I am Somebody!

Re: I am Somebody!

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If I decide that I am not somebody I break down like a 48 Chevy. When that great newsreel always running in my head feeds me with constant negative images of myself, I give up. To lose self-esteem is to lose the nourishment that provides the energy needed by a hero. I am a hero because I make a vital contribution to world-life.

Or because that is the perception one has gained through one source or another.

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Why do many youth in the inner-cities commit violent and criminal acts?--that is one way, perhaps the only way, to be a hero.

To gain notoriety maybe, which I guess could be interpreted as heroism by certain people. But more often I think (from what people who have committed crimes have explained to me) it is out of a sense of desperation, either in that they can think of no other way to get what they need (materially) or because they are numb to themselves and the world and this is one way to feel that they are alive.

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Or because they're tired of living the life they see stretching hopelessly and dully before them.

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Or again to escape, and in some cultures achieve the rank of martyr while they're at it.

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Maybe sometimes, but I also think it has to do with wanting your child to be successful and happy within themselves and for the joy it will bring to their own life. Maybe I've naive-and I admit that I feel a reflected glow when my children do well, and it does feel good-but I know I also want them to experience satisfaction and achievement so that they will feel happy and good within themselves. It's not totally selfish.

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There's also the small matter of the standard of living they've grown accustomed to.

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The most important thing a culture can provide to its citizens is a means for becoming a hero in a way that benefits life (good) rather than death (evil). "Its [culture's] task, in other words, is to provide the individual with the conviction that he is an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action."

Yes.

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The ego must find a means to navigate the world of customs, rules, and ideas in such a way as to eliminate anxiety; to do this the individual must choose actions that her comrades praise instead of blame.[/b]

But not at the expense of remaining true to oneself. Maybe that's where denial and rationalization come in...

Questions for discussion

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The books on human sciences I have been reading speak of good and life, and evil and death, as being synonymous. Do you find that characterization is satisfactory?

No. Right now, I think of mainstream life as full of stress and confusion and sadness (not so much my own life, but in society as a whole) and death as a peaceful escape from all that.
Sometimes I feel envious of those who have died. I think of it as traveling on, or advancing in some way. It just seems that they've achieved an escape to somewhere quiet and peaceful...and I've always felt like that-even when I was a child and children I knew had died. It doesn't have anything to do with wanting to die or hating life or being depressed, it has to do with my concept of what death is- and I couldn't tell you where I got that concept, but I've just always equated death with rest and peace.

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I'm not sure I know what you mean by "corporation as person".

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Coberst-I think torture is used, precisely because most people would consider death to be preferable to an experience such as water-boarding.
I think it's more pain or psychological terror those who are being tortured are trying to put an end to when they give in to a torturer's demands, and not necessarily an avoidance of death.

Have you read what has been done to a suspected terrorist sympathizer named Padilla- in terms of sensory deprivation as a form of torture? His mind has totally shut down in an effort to escape-I'm sure he would have chosen death as an option if it'd been made available to him.

I think to test to what extent a person would go to to avoid death, you'd bypass any form of physical torture or pain and put them in a situation in which they'd have to sacrifice an ideal or loved on to save their own life.

Psychologically, I know I would dread death more if I planned to be buried, because I am claustrophobic. In my mind, death would be preferable to being enclosed in a small, dark, space for any amount of time at all while I'm alive to the point that I would not be able to sleep at night if I hadn't made my wishes about disposal of my dead body known to my loved ones: I don't want to be buried under any circumstances.
But I can't give any insight into dread of death-except to say that, personally, death is not my worst-case scenario. If I was in a situation of unendurable pain with no hope of it ending, I think I'd welcome death- (although I admit I have no way of knowing that for sure).

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Aidan

I am claiming that the reaction we feel when water boarding or claustrophobia is that very fear of death. If someone asks me what is the fear of death I will say that if they can imagine the feeling of being water boarded they are feeling the fear of death. Our rather blaze attitude that we say we feel about dying is our self deception. Think water boarding when you see mention of fear of death and I think you will capture the meaning of these words.

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Self Esteem = Successes DIVIDED BY Pretensions

I suggest you have a close look at the denominator. :wink:

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Self Esteem = Successes DIVIDED BY Pretensions

This equation seems fraught with subjectivity. What is qualified or quantified to be a success? It differs from person to person. And once a success is quanitifed or qualified, whose pretensions will divide what is considered to be that person's success? His or her own, or the pretensions of outside onlookers who have given themselves that role in someone else's life?
And what is the ratio of success to pretension? Is it a direct one-to-one correlation, or is there another formula?

Coberst-Just as waterboarding and claustrophobia seem to be the most terrifying tortures you can imagine, I can tell you that if I had to choose a form of torture, I might choose waterboarding over others that would seem more terrifying or painful to me.

Everyone is different. Everyone has their own level of fear and/or acceptance about any situation. I believe a lot of it has to do with individual perception and conceptions about one'sown life, their personality and ability to accept and cope and what he or she believes about death, so I find it hard to accept such generalizations on this concept, which though faced by everyone, will be faced in very different circumstances with different points of view, levels of understanding, and after different levels of happiness or unhappiness during life.

But if you're talking about metaphorical death-as in negation of our existence as an individual human being with dignity and rights-yes, I think we all fight against that -even there though- some are much more passively and compliantly accepting of this than others.

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Aidan

From my reading of the human sciences I do not think a person can begin to comprehend these sciences if one does not gain some realistic contact with the fear of death. These sciences would, I think, argue that we go to great lengths not to make this contact with the dread of death. However if we do not then, I suspect, we cannot comprehend these sciences except on a superficial level. I am new at this game and would appreciate the thoughts of anyone who is a professional in these fields.

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I don't work as a psychologist, although I do work as a member of a team that includes a psychologist, and I have done graduate level coursework in psychology as it is an adjunct discipline to the field I have chosen to work in (and I find it interesting, so I pursue it on my own as an exercise in self-actualization Laughing

).

The one thing I would advise you to remember Coberst, in terms of how psychology (I can't speak at all to philosophy) is different from the hard, empirical sciences is that the data you collect can be considered "normative" at best.

In chemistry or mathematics you can apply a formula to a mix of variables and you will always get the same measurable result. When you are dealing with human emotions and behaviors, there is an ever changing mix of strengths, weaknesses, failings, reactions, backgrounds, perceptions, etc., etc. that make every outcome different, even if you apply the same formula.

If you are trying to quantify psychological data derived from a sample and generalize that data to the entire population of humans, the most accurate word you can ever apply to any phenomenon you are testing for is "tendency".

That's why when you say a fear or dread of death is absolutely universal and is reacted to or avoided in one standard way, I have to disagree. I would hypothesize that each individual person is cognizant of something they dread or fear at least as much as if not more than death. And for every individual person, whatever that might be will vary.

And I think that the reaction to and intensity of the fear of death varies from culture to culture. I've found the attitude toward death in the UK to be markedly different than the attitude toward death in the US, and these are two similarly developed and westernized cultures. Imagine then the differences that exist between the US and a third world country in Africa,
for instance.

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aidan wrote:

That's why when you say a fear or dread of death is absolutely universal and is reacted to or avoided in one standard way, I have to disagree. I would hypothesize that each individual person is cognizant of something they dread or fear at least as much as if not more than death. And for every individual person, whatever that might be will vary.

Well said. It's what makes the title of this thread so ironic, Coberst. You begin by trumpeting your individual identity and then proceed to deny the individual identities of the people you diagnose. So I would say no when you ask "Is corporation as person an apt metaphor?" because corporations are networks of individual people (sometimes thousands of them), and indiscriminately attributing the "will" of a corporation to each of its individual members--right down to its janitors, vending machine suppliers and mailroom staff--severely calls into question the life lessons you're purporting to learn from Becker. The same goes for these claims about "the" reason inner-city youths commit crimes, "the" reason parents take pride in their kids, etc. What is the utility of such rampant stereotyping (to call it by its proper name)? Why do you so fervently want to believe that all human actions have single, specifiable reasons?

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coberst

Are you a cristian?

or

Were you raised as one and later rejected your faith?

or

Were you brought up in a christian home in a christian society without ever taking a conscious stand on the matter?

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Shapeless wrote:

aidan wrote:
That's why when you say a fear or dread of death is absolutely universal and is reacted to or avoided in one standard way, I have to disagree. I would hypothesize that each individual person is cognizant of something they dread or fear at least as much as if not more than death. And for every individual person, whatever that might be will vary.

Well said. It's what makes the title of this thread so ironic, Coberst. You begin by trumpeting your individual identity and then proceed to deny the individual identities of the people you diagnose. So I would say no when you ask "Is corporation as person an apt metaphor?" because corporations are networks of individual people (sometimes thousands of them), and indiscriminately attributing the "will" of a corporation to each of its individual members--right down to its janitors, vending machine suppliers and mailroom staff--severely calls into question the life lessons you're purporting to learn from Becker. The same goes for these claims about "the" reason inner-city youths commit crimes, "the" reason parents take pride in their kids, etc. What is the utility of such rampant stereotyping (to call it by its proper name)? Why do you so fervently want to believe that all human actions have single, specifiable reasons?

I want to understand why humans do the things they do. It seems to me that the best place to find such knowledge is from the human sciences. I am studying these sciences and I am passing on to the reader what these sciences have to say about this matter.

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cyracuz

I was raised as a Catholic but am now an agnostic.

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I want to understand why humans do the things they do. It seems to me that the best place to find such knowledge is from the human sciences. I am studying these sciences and I am passing on to the reader what these sciences have to say about this matter.

But you are not passing on anything ! The essence of communication is to engage your interlocutor. A short mutual exhange is required which subsequent negotiation might then turn towards particular interests of either.

So your first assignment in "understanding" is to analyse why you think standing on a podium reading from somebody else's book is likely to have any more impact than some other "Holy Joe" ignored by the crowds in the market place. !

I personally don't think you have any control over this. Your blitzing of forums resulting in "What to do about Coberst" threads is indicative of a form of complusive behaviour impervious to any negative feedback.

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I personally don't think you have any control over this

I was thinking about this topic last night, and for every instance you gave in your opening post Coberst, as to why people do the things they do to which the answer was: "to be a hero"- you could just have easily inserted: "to convince themselves they have control over some aspect of their lives".

Every single situation you highlighted featured individuals who were living under circumstances in which their lives were adversely affected by environmental factors they could not control-the criminal youths: inner city, the suicide bomber: a war zone, parents: the fact that their children have free will and will do what they choose to do sometimes instead of what the parent would like for them to do, and wars aren't fought for ideals, they're fought for control.

In torture situations-what has been taken from an individual? The ability to control his or her movements, environment, stimulus to which they're subjected, etc.
The last bit those who are tortured hang onto is the control they have over their responses. And some would rather die than give up that last small bit of control.

Maybe death is almost universally feared and dreaded because it signifies the ultimate lack of control.
Maybe those who commit suicide are simply relinquishing control, and those of us who fight to live on are still intent on the struggle for control.

I watched a movie last night in which a sane woman was committed and put in restraints, and I felt her struggle on the screen viscerally within myself.
And I said to my daughter, who was watching it with me-"If I wasn't already insane-that would drive me insane-having my ability to control my life taken from me". And I realized that that's something I fear more than death- lack of control over my own life. That's something for which I might kill someone in order to retain.

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But you are not passing on anything ! The essence of communication is to engage your interlocutor. A short mutual exhange is required which subsequent negotiation might then turn towards particular interests of either.

Fresco-he engages me...I never think of this stuff on my own-and I enjoy thinking about it. And I do feel listened to by Coberst, whether he changes his stance and agrees with mine or not.
Let him worry about whether he controls his own actions, or if they control him (in terms of what you said about him blitzing forums), because you have no idea what he's thinking. Maybe he's playing devil's advocate- (I think he is).
There's no manual about how someone has to communicate. I happen to enjoy a longer exchange instead of just a blitz of little one-liners-but I fully appreciate the fact that other people seem to prefer the one-liners. Why can't people be allowed to communicate in the method that is most comfortable to them without feeling pressured to adopt another that is more comfortable to someone else?
What is so scary about differences and freedom?

What fear or dread is at work when some people prescribe a method in which other people must behave and communicate?

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Aiden,

Given the dozens of forums which Coberst blitzes with his cut and paste operations he is statistically likely to find one "customer" interested in his -"book of the day". If you are such a customer, thats fine !

(BTW I admit to being hughly skeptical of terms like "self-actualization" which seem to be part of the US "analysis industry". My discursive equation for "self esteem" above was actually taken from a discussion of psychology as a "pseudoscience", which is the label I would choose despite my degree in it.)

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coberst wrote:

I was raised as a Catholic but am now an agnostic.

To me that explains a great deal. Why you persist in making these posts in the face of such critisism. How you can turn a blind eye to it all. Your "messiah compex", to call it something; the way you now and then state that you've taken it upon yourself to save the world one post at a time. And finally, that you take the majority of people who read it telling you that it's crap as confirmation that you are needed...

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coberst wrote:

I want to understand why humans do the things they do.

It's an admirable enough cause, but do you really think casting people into cookie-cutter stock types is the best way to achieve that? Do you really believe eliminating specificity in favor of blanket generalizations gets you closer to understanding behavior rather than farther away from it?

When I've tried to raise this point in your other posts, you've responded with stock phrases about "inductive reasoning" and "going from the particular to the general." But as this post demonstrates, you routinely do the opposite: you begin with the general (in this case, vague notions about "being a hero") and retroactively force the particulars to fit into it. (In an even more vivid example, you began with a fancy-sounding general and solicited A2Kers to supply particulars that would help justify it... what rhetoricians call "confirmation bias," wishful thinking, or one-sidedness.)

Apart from the problem of hasty generalizations (to quote the website you advertised some time ago), Aidan has also pointed out that your post is entirely tautological: every act of described in your opening post had the same explanation. But a theory that explains everything explains nothing; they're not theories you've concluded to be true, but theories you've defined to be true. Given this, it's easy to see why you would be so resistant to specifying your "particulars", or why it is so difficult to get you to interact rather than bandy sound bytes back and forth. Your conclusion is in place even before you start, and there's not much any of us can do about that. As you aptly put it in a previous thread:

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shapless

Those things that you call hasty generalizations are the findings of the sciences of psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, and anthropology as determined by a highly reputable scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning author. Becker is compiling a synthesis of the findings of these human sciences for the purpose of proposing means for restructuring our society to better fit our nature. I am new at the study of these sciences and I thought that I had made that clear on every post.

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Coberst, do you think a Pulitzer Prize relieves anyone of the responsibility of citing a real-life instance--even just one--when puporting to explain the root of all human behavior? If you disagree with my assertion that "parents" and "inner-city youths" are populations that are too large to be summarized in sweeping generalizations, then by all means explain why. You may even cite the same data that these psychologists, sociologists, psychoanalysts, anthropologists and Pulitzer Prize winning authors cite. All we're asking you to do is cite data, not generalizations. That you consistently refuse to do so (and, moreover, consistently refuse to see the value of doing so) leads me to question whether you've absorbed the most basic tenet of the social sciences--namely, that no historical, sociological or anthropological fact can be meaningfully stated unless its agents can be specified, and agents can only be people. But I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt (yet again), so by all means start citing some statistics to bolster your (or Becker's) claims. You might find that it's not as hard as it looks.

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