white privilege is - not to have a racial identity, and this is why it is a hateful humiliation to have it pointed out that white is a racial identity, and this is what talk about whiteness does; it call into question and creates a vulnerability.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It is odd that you mention son, brother, father, husband, the latter two as sources of pride, yet don't get sex or orientation as part of identity. Perhaps you can understand this sort of thing in terms of the defaults on an identity profile. White, male, heterosexual, five-fingered, they go without saying, and only 'deviations' need to be mentioned. I always thought of you as a woman.
Read what I wrote again.
I said that I don't get making it a major part of one's identity, like some have stated in this thread. I never said that it wasn't part of one's identity. You are conflating some physical characteristic with identity. Sex and orientation are only part of these identities. They aren't identities themselves. You seem to get this because you are saying the same thing as I am in this regard. The identities are what are important as they encompass all of these characteristics. An identity is an amalgam of characteristics, not just one, or even two. I also pointed out that you have no control over your sex or orientation so that it would be ridiculous to be proud of something you have no control over.
Quoting unenlightened
What this shows is that sex (NOT their identity) is really, really important to you, and that you are a sexist, as if somehow you could glean someone's sex from posts on the internet - as if all women post the same. How sexist.
Very quick with the insults there. Have I offended you?
Quoting Baden
Consider two humiliating scenarios. The first is being overtaken by an inferior, for example, the 5-year-old that thrashes you at chess, when you think you're a reasonably strong player. The second is rejection by a superior, for example, the moderator deletes your pearls of wisdom.
Note that a change of world view can enable one to avoid the humiliation. 'Chess is a silly game anyway, I never took much interest in it, and it would be an embarrassment to be any good at it, like admitting to liking Star Wars.' or 'It's a pathetic site anyway, the moderators are all biased, stupid, already my inferiors, and it was a mistake on my part ever to have posted.'
Perhaps one can see a connection here with the operation of jealousy - the status value of a trophy wife is greatly reduced if she is unfaithful. To lose status is humiliation...
Quoting unenlightened
Not only do we write under pseudonyms here, we project edited, constructed public selves which may or may not be much like our in-the-flesh public self. This isn't a nude beach where we expose all as the price of admission. You can like my sock puppet or not, fuck you very much.
Quoting unenlightened
This is just your hostility bubbling up to the surface.
As any halfway decent troll knows, the main targets to aim for are intelligence, morality, or social status. Publicly trashing any of these characteristics is sure to drop anyones serotonin level.
There is something screwy and knotted up about the way you process the topic of race. I just don't see how "white" is not a racial identity, how identifying as white is a hateful humiliation, how having a racial identity and talking about whiteness as an identity creates a vulnerability and so on.
The "privilege of being white" (if one gets any of those privileges) derives from economic factors, political power, and social control. If whites are running things, there is a white privilege. I would imagine that there is a Han Chinese privilege in China.
Tim Wood speaks only to the Lowells, the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God.
Yes, it is screwy and knotted, how could it be otherwise? You surely don't expect race to have any legitimate significance, beyond the arbitrary social meanings imposed upon it? Indeed "white" is a social identity, very much so, and it has all the importance that has been projected on it. Here in the UK, it is almost considered racist to mention race, and people prefer to talk about 'ethnic minorities', and even on occasion 'ethnics'. And in another breath, there will be talk of 'British' or 'English' ethnicity and nationality become codes for race.
But when someone says, for example, "I don't really get the idea of using one's race, sex, or orientation as a major part of one's identity...", one has to wonder in all screwy knottiness, what it is they do not get, and why. And I don't have any difficulty understanding it, personally. I don't think of myself as "able-bodied", I take it for granted.
This taking for granted is the normality of identity.'We the people'. The position of maximum comfort is never to think of one's own identity; to be able to say without irony, "identity politics is divisive". As though only others have an identity.
Authenticity plays a funny role here, since it, too, seems to avoid being mapped by others.
Nicely put. Just to complicate matters on a more micro level (not regarding identity politics per se but just identity), my experience in systems of hierarchy in professional environments is that what draws power and effaces identity is less individuals re their particular positions in relation to each other, but the amount of commitment to its systems the organisation in which the hierarchy is instituted demands, and this tends to correlate positively with hierarchical level. There's kind of an exchange of power then, system power for personal identity power, which makes being on the bottom in some sense the best place re retaining authenticity.
Another way to put it would be the mapping both facilitates power and absorbs it both intra- and interpersonally. And the intrapersonal absorption happens slowly and perniciously. (Thinking of my experience working at a university here).
And it's uncomfortable taking about us. Naturally enough. I know I'd rather you'd just let me get on with banning people without having to think about the power differentials and their significance. And humiliation. Shudder. But I'll get over it.
Definitely, I've noticed it even in the hierarchical chains of a call center. But it seems less insidious there, where there's little pretense of being neutral purveyors of knowledge.
On whom does the benefit of this brave insistence devolve?
If some people in Great Britain identify as Scot, Irish, Indian, Kenyan, or Polish, how does that "othering" affect you? If you identify as a Welsh man, you have othered that much larger part of the world that isn't Welsh, which makes what difference to whom? In what way are you affected by the identity of people in Arizona, Peru, Bali, Timbuktu, or the semi-detached house next door?
The group identity of people in Peru is a matter for Peruvians. Ditto for those of Arizona, Bali, or Timbuktu. It doesn't concern you or me, and visa versa.
On the brave contributors to this thread, especially the ones I have humiliated.
All those other chaps you have mentioned can go about their business in contented contradiction. Except these:
Quoting Bitter Crank
This is obviously bollocks. If I am a Peruvian, then it is a matter for me, and I decide to be a Peruvian. Therefore I am a Peruvian. Try that at the next border crossing and see how it goes.
I'm not sure where you and @csalisbury are going with this. My first suspicion is that it is a purely mechanical effect - "the system" empowers and alienates, because the power is not authentically owned in the first place. 'Moderator' is not a property of a poster but a software category. I cannot imagine what an 'authentic moderator' would be like. One gains the power of the machine by becoming a cog (or a sub-routine).
Also, I'm not at all sure that 'personal identity power' ( do you mean something like charisma?) is necessarily authentic in the first place.
Yes, and voluntarily so. That’s the exchange. So, within an organisation, when you exercise systemic power, you enforce the identity of the organization's system on yourself as well as on the person over whom you exercise the power. Personal identity power would be a more authentic potential exercised outside that context, one more expressive of your particular attributes, skills, inclinations, beliefs etc. Of course, we are always in some context, so it's more complicated (I think you can generalize outwards from organizations into society as a whole and how it exercises, maintains, and reproduces its systemic power), but it's to point out that the powerful can become effaced of identity in the exercise of their power. And that that’s a different kind of humiliation that's harder to see because it's presented as a reward, a conditional status . So, “Success” as humiliation, but where the humiliation is sublated by the system and belief in its value. And this relies on a view of identity whereby it's constructed both of the past and the depth and breadth of future possibilities reflected into the present, becoming effaced as these possibilities lose their volume and density, with long-term engagement with systems a major means of this paring down.
So,
Quoting unenlightened
1) A supervisor disciplining a lower-level employee not because the employee did anything he/she considers morally or ethically wrong but because the employee broke a company rule (let’s say an unreasonable or ill-thought out one). The supervisor goes by the book and enforces a punishment he/she doesn’t believe is merited.
2) An employee being disciplined by a supervisor when he/she has done nothing morally or ethically wrong.
Who is more humiliated here? At least the employee can retain their sense of contempt for the rule. The supervisor though has made it part of his/her identity by enforcing it even though he/she doesn’t believe in it.
And:
Quoting unenlightened
This can work for the employee, but not so much for the supervisor for whom a change of worldview is in some way enforced and is the humiliation.
I earlier said:
Quoting Baden
But it’s not the full picture because the social takes many forms (e.g. the workplace as hierarchical system vs the workplace as broader social system) and humiliations may advance some forms of social power while simultaneously undermining others. And they may be acute and explicit or chronic and implicit.
Getting back to this:
Quoting unenlightened
I agree, but I’m claiming that humiliation can and does interpose at both ends of the power dynamic. For the “losers” identity is threatened explicitly and acutely. For the “winners”, it can be a chronic and implicit loss.
That's a wrong question.
Quoting Baden
Agreed. and I think this is where authenticity can be invoked. In your example, the supervisor is not doing the job, the job is doing him, and so the bubble of imagined power makes him vulnerable. It's the same as my chess-player, who is vulnerable to a five-year-old if he's not as good as he thinks he is.
I think one has to be a bit careful though; the judge that sentences an innocent man, I suppose in some god's eye view one could say that the innocent can maintain his dignity, but in merely human terms, his authentic innocence does nothing for him. You get sold into slavery, you can be as virtuous and authentic as anything, you still get whipped and worked, and chained, and it would be invidious to make a comparison with any possible humiliation of the slave-owner.
We may be heading in to Hegelian territory with that :) But yes, I'm probably stretching the meaning of "humiliation" here.
Sorry 'bout that, boss. ;)
Ah, perhaps that was too telegraphic. I've decided to be ill for a bit, so I'll maybe explain later if anyone is bothered.
I agree - dignity is not a zero sum game, nor something that we are self-evidently born with. We are born naked, vulnerable and utterly dependent on others for our every need. Our dignity is in our potential, and our potential is not self-evident, but realised in interaction with others. There is no dignity in isolation - nor is there identity or humiliation, for that matter.
Humiliation is the denial of one’s status claims: destroying or tearing down the various structures of identity that protect us from this experience of being naked, vulnerable and utterly dependent on others to achieve anything. We feel humiliated whenever this truth about us is exposed, because our sense of dignity is apparently built into these structures of identity.
As Whitney Houston said, ‘you can’t take away my dignity’: but I must recognise that my dignity is not built into structures of identity, but inherent in the unlimited human potential that is often concealed or inhibited by these structures.
My identity as a ‘white Australian’, for instance, conceals a greater potential afforded to me than my identity as the child of an Asian migrant, but less than my identity as a human being. And my identity as ‘Catholic’ would likely inhibit your view of my potential as a philosopher, and open my presence in this forum up to humiliation by those who would destroy the status claims of Catholicism or Christianity - should I choose to defend either, or stake my sense of dignity or pride on them. The more I define my identity, the more I build my sense of dignity into these structures, and the further I get from the truth of my humanity: not only from my nakedness, vulnerability and dependence, but from my unlimited potential.
If you take away the clothes I am wearing that protect me from nakedness in public, you apparently take away my dignity, and thus humiliate me. And if a kind soul then approaches and wraps a cloak around me, he appears to restore that dignity. But if my own sense of dignity is in my potential and not in the clothing, then I lose nothing of value. That is not to say that this act of kindness meant nothing - on the contrary, one must first recognise in this naked, vulnerable form, the dignity and potential of a human being, before interacting to help restore their sense of dignity in the minds of others.
A human being who retains their own sense of dignity despite recognising themselves as ultimately naked, vulnerable and dependent has more potential (ie. capacity to develop, achieve and succeed) than one who has built the most powerful, autonomous and popular identity structure on the planet. And in this one human being’s courageous interaction with the world (much of whom would see only the humiliation), they can also help many others to realise their own potential in the process.
Our aim is not to increase our freedom from, but to increase awareness of our potential by developing our interconnectedness. We feel most ‘free’ when we are naked, vulnerable and unashamedly connected with the universe in every possible way - then anything is possible.
If it really is the "us" that defines the "me", then how is it that you (part of the "us") got this wrong?
How is it that social constructions get anything wrong? How is it that society got the origin of humans so wrong for so long? The answer is that there is this underlying physical reality that relates to the social construction (group-think) in it's degree of accuracy, or truth.
There is a confusion; if as I have been suggesting, humiliation is loss of status - a public matter, if somewhat nebulous, of social standing, then we can answer the question. And the answer will have to do with how the incident feeds out into the wider world, who controls the story, how the other managers and other workers respond.
The confusion, though is that the question seems to want to measure personal feelings. As though the incident has no external consequences, but is a matter of states of mind. Suppose I say, 'I am very sensitive, so I suffer more humiliation than you would in the same situation.' And you might reply, 'Actually you are wrong, you think you are very sensitive but actually you are rather insensitive and don't even notice the sensitivity of others.' Perhaps I have been like Nelson all these years...
There is the status you have in the community, official and unofficial.
There is the status you perform in the community that you believe or not
There is the status of the heart, what you say to the mirror.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I'm always stuck in these conversations at the beginning. I assume you have a state of mind, I assume you live in a society. I'd like to be able to assume that you understand that nationality is a social construct, and that this means something.
It means you don't generally get to choose your nationality, you don't get to ignore it. It is something that affects your life, where you can live, what you can do. It also means it is made up by humans, and is something you can be stripped of at the stroke of a pen.
You might have a deeply held belief in the oneness of humanity, to the extent that you claim citizenship of the world. This is a personal construct. It only becomes a social construct when the border guards will let you pass.
" If dignity is a zero sum game... ", I said in my second post. And since then there has been a fruitless discussion of whether it is or it isn't.
As if there were a fact of the matter. :roll:
There is no fact of the matter because it is a social construct and can be constructed either way. And that was the point of mentioning its featuring on television, a major means of social construction.
It's time to get used to the fact that you live in a world where most of the facts are made up, but are still facts in the way they impinge on you, and the way you have no choice about them.
So here's how it goes down. You're a tv executive with time to fill, and you decide to make a programme about needlework. God, that's about as dull as ditchwater, how can we spice it up? I know, we'll introduce some 'experts' and have them set tasks for this other group of 'ordinary people' with a time limit , and then their work will be judged, and they'll gradually be thrown off until the last on is the winner... call it the Great British Prick off. So the excitement of jeopardy needs to be added to needlework in order to make it worth watching rather than doing. Winners and losers, zero sum. One does needlework to make a product, and that is not zero sum, but this is television, not needlework. The nature of the flickering screen dictates the game, and the game that we watch for half the day, is liable to become the game we play for the other half. And you see it here - conversation becomes battle, we are not looking together, but competing.
'can be constructed either way'
One part of me - the sensitive, sad - really wants this to be true. Another part - the agonistic, eristic - doesn't. The reflective part of me isn't sure, but skews pessimistic.
Reading groups can be collaborative, a community of the mutually dignifying, but only if they keep out those who get in the way of collaboration. Access has to be regulated, some must be excluded.
Who gets access? Even if someone's not intentionally sowing seeds of discord, they may still have an unsavory tendency to try to steer conversation toward the 'wrong' topics. 'I think Melville was trying to say the same thing I was in My Theory of Why Time is an Illusion....I think Conrad was trying to say the same thing I was in My Theory of Why Time is an Illusion.... 'I think you raise a good point, Mike, i think it helps illustrate how Austen seems to have a sense that time isn't what it seems.'
But how do we know that we aren't as misguided as that guy? He's so in it, he has no way to get outside it to see himself. There's no way around it - we have to take into account the reactions of those in the group. But if they react the same way to everyone, how can we tell what's real and what's mere politeness? One of my earliest threads on the old forum was something like- Are movies Hegelian sublations of sublations? A: No, what does that mean, seems unlikely you've actually read Hegel, you're trying too hard. The only way to determine where we're at (barring some innate, infallible inner-genius) is to see who gets shown respect and who gets shown the door.
But is it that stark? What if, for those who show genuine good-will, we have a multitiude of different groups where each person will have a place appropriate to what they want to discuss? All good, as long as no one feels like they're not being excluded from a certain group not merely because its simply a bad fit, but because they're not up to those standards. Competition arises organically. TV Producers, like tribal leaders, make use of that. Plato frames the true/false in terms of claimants. Before that, in China, leaders clamored to prove they had the mandate of heaven.
Just as you differentiate yourself by being the one who both (1) understands what others were saying about the banned poster but (2) has an additional understanding of the underlying dynamic of humiliation, I try to differentiate myself with regard to your post in the same way. Rich (or socially established) whites maintain their identity by denying it and decrying identity in general. So too maintaining and denying dignity-through-de-dignifying.
Is it escapable? In the vale of tears?
So, moderators are superior now, are they? How convenient! :joke:
It involved stabbing and then pulling the blade sideways. The goal was to cut the abdominal aorta.
Quoting csalisbury
I don't understand all your references, I'm sorry. But read that 'can be' in the light of the necessary limits exemplified by television. If I am heading towards a conclusion, I suppose it is an attempt to understand my own other.
Quoting csalisbury
Well that is your judgement to make. I will defend and deny my identity by not arguing either way. Indeed, I am not arguing against competition and zero sum games. I'm just saying that when I was a kid, we used to go to the beach and build a sandcastle, and pick up some pretty wet stones and go for a swim. and nobody won, and nobody lost, and everyone got a prize of an ice cream. And that was an exciting wonderful day, even though when the stones dried out they looked rather dull. And once a year, there would be a ploughing competition, and someone would win and the others lose, but the rest of the time folks would just plough as needed, and it would be good enough. And I make bread every few days, because I like to, and sometimes it is just so, and sometimes it is a bit not quite, and sometimes I make something a bit fancy. But I don't plan to be on the Great British Bake Off, any more than I plan to be on the Great British Fuck Off. They actually turn a joy to a misery for the titillation of spectators.
Now, if one reflects that back onto identity, then the wisdom of Harry:
Quoting Harry Hindu
... while I might quibble with the hierarchical reference, is my own view exactly. My bread is good, and it really doesn't matter if someone else's bread is better or worse, as long as there is cheese.
Cheese for everyone, or only for those whose bread is "worse"?
Some people don't like bread and like only cheese. Some people are lactose intolerant.
Are you saying humiliation is socially constructed? If so, are you saying it's a recent thing? I find it hard to understand your position or what this thread is about.
Quoting csalisbury
Nobody decries identity, I assume you mean they decry group identity and by group identity, you mean that they decry the notion that they should be dealt with purely based on what groups they belong to. Is that correct?
Well they can all just fuck off and die, can't they?
Quoting Judaka
No. I mean yes. I mean no. If you haven't experienced humiliation, then clearly you are too fuck-witted to follow this discussion, never mind participate in it.
D'you see what I did there? I attempted to invoke a sensation of momentary humiliation in you, in order to demonstrate that it is a feeling, a sensation, a psychological condition or relation to oneself. But it is also a social effect, because it involves me, in this case, presenting you with an image of yourself from my p.o.v. in conflict with the one you propose by posting. The social world is not a clean world; it is infected with the physical and with the psychological, and in turn infects them. There is the physical shrinking shamefaced hangdog behaviour that dogs exhibit as well as humans, there is the psychological experience that that behaviour expresses, and there is the social interaction that produces it.
And nothing is new about this, it is as old as Adam or older. All I am saying about modernity is that it moves in a certain direction ideologically because of the exigencies of modern media. Another amusing example is that the need of the porn industry to get a clear shot has produced the strange aesthetic of pubic shaving. It becomes the norm because that's what everyone sees... and try and ignore the itching, rashes, and infections that result, or buy some 'product'...
Which direction is that?
What do those things have to do with humiliation and what makes you believe that we didn't always have a penchant for things like sensationalism and melodrama? If society is trending towards isolation, passivity and despair, why is the media partly to blame for this and why do you think society is trending towards those things?
Usually, by this point, I'd be responding to you with my own opinions but I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to have opinions about yet.
Humiliation is the feeling of loss of status. In a zero sum game the winner gains status and the losers lose it in proportion.
I don't think that. People have aways tended to like sugary foods, modern people tend to eat more of them, because bla bla.
Media need to excite because viewing is passive. Specifically, watching a food programme does not tickle the taste buds or satisfy hunger. So they need to make a bland experience exciting by turning it into a competition with winners and losers. So the topic of food is no longer ideologically about sharing, meeting each others needs, cooperating, but about competing to impress the experts and win the Masterchef crown, or apron or whatever it is. And there can only be one winner, so it mainly about people losing and leaving.
So it's exciting, and people watch, and while they watch, they learn that cooking food is very difficult and dangerous, and they'd better get in a takeaway.
It's like the facebook effect. The only thing facebook wants is to grow facebook, and make everyone look at facebook and facebook ads, and give facebook their information. They don't do this by making everyone happy, but by making everyone anxious, just as every advert humiliates you a little. "You're so dumb, you you can't even brush your own teeth. But with Dr Foul's patent tooth brushing device, even you can brush like a pro."
I agree on what humiliation is if we add that humiliation is the feeling of perceived loss of status. When I think about the things people feel humiliation about, cooking is one of them. If we had a philosophy forum get-together and I cooked meal for everyone or baked some cookies and you told me it was inedible, I might feel humiliated about that.
I watch a lot of anime and this is actually a trope where female characters will cook badly and either the men will say it was good to avoid humiliating the woman or the female character will notice it was bad and feel embarrassed about it. I suppose it's up to them whether they are embarrassed or humiliated.
It's also a trope in anime for women to feel very competitive about cooking and particularly feeling insecure if they can't cook as well as another woman.
I don't believe that cooking shows are responsible for cooking being perceived as competitive. I think that competitions do humiliate people but I think if cooking shows humiliate people for being awful at cooking then this is actually a good thing for people who suck at cooking because it lowers the bar for them and gives them more confidence in themselves (unwarranted confidence).
I think in general our society is actually becoming more ideologically disposed against competition. Instead, we tell everyone that it's not about winning but having fun, everyone is special and great. There's a growing victimhood culture where losing is being celebrated and it's not just on the left. Look at the "incel" community, where status is achieved by failing at literally the most core competition on Earth which is reproduction rights, many there brag about being low-status, undesirable men. You are shamed if you are a "chad" and everything is just easy for you and you get all the women so we don't like you.
Ideas like race/gender quotas and equality of outcome which attempt to lessen competition in the workplace. These are ideas pushed by the mainstream media too.
I would be surprised if nothing became more competitive due to the kinds of stuff you're talking about but in general, I think the media is against competition. The reason zero-sum competitive cooking, singing and talent shows are popular is most likely because people are more inherently interested in such things. Anime is another example, there's another trope of "self-insert" characters where the protagonist just kind of goes around being awesome and styling on all his adversaries.
People have always and will always think about things in competitive terms and will enjoy competition and the public humiliation of not just losers but anyone really. There is a LOT of tv focused on the humiliation of people besides competition, though again, I think people just always wanted this and now TV are just trying to give the people what they want.
Yes, I have heard that rhetoric too. I remember there was a version I heard at school - "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. However, the way the school was organised was that everything from building model aeroplanes to drama to tying your tie was made into a competition and winning was made really really important, with cups, with prize-giving, with social status, little privileges, and losing was punished in little ways too. It's called doublespeak, and there's a lot of it about.
Quoting Judaka
You'd be amazed at how even tv has changed in just a few years. Cookery programmes in the 60's were ... educational! Like, one person, demonstrating a recipe. They were like cookery classes at school, which were also a thing, because there weren't any celebrity chefs, any more than there were celebrity bin-men. But people needed to eat, so they needed to cook. Hurrah for ordinary! Not a slogan you are probably familiar with.
I was interested in the discussions regarding humiliation and identity. Trying to entice more discussion of this, some opinions:
Humiliation can be defined as depriving someone of their previously held pride. Double-checking with Wiktionary, it can also be defined as making someone humble, i.e. endowing them with humility.
Here’s a possible monkey wrench thrown in: humility is not always a personal negative, as humiliation is understood to always be.
Speaking from some personal experience, a person can gain great happiness from being made more humble by other’s actions and abilities—given that what humbles oneself is the ability of some other which one greatly reveres in society at large, as well as in oneself. A trite example: I’ve been known to like and to dabble in poetry. I can distinctly remember times I was elated at being humbled by others’ poetry at poetry readings. Same can hold true for most any other talent or ability. It elates the spirit to know that what one values in the world is not only present in it but excels what one previously was aware of as being present. One is here humbled and simultaneously enlivened with verve, hope, and, sometimes, rekindled aspirations.
On a different train of thought: Christian doctrine is fond of saying that the meek (the humble) shall one day rule the world (paraphrasing—and leaving the issue of historical hypocrisy out of it). Here, humility, the state of being humble, is pivotally valued (at least in speech).
However, for some—and going by dictionary definitions, for many—to be made humble is necessarily synonymous to being humiliated (in the negative connotation sense). And, in the process, one is made subservient to that which one was once not subservient to. Hence being made humble—aka, humiliation—is here synonymous to abasement and loss of power (i.e., ability to accomplish).
Tying this into identity:
Personal identity can be thought of as that which one at core is, which to me can be made into a dichotomy. In one train of thought, there’s identity of character: this can be one’s affinities and aversions, and, hence, one’s sum intentions: i.e., one’s character. Here one identifies which others of like characters (e.g., people who like the same music for the same roundabout reasons, who hold the same roundabout values for life, who make the same decisions one would oneself make (were one to be in the same situation), etc.) and will not identify with others of unlike characters (e.g., people who proudly cheat, steal, lie, deride, murder, etc.). In a different train of thought, there’s identity of physicality: the core of what one is is here intuited as consisting of physical elements: ones skin/hair/eye color, one’s height/size (e.g. midgets as the “other”), one’s sex, one’s owned possessions, etc.
Its complex due to the two stated forms of personal identity always being to some extent converged, but to keep things on the simple side: Where race plays a crucial factor to personal identity, one will tend to favor others of unrelated characters—say, unethical individuals—just as long as they are of the same race, this by comparison to those individuals of related characters (say, ethical individuals) who differ from you in their racial makeup. The converse applies for those who self-identify most with their own propensities of intention: here, one tends to form bonds of empathy, etc., with those of like natures regardless of their race, nationality, economic class, etc.
Re: identity and humiliation
Those who identify with a zero-sum worldviews shall always be humiliated in being made humble. In this worldview, to not be on top of others is to necessarily be trampled by those who are on top. Here, to be humble is to be trampled upon as someone else’s inferior (and being trampled upon is here always shame-worthy).
The same entailment does not apply to those who do not so identify with zero-sum worldviews (egalitarians included, I presume). More likely, here the “other” is found to be those who strictly pertain to a zero-sum worldview of winner/looser relations—regardless of their physical attributes (be they rich or poor, etc.). That guy who was filmed standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square (hope most know of him) seems to serve as an example of this personal identity type: He didn’t lose pride in so doing, though he likely knew he was taking the risk in losing all his social capital, if not also his very life (potentially via torture). Else said, he wasn’t humiliated by the powers that disdained him and wanted him to be “put in his place” of subservience, this while seeming to retain his humility (and dignity in so being)—and the risks he took were for others of the same character which he himself identified with (those who desired non-autocratic governance), rather than people of particular colors, ethnicities, etc.
Place IMOs wherever you may; and, again, I know its complex; society has always been a conflux of these two personal-identity worldviews; and the two identity types can be easily found comingling in most individuals to different extents.
In short: The less humble, the greater the ego(ism), and hence the greater the potential humiliation—and, thereby, the greater the want/need to crush others who could make one humble. (acknowledgedly, this coming from someone with an ego of notable size, me thinks). Those who are humble in dignified manners, however, will in due measure not be humiliated by ridicule (though they might lose their ability to accomplish what they want).
I’ll cut these opinions short. Still, I’d like to read more views out there concerning identity and humiliation in general. Nice topic.
In general, I think people are born competitive and most animals are extremely competitive besides humans. It's just how things are and culturally cooking may have been portrayed in television as educational and non-competitive but what we're seeing now is just the natural progression of things.
I think you are reminiscing about a past that never really existed but perhaps I'm wrong. It's just unsurprising to me that a treasured skill is thought of competitively. I'm a rather competitive person myself, I don't like to lose and if I don't think competitively about something it's just because I don't care about it. It's been like that since I was young and since then I've met kids who were exactly like me - can't stand to lose, in anything and the cultural representation of this is a product of our biological values interpretative proclivities.
Quoting javra
I think you'll actually find the greatest potential humiliation comes from not big egos but weak egos and insecurity. Imagine this, a girl has been trying to choose a dress for the prom, she thinks about it really hard and goes with this yellow dress, she's really not sure about whether others' will like it but she hopes they will. She goes to prom with her yellow dress and walking in she sees one of the most popular girls in school. She laughs and says "omg what a disgusting dress" in front of everybody.
She's horrified! All of her worse fears came true.
What if it wasn't an insecure girl though, someone who wore this yellow dress and didn't care at all. She thinks "who does this bitch think she is, making fun of my dress?"
More examples like imagine you really enjoy tennis, your new friend from work hears about this and asks you to fill in for his partner who can't play, you agree - confident in your skills. You rock up, thinking you will be showing off your skills but quickly as you start to play, you realise these guys are much better than you.
Your co-worker is watching you mess up all the time and saying "don't worry about it" but you feel you're letting him down. Everyone from work thinks you're really good at tennis, how would you feel thinking you'll be exposed when you go back to work after the game? Did he tell anyone?
What's the difference between feeling embarrassed and humiliated?
It's about whether you perhaps think your teammate is not actually fine with you making mistakes, you wonder if he is thinking "oh god, this guy sucks, I should have asked someone else" or not. This feeling of losing status. I agree with unenlightened on this. People who think their high status is untouchable are less likely to feel humiliated than people who care about their status and fear to lose it. So whether you've got a big ego or not, only impacts how likely you are to perceive loss of status, bigger ego mightn't see it as easily because they always see themselves in an unrealistically positive light.
I am rarely sincere, or direct on here. So this won't sound like it's either of those things.It will sound rhetorical. It isn't, but I can't prove that.
I think about these kinds of memories a lot, I have a few important ones I return to. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that all I ultimately care about is getting back to the feeling I think you're describing.
And it also isn't a rhetorical thing when I say that I'm realizing more and more that I've unconsciously edited out the negative parts of these memories. Kids are dicks, kick over other kids sandcastles. Perfect memories usually are founded on near-perfect repressions. These idylls feel uncomfortably close to the idylls of nostalgic germans or russians circa when its relevant
Quoting Judaka
And if that doesn't teach you to respect your elders, I don't know what will.
Quoting javra
I think this is more or less in line with what I have beens saying: I want to stay away from positive and negative, because these constructions are reflexive. If humility is a virtue, then it gives status and is a source of pride. This is a rabbit hole of paradox I acknowledge but would like to simply avoid because the conversation will become impossible.
But generally, we are playing in the field of competing images, and some images are supported by power structures. So if I think I'm a damn fine philosopher, but everyone else on the site thinks I'm a pedantic old fart and not worth talking to, then my self image is liable to be challenged. I don't know really if I want to say that there is a fact of the matter or not - I have in mind Van Gogh not selling a painting in his lifetime... Still he had artist friends. Here, the images with power are those of the moderators and any who already have their respect (see the feedback again?). If they think I'm not worth talking to, then that cannot be ignored the way an ordinary member's opinion of me can.
Quoting javra
This is quite interesting to me. It looks as though there are in the case of the guy in front of the tanks, 2 conflicting world views, both of which might be zero sum, but with opposing signs ... the guy is hero or villain he is humiliated or the army is humiliated.
If so, then it doesn't quite get to the place I am wanting to contrast with zero sum. There is nothing ordinary about the guy or his act.
Yes, I'm not really in the nostalgia business as such, because (a) it was crap at the time, and (b) it lead to this. I hope I'm doing something more interesting, which is to start to tease out some of the forces behind social change. I am partizan in finding a certain worldview abhorrent and destructive, but I'm not promoting the good old days at all; they were worse in many ways and more competitive in someways, more humiliating, more cruel. I'm only trying to illustrate a distinction, and open up a possibility.
You bring a good counter example. I’m tempted to theorize that we are humiliated in the examples you’ve given on account of valuing the opinions of those who humiliate us to the point that our self-esteem is dependent on their opinions. Were we to not value their opinions, we’d be injured, hurt, would possibly lose social capital, but not in modes that represent (at least what I interpret to be) humiliation—which, to me, indicates a loss of personal dignity.
Or—my ego sayin’ this might be an even better rebuttal—big egos necessarily require insecure egos to be subservient in order to so be or become big egos. Deprived of subservient insecure egos, big egos become insecure egos themselves, that are then subservient to other big egos. If true, it’s the flipside of the same coin, or of the same worldview. Insecure egos require praise from without in order to feel dignified—and will often become big egos themselves when this praise is consistent (thereby safeguarding that they no longer feel insecure by means of being big egos).
Gandhi might exemplify someone who was neither. The guy was humble (not weak, but quite confident and capable without being inflated) and was ridiculed galore at the time by his oppressors. His self-esteem was not contingent on popular opinion. And, although he ended up winning his battle, there was no guarantee of this. If he would have lost, he would have lost big time. But I doubt he would have died feeling humiliated.
So if a person wears extravagant clothing not to show off or to get compliments but due to it being an honest portrayal of what they deem to be aesthetic, and is well grounded in their reasoning and emotions, some popular other claiming the attire to be awful will not humiliate the person—because the person will know better. No big ego required. Though the experience would likely yet be unpleasant for the individual.
Quoting Judaka
Hm. I can only speak for my current state of understanding. To me humiliation cuts to the very marrow of bone, such that one’s sense of dignity becomes lost, whereas embarrassment does not. One can be embarrassed and still hold dignity in so being.
Quoting Judaka
In the book/movie Dangerous Liaisons, the villainess had one of the bigger egos one can imagine. Yet when publicly booed at the end of the story, was mortified by humiliation. Does this seem unrealistic to you? (Other easily expressed examples don’t currently come to mind).
At any rate, I’ve mentioned a simplified theory of what I think might be going on. Though, again, I’m aware that human psychology is very complex.
What do you make of the above? Would you say Gandhi had a big ego and, if so, why?
I’ll get back to your post at a later time.
Trump might be a good example. He’s continually ruthlessly ridiculed and yet appears to remain ever confident. Sociopathic narcissism could make him a special case, however, if that’s an accurate diagnosis.
Tangled up in the blue humiliation game is the factor that is applied to oneself by oneself.
Somewhere in the formation of identity in the Erik Erikson sense of the development of personality, individuals start kicking their own asses.
The activity is closely related to social norms and structures of value. But it has a life of its own. It is difficult to describe by itself. It is mostly known as attempts to circumscribe or negate an agent.
To explain it puts it a distance. To not explain it lets it rule without protest.
There it is.
Humiliation definitely isn't predicated on valuing other peoples' opinions it's predicated on caring about other peoples' opinions. That care is not necessarily based on respect either.
You can feel humiliated by messing up in front of someone you look down on precisely because you look down on them and you don't want them thinking you're not better than they are. That's why people with big egos can be very defensive and insecure, they have to be the best at everything, never admit they're wrong, they are never graceful in defeat and don't like to praise others.
Quoting javra
Big ego comes from a feeling of superiority which is generally reinforced either with biological proclivities or interpretative reinforcement. That can be a belief in your intellectual superiority, the superiority of your character or beliefs but those are just relatable examples, there are lots.
Lots of people thinking you're awesome can create that feeling of superiority but it isn't the only pre-requisite.
Quoting javra
Goth culture is a classic example of this being true. They expect others not to like their attire, it's not something they predicate their ego on that everyone will like it and I suppose they become desensitised to it. Someone like Gandhi is an example of a very strong ego, which means, it's based on very strong and stable things. Things like his beliefs, his morals and his motivations - not things which people other than himself can challenge easily. Compare that to how cool you think you look, well, people can contest that very easily and that's a huge problem for you. It means you need to take those kinds of criticisms seriously. They assault your belief in yourself, your pride and your identity.
Quoting javra
@praxis gave a perfect example of Trump, a person who isn't fazed whatsoever by criticism because it appears he views a failure to see him as a great guy is a character deficit in of itself. He calls the media liars, he gives racist explanations for why African-Americans didn't vote for him and he insults his opponents viciously.
Much like a Goth, Trump is still not like Gandhi in having a strong ego, it's just that Trump has become desensitised and dismissive of most criticism from most people. Your villainess may have predicated her ego on a perceived outward perception of her which when undermined caused humiliation. I think doing this to some degree is normal and healthy but having a big ego makes you more susceptible to it and not less. Only people who have conditions for their ego which preclude certain criticism or criticism from certain people can make those ideas irrelevant. I think truth is an example for most people, that's why being in denial to avoid humiliation is so common.
I very much agree with this.
Quoting unenlightened
For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to try to distill two identity types and hope the end result won’t sound too fictitious. On one side is the authoritarian; this guy can only be when and if there are subordinates/losers/weaklings/idiots/etc. by which his proud title of dominator/winner/strong guy/intellectual that is of a different class than the inferiors is gained; here is found supremacist attitudes and autocratic governance. On the other side is the egalitarian; this guy believes in the ideal that we are all at least birthed of equal value and deserve to be treated impartially for what we are as persons, at the very least before the law; here is found a far more complex grouping of beliefs that include those of multicultural attitudes (even if it only means not visiting a foreign country as though one were taking a trip to Disneyland), democratic ethos and governance, and a valuing for objectivity, impartiality, and truth … here you can on occasion also find tree-huggers and we-are-all-one-ers … it’s a complex bunch.
The two are in conflict, because their wants are directly antagonistic. To the authoritarian, the egalitarian’s want to make his environment more egalitarian indicates that the equalitarian is a direct threat to the authoritarian’s wellbeing; the more egalitarian things become, the more the authoritarian loses his status of supremacy and hence his very being; the equalitarian is a source of terror, and the sole roundabout means at the disposal of the authoritarian to safeguard his very life and identity is to destroy the egalitarian’s identity as such—either via death or via some form of enslavement. Ditto for the equalitarian; he too finds the authoritarian guy to be a threat to his life and identity; only that the egalitarian tends to want to turn the authoritarian into someone who is also egalitarian, for that’s what in the nature of egalitarians to want. The egalitarian thinks, we’ll then be buds and both enjoy the gist of John Lennon’s “Imagine”. But what he often does not see is that, were he to be successful, he’d destroy the authoritarian’s identity as such—turning him into something he has so far not been.
The authoritarian does his best to humiliate the equalitarian by trying to make him feel like an inferior, which can include leaving him penniless—unless the equalitarian starts playing the authoritarian’s game of giving homage to what the authoritarian wills (much like a mafia cartel, this is when the authoritarian claims to be responsible for keeping his subordinates safe from harm and whatnot).
The equalitarian does his best to humiliate the authoritarian by shouting things like, “shame, shame, shame!” when the authoritarian lies, cheats, steals, etc. … not really carrying that the authoritarian couldn’t give two dimes about this word which reference an emotion he’s never personally experienced. Still, egalitarians for the most part don’t find great conform in humiliating others. Restraining others when appropriate, sure, but with as much dignity as is feasibly possible.
But to shorten this up: the two are, in an odd enough way, themselves stuck in a zero-sum dilemma of sorts. The authoritarian must destroy the identity of the egalitarian if the authoritarian is to maintain his way of life—and this by making the equalitarian into a fearful inferior that learns to love kissing ass and Big Brother. Conversely, the egalitarian can only maintain his way of life if he destroys the present identity of the authoritarian—this by turning the authoritarian into that which the authoritarian has always despised as being weak, stupid, mushy, etc.
Still, two authoritarians in the same room will antagonistically conflict till one is the top dog over the other. Here, there can be only one winner in the zero-sum game—with quote unquote lesser winners being those who kiss ass properly.
Two egalitarians in the same room will do their best to coexist, and will often be benefited by their efforts, with mushy aspects such as gained wisdom, fraternal love, etc. Here, the zero-sum game is won when everyone becomes, or else is, of an egalitarian ethos.
Humanity has always been composed of both characters, and these have always been antagonistic toward each other in their own ways. I’ll add my observation that villains most always tend to be of an authoritarian slant.
To get back to the example of the guy who stood in front of a tank. Because he was antagonistic to the authoritarianism of his environment, I place him in the egalitarian camp. But I still don’t believe that he stood any chance of being humiliated. Suppose a tank ran over a leg. He’d have felt pain galore, but, I’m thinking, not humiliation because his ideals (and his accordance to them) would have remained intact.
It’s the ideal of being top dog (and accordance to this ideal) that becomes damaged when one loses material things, be this legs or wealth or the popular opinion of the times (here thinking of abolitionist in the US: they were in the minority, and initially didn’t have popular opinion on their side). This causing autocrats, roughly speaking, to be humiliated by such events—but not egalitarians. The egalitarian black slave who was caught in the act of being of an egalitarian ethos and then viciously whipped may have lost a great many things, but not their dignity.
My late night way of going about my reply.
I'll reply later.
To be in pain, pissed, or even in states of despair over the injustice that befalls oneself is, to you, to be in states of humiliation without exception. OK
Your argument for this in simplified format:
Quoting unenlightened
OK
Not much left to discuss on my part.
No, I don't think you're catching my drift. What I think of myself, that I am British, that I am a fine philosopher, red hot lover etc. is important, but there are others, faceless bureaucrats, moderators, the lovely local ladies, who by their actions confirm or deny that identity. That the lovely ladies like to visit confirms my identity and realises it. makes it a reality, rather than my fantasy. There is personal identity, and there is social identity and it is in the interaction or reconciliation between them that humiliation or elevation takes place.
My bad in misinterpreting, then. As things go, I of course agree that your last post presents an accurate general overview. Most generalities do have their exceptions, though. I admire good willed people that persevere through hard times, rather than having their will broken – more specifically, rather than succumbing to unjustly imposed societal humiliation by becoming in fact humiliated at heart (they include some Jews that went through the Holocaust – from what I've gathered in my life, at least). I’d like to think that what I’ve just said is somehow intelligible to you. Was trying to speak up for those I find admiration for. (To be honest, this because I’d like to have a social context with more such people in it – and denying their presence, or even possibility, is antithetical to such want.)
If your sarcasm’s jab doesn’t contain hypocrisy, then you uphold that every social movement that has ever been was conducted by a bunch of cretins. Unless, that is, no risks in being humiliated by the powers that be were incurred in speaking truth to power—as though this were a realistic model of how the world is.
A contemporary example: Have those in charge call investigative journalists “the enemy of the people”, and only those who are deplorable cretins will continue investigating and reporting the same issues rather than becoming humiliated into proper shape. And yes, these unwanted journalists sometimes get assassinated (crucified, allegorically speaking)—in some countries a lot more than in others. Your rebuke: These journalists are imbeciles living in Lala land for not becoming properly humiliated in a timely manner; or even better, for not living life in manners that eliminate the risk of humiliation to begin with.
Or am I misunderstanding you yet once again? Maybe you’re totally cool with crucifying principled non-conformists, ya’ know, like those in the USA who claim that climate change is not a hoax. Imbeciles that they are, because a certain Trump so treats them.
Hmm. I was not being sarcastic, I don't think i was being hypocritical, and I don't for certain think that social movements are conducted by cretins. I'm pointing out that power generally does not like having truth spoken to it, and the archetype of the truth speaker was Jesus, a non-cretin who got crucified. I'm just reminding the world that the path of righteousness tends to be punished not rewarded. Social activists do not have a great time, they do not become wealthy, they tend to be arrested and imprisoned, they tend to be smeared and reviled, and many do not even become old. I don't wish it to be so, but so it is.