What's up with people who contradict themselves on their own sincerity & can't see their own faults?
I made a friend once and I noticed they did this alot. Then today I met one of their friends for the first time and noticed it was a similar trait.
In the first friend I would copy one of their major flaws and it would be so blatant that they would call me out on the fault and then I would proceed to describe to them how they did exactly the same thing but they would deny it. They would also point out flaws that I had that they also had but would deny they had it also even after examples.
The second friend today really went on about how she praised sincerity: "I am all about sincerity" etc. Yet they both are against hearing the free flowing thoughts I have about their character traits and personality (not that I said anything about them yet, I just queried it before I said anything). Both friends said on different occasions that they only want to hear opinions about themselves from people they regard as "worthy", whose opinions they "respect". The new friend today said, after 2 hours of philosophical-esque conversation, that from everything I exchanged they didn't feel my opinions to be of the right calibre so as to be regarded of worthy consideration. Is this not confirmation bias? I.E. I don't want to hear what everybody has to say about me, only the people that love and respect me or that I love and respect.
The new friend contradicts themself today and says "I am not a fan of political correctness either, taking offence to things is stupid", yet they are against hearing and speaking of how we perceive each others personalities, probably to avoid possible persecution from me if, say, I were to take offence to what they described about my personality and also their insecurities regarding the perceived negatives of their own personality after I describe aspects of their own personality to them. I called them out on it and said if we don't exchange information on what we thought about each other then that is the same as being "politically correct" (IE withholding felt information about another or the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are may indirectly cause insult). They denied it was and said it was not political correctness but something else entirely unrelated, I switched off then and there because I could already see it from a mile away.
In all honesty, honesty is incredibly useful for generating fast relationships that are solid as steel. You meet someone, you get a rough idea of who they are... what their good sides are and their bad sides and at the end of it all to not share what you each thought of each other is just foolish! Why sit in silence when the honesty spoken can put you both together right on the same page then and there. I perceive this person to be deceptive because of this and likely to change their mind suddenly and not tell others about it at all OR change their mind with preparation but not care what harm it may cause to other people.
What is up with this? What could be the cause of it?
In the first friend I would copy one of their major flaws and it would be so blatant that they would call me out on the fault and then I would proceed to describe to them how they did exactly the same thing but they would deny it. They would also point out flaws that I had that they also had but would deny they had it also even after examples.
The second friend today really went on about how she praised sincerity: "I am all about sincerity" etc. Yet they both are against hearing the free flowing thoughts I have about their character traits and personality (not that I said anything about them yet, I just queried it before I said anything). Both friends said on different occasions that they only want to hear opinions about themselves from people they regard as "worthy", whose opinions they "respect". The new friend today said, after 2 hours of philosophical-esque conversation, that from everything I exchanged they didn't feel my opinions to be of the right calibre so as to be regarded of worthy consideration. Is this not confirmation bias? I.E. I don't want to hear what everybody has to say about me, only the people that love and respect me or that I love and respect.
The new friend contradicts themself today and says "I am not a fan of political correctness either, taking offence to things is stupid", yet they are against hearing and speaking of how we perceive each others personalities, probably to avoid possible persecution from me if, say, I were to take offence to what they described about my personality and also their insecurities regarding the perceived negatives of their own personality after I describe aspects of their own personality to them. I called them out on it and said if we don't exchange information on what we thought about each other then that is the same as being "politically correct" (IE withholding felt information about another or the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are may indirectly cause insult). They denied it was and said it was not political correctness but something else entirely unrelated, I switched off then and there because I could already see it from a mile away.
In all honesty, honesty is incredibly useful for generating fast relationships that are solid as steel. You meet someone, you get a rough idea of who they are... what their good sides are and their bad sides and at the end of it all to not share what you each thought of each other is just foolish! Why sit in silence when the honesty spoken can put you both together right on the same page then and there. I perceive this person to be deceptive because of this and likely to change their mind suddenly and not tell others about it at all OR change their mind with preparation but not care what harm it may cause to other people.
What is up with this? What could be the cause of it?
Comments (37)
It's not a little-known or new phenomenon, of course. This is a famous Bible passage (Matthew 7:1):
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
If your friends are highly judgmental, if they have "critic" personalities, if they tend to be hypocritical about that, if they can't take criticism themselves, and if you're uncomfortable with this, I'd simply look for new friends. There are people out there who are not normally (negatively) judgmental. I don't like hanging out with people who are chronically negatively judgmental myself. I wouldn't have offline friends like that. I gravitate to people who are mellow, positive-minded, tolerant of difference, who like experiencing a bunch of different things and appreciating it all for what it is.
That's one of the things that frustrates me about message boards like this--they tend to be full of "critic" personalities, where that personality is often accompanied by arrogance, too, plus a lot of hypocrisy of course. And sometimes I let myself get drawn into that negativity, which I don't like, but it's difficult to not sink into it when you're surrounded by personalities like that. But for the boards I'm talking about, it's my only outlet for discussing those topics.
The one thing that I do agree with your friends on, though, is the idea that not everyone is equally qualified to judge various things, but what sort of friend is going to get into a long discussion with you about something where they believe that you're not qualified to make judgments about it?
I welcome it, thence I will grow. Yet this person denies this and selects "only the finest breed" to do the job, lol.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, that is not it. They are not overly critical or judgemental. It is just something we all do as humans and IMO we should talk about it so that we can better develop ourselves. The problem is that I AM COMFORTABLE with it, THEY ARE NOT. At least not with anyone, they want to be selective with people they "trust" probably because they trust them to only to say "your fiiine dollface, there is nothing wrong with you"
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes I agree and am much the same, I don't judge excessively but unconsciously everyone's brains picks up on traits as they meet new people and figure them out. I would definitely say I am a mellow, positive-minded fellow who is tolerant of difference to a degree but I do not like when people try to hide their opinions or not give them when asked for them, especially when they contradict themselves for saying that they place so much value on being open and honest/sincere.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I totally agree and see it every time I am on here. I think that is the reason why threads go on for so long like they do is because people just want to be "right" and have the last "official" say as opposed to learning new perspectives. I have had to catch myself a few times on here doing this. What are your other outlets? backdoorsluts.com/forum ???
Quoting Terrapin Station
I wouldn't trust a homeless man to engineer a building but hearing a diverse range of opinions is how we get the most out of knowing a true reflection of ourselves. If you select only the people you resonate with to tell you about your personality... what do you think your going to fucking get back?
This isn't about discussing qualified judgements, it's discussing the general impression that you got from a one off meeting of one another's personalities. Something which most people (especially women) openly divulge to their friends anyway when they get home (IE what was he like? was he cute? omg he had the most confrontational demeanour ever! but he was such a gentlemen though.. etc. etc.)
Wait, but it sounded like you were complaining about how your friends are. You're talking about their faults, their hypocrisy, you're saying that you called them out on something, etc. I wouldn't say that's being comfortable with how they behave (in the respects you're discussing, at least).
Quoting intrapersona
I wouldn't want friends to "tell me about my personality" unless it were a specific issue, such as "I'm trying to get work in such and such social milieu and I'm having no luck--any ideas?" And likewise, I wouldn't "tell them about their personalities."
Yes and as I said that is "something we all do as humans" but I am not "OVERLY critical or judgemental".
If someone twitches, has tendency to be aggressive, complains a lot... you notice it, everyone does... that is not because you are OVERLY critical or judgemental but because you are a human.
I also said that honesty in these areas can inform opinions about your personality from different viewpoints which enables you to better understand or develop yourself.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That is exactly what that person thought too and despite everything I have already written on the flaw in that thinking you haven't provided any argumentation for it. All you have said is 'oh yeah, i do the same thing'.
Why would you need argumentation for it? It's a matter of what people desire, what they prefer.
Yes, but the whole of society reflects on what is preferable and what is not. They judge. That is the reason why psychedelics are illegal yet coffee and ethanol is legal, because they judged it and argued against it and it became criminalized.
So if you want to agree with this friend of mine in that they have a "reasonable" method of dealing with people's thoughts/opinions then CLEARLY it is incredibly stupid to just walk around saying "I like that" "I don't like that.". You explain WHY it is you like it, WHY I might be wrong in this context... I thought you would've known this throughout ALL of your postings on the philosophy forums by now. Can you imagine if a professor did what you are doing? "Pffft, don't even both writing your essay on what sartre thinks kids, why would you need argumentation for it? Just write whatever you desire, what you prefer and don't even argue anything, heck just tell me about elephants and unicorns".
Yep, just how are wrapped up in knots people are in their own minds to the point where they think they aren't being hypocritical and won't listen to anybody who says otherwise. They will only accept self-validation from people who are "worthy" which indicates a screening mechanism for confirmation-bias about their own personality.
No sir e bob, if you want to learn about yourself then you take in EVERYONE'S opinion of you and even ask for it. The best kinds of people speak what they feel and don't hold it in, like wise the best kind of people are open to all opinions and look for the truth in them and don't deny others opinions because they don't feel they have any value. For instance, my ex is a bitch who blocked me on facebook, but I would love to hear her opinion of how she perceives me because it is negative. Yet this friend would openly deny any opportunity to reflect on someone's opinion that is negative towards them... Clearly something is wrong with them, they are insecure about themselves and can only tolerate opinions from people they trust.
??
I didn't say anything like that. This particular tangent was simply in response to me saying:
Quoting Terrapin Station
I didn't say anything about that being "reasonable." I didn't say anything about agreeing with your friend. (You simply noted that your friend feels the same way.) It's just a preference I have. Different people can have different preferences.
I think there has to be something like a minimum overlap. It seems to me that you are framing this more like a one/zero or yes/no situation, as if we will only listen to clones of ourselves and therefore never get any useful feedback but only an echo chamber. Instead I think we filter out those who reject our basic assumptions or values. This isn't necessarily unwise. To question basic assumptions and values is pretty much what I understand to be a spiritual crisis. Admittedly such a crisis can lead to a breakthrough as well as disaster. Still, when we feel attacked we usually double down. Reason becomes secondary to preserving "face," again not necessarily unwise. We favor those who appear strong.
On the other hand, if we are quite sure of these basic assumptions and values, then we'll probably only have contempt or pity for those who do not share them, if not hatred. I've seen political arguments on Facebook that got nowhere. Both sides just end up angry that the fools on the other side refuse to see reason.
How are you doing?
Great! (even though my cat just died)
(I've joined this forum today)
I wouldn't call it hypocricy, lack of sincerity or even political correctness if someone isn't interested in hearing just about anyone's opinions about their character traits and personality. To be sincere, one doesn't need to put themselves up for some kind of peer review.
Most of what you're saying makes it sound like you really wanted to give your opinion on their personal faults and they didn't want that. Whether me or someone else here would consider them to have been unreasonable or not depends very much on exactly how you behaved (which we don't know), since you're describing a social interaction, not a logical debate.
Quoting intrapersona
Well it's a complicated combination of both how most people's brain just happens to be wired and culture, surely. Usually people aren't comfortable with in-depth analysis or critique of their character traits and personality unless they feel particularly safe, comfortable and relaxed, trust the other person to not misuse (or misplace) the information, and actually want to do it (for whatever reason). For better or worse (although I'll say I'd lean towards better, in case you'd otherwise think otherwise), people for whom that sort of thing comes easily probably have a way above average likelihood of being somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Isn't this the age old problem known commonly as ''bias''?
Why?
Quoting zookeeper
Why?
Yeah, thanks mate... I am sure this was ego. If you are a prideless, you don't care about what nasty things others say about you, you just take it all on board and don't get upset about anything and use the advice/information where necessary. Filtering it out by only accepting it from those who you deem worthy is just a way to protect the self from insecurity.
Yes, I agree with everything you said. What was strange about this conversation is that we agreed on almost every basic assumption and life values except a few like hard drug use and how one ought to live their life in regards to how often they should spend in analysis of ideas. This person has a degree in philosophy mind you ;)
What my point is though is that by listening to opinions of those who have differing positions on basic assumptions and life values, we can come to a more holistic understand of ourselves. To do otherwise is to filter out dynamic possibilities of perspective and only have, as you say, "little clones of ourselves" to listen to and reciprocate what we feel to be true.
People who can't do this end up becoming offended, end up feeling "attacked" and end up doubling down and trying to preserve "face". If one is without ego then this does not arise because one is either self-assured in some manner or knows that it really isn't that important and truth is not relative to one individual.
And is that preference of yours reasonable?
Do you have anything else to add in this conversation apart from listing "your preferences"?
In small instances you are right, as soon as you go beyond what is considered "white" in "white lies" then honesty is paramount, not only to self development as seen in this thread but also in terms of how lies may negatively affect others.
Yeah, and ego.
What do you mean, why? What sort of answer are you looking for? Do you want an explanation from the angle of developmental psychology about how most people end up that way, or possible evolutionary benefits those traits might provide which could explain their prevalence, or just a description of exactly what in their brain or thought processes causes it?
Of course, if it's any of the above then I can't help since sadly I'm not a scientist in any of those fields. :-}
I wonder what evolutionary advantage a big ego has? It's a turn-off (unsure) and yet is widely prevalent in the gene pool.
I don't see it as either reasonable or unreasonable. And I wouldn't say that's something that matters for it.
It's all about context. A general rule like this is just a theoretical exercise that can't hold in real life.
Say you're in a political race and your opponent tells lies to win votes. You're convinced your plans are better for everyone but no matter how often you tell the truth, people believe the lies because they want the lies to be true. Should you not lie and stick to the principle of truth, or lie and clear it up later or lie and leave it at that and get on with the job? I don't think that's a clear cut case.
Or you're a doctor and you discover an epidemic of a dangerous disease in a large city. You haven't been able to pinpoint ground zero and how its vectoring. When asked by a reporter "is there an epidemic?", should you lie to avoid panick causing many people to leave the city (and thereby cause a spread outside the city) or do people deserve the truth? I'm not sure what to do there either.
Yes, I agree. For me this really a central issue. Hegel had this phrase that I always come back to: "tarry with the negative." We evolve through collisions with others. At the same time, we have to maintain a certain level of self-esteem so that we don't crash and burn. This is why, in my view, we have to shut out radical threats to our world-view completely. (Spinoza was demonized, for instance, despite his "saintly" life.) It would be too much, too soon. This establishes the necessity of time for growth. But life is short. So it's plausible that some world-views or realizations are closed off for an individual by that individual's starting position in the game. (Digression: I think there's more than one good way to think and live, which is a position that developed in time and not the one I started with. From this perspective, lots of thinkers are chained by the almost unconscious assumption that there's just one path and that it's our job to find and then advertise this single worthy path.)
Why are people not comfortable with in-depth analysis or critique of their character traits and personality unless they feel particularly safe, comfortable and relaxed, trust the other person to not misuse (or misplace) the information?
Why is that for those people whom that sort of thing comes easily means they probably have a way above average likelihood of being somewhere on the autism spectrum?
Pretty standard question responses really. You post a statement that isn't backed by any reasoning or evidence therefore WHY is seems pretty essential if we are to agree what you have said is true. The latter question you pose is appropriate which is "exactly what in their brain or thought processes causes it" except this isn't about brain states exclusively but psychology, experiences etc.
Well at least in other primate cultures ego=dominance. Unfortunately in human society we have social codes that negate the self-benefits of egotistical behaviour in most circumstances with exception to a few, a la "self-defence in a street fight" - "approaching a woman" and not really efficient in scenarios such as "the workplace" "visiting you grandmother in the retirement home" etc.
I think many people feel that what you say is true and end up themselves lying in a manner of differing contexts but what inevitably follows is that they get in to more strife.
In the scenarios you gave if honesty was paramount in that picture then it may have likely followed that the opposition failed in his run because everyone saw he was full of lies and then votes you in next because of your honesty, it could also happen that you lied to get in to cabinet and then everyone became aware that you lied and killed you with henbane.
With the disease scenario, the truth should be told to government and military and they act on that info, usually they quarantine the city for you thereby letting the truth be told. If there was no government say, then either choice you made would mean that more people will catch the disease as a result of your choices, because containing people in city in secret means more ppl catch it, letting them flee means more ppl catch it outside of city. Either way our cities are multi-exchanging of scientific knowledge and tech so it wouldn't be that much of a disaster.
(Y)
I completely forgot about domination winning mating rights. A big ego does confer survival advantage.
I guess the paradox here is the reverse i.e. why is a big ego a turn-off?
People don't want to feel inferior, domination = inferiority.
More than that, it is very distasteful when someone breaks a social code like farting at a dinner tables or shouting in a movie theatre...
The only way I can make sense of this is that human beings are in a transition phase between being solitary predators and group hunters/farmers.
It seems the only reason why we're social animals is that there's safety in numbers.
Perhaps we are not on the way between anywhere but actually have both instincts encoded in to our genes, that way we can work to suit both environments and indeed there exists both environments in our modern societies. The farmer has to be in solitude as he tends his crop, the CEO has to deal with many interactions while at the same time has a very self-oriented interest.
I just look at how other apes act, it really isn't any difference... which is kind of fucked in a way... but kinda of beautiful too... like no matter how complex this shit is getting, we are still just pure apes at heart and have maintained to be for over 2000 years... u would think in 2000 years psychology would of changed but all that has developed is better methods of dealing with the primitive psychological functions and not re-writing them.
I guess we're amphibious in a way, having the best of both worlds. Somehow we're made to serve the community while still trying to achieve our self-interest.
Yeah, I guess that's why they invented tax.
And almost everything else:-}