[Social Criticism] Ugly Narcissism - Sonder in Short Supply

[Euryalus]

What? You mean you've never had an existential crisis yet?

Absolutely the opposite, my friend. I mean, everyone's had this one.
The `you're nothing special` mentality/crisis, is in itself- nothing special.

No, no, that's the lame one. I mean the "is anything special, what do I do with my life oh god pointlessness! Krzzblemsjwjv"

That's the existential crisis of existentialists![/quote]

I always knew I'd destroy society somehow.
Oh well, I guess we'll see where this road goes. Perhaps people being happy being themselves will destroy everything, but we'll have a good time getting there.

You are personally destroying everything ever, God damn it phasmal! No, despite the rhetorical superiority of that kind of quip, in a sense it's true for everyone. Your philosophy influences how you act which in turn influences how other people act in response.

There's a very real sense in which your philosophy, your ideas, goals and morality, can have small (or large) effects on the direction of a society for better or worse. Me, you, and everyone else can be varying parts solution and the problem. So in a sense, yeah, that is part of my point, hyperbole aside, the destructiveness of what seems to be a partially self-interested style ethical system is given reality by the people who hold or don't hold those views.

What kind of community, which is what society is, can be had when people act as if morality or laws are based soley on self-interested wants. It will necessarily take the form of an war-like and hostile dialouge where people join sides in order to put into place policies that benefit them and them alone the most.

It pits poor people against rich people, students against universities and debt (or taxpayers), because everyone has their own morality that can be more or less internally consistent, but no agreed upon rules, because as I mentioned in my first post, no argument for the first premises are given for the initial "goods" people offer as ends to reach for.

Maybe there is nothing truly good, and it's all subjective preference, but then this clashing is inevitable and any attempts at equality, eliminating racist thought, or even creating a rationally hedonistic "good life." Is pointless.

With the first two examples there is no objective morality that can give "Sexism, Harrasment, or Racial oppression is bad" any more weight than "I don't like it!"

With the last one, you live in a world where it just isn't possible to acquire pleasurable "things" all the time or avoid "unpleasant" things all the time, and what you want will necessarily be at odds with what other people want. You'll have more conflict.

Conflict that will necessarily manifest itself in the public sphere and make things increasingly more unpleasant. Defeating or severly limiting the goal of creating a world where personal happiness can be achieved. Not to mention trying to create that kind of environment will have "dissidents" that ignore your happiness for their own and if they're clever about it, will be more successful than the rest of society and its idea of "an arena for the pursuit of happiness without stepping on toes" precisely because they ignore the common "ethical" groundings for structuring society. I.e. Equality, Freedom, and respect for rights.

These'd be your Uebermenschen from Nietzche. They can play the happiness game better than you, by simply not caring about yours. What society where this is the ethical system can exist without tearing itself apart?

Not particularly "modern" ones, if by modern we mean societies where pursuit of happiness and do what feels good is the only ethical concern.

Brings us back to the interminable differences you know? We agree to disagree just because *shrugs*

Fair enough I suppose.

Which brings me to this. I didn't mean to say "we agree to disagree" I mean to say that "agreeing to disagree just because" is something that isn't rational. Either "the good" is something that doesn't exist and we need to form our subjective accounts more carefully in light of our real wants and what society would look like (for us) if people adopted the ideas we promote, or, and this is my view, something being right or wrong is not simple adherence to rules or subjective codes, but rooted fundamentally in the environments where actions take place. Even if the value of goals people have are subjective, the means of achieving those goals isn't.

You would be wrong to hire interpretive dancers instead of people who can build a house if your goal is building a house. There's a very real and objective sense in which one action is more right than the other.

I could go into more about "practices" and "institutions" surrounding practices, the source of my opinion on good, bad, and "perfection," but I think this is probably running too long as it is. In short, some of the feel good movements that the op talked about may have far more wide reaching consequences than most people are willing to admit. It can't simply be answered with platitudes like "who is it hurting" or "They have a right to give out trophies to whoever they want" anymore. Those concepts are too simple to be very helpful.

This is a fun thread though. I almost never get to say much more than shit jokes on Off-Topic anymore

 

[Pr0]

If you spend your time being unhappy at people who are just getting on with it, I dunno, I don't see the productivity there.

I think his problem is with those who didn't get it, those who do think they're special and that the reality that they aren't is met with them lashing out instead of dealing with it like the rest of us do.

We've been going through this problem here in Quebec for years, being exemplified by student protests in 2012 and again right now as we speak.

Hey, fellow Quebecer here.

I was stuck in the first wave of protests in 2012; largely kept from working on my memoir for close to three months because the campus' vicinity looked like something out of a zombie apocalypse flick.

I'm kind of torn, honestly. I don't agree that perfection is something that we should strive for, because that just doesn't seem like an objective standpoint to nurture. On the other hand, I'd agree that we all owe it to ourselves to be all that we can be. Does that equal perfection? I couldn't tell you. I think perfection, either moral or physical, is like beauty - in that it's in the eye of the beholder.

Consider this: I'm 31 years old, self-employed, a bit on the pasty side and fighting back against the dreaded spare tire using lots of treadmill runs and a recent addiction to green juice. However, I have cerebral palsy and won't ever fit in with society's prescribed ideals of beauty, even if I were to sink thousands of dollars into my own bod. Not to mention that I think there's a point where self-improvement, to quote Tyler Durden, verges on masturbation. I want to be healthy, not squeeze myself into GQ's pages. No surgery could correct my strabismus definitively, so glasses are going to be a permanent fixture. If anything, the only thing I can keep trimming and nurturing is my intellect.

I'm special in that I have access to services and living conditions that physically able persons couldn't legally claim without some fairly well-orchestrated insurance fraud taking place. I have financial assistance for the same reason. At the same time, I've never kept up with that "special snowflake" mentality. I'm just a guy who has different living parameters, and beyond that my life can still be summarized to the ages-old salary-earning slog.

Like a lot of guys around my age range, I saw the beginnings of the provincial government's fucking with the school system, and was part of the last generation to get a decent grade-point average. I was brought up to accept my own failings, whereas a lot of students whose work I had to correct couldn't handle criticism. We've gone to a point where you can shoot for high-tier postgrad education while still writing like you're fresh out of an IRC group chat.

Otherwise, I have a hard time seeing where this stops being objective criticism and becomes a gestating curmudgeon's mutterings about the world. I look at Tumblr, for instance, and shake my head at the droves of people who angrily insist that their identity verges on specific labels, or that a given label serves as an excuse for isolationism or outright prejudice. When everyone is "triggered" by something, what's left of free speech?

What leaves me indecisive is the way I consider that most of the advances enjoyed by the LGBTQ and Trans communities are essential and should be celebrated. Other people state this as well, but also use it to say they'd like the same opportunities to be extended to Asexuals and Aromantics, to Furries and Otherkin and all sorts of self-made denominations I know practically nothing about...

I believe in self-expression, but I guess what I'm asking is at what point is someone's idea of perfection someone else's idea of the grotesque?

Ahh finally quoting works again. Praise be to the reboot function.

I think what you should take away from my thoughts here is that I'm not specifically saying anyone is grotesque, I am simply saying that not everyone can win, and not everyone is willing to try.

When we start asking whether certain races or sexual orientations are automatically losers I simply have to laugh because this is quite obviously not the case just looking at history as it stands and the outstanding people of the last 100 years. They certainly weren't all white, and a good handful of them weren't straight either, there is nothing about your melanin levels that disqualifies you as a winner. And regardless of your sexual or asexual tastes you are still a being full of potential.

There is no master race as such to use a throw back term, there is no master sexuality. What there is, is human potential.

For example, I don't concern myself with forcing people to accept me in regards to who I am, I don't demand their acknowledgement nor do I require their approval for what I choose to do with my life or what I believe. I am confident enough in my own pursuits to do so without the need for social justification.

And let me be somewhat clear here, for all the privilege I apparently have, I was raised by a single mother on next to nothing my entire life. I had no money for college, the scholarship I qualified for didn't pay for living expenses, there was no car when I was 16 years old that was simply given to me to help me start off my life. At 18 years old I was expected to move out and take care of myself. And I did that. I joined the Navy, I spent 12 years there, I came home and absolutely nothing I did in the Navy translated into anything realistic in the medical fields I was working in, in the 12 years I was in the Navy, so I went to college on the small amount of money the GI Bill allotted me. I became an LPN, I worked...a lot and finally found a balance in my life where I do feel that yes I am rather privileged now...but its not as if I didn't have to make those privileges for myself.

I understand that racism and sexism are still issues in Western society but I don't personally subscribe to either of them. People are who they choose to be. And its the decisions that people make or never risk that define who they become. I had no more opportunity than most people in Western society, being a straight white male afforded me no advantages, because I guess I was just your typical middle american poor straight white male, my options were win or lose on my own devices, but I made opportunities for myself out of what was available to me and from there I perfected my life to a level where I feel confident in the decisions I've made.

Perfection is a personal journey, my issue is not that perhaps your version of perfect is something different from mine, my issue is that rather than attempt to perfect what they are given, many people appear to be happy to complain that the game is rigged as compared to simply winning the game on their own terms.

I had to win on my own terms, people like you with cerebral palsy have to win on their own terms...but you tried, and for what you deal with you did really well. What you find to be perfect is irrelevant to me....because you already disqualified yourself from the complain train that appears to believe that they are entitled to be employed, or rich or beautiful without putting the effort into achieving any of it.

Am I rich? Well perhaps if we consider my status on a world financial average, maybe, but from a Western standpoint I am very much lower middle class at best, that is something I can improve, and I will, with whatever opportunities I can find. Am I beautiful? Well my girlfriend thinks so, and occasionally this young lady that lives in the building flirts with me in the elevator but I think thats just a game for her...so largely I can still improve in that area, but the issue is...I will improve, and its not about what we universally agree to as being perfect...its about making the effort to be as perfect as you can be.

Winning and achieving perfection are about trying. Not about trying to change the game so you can win by default. You never had that opportunity, neither did I....we had to make our own, so why should we coddle others who cannot appear to do the same?

 

[Euryalus]

[

I think your answer at least in part encapsulates what he's saying. Your mantra of be happy puts comfort and "Hedonistic" (in the philosophical sense) pursuits over other concerns like excellence, adherence to rules, or even a buddhistic "removal of self". Why? Why is a society where everyone pursues their own idea of happiness something good or better than one where everyone strives to achieve a sort of technical and character based "perfection?"?

because what the fuck is perfection and who gets to decide what it is?

somebody might think perfection for me would be to land the perfect man, have a wonderful house and 3 perfect children...

except what if I'm gay? what if I don't want children? what shall I do then?

the individual pursuit of happyness (within the framework of society and social pressures) is the closest thing we have to co existing without trying to kill each other

which if you recall in history we did a lot of back then...and still do now in certain parts of the world

The environment and context in which certain rules and constraints exist get to determine "perfection" because perfection is a word that essentially means achieving some sort of goal fully and flawlessly based on the constraints laid by the situation itself, as I said with my chess example.

Just try entering a chess match, having your king stolen, and then claiming victory because you redefined victory. You lost, you lost chess based on the rules inherent to chess as we currently know it. That's not to say chess has any universal or inherent value behind it, it's only to say that chess has goods "internal" to it that make being good at chess an objective statement of worth IF CHESS IS VALUED AS SUCH.

If you don't value chess, then being good at chess won't hold value to you, but it's not as if the quality doesn't exist or is simply as asanine as something like saying "I like chess or playing chess this way pleases me." This is obviously a simple analogy, and would require both more education on my part and a book to explain, but it's the backbone that holds any endeavor together. Skill and excellence with a goal and a point.

And it doesn't occur in a vacume. Chess players play chess together to get better at chess together. They form groups and clubs concerned with things like advertising, organizing, and obtaining money to make the continuation of playing chess for the community of chess players possible. If these groups or clubs focus on procurring the advertising, money, or bureacracy at the expense of the qualities that make chess players good or bad, then voila a goal oriented form of Justice appears. A unique environment with its own rules, much like chess, that has as its end goal the protection of the "internal goods" of chess. Playing well and learning to play well.

As for your marriage and kids things, well That somebody would be ignoring the context of your life and situation in order to make a uselessly general abstract claim.

And as for your idea that society should only be interested in creating an environment where subjective wants are allowed to be pursued? I disagree. It focuses exclusively on "external goods" like in my chess example and is devoid of point, not to mention creates, or at least puts at the forefront of public interaction, conflict over subjective wants. Not everyone can be a winner even if winning means something different to each individual.

The reasons we have it "good" today has little, I think, to do with the ideas of rights, utility, or the pursuit of happiness, and a great deal to do with our large manufacturing base, technology, and power to procure these things at the cost of other peoples (either historically or presently).

 

[Ihateregistering1]

You can complain all you want, but the notion that society somehow 'owes' being just as attracted (or perhaps even more attracted) to a certain characteristic as to another is ridiculous. You can look at yourself in the mirror all day and be convinced that you're the greatest looking human being who ever lived, that doesn't mean anyone else is obligated to think so.

The point isn't that people need to tell you that you are the most attractive person around. The point is that society shouldn't be telling you that there is some standard of beauty that you must live up to lest you be in some way lesser than those who do live up to it.

But what are you even talking about when you claim that 'society' is telling you this? If I go to the nightclub with the intent of picking up women with my good friend Channing Tatum (let's assume he's single for this story) I can tell you who is probably going to have the most success in this endeavor (hint: it's not me). In this case, isn't "society" saying that I'm somehow lesser than Hotty McCelebrity over here?

People make up society, and people have their own opinions, but often times an extremely large % of those people have the same opinions, and they have every right to have those opinions. Complaining about it isn't going to magically make them change their minds.

Does that mean people should be cruel and call you ugly? No, but it also doesn't mean they're obligated to lie to you and tell you how beautiful they think you are to help out your self-esteem.

That's assuming that there's some objective measure of beauty. Sure, one individual may not find you particularly attractive, but another might think you look really good.

That's true, but as I noted above, there are some opinions that are very, very widely held. You could say that maybe there's someone in the US who thinks Gisele Bundchen is ugly and Melissa McCarthy is hot as hell, and you could absolutely be right. But if we polled 1000 guys in the US over who they thought was hotter, I can pretty much tell you what the consensus is going to be, and that you could repeat this same experiment 1000 times and get largely the same result.

 

[Twintix]

I dunno, I don't really like to think of people as winners and losers in life, honestly...

(Maybe irrelevant thoughts incoming...)

I resent the "Everybody wins" mentality, as it doesn't really encourage people to improve, but I find that thinking of other people as winners and losers might do just as much to discourage others. True, success is mostly up to luck and timing, but people should at least try to accomplish things, because one day, they might just strike gold.

Doesn't really have much to do with looks at this stage, but perhaps we can make it a bit more relevant. If I get to it and don't just ramble on...

I don't see why we have to look at the world in black and white. What is attractive to some people isn't attractive to others. Just because you don't look like those Hollywood women doesn't mean you're not beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all - Some people find Pamela Anderson attractive and some don't.

You said something about telling everybody that they're beautiful and that it just encourages narcissism...I think? (My memory isn't the best, so feel free to correct me) Well, I don't think you're wrong, but not neccessarily right either. There's a show about two women named Trinny and Susannah (I think they're models or stylists or something) who travel to some countries and help certain people pick out clothes that make them feel a bit better about themselves or something. When my brother saw the trailer for it (where they were talking to a chubby girl with low self-esteem), he just scoffed and said "Oh great, another show where they delude fatties into thinking they're beautiful".
Now, this stunned me for two reasons. One: This is not something I expected to hear from my brother, who is a very tolerant and friendly guy. Two: Fat and ugly are not synonymous with each other. (The girl they were talking to wasn't that grossly overweight either)

Like you said, telling everybody that they're perfect as they are does nothing to make people want to improve. But doing the opposite, telling people how fat and ugly they are, does nothing to encourage them either. (Ah, there's the parallell...) This one is a particular bile producer for me, as I (as I've said before) had a middle school "friend" who would constantly insult me and put me down and justify it with "Hey, just telling it like it is". Oh, I see, that makes it okay then. /sarcasm
Do you think she told me what exactly I could do to improve, then? Of course she couldn't. She didn't want to see improvement. She was just looking for excuses to be an asshole.

But that might not be what you were getting at. I guess my point would be to give people feedback, but I think people do that already...
The trouble is that different methods work for different people. There are no universal solutions to problems, after all. I guess the most valuable advice to give to people who are trying to lose weight is to let it take time. Sustainable weight loss isn't supposed to be too fast.

...Did my words make sense? Did I have a point? Sorry, I'm a bit too tired in my head right now. If I misunderstood you, please tell me.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

A lot of unhappy, unfulfilled people doing their best to ensure that other people are just as unhappy and unfulfilled. I just don't get it.
...

people here [i/]literally[/i] want others to remain silent,

Are...are you quoting the right person?

I literally don't want people to remain silent, unless of course it's a situation where silence is preferred or even required, mind. I did not say that, nor did I even hint at the idea. Expressing displeasure is something of a basic human 'right.'

The paragraph above the quoted line has a prominent bit at the end, which says, "We're selfish creatures, but I just wish folks were less...assholeish about the pursuit of said happiness and perhaps less prone to stomping on that of their fellows to acquire it" ...which means, I'd greatly prefer people not be selfish, solipsistic pricks.

If, say, you hate how a piece of art looks...complain, by all means, complain. Attempting to get it removed because it displeases/offends/non-existent god forbid, 'triggers' you/makes you unhappy, is just reprehensible.

If, say, you hate how that gay couple is holding hands in public...complain, by all means, complain. Attempting to get them removed or preventing them from getting married because it displeases you/makes you unhappy is repugnant.

It's kind of a 'live and let live' policy.

these privileges do not take away the time or effort I put in, but DO exist and it would be ridiculous to pretend everyone else is on the same playing field

We know. Everyone knows.

Even the simplest person among our narrow representation of the overall population recognizes that they've been afforded more in the way of 'privilege' than their equivalent level of birth/station in, say, west Africa, just by virtue of our access to the fucking internet. The problem comes in when the aforementioned selfish, solipsistic pricks decide to use, "check your privilege" as a means of shaming or silencing others.

 

[MysticSlayer]

But what are you even talking about when you claim that 'society' is telling you this?

Spend a little time watching TV, looking at magazines, reading books, looking at models (for both men's and women's clothing), etc. I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a long time to notice the trend of what is considered attractive.

OK, I guess you could argue that it is the "media's standard of beauty" rather than societal standard, but the general argument, and I'd imagine the one the OP was addressing, are those criticizing the media for creating such a standard.

If I go to the nightclub with the intent of picking up women with my good friend Channing Tatum (let's assume he's single for this story) I can tell you who is probably going to have the most success in this endeavor (hint: it's not me). In this case, isn't "society" saying that I'm somehow lesser than Hotty McCelebrity over here?

But that still isn't addressing the issue. It's assuming that standards of beauty are objective, as if they've always been this way (they haven't) and will always be this way (they don't have to).

People will internalize certain societal standards. That doesn't mean we always accept societal standards, but there comes a point where we are shaped by our society. The problem is that this sometimes leads to various problems. In this particular case, setting a standard of beauty like the ones we have has shown to have numerous health and psychological problems on certain people.

This is why so many people argue against societal (or media, if that's what you prefer) standards of beauty: They are hoping that there is a chance that we can do away with making people constantly feel like they have to live up to some standard, even going so far as to develop eating disorders in an effort to live up to them. But if you keep arguing that it's all a foregone conclusion and ignore how our personal standards might be set by other people, you're completely missing the point.

Now, maybe there are certain features that people tend to find more attractive for biological reasons. However, there isn't much of a reason to universally judge people based on some arbitrary standard. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to lose weight, it should be because of health, not because you're ashamed of how you look.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

But what are you even talking about when you claim that 'society' is telling you this?

Spend a little time watching TV, looking at magazines, reading books, looking at models (for both men's and women's clothing), etc. I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a long time to notice the trend of what is considered attractive.

OK, I guess you could argue that it is the "media's standard of beauty" rather than societal standard, but the general argument, and I'd imagine the one the OP was addressing, are those criticizing the media for creating such a standard.

Except this is based on the idea that "the media" tells us what we find attractive, not the other way around. The media only exists because we choose to watch it (or read it or whatever), and it responds to what we tell it we want. Think about it: if Victoria's Secret could choose random women off the street to model their lingerie, and just as many people would buy it/watch their fashion show (since, after all, they tell us what we find attractive, right?), why would they bother paying supermodels millions of dollars to do it? Because people WANT to see supermodels in lingerie, not random women off the street.

Now, obviously in this case "we" refers to the majority of people in any given society. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but they're just that: exceptions. There might be guys who would prefer to see random Jane modeling lingerie and not Miranda Kerr, but to pretend they represent an equal # of people who'd prefer to see Miranda Kerr is burying-your-head-in-the-sand reality denial.

If I go to the nightclub with the intent of picking up women with my good friend Channing Tatum (let's assume he's single for this story) I can tell you who is probably going to have the most success in this endeavor (hint: it's not me). In this case, isn't "society" saying that I'm somehow lesser than Hotty McCelebrity over here?

But that still isn't addressing the issue. It's assuming that standards of beauty are objective, as if they've always been this way (they haven't) and will always be this way (they don't have to).

No it's not. Is it possible there is one girl, maybe even two, at this club who think I'm hotter than Channing Tatum? Sure, but just like the Melissa McCarthy/Gisele Bundchen example, you could poll 1000 girls 1000 times and ask them who is hotter, me or Channing Tatum, and I can all but guarantee that Channing is going to win this poll every time. So yes, beauty is subjective in the sense that not everyone thinks Channing Tatum is better looking than me, but to pretend that the vast, vast majority don't prefer him to me is just denying reality.

The problem with your overall argument is that it's based on this idea that "society" and "the media" are some sort of omnipotent being who just arbitrarily dictates to the human hive mind what they are supposed to like and not like, ignoring the fact that society is just a large collection of people, and the media only exists because it provides what enough people want to see. I don't think "Big Bang Theory" is funny, at all, but enough people do to keep the show going. So shouldn't I find it funny because "the media" tells me it's supposed to be funny? The whole idea is insulting, because it's built on the idea that everyone is stupid and incapable of thinking for themselves.