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geopolicraticus · 4 years ago

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The Infinite telos of Reason

“…what if truth is an idea, lying at infinity?” Formal and Transcendental Logic, sec. 105

Edmund Husserl and Scientific Civilization

In many posts I have discussed the idea of scientific civilization, while I have also discussed the idea of a science of civilization (cf., e.g., Thought Experiment on a Science of Civilization and On a Science of Civilization and its Associated Technologies), and these two ideas—scientific civilization and a science of civilization—are connected in an important way. A truly scientific civilization that takes science as its central project will continuously expand the scope of science until it eventually means that a science of civilization takes shape in the form of a reflexive scientific theory of scientific civilization (as well as a theory of the precursors of scientific civilization, so that the whole of civilization is thematized in terms of scientific knowledge). As a result, scientific civilization will eventually but inevitably converge on the self-understanding that has eluded industrialized civilization to date.

In several posts (cf. On the Reflexive Self-Awareness of Civilizations and Five Ways to Think about Civilization) I have argued that industrialized civilization possesses less self-understanding than agricultural civilizations, because agricultural civilizations understand that agriculture is the source of their wealth, whereas most individuals who constitute the population of industrialized societies do not understand that science is the ultimate source of their wealth and what has driven the great divergence. An industrialized civilization might stagnate at some level of technological development, when everyone in the society is sufficiently comfortable and is sufficiently entertained that there is no longer any ambition to pursue change (the perennial function of bread and circuses). As long as the pursuit of science is not part of the central project of a given industrial civilization, there will be no imperative to continue the kind of scientific research that would result in new technologies and new industries. An industrialized civilization can thus indefinitely remain ignorant of its ultimate source of wealth (though it will not necessarily remain ignorant).

In what I would call a properly scientific civilization, in which the pursuit of science is part of the central project of the civilization—when science is pursued for its own sake, as an end in itself—eventually this pursuit of scientific knowledge as an intrinsic good to be sought for its own sake, will turn toward the clarification of the idea of civilization, and the thematization of scientific civilization itself as an object of knowledge. A scientific civilization that eventually arrives at the point of thematizing itself as an object of knowledge will, by definition, attain a level of self-understanding beyond that of extant industrialized civilizations. Moreover, this self-understanding of scientific civilization will be far superior to the self-understanding of agricultural civilizations, because it will be based on a systematically elaborated scientific understanding; the self-understanding of agricultural civilizations is usually intuitive, informal, and anecdotal.

In this way, then, scientific civilization inevitably leads to a science of civilization. And it is at least arguable, even if perhaps not plausible, that an industrialized civilization that reaches a level of maturity at which a science of civilization is eventually formulated, might be nudged toward becoming a scientific civilization through this experience of research into a science of civilization, so that a science of civilization could influence the development of a scientific civilization. This is a weak argument, however, and, while I find it unpersuasive, I will not dismiss it out of hand; it remains and will remain a possibility. As we do not yet know the limits of central project formation, we cannot afford to dismiss any possibility.

We today inhabit an industrialized civilization that derives is productivity from science, but there is little or no awareness that science lies at the basis of our wealth. This is one sign, inter alia, that we are not a scientific civilization—or, at least, not yet a mature scientific civilization—because we do not have a science of civilization. Without a science of civilization, without a systematic framework for thinking about civilization, philosophers who have turned their attention to the problem of civilization have typically seized upon some one aspect of civilization that has suggested itself to them, presumably because this particular aspect of civilization happened to align with their habitual interests.

Most discussions of scientific civilization are thus little more than comments made in passing while discussing other matters. I have previously taken up brief remarks on scientific civilization by Jacob Bronowski (“Pathways into the Deep Future: A Commentary on Jacob Bronowski’s Comment on Scientific Civilization”), as well as discussing Susanne K. Langer’s essay on civilization, which is more than a mere remark in passing (“The Role of Science in Enlightenment Universalism: A Commentary on Susanne K. Langer on Scientific Civilization”). Now I am going to take up a few remarks in passing that Edmund Husserl made about scientific civilization—remarks that are particular interesting in light of the relation between scientific civilization and a science of civilization noted above.

Husserl made a remark in passing about civilization, in which he acknowledges that civilization is only mentioned, but he mentions civilization in the context of a science of forms of civilization or an historical science of civilization:

“Insofar as the individuals are members of a social community and especially also, in practicing science, exercise socially connected activity, insofar, then, as science can also be viewed as a social and cultural phenomenon, it is also a part of sociology and the science of civilization, whether in the general science of forms of civilization, or in historical science, in history of civilization does not matter to us here. It does not even lie in our path. It is just mentioned for the sake of completeness.”(Husserl, Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge, section 12, p. 40)

Here is the text in the original German:

“Sofern die Individuen Glieder einer sozialen Gemeinschaft sind und speziell auch in Hinsicht auf den Betrieb der Wissenschaft sozial verbundene Tatigkeit iiben, sofern also Wissenschaft auch als soziale und Kulturerscheinung betrachtet werden kann, so weit gehort sie auch in die Soziologie und Kulturwissenschaft, sei es in die allgemeine Wissenschaft von den Kulturgestaltungen, sei es in die historische Wissenschaft, in die Kulturgeschichte. Dies geht uns hier nieht an, es liegt auch nicht auf unserem Wege, es sei nur der Vollstandigkeit wegen erwahnt.”

We see that “science of civilization” has been used to translate ��Kulturwissenschaft” while “forms of civilization” has been used to translate “Kulturgestaltungen” and “history of civilization” translates “Kulturgeschichte.” In a few places in other texts Husserl does employ the German term specifically for civilization, “Zivilisation,” but it is often the case that Husserl’s translators into English have rendered various German terms as “civilization,” including Kultur, Menschheiten, and Menschentum, and there are good reasons for doing so.

Husserl explicitly uses Zivilisation in a manuscript from 1922-23, discussing it in terms of the distinction between culture and civilization then made current by Spengler.

“…culture always has its milieu of civilization, productive vitality always has its milieu of revealed vitality, its milieu of sunken, ‘conventional,’ merely ‘traditional,’ no longer or hardly understood spirituality, a spirituality that is expressed, but whose intellectual content can no longer be reproduced with its original motivations, whose motivations are perhaps submerged and completely dead: such can only be understood through historical scholarship, no longer as something that can be reactivated in the form of lively opinions and newly established and originally justified and shaped attitudes.” (Appendix IX, Ursprüngliche Kultur und Zivilisation. Können die neuzeitlichen Wissenschaften “selig” machen? (1922/23), in Aufsätze und Vorträge (1923-1937), Husserliana Band XXVII, p. 111.)

Here is how Spengler had earlier expressed his conception of the relationship of culture to civilization:

“…every Culture has its own Civilization. In this work, for the first time the two words, hitherto used to express an indefinite, more or less ethical, distinction, are used in a periodic sense, to express a strict and necessary organic succession. The Civilization is the inevitable destiny of the Culture, and in this principle we obtain the viewpoint from which the deepest and gravest problems of historical morphology become capable of solution. Civilizations are the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable. They are a conclusion, the thing-become succeeding the thing-becoming, death following life, rigidity following expansion, intellectual age and the stone-built, petrifying world-city following mother-earth and the spiritual childhood of Doric and Gothic They are an end, irrevocable, yet by inward necessity reached again and again.” (Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Introduction, section XII, p. 31.)

After the first volume of Spengler’s The Decline of the West appeared in 1918 the book became a sensation and Spengler himself briefly a celebrity. Almost every philosopher at the time had something to say about Spengler, because this was the book of the moment to which everyone felt a need to respond. When Husserl wrote this manuscript in 1922 or 1923, Spengler was being talked about in almost all intellectual circles, so that it is no surprise to find the distinction between culture and civilization as formulated in Spengler essentially adopted by Husserl.

Given an organic relationship between culture and civilization, where civilization is the decadent remainder of a once-vigorous culture, there is some justification for translating Kultur and its cognates by “civilization,” as both culture and civilization can be understood as distinct but related periods in the history of a single continuous social tradition. A history of culture inevitably is transformed into a history of civilization, in the Spenglerian schema, so that to speak of a culture is to speak of the earliest stages of a civilization, and to speak of a civilization is to speak of the later stages of a culture.

A passing reference to culture is thus as good as a passing reference to civilization, so when Husserl mentions civilization (or culture) as a particular illustration, for the sake of completeness, of pure logic as a theoretical science (this is the title of Chapter 2 of Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge) this is an acknowledgement that a science of civilization is part of a larger project of formulating theory of science that applies to any and all of the special sciences:

“…a science must be possible that deals with the universal essence of science as such, that therefore teaches us about everything that must necessarily pertain to all the actual and possible sciences as a whole if they are to merit the honorable name of science. In short, there must be a theory of science. The theory of science is then eo ipso the science of the logical as such.” (Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge, section 2, p. 7)

This is an idea that goes back at least to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, and which was elaborated at considerable length in a modern idiom by Bernard Bolzano in his Theory of Science (according to the Bolzano, the idea goes back to Zeno of Elea and Parmenides; cf. Theory of Science, sec. 3). Aristotle’s work retains a Platonic indifference to the natural world, so that despite Aristotle’s vaunted empiricism, there is nothing of modern scientific naturalism in the Posterior Analytics; Bolzano and Husserl make a place for the empirical sciences within a theory of science, but these special sciences are understood as mere fragments of the totality of an ideal science.

Contemporary scientific naturalism rarely makes reference to this traditional conception of logic as a universal organon that constitutes a theory of science. The special sciences are understood as more-or-less self-contained, definitely involving principles specific to the science and not shared with other sciences, and perhaps even employing a unique mode of reasoning that is specific to the special science and not shared by other special sciences. (Ernst Mayr, for example, wrote a book—What Makes Biology Unique?—devoted to demonstrating the autonomy of biology as a discipline, and thus its independence from the other sciences.) Nevertheless, the idea of unified science (as the positivists called it) remains in the background of scientific thought whenever it emerges from its disciplinary silos; the unity of science movement in early twentieth century positivism, the idea of consilience, and the idea of interdisciplinarity all implicitly appeal to a now lost sense of scientific unity on a theoretical level.

The Introduction of Husserl’s Logical Investigations is an uncompromising exposition of the idea of a purely universal logic and theory of science: “The aim is not merely to arrive at knowledge, but knowledge in such degree and form as would correspond to our highest theoretical aims as perfectly as possible.” (section 6) And, “…pure logic covers the ideal conditions of the possibility of science in general in the most general manner.” (section 72) Nevertheless, there are passages in the opening Prolegomena to Pure Logic that any positivist contemporary of Husserl could have endorsed, such is his focus on logic and science to the exclusion of other concerns.

The Logical Investigations belong to Husserl’s earliest published works. In Husserl’s later thought, he retained the ideal of an a priori universal science, but came to realize that this universal science represented a path not taken for western civilization, which latter had become distracted by the naturalistic path to knowledge. The universal science that Husserl posited is not a naturalistic science; it has its origins in Plato, and as western civilization developed in the direction of naturalism (Aristotle rather than Plato), the Platonic tradition become more of an historical curiosity, often shorn of its most spectacularly non-naturalistic elements.

Near the end of his life, Husserl turned to the social and historical questions that had played such a minor role in his earlier thought, and in so doing applied to the social sphere his vision of a purely universal science. What is continuous in Husserl’s thought from its earliest to its final expression was his non-naturalism and his pursuit of a universal theory of science. Husserl’s recognition that there could be a pure theory of civilization that was a particular application of the pure universal theory of science that he sought is not closely tied to his latter reflections on history and society, but we can clearly see, implicit in his work, the possibility of an Husserlian conception of civilization, a Husserlian conception of a scientific civilization, and a Husserlian science of civilization.

Husserl identified the civilization of ancient Greece as already being a philosophical or scientific civilization, said that this scientific civilization constituted a novelty in history, and also looked forward to a modern scientific civilization:

“…a new civilization (philosophical, scientific civilization), rising up in Greece, saw fit to recast the idea of ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ in natural existence and to ascribe to the newly formed idea of ‘objective truth’ a higher dignity, that of a norm for all knowledge. In relation to this, finally, arises the idea of a universal science encompassing all possible knowledge in its infinity, the bold guiding idea of the modern period.” (Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, p. 121)

In Husserl’s German:

“Nur, daß eben ein in Griechenland entspringendes neues Menschentum (das philosophische, das wissenschaftliche Menschentum) sich veranlaßt sah, die Zweckidee ‘Erkenntnis’ und ‘Wahrheit’ des natürlichen Daseins umzubilden und der neugebildeten Idee ‘objektiver Wahrheit’ die hahere Dignitat, die einer Norm fUr alle Erkenntnis zuzumessen. Darauf bezogen erwachst schlie Blich die Idee einer universalen, alle mogliche Erkenntnis in ihrer Unendlichkeit umspannenden Wissenschaft, die kuhne Leitidee der Neuzeit.”

“Civilization” in the translated passage translates “Menschentum.” If we were to translate Husserl as writing of “philosophical humanity” or of “scientific humanity,” instead of “philosophical civilization” or “scientific civilization,” that would be closer to a literal translation, but it is not clear that that captures Husserl’s meaning. “Scientific humanity” may be a more comprehensive concept than “scientific civilization,” as humanity is more comprehensive than civilization, since it comprises both civilized humanity and the history of humanity before civilization, but there is also a sense in which it can be construed more narrowly.

As Husserl does not discuss the character of civilization in other cultural regions, except to mention them in passing, we do not know the extent to which he would have judged these rational to the degree that ancient Greece was rational. Since he characterizes rationalistic Greek civilization as being a novelty, the contrast may be identified as being with the archaic civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean Basin that preceded Greece—clearly civilizations, clearly precursors of Greece, but not yet having made the breakthrough to rationality that Husserl identified with ancient Greek civilization.

There is also a contrast in this passage between knowledge and truth in natural existence on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a novel idea of objective truth that possesses a higher dignity and serves as a norm for all other knowledge. Presumably by the latter Husserl was referring to Platonism, which portrays the objects of knowledge as starkly distinct from natural existence and possessing a superior dignity to that of natural existence. Natural existence presumably corresponds to what Husserl called the “natural standpoint” (also translated as the “natural attitude”), whereas the task of phenomenology is to transcend this natural standpoint as Platonism did.

Husserl began his Formal and Transcendental Logic with an exposition of what he calls Plato’s founding of logic, which, to the reader coming from a background of Anglo-American analytical philosophy, sounds more than a little eccentric. It is Aristotle, and not Plato, who is associated with the ancient foundations of logic, but for Husserl it was the Platonic tradition that defines what is distinctive about rationality and represents the telos of human reason:

“Science in a new sense arises in the first instance from Plato’s establishing of logic, as a place for exploring the essential requirements of ‘genuine’ knowledge and ‘genuine’ science and thus discovering norms, in conformity with which a science consciously aiming at thorough justness, a science consciously justifying its method and theory by norms, might be built. In intention this logical justification is a justification deriving entirely from pure principles. Science in the Platonic sense intends, then, to be no longer a merely naïve activity prompted by a purely theoretical interest.” (Husserl, Edmund, Formal and Transcendental Logic, translated by Dorion Cairns, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978, Introduction, p. 1.)

The Greeks, then, gave us the idea of a rationalistic civilization, perhaps even the idea of a scientific civilization, but it is only in the modern period—perhaps since the scientific revolution or the Enlightenment—that this idea is fully realized as the idea of “…universal science encompassing all possible knowledge in its infinity.” (Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, p. 121; quoted above)

If we draw back from the tumultuous immediacy of history and look at science from a big picture perspective, we can think of the scientific revolution as producing a torrent of new ideas, and when the scientific revolution was overtaken by the Enlightenment, we then see a kind of metahistorical reflection upon the meaning of the new scientific knowledge made possible by the scientific revolution, all from an Enlightenment perspective. There is also, increasingly, an imperative to make scientific knowledge fit into the ideological presuppositions of the Enlightenment, as past scientific knowledge had been made to fit the Procrustean bed of whatever religion or moral system constituted the central project of the civilization in which the scientific knowledge was produced. Thus the crisis that Husserl postulated in western history can be generalized beyond the details of European history, and can probably be found in any tradition of civilization of sufficient longevity for periods of scientific curiosity to alternate with periods of ideological consolidation (which is usually also ideological stagnation).

There are places in Husserl’s writing in which he seems to assert the full generality of his thesis, when it is formulated in terms of humanity rather than the specifics of European history:

“To be human at all is essentially to be a human being in a socially and generatively united civilization; and if man is a rational being (animal rationale), it is only insofar as his whole civilization is a rational civilization, that is, one with a latent orientation toward reason or one openly oriented toward the entelechy which has come to itself, become manifest to itself, and which now of necessity consciously directs human becoming.”(Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, section 6, p. 15)

And in the original German:

“Menschentum überhaupt ist wesensmaßig Menschsein in generativ und sozial verbundenen Menschheiten, und ist der Mensch Vernunftwesen (animal rationale), so ist er es nur, sofem seine ganze Menschheit Vernunftmenschheit ist - latent auf Vernunft ausgerichtet oder offen ausgerichtet auf die zu sieh selbst gekommene, für sieh selbst offenbar gewordene und nunmehr in Wesensnotwendigkeit das menschheitliche Werden bewußtleitende Entelechie.”

A similar passage, though more focused on science specifically, occurs in Husserl’s Prague lecture (delivered 07 May 1935 at the University of Prague), which was the basis of the Crisis manuscript:

“…natural science (like all sciences as such) is a title for spiritual activities, those of natural scientists in cooperation with each other; as such these activities belong, as do all spiritual occurrences, to the realm of what should be explained by means of a science of the spirit.” (Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, p. 154)

A scientific civilization would be the social setting in which the cooperation among natural scientists would be most fully facilitated, but a scientific civilization based on Husserl’s conception of science would be distinct from a scientific civilization based on a more conventional conception of science, and would, in turn, facilitate the formation of a science of civilization consonant with the Husserlian ideal of science, also distinct from a science of civilization based on a more conventional conception of science. By “a more conventional conception of science” I mean science as it has been practiced, as it has been developed, and as it has been refined, from the scientific revolution to the present day, along with the presuppositions inherent in this scientific practice. Formulated theoretically, conventional science is naturalistic—proceeding by methodological naturalism and implying metaphysical naturalism—which is a presupposition virtually unquestioned in our time. Husserl’s explicitly anti-naturalistic conception of science constitutes an outlier even among philosophers.

Bronowski and Langer (already discussed in “Pathways into the Deep Future” and “The Role of Science in Enlightenment Universalism”) both employed a more conventional conception of science than did Husserl—and, indeed, a more conventional conception of philosophy—thus the conception of scientific civilization held by Bronowski and Langer overlaps but does not coincide with that of Husserl. Husserlian radicalism, or, at least, the attempt to attain the kind of radicalism that Husserl sought in philosophy and science, also entailed a radicalism in his conception of scientific civilization based on a radical conception of science and philosophy. Husserlian methodology would push a Husserlian scientific civilization toward a Husserlian science of civilization, much as a conventional scientific methodology would push a conventional scientific civilization (if there is or could be such a thing) toward a conventional science of civilization.

While the implicit theory of history in Husserl’s analysis of the crisis in European science might be generalizable, and Husserl sometimes cast his formulations in terms of the whole of humanity, Husserl primarily treated the crisis he identified in science and philosophy in the specific terms of European history, and insistently did so in his final posthumously published The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology.

When Judith Jarvis Thompson wrote of Richard Cartwright, “He gives no public lectures, he reviews no books for the popular press, and to the extent of my knowledge he has never declared himself on the crises of Modern Man or Modern Science,” (On Being and Saying: Essays for Richard Cartwright, Preface, p. vii) one wonders if she had Husserl in mind as the philosopher who did, in fact, declare himself on the crises of Modern Man and Modern Science. Husserl not only declared himself on the crises of Modern Man and Modern Science, he devoted his final years to these crises, and he left this work unfinished on this death. Had he lived longer, Husserl’s body of work on the crises of modernity would likely have been more substantial than it already is.

One could do worse than to say that the crises of Modern Man and Modern Science are crises of scientific civilization, or perhaps even the birth-pangs of scientific civilization—an axial crisis of the modern age. The historian Michael Wood characterized an Axial Age as a time of spiritual crisis:

“The historian Karl Jaspers called the period of the Buddha’s lifetime, from the sixth to the fifth century BC, the Axis Age, because so many of the great thinkers in world history were alive at the same time: the Buddha and Mahavira in India; Pythagoras, Heraclitus and the early Greek philosophers; the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, in particular ‘Deutero-Isaiah’; Confucius, Lao Tzu and the Taoists in China. It is extraordinary to think that some of those people could actually have met each other! This coincidence of lives suggests that the ancient world which had emerged from the first civilizations of Iraq and Egypt, China and India, was undergoing a crisis of spirit. Fundamental questions were being asked about the nature of God, about the purpose of life on earth and about the basis of the authority of the kings and states.” (Michael Wood, Legacy: The Search for Ancient Cultures, p. 68; also published under the title In Search of the First Civilizations)

A similar spiritual crisis of modern industrialized civilization was Husserl’s theme—the crisis of the European sciences—but Husserl’s way of treating this theme differed strikingly from his contemporaries (probably due to his anti-naturalism, which set him at odds with almost all his contemporaries). However, it could rightly be said, analogously to the above, that Husserl asked fundamental questions about the nature of rationality, about the purpose of life on Earth and the basis of the authority of the modern nation-state. His insistence upon asking these fundamental questions in a non-naturalistic framework, at a moment in western history when naturalism was triumphant, limited the ability of Husserl’s message to be heard, or, when heard, to be understood.

There is a tension here between that distinctive form of rationality envisaged by Husserl, and the distinctive form of rationality represented by western philosophy and science, as it has existed in historical fact, and this tension between the ideal and the real points beyond itself to historically distinct traditions of knowledge in different societies. Precisely because western civilization did not exemplify the Husserlian ideal of science and philosophy, science was in a sense free to take other forms, and it eventually took an Enlightenment form and a positivist form, inter alia, which various forms allowed for the narrow specialization that has allowed science in the western world to proliferate specializations and for these specializations to grow far faster than any programmatic and holistic rationality that precedes with an agenda for the whole of human knowledge. Pluralism in the realization of our epistemic ideals sacrifices holism but outstrips the progress of any holistically conceived scientific research program.

This is historically important because the kind of rationality in fact exemplified in western civilization led to the scientific revolution, to the industrial revolution, and to the great divergence between western civilization and every other tradition. Sometimes called the “Needham puzzle” and sometimes explained (or explained away) as the high level equilibrium trap, why the industrial revolution did not originate in China (or, endogenous industrial capitalism, as Elvin sometimes puts it) is a question that has vexed some historians. My answer is this: the industrial revolution didn’t occur in China (or in India, or elsewhere), because no scientific revolution occurred in China (or elsewhere), and the emergence of modern science in western civilization was an outgrowth of the distinctive character of western philosophy. We have our distinctive way of thinking to thank for the industrial revolution and the great divergence. Science is not merely related to philosophy, science is a particular kind of philosophy—methodological naturalism. We have lost the sense of science as a form of philosophy because of its disproportionate success and its subsequent positivist interpretations that seek to expunge the philosophical origins and orientation of science. This is precisely the problem that Husserl identified as western civilization’s failure to exemplify Husserl’s canons of rationality.

The Husserlian conception of science is in many respects the antithesis of the positivist conception of science, which reached the apogee of its influence during Husserl’s mature years. While philosophers and scientists today might hesitate to affirm an uncompromising statement of the positivism conception of science, there is a sense in which this conception represents the idealized telos of certain ideas within contemporary science; the philosophical presuppositions of positivism remain the philosophical presuppositions of contemporary science. Husserl represents the antithetical idealized telos to that of positivism.

Nevertheless, in the bigger picture—as I put it above, if we draw back from the tumultuous immediacy of history—this observation is in the spirit of Husserl’s conception of the philosophical mission of western civilization, even if it does not embody the letter of Husserl’s approach. Science and philosophy in western civilization have had a unique role to play in every aspect of the culture—art, literature, politics, law, economics, and so on—that has given to this tradition its distinctive character, and which has led to its divergence from other traditions. Husserl saw this divergence, and understood it, but also entertained the possibility of the distinctive rationalism of western civilization being embodied in a more thorough-going fashion than has been the case in our history.

If we are sympathetic to Husserl’s philosophical program, there are aspects of his thought that bring together science and civilization with unique potency, and it represents a sweeping and comprehensive vision of the philosophical enterprise as an expression of the human spirit, which must ultimately be expressed in human civilization—a scientific civilization that, if it existed, would differ in important respects from a scientific civilization conceived along the lines of a more conventional Enlightenment interpretation of science. Yet Husserl’s vision of the human condition is in some respects as formidable as that of the Enlightenment itself, and it could be taken as a rival to the Enlightenment—an unrealized possibility that powerfully unifies science, philosophy, and society into an organic whole. It is not difficult to see the attraction of this vision and the influence that it held over a generation or more of philosophers, though it has never been translated into social or political action.

#Edmund Husserl #phenomenology #civilization #scientific civilization #anti-naturalism #crisis

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unillustratedadventures · 5 years ago

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Ways of Using or Lying to Others

Sociopathic: using/lying instrumentally (i.e. just to get something personally wanted or avoid something personally feared), in a manner that is impulsive or habitual, especially if it disregards the law or conventional morality.

(Primary) psychopathic: using/lying instrumentally (especially if it is in pursuit of pleasure, novelty, or control) due to emotional coldness (e.g. lacking of remorse, emotional empathy, or normal fear) and a functional absence of conscience.

Narcissistic: using/lying specifically to pursue or encourage perceived affirmations, or to avoid or punish perceived criticisms.

Borderline: using/lying because of abrupt shifts in one’s evaluations of others between the extremes of idealisation and devaluation (e.g. suddenly demonising or discarding a previously ideal person, because she is now perceived as despicable or worthless), and/or because of a fear of being rejected or abandoned, or a secondary fear of becoming too emotionally dependent.

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tanadrin · 6 years ago

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The People of the Sea

The Circumpolar Languages are a major family of languages spread across the shallow seas of Sogant Raha’s southern pole. Their origin is in coastal Vinsamaren, and they spread south over a period of about 4,000 local years; due to multiple waves of migration, conquest, and back-migration, and the displacement of Circumpolar-speaking peoples from their original coastal regions, the later distribution of languages is rather different from the original division of dialects, but still reflects a rough chronological division as one moves over the pole.

The geography of the southern seas is dominated by numerous chains of hundreds or thousands of small islands, the result of vigorous volcanic and tectonic activity across the fractured small plates. rift zones, and mostly-submerged continental landmasses in the region. The Gull Islands, which divide the Great Northern Sea and the Sea of Birds at Morning, represent the southern uplands of what, during Sogant Raha’s past ice ages, was Vinsamaren’s low-lying southern plain. The Smoky Islands, the Islands of Pigs and Islands of Rats, and the Windbreak Islands all are the result of volcanic activity along large subduction zones; while the Isles of Swift Fish and the Seven Brothers are the result of hotspot activity.

The combination of open sea and Kiata’s warm climate means that polar winters are relatively mild, and the water is ice-free year-round. Warm currents from the flanking oceans makes the weather of the outer archipelagos particularly mild, though they also annually drive powerful extratropical cyclones southward, sometimes breaching the straits and remaining over the cold southern seas for weeks at a time.

(map enlarged; scale is in km)

While occasional archipelagic empires have arisen in the southern seas, these have proved transient in the face of the large distances and frequent dangers of travel in the region. Most political units are island-scale principalities and commonwealths, and while some more northerly islands have acquired wealth through facilitating transcontinental trade, for the most part these cultures can be rather inward-looking. Nonetheless, they are all possessed of a similarly intrepid spirit, being the most accomplished and daring sailors on the planet, in this or any other era. Though there are a few scattered traces of ancient human habitation in the archipelagoes, in the past even much more technologically sophisticated cultures have tended to avoid the southern isles. Not so the People of the Sea, who have proven to be dauntless even in the face of fire and storms.

Proto-Circumpolar is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Circumpolar languages. Like almost all later circumpolar languages, Proto-Circumpolar has a complex morphology centered around biliteral (mostly, but not exclusively, consonantal) roots, tripartite morphosyntactic alignment, a large set of noun classes, and strong active/stative and transitive/intransitive distinctions in verbal morphology. In line with the most archaizing of its daughter languages, Proto-Circumpolar is also reconstructed as using extensive noun incorporation, which can result in sentences comprised essentially of a single very complex verb.

The vowels of Proto-Circumpolar are [a e i o u]; realized in short, closed syllables as [æ ɛ ɪ ʌ ʊ]; however, only the vowels [a i u] can appear as components of roots. The consonant system is as follows:

Stops: p t k : [ʔ] b d g Nasals: m n ng [ŋ] Fricatives: f s sh h v z zh Semivowels: w j gh [ʁ~ʀ] Taps, trills: r l b [ɾ ɺ ʙ]

Roots are primarily biliteral; triliteral roots exist, but are treated as a special examples of the regular types of biliteral root. Roots typically have an inherently or originally nominal or verbal meaning, e.g., P-H, “dwell, inhabit, fish along the shore of,” a verb, and D-SH-G, “outrigger canoe,” a noun, but can in principle be inflected for any nominal or verbal category. Nominal roots further exhibit a three-way noun-class distinction which is generally described as “old,” “young and small,” or “young and large;” but these classes are arbitrary outside of living things (people, plants, animals), and in some noun classes (e.g., units of time and supernatural entities) inflect only for the “old” class.

(timeline map enlarged)

The nineteen noun forms are as follows: 1. people (including professions, kinship terms, etc.), 2. islands (the word “island,” words for various types of island, and proper names of islands), 3. places on islands (any natural geographical feature that isn’t part of the sea), 4. made things (boats, houses, tables, cooked food, and the flesh of domesticated animals), 5. harvested things (fruits, grain, and the flesh of wild animals), 6. natural things and unharvested fruits (rocks, rivers, trees), 7. weather terms except wind and kinds of winds, 8. units of time, 9. wild land animals, 10. domesticated land animals, 11. things pertaining to the sea and wind (including currents, tides, reefs, shoals, bays, and inlets), 12. domesticated plants, 13. inedible plants, 14. poisonous plants, 15. edible sea life, 16. inedible sea life, 17. poisonous or venomous sea life, 18. the supernatural (ghosts, spirits, gods), and 19. anything sacred or taboo (fanes, shrines, death, the plague, injury by fire, harvest sacrifices, drowned corpses). Nouns have single, plural or collective, partial (i.e., inherently possessed), and uncountable forms, and seven cases: agentive, patientive, subject, instrumental, accusative (used only for direct objects), dative (used only for indirect objects), and vocative. While this means that any given noun root can have in theory many hundreds of forms, almost no root in practice has a form for each noun form, and class and case endings tend to be similar across many or all classes. The difference in how each declension handles endings tends to arise from the phonological structure of the root itself rather than being arbitrary; for instance, all roots whose second element is -A belong to the same declension.

Verbs have seven major conjugations: stative, intransitive imperfective, transitive imperfective, ditransitive imperfective, intransitive perfective, transitive perfective, and ditransitive perfective. The distinctions between conjugations are more semantic than strictly aspectual, e.g., P-H in the 3rd conjugation means “settle, colonize,” but in the sixth “visit, camp at”, and both verbs can be conjugated in, say, a habitual or progressive tense. There are thirteen tense/aspect/mood combinations (indicative, imperative, future imperative, jussive, past, past perfect, past subjunctive, future subjunctive, present habitual, past habitual, present progressive, past progressive, and non-future conditional) and three persons; but as with the noun, save phonologically triggered differences, these affixes tend to be the same across each conjugation.

Proto-Circumpolar regularly incorporated the patient or agent into the verb as an affix; it could also sometimes incorporate the instrument or subject. Word order was probably free, with a weak tendency toward SOV.

(subfamilies enlarged)

Along with shared vocabulary around sailing, geography, methods of fishing and agriculture, and weaponry and political terminology, which all point to ancient cultural commonalities between even the most far-flung Circumpolar languages, the Circumpolar peoples all share a common vocabulary of local wights and supernatural intercessors. Different islands now emphasize different spirits in their local pantheons, but all share a concept of the “Parliament of All Seas,” at which island-guardians or kingdom-patrons decide the fate of the world, and a common ritual law which forbids under terrible penalties contact with the polluted or profane, and permits contact with the sacred only after extensive rituals of charity and purification.

#conlanging #conworlding #sogant raha

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tempi-fantrolls · 6 years ago

Note

This is why we need to talk AJ because of all people you know the truth and you know what happened to me. We met in person for god's sake and i vented to you about my frustrations about this situation exactly. I never lied to you I never lied to anyone and that's why we need to talk

“Pathological lying (PL) is a chronic behavior characterized by the habitual or compulsive telling of lies. While the average person will tell an occasional untruth to avoid getting into trouble or to avoid hurting another person’s feelings (e.g. “That dress looks great on you!”), a pathological liar appears to lie for no apparent reason or personal gain. In fact, the chronic lying seems to be a pointless habit, one which is incredibly frustrating for family, friends and coworkers.

“Although some of the lies are of the regular type (e.g. “Yes, I paid the power bill.”), other lies are fantastic in nature with a continuous storyline. For example, a person with PL might make up an entire false history of themselves or even claim they have a life-threatening disease. Sometimes the person blurs the lines between fact and fiction, weaving lies into a true story.”

“The ability of people with PL to use logical thought during their storytelling is still somewhat controversial among experts.

“While most pathological liars know they are telling lies, and will confess if pressed hard enough, some experts believe that some sufferers actually begin to believe their own lies, confusing reality with fiction.“

#ooc #drama #Anonymous

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engagedpractx · 4 years ago

Text

Stop marinating your brain in stress hormones

I worked for a few years as an operator on the sexual health connect line in my home town, Melbourne. I’ve been thinking of that experience this week, as momentum builds behind demands for surgical masks for the public and P2/N95 masks for all medical care. I’ve just deactivated twitter, after a week of complete randoms stalking my mentions, loaded for bear. These are people with a single issue, who spend all day online, who identify as #ontheteam, who are convinced the evidence is clear and the time for argument is over, we need change NOW NOW NOW! And they are frothing with vitriol for anyone who gets in their way.

I feel sickened by an attack on infectious diseases physician and friend of mine, Dr Trent Yarwood by a UK-trained GP called David Berger:

As wise enby once wrote:

https://twitter.com/andrewwhiteau/status/1240057153743810560

Working the phones taught me a lot of my craft as an educator. There are aspects of every job that are completely opaque to outsiders, and in my field, the big one is that education is not about providing information to people. It’s primarily about building skills, which certainly includes the ability to interpret information (what we often call ‘health literacy’). But it’s so much more.

In this sense, education is the activity that creates the preconditions for learning. It is relational rather than instrumental. It is something you do with and for someone, not to them. It depends upon the learner showing up for it. On those calls, I learned that emotional insight and management are essential for learning effectively about sensitive topics like sexual health.

We got a lot of non-genuine callers. Some would claim to be worried or ignorant about HIV and they just wanted you to talk about sex while they jerked off. Rather than diving into the detail, I learned to signpost a little; these guys were just a little too enthusiastic when I said ‘there are sexual risk factors.’

But we got a lot of calls from people with anxiety and OCD. Some callers were very worked up about objectively non-risky scenarios, e.g. ‘I scratched myself on a shopping trolley, have I got HIV?’ You’d start explaining ‘no…’ and they’d interrupt and reject that answer because it wasn’t emotionally congruent.

And your first impulse would be to offer emotional containment. When a friend or client tells me they have become HIV-positive, as an educator you don’t launch into a barrage of information; you respond to their emotional state first. That’s humane, but also practical: we are not going to absorb, process, or remember information we receive in a state of strong emotion.

Daniel Kahneman describes the cognition we do in this state as ‘fast thinking.’ It’s very black-and-white, it relies on stereotypes and jumps to conclusions. Intense distress and agitation are conditions for impulsive suicide, and if I encounter someone in this state I won’t take my leave until they have returned to emotional control. For this reason, phone operators receive a lot of training in emotional containment and assessing suicide risk.

The challenge with the grossly distressed OCD caller was that HIV was just the pretext; they were calling for the emotional containment. You could do some immediate containment (ok, I need you to stop talking and take three deep breaths) and talk them through the five requirements for HIV transmission (emission, fluid type, viral load, entry point, HIV-negative person). By the end of that structured process, they would be feeling calm again, and it would seem like they finally understood that the shopping trolly was not an HIV risk.

And then they’d call again on your next shift. ‘I used an ATM after a guy and what if he’d just been touching himself and what if I touched my face?’ In fact, our training was to gently but firmly refuse emotional containment, because it would otherwise reward them for calling and reinforce that behaviour.

There was a second cohort of people who would call with a sophisticated narrative and absolute note-perfect tone and presentation of self: concerned, interested, seeking information, appreciative of your time… and the story was completely false and their goal was milking you for the emotional support and feeling powerful because they were able to manipulate you. At some point they’d slip up in some respect and they’d correct themselves, perfectly calm, but you’d realised, and it was an awful feeling every time.

Earlier today I was chatting with Anthony B, who mentioned Dr Carl R Bergstrom has a new book on literacy for recognising ‘science-shaped misinformation’ — what an incredible turn of phrase — and using the science to challenge it.

And I had to say, I just don’t think the problem is that people lack facts, or believe incorrect facts. You can argue them into the ground and they won’t change their minds because these are not beliefs but rather emotional and political commitments and habitus and worldview.

Since the beginning of the outbreak I’ve been writing careful pieces that use relaxed prose and present the rationale and use all the tricks available to writers to manage our readers’ emotions — to encourage calm, activate sense of humour, invite thoughtful cognition rather than stirring up strong emotion.

But it feels a bit pointless when you’ve got white coats and the white coat-adjacent — people the media and the general public instinctively see as experts — banging the drum all day every day about masks, school closures, elimination. The evidence is clear. The virus is airborne. Schools are petri dishes. The government is reckless. Our public health experts are lying to us.

Simple messages, strong emotions, black-and-white thinking, us versus them identification. These tactics invite people to identify as members of a movement — a vocal army, at war on the social media battlefield. And people do that, on twitter, all day every day, until they have lost all perspective and they are screaming the kind of abuse that causes moral injury and drives reasonable commentators to abandon the field.

I don’t see this as a problem of misinformation. It is a problem of emotional regulation resulting from a deliberate or emergent strategy of entrainment. People are not managing their own emotions and they are not getting any external emotional containment; indeed, they are spending all day participating in a social media culture that entrains emotional intensification.

Trauma therapists talk about the ‘HPA’ network that activates and overperforms in people with post-traumatic symptoms: short for hypothalamic (emotional processing), pituitary (bodily management), adrenal (fight or flight). Instead of misinformation, we should talk about misentrainment, or the formation of a different kind of network, composed of human and non-human actors: the pixel–retinal–adrenal–keyboard circuit.

In this, pixel and keyboard are metaphors for platforms — not just the social media networks but the network-cultures that exist on them. (I look forward to hearing from extremely concrete thinkers about how that metaphor is imperfect.) I single out the adrenal cortext and nor/adrenaline signalling systems because these are what make you forget your physical and temporal location, your embodiment, and the fact you can pause or walk away.

As a result, my mantra on social media is simple: ‘take a breath or take a seat.’

As an educator there is not much I can do to offer emotional containment to someone who is over-activated and frothing with vitriol. I can see their distress but they may in fact appreciate the feelings of urgency and agency this state offers them at a time when the alternative is uncertainty and depression.

I can’t encourage them to take three deep breaths or name the first five things they see or remember the last time they felt really peaceful. But I can do those things myself, remind myself that platform participation is optional, step away from the keyboard, deactivate my account, and let my HPA and PRAK cool off.

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narcopathicabuse · 7 years ago

Text

Almost everyone has some narcissistic traits, but being conceited, argumentative, or selfish sometimes (or even all the time) doesn't amount to a personality disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

is a long-term pattern of abnormal thinking, feeling, and behavior in many different situations. The traits on this page will seem

peculiar

disturbing

when someone acts this way -- i.e., you will know that something is not right, and contact with narcissists may make you feel bad about yourself. It's not unusual for narcissists to be outstanding in their field of work. But these are the successful people who have a history of alienating colleagues, co-workers, employees, students, clients, and customers -- people go away mad or sad after close contact with narcissists.

How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

(a) Just one -- but he has to wait for the whole world to revolve around him. (b) None at all -- he hires menials for work that's beneath him.

This is a compilation of observations I've made from various people I've known well for many years. Most of these traits apply to all of the narcissists I've known, but that doesn't mean that they'll all apply to the narcissists you know. My narcissists are all high-functioning -- that is, they've maintained gainful employment, marriages and family life -- and there may certainly be narcissistic traits that I haven't observed among the narcissists I've known. You can go directly to my

full commentary

on narcissists' traits or you can select what you're most interested in from the

pink box

below. Narcissicism is a personality disorder and that means that narcissists' personalities aren't organized in a way that makes sense to most people, so the notes below do not necessarily go in the order I've listed them or in any order at all. Interaction with narcissists is confusing, even bewildering -- their reasons for what they do are not the same as normal reasons. In fact, treating them like normal people (e.g., appealing to their better nature, as in "Please have a heart," or giving them the chance to apologize and make amends) will make matters worse with a narcissist.

[For general discussion of cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control in personality disorders and NPD. It's also interesting to compare these traits below with characteristics of normal six-year-olds.]

amoral/conscienceless

authoritarian

care only about appearances

contemptuous

critical of others

cruel

disappointing gift-givers

don't recognize own feelings

envious and competitive

feel entitled

flirtatious or seductive

grandiose

hard to have a good time with

hate to live alone

hyper-sensitive to criticism

impulsive

lack sense of humor

naive

passive

pessimistic

religious

secretive

self-contradictory

stingy

strange work habits

unusual eating habits

weird sense of time

The most telling thing that narcissists do is

contradict themselves

. They will do this virtually in the same sentence, without even stopping to take a breath. It can be trivial (e.g., about what they want for lunch) or it can be serious (e.g., about whether or not they love you). When you ask them which one they mean, they'll deny ever saying the first one, though it may literally have been only seconds since they said it -- really, how could you think they'd ever have said

that

? You need to have your head examined! They will contradict FACTS. They will lie to you about things that you did together. They will misquote you to yourself. If you disagree with them, they'll say you're lying, making stuff up, or are crazy. [At this point, if you're like me, you sort of panic and want to talk to anyone who will listen about what is going on: this is a healthy reaction; it's a reality check ("who's the crazy one here?"); that you're confused by the narcissist's contrariness, that you turn to another person to help you keep your bearings, that you know something is seriously wrong and worry that it might be you are all signs that you are not a narcissist]. NOTE: Normal people can behave irrationally under emotional stress -- be confused, deny things they know, get sort of paranoid, want to be babied when they're in pain. But normal people recover pretty much within an hour or two or a day or two, and, with normal people, your expressions of love and concern for their welfare will be taken to heart. They will be stabilized by your emotional and moral support. Not so with narcissists -- the surest way I know of to get a crushing blow to your heart is to tell a narcissist you love her or him. They will respond with a nasty power move, such as telling you to do things entirely their way or else be banished from them for ever.

If you're like me, you get into disputes with narcissists over their casual dishonesty and

cruelty

to other people. Trying to reform narcissists by reasoning with them or by appealing to their better nature is about as effective as spitting in the ocean. What you see is what you get: they have no better nature. The fundamental problem here is that narcissists lack empathy.

Lacking empathy is a profound disturbance to the narcissist's thinking (cognition) and feeling (affectivity). Even when very intelligent, narcissists can't reason well. One I've worked with closely does something I characterize as "analysis by eggbeater." They don't understand the meaning of what people say and they don't grasp the meaning of the written word either -- because so much of the meaning of anything we say depends on context and affect, narcissists (lacking empathy and thus lacking both context and affect) hear only the words. (Discussions with narcissists can be really weird and disconcerting; they seem to think that using some of the same words means that they are following a line of conversation or reasoning. Thus, they will go off on tangents and irrelevancies, apparently in the blithe delusion that they understand what others are talking about.) And, frankly, they don't hear all the words, either. They can pay attention only to stuff that has them in it. This is not merely a bad habit -- it's a cognitive deficiency. Narcissists pay attention only to themselves and stuff that affects them personally. However, since they don't know what other people are doing, narcissists can't judge what will affect them personally and seem never to learn that when they cause trouble they will get trouble back. They won't take other people's feelings into consideration and so they overlook the fact that other people will react with feeling when abused or exploited and that most people get really pissed off by being lied to or lied about.

Narcissists

lack a mature conscience

and seem to be restrained only by fear of being punished or of damaging their reputations -- though, again, this can be obscure to casual observation if you don't know what they think their reputations are, and what they believe others think of them may be way out of touch with reality [see remarks on

John Cheever

elsewhere on this page]. Their moral intelligence is about at the level of a bright five- or six-year-old; the only rules they recognize are things that have been specifically required, permitted, prohibited, or disapproved of by authority figures they know personally. Anyhow, narcissists can't be counted on not to do something

just because

it's wrong, illegal, or will hurt someone, as long as they think that they can get away with it or that you can't stop them or punish them (i.e., they don't care what you think unless they're afraid of you).

Narcissists are

envious and competitive

in ways that are hard to understand. For instance, one I knew once became incensed over an article published in a national magazine -- not for its content exactly, but because

she

could have written something just as good. Maybe she could have -- she hadn't, but that little lapse on her part was beside the point to her. They are constantly comparing themselves (and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole world.

Narcissists are generally

contemptuous

of others. This seems to spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people's feelings, wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall

negative outlook on life

Narcissists are (a)

extremely sensitive to personal criticism

and (b)

extremely critical of other people

. They think that they must

be seen as

perfect or superior or infallible, next to god-like (if not actually divine, then sitting on the right hand of God) -- or else they are worthless. There's no middle ground of ordinary normal humanity for narcissists. They can't tolerate the least disagreement. In fact, if you say, "Please don't do that again -- it hurts," narcissists will turn around and do it again

harder

to prove that they were right the first time; their reasoning seems to be something like "I am a good person and can do no wrong; therefore, I didn't hurt you and you are lying about it now..." -- sorry, folks, I get lost after that. Anyhow, narcissists are habitually cruel in little ways, as well as big ones, because they're paying attention to their fantasy and not to you, but the bruises on you are REAL, not in your imagination. Thus, no matter how gently you suggest that they might do better to change their ways or get some help, they will react in one of two equally horrible ways: they will attack or they will withdraw. Be wary of wandering into this dragon's cave -- narcissists will say ANYTHING, they will trash anyone in their own self-justification, and then they will expect the immediate restoration of the status quo. They will attack you (sometimes physically) and spew a load of bile, insult, abuse, contempt, threats, etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they had indigestion and the vicious tirade worked like a burp: ��"There. Now I feel better. Where were we?" They feel better, so they expect you to feel better, too. They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately and say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment, they will say, "You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me this way, so God loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how special I am.)" Accepting them as they are (and staying away from them entirely) is excellent advice. The other "punishment" narcissists mete out is banishing you from their glorious presence -- this can turn into a farce, since by this point you are probably praying to be rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?" The narcissist expects that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the next time the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the narcissist will expect you to have learned your lesson and be eager to return to the fold. If you have learned your lesson, you won't answer that call. They can't see that they have a problem; it's always somebody else who has the problem and needs to change. Therapies work at all only when the individual wants to change and, though narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they want the world to change.

And they criticize, gripe, and complain about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time.

There are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about whom they won't brook the slightest criticism. These are people the narcissists are terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they feel is love and respect; apparently they don't know the difference between fear and love. Narcissists just get worse and worse as they grow older; their parents and other authority figures that they've feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence to keep them in check.

Narcissists are hostile and ferocious in reaction, but they are generally

passive

and lacking in initiative. They don't start stuff -- they don't reach out. Remember this when they turn and rend you! They will complain about the same things for years on end, but only rarely do anything to change what dissatisfies them so badly.

Narcissists are

naive

and vulnerable, pathetic really, no matter how arrogant and forceful their words or demeanor. They have pretty good reasons for their paranoia and cynicism, their sneakiness, evasiveness, prevarications. This is the one I get suckered on. They are so out of touch with other people and what goes on around them that they are very susceptible to exploitation. On the other hand, they're so inattentive, and so disconnected from what other people are up to, that they don't recognize when someone is taking advantage of them.

Narcissists are

grandiose

. They live in an artificial self invented from fantasies of absolute or perfect power, genius, beauty, etc. Normal people's fantasies of themselves, their wishful thinking, take the form of stories -- these stories often come from movies or TV, or from things they've read or that were read to them as children. They involve a plot, heroic activity or great accomplishments or adventure: normal people see themselves in action, however preposterous or even impossible that action may be -- they see themselves doing things that earn them honor, glory, love, riches, fame, and they see these fantasy selves as personal potentials, however tenuous, something they'd do if they didn't have to go to school or go to work, if they had the time and the money.

As Freud said of narcissists, these people act like they're in love with themselves. And they are in love with an ideal image of themselves -- or they want you to be in love with their pretend self, it's hard to tell just what's going on. Like anyone in love, their attention and energy are drawn to the beloved and away from everyday practicalities. Narcissists' fantasies are static -- they've fallen in love with an image in a mirror or, more accurately, in a pool of water, so that movement causes the image to dissolve into ripples; to see the adored reflection they must remain perfectly still. Narcissists' fantasies are tableaux or scenes, stage sets; narcissists are hung up on a particular picture that they think reflects their true selves (as opposed to the real self -- warts and all). Narcissists don't see themselves doing anything except being adored, and they don't see anyone else doing anything except adoring them. Moreover, they don't see these images as potentials that they

may

some day be able to live out, if they get lucky or everything goes right: they see these pictures as the real way they want to be seen right now (which is not the same as saying they think these pictures are the way they really are right now, but that is another story to be discussed elsewhere). Sometimes narcissistic fantasies are spectacularly grandiose -- imagining themselves as Jesus or a saint or hero or deity depicted in art -- but just as often the fantasies of narcissists are mediocre and vulgar, concocted from illustrations in popular magazines, sensational novels, comic books even. These artificial self fantasies are also static in time, going back unchanged to early adolescence or even to childhood; the narcissists' self-images don't change with time, so that you will find, for instance, female narcissists clinging to retro styles, still living the picture of the perfect woman of 1945 or 1965 as depicted in

The Ladies' Home Journal

Seventeen

Vogue

of that era, and male narcissists still hung up on images of comic-book or ripping adventure heroes from their youth. Though narcissists like pictures rather than stories, they like still pictures, not moving ones, so they don't base their fantasies on movies or TV.

Grandiosity can take various forms -- a narcissistic woman may believe herself to be the very model of perfect womanhood, the standard by which all others are measured, and she will try to force her daughters

to be just like her

, she will not be able to cope with daughters who are taller or shorter than she is, fatter or thinner, who have bigger or smaller feet, breasts, teeth, who have different favorite colors than hers, etc. Narcissistic men can be infatuated with their own looks, too, (witness

John Cheever

, for instance;

Almost Perfect

) but are more likely than women to get hung up on their intelligence or the importance of their work -- doesn't matter what the work is, if he's doing it, by definition it's more important than anything you could possibly do. Narcissists I've known also have odd

religious

ideas, in particular believing that they are God's special favorites somehow; God loves them, so they are exempted from ordinary rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them to be the way they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note, the narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including

you

. [Many readers have questions about narcissism and religion. Here is an interesting article on the Web:

"Narcissism Goes to Church: Encountering Evangelical Worship"

by Monte Wilson. "Modern American Christianity is filled with the spirit of narcissism. We are in love with ourselves and evaluate churches, ministers and truth-claims based upon how they make us feel about ourselves. If the church makes me feel wanted, it is a good church. If the minister makes me feel good about myself, he is a terrific guy. If the proffered truth supports my self-esteem, it is, thereby, verified."] [More on

grandiosity

Narcissists have

little sense of humor

. They don't get jokes, not even the funny papers or simple riddles, and they don't make jokes, except for sarcastic cracks and the lamest puns. This is because, lacking empathy, they don't get the context and affect of words or actions, and jokes, humor, comedy depend entirely on context and affect. They specialize in sarcasm about others and mistake it for wit, but, in my experience, narcissists are entirely incapable of irony -- thus, I've been chagrinned more than once to discover that something I'd taken as an intentional pose or humorous put-on was, in fact, something the narcissist was totally serious about. Which is to say that they come mighty close to parody in their pretensions and pretending, so that they can be very funny without knowing it, but you'd better not let on that you think so. [Interestingly, this is the only trait on this list about which there seems to be any controversy. Maybe I've just been unlucky! I've known narcissists who'll make fun of others, repeat jokes they've heard others laugh at, and laugh at jokes when others laugh, but knowing how to make people laugh is not necessarily the same as having a sense of humor.]

Narcissists have a

weird sense of time

. It's more or less like they are not aware that the passage of time changes things, or maybe they just aren't aware of time's passing at all. Years can pass without touching narcissists. Narcissists often look, or think they look, significantly younger than they are; this youthful appearance is a point of pride to them, and some will emphasize it by either preserving the styles of their golden youth or following the styles of people the age they feel they "really" are. That their faces don't show their chronological age is a good sign that they haven't been living real lives with real life's wear and tear on the looks of normal people. The narcissists' years have passed without touching them. Bear in mind that narcissistic adults have had decades of not being in synch with the times or with other people, so that by now they are really out of it. Sometimes it just seems like they have a highly selective memory -- which, of course, they do, sort of; they pay attention only to what has their name in it in the first place, so after 30 or 40 years, you shouldn't be surprised to hear a narcissist say something like, "Didn't the Beatles have a couple of hit songs while we were in high school?" or to suddenly discover that the narcissist doesn't know that M&M's have little m's on them or that smallpox was eradicated over 20 years ago. They are not being ironic: they really don't know. They were off in their own little world of fantastic perfection. On the other hand, as far as I've seen, all that stuff really is in there, but is accessible only intermittently or unpredictably. Narcissists ordinarily have spotty memories, with huge and odd gaps in their recollections; they may say that they don't remember their childhoods, etc., and apparently most of the time they don't. But they will have sudden accesses of memory, triggered by God knows what, when they remember details, everybody's names, what people were wearing, why the people in that picture from 1950 are standing the way they are, what the weather was like, etc. -- in other words, every once in a while, their memories will be normal. But don't count on it.

Narcissists are

totally and inflexibly authoritarian

. In other words, they are suck-ups. They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures. In their hearts, they know they can't think well, have no judgment about what matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures -- such as their parents, teachers, doctors, ministers. Where relevant, this may include scientists or professors or artists, but narcissists stick to people they know personally, since they aren't engaged enough with the world to get their authoritative opinions from TV, movies, books or dead geniuses/saints/heroes. If they get in trouble over some or another opinion they've put forth, they'll blame the source -- "It was okay with Dr. Somebody," "My father taught me that," etc. If you're still thinking of the narcissist as odd-but-normal, this shirking of responsibility will seem dishonest and craven -- well, it is but it's really an admission of weakness: they really mean it: they said what they said because someone they admire or fear said it and they're trying to borrow that person's strength.

Narcissists have

strange work habits

. Normal people work for a goal or a product, even if the goal is only a paycheck. Normal people measure things by how much they have to spend (in time, work, energy) to get the desired results. Normal people desire idleness from time to time, usually wanting as much free time as they can get to pursue their own thoughts and pleasures and interests. Narcissists work for a goal, too, but it's a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation. Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists don't understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they think it's all arbitrary, it's all appearances, it's all who you know. So they try to attach themselves to people who already have what they want, meanwhile making a great show of working hard. Narcissists can put in a shocking amount of time to very little effect. This is partly because they have so little empathy that they don't know why some work is valued more highly than other work, why some people's opinions carry more weight than others'. They do know that you're supposed to work and not be lazy, so they keep themselves occupied. But they are not invested in the work they do -- whatever they may produce is just something they have to do to get the admiration and power they crave. Since this is so, they really don't pay attention to what they're doing, preferring the easiest thing at every turn, even though they may be constantly occupied, so that narcissists manage to be workaholics and extremely lazy at the same time. Narcissists measure the worth of their work

only

by how much time they spend on it, not by what they produce. They want to get an A for Effort. Narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what others value or why. Narcissists tend to value things in quantitative ways and in odd quantities at that -- they'll tell you how many inches of letters they received, but not how many letters or from how many correspondents; they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

A narcissist may, in fact, hold himself to a grinding work schedule that gives him something like an addictive high so that, when wrought up, he can be sort of dazed, giddy, and groggy, making you wonder if he's drunk or otherwise intoxicated -- now, that's a

real

workaholic. Usually, this excessive busyness appears to be -- and some will even tell you this -- an attempt to distract themselves from unpleasant or inconvenient feelings (i.e., it's a manic defense against depression -- and, note, with narcissists it's inaccurate to use "happy" or "unhappy" because their feelings are just not that differentiated; "euphoria" or "dysphoria" are as close as they get to ordinary pleasure or distress) or to make themselves unavailable to others' emotional needs.

Narcissists

feel entitled

to whatever they can take. They expect privileges and indulgences, and they also feel entitled to exploit other people without any trace of reciprocation.

Some narcissists spend extravagantly in order to impress people, keep up grandiose pretentions, or buy favorable treatment, and some narcissists overspend, bankrupt themselves, and lose everything. My personal experience is that narcissists are

stingy, mean, frugal, niggardly to the point of eccentricity

. This is a person who won't spend $1.50 on a greeting card but will instead send you an advertising flyer that came with the newspaper. This is a person who will be very conscious of her appearance but will dress herself and her children in used clothes and other people's cast-offs. [

Note: Thrift is not in itself a narcissistic trait; neither is a fondness for old clothes. The important element here is that the narcissist buys clothes that other people she admires and wishes to emulate have already picked out, since she has no individual tastes or preferences.

] These are people who need labels or trademarks (or other signs of authority) to distinguish between the real thing and a cheap knock-off or imitation, and so will substitute something easy and cheap for something precious and dear and expect nobody else to know the difference, since they can't. These are people who can tell you how many miles but not how many smiles.

Narcissists are not only selfish and ungiving -- they seem to have to make a point of

not

giving what they know someone else wants. Thus, for instance, in a "romantic" relationship, they will want you to do what they want

because

they want it and not because you want it -- and, in fact, if you actually want to do what they want, then that's too much like sharing and you wreck their fun and they don't want it anymore. They want to get what they want from you without giving you what you want from them. Period. If you should happen to want to give what they want to get, then they'll lose interest in you.

Something I had not connected with narcissism until I read about

Reactive Attachment Disorder

is that narcissists I've known have had

unusual eating habits

or appetites, including eating match heads, dry cake mix, chicken bones, raw meat, dog kibble, egg mash, bits of paper, wood pencils; some binge or gorge on ordinary foods, others seem always to be on one or another self-imposed, self-invented eccentric dietary regime. This behavior does not seem to have much in the way of affective component compared to, say, "normal" eating disorders.

Narcissists are

very disappointing as gift-givers

. This is not a trivial consideration in personal relationships. I've seen narcissistic people sweetly solicit someone's preferences ("Go ahead -- tell me what you really want"), make a show of paying attention to the answer ("Don't you think I'm nice?"), and then deliver something other than what was asked for -- and feel abused and unappreciated when someone else gets gratitude for fulfilling the very request that the narcissist evoked in the first place. I've seen this happen often, where narcissists will go out of their way to stir up other people's expectations and then go out of their way to disappoint those expectations. It seems like a lot of pointless work to me.

First, narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what you want or like and, evidently, they don't care either; second, they think their opinions are better and more important than anyone else's, so they'll give you what they think you ought to want, regardless of what you may have said when asked what you wanted for your birthday; third, they're stingy and will give as gifts stuff that's just lying around their house, such as possessions that they no longer have any use for, or -- in really choice instances -- return to you something that was yours in the first place. In fact, as a practical matter, the surest way NOT to get what you want from a narcissist is to ask for it; your chances are better if you just keep quiet, because every now and then the narcissist will hit on the right thing by random accident.

It's very hard to have a simple, uncomplicated good time with a narcissist

. Except for odd spells of heady euphoria unrelated to anything

you

can see, their affective range is mediocre-fake-normal to hell-on-Earth. They will sometimes lie low and be quiet, actually passive and dependent -- this is as good as it gets with narcissists. They are incapable of loving conduct towards anyone or anything, so they do not have the capacity for simple pleasure, beyond the satisfaction of bodily needs. There is only one way to please a narcissist (and it won't please you): that is to indulge their every whim, cater to their tiniest impulses, bend to their views on every little thing. There's only one way to get decent treatment from narcissists: keep your distance. They can be pretty nice, even charming,

flirtatious, and seductive

, to strangers, and will flatter you shamelessly if they want something from you. When you attempt to get close to them in a normal way, they feel you are putting emotional pressure on them and they withdraw because you're too demanding. They can be positively fawning and solicitous as long as they're afraid of you, which is not most people's idea of a real fun relationship.

I always have the problem that I get fed up and stay away from THEM long enough to forget

exactly

what the trouble was, then they come around again, and every narcissist I've known actually was quite lovable about half the time so I try it again. A clue: Run for cover when they start acting normal, maybe expressing a becoming self-doubt or even acknowledging some little fault of their own, such as saying they now realize that they haven't treated you right or that they took advantage of you before. They're just softening you up for something

really

nasty. These people are geniuses of "Come closer so I can slap you." Except that's not the way they think about it,

they think about it -- no, they're thinking, "Well, maybe you do really care about me, and, if you really care about me, then maybe you'll

help

me with this," only by "help" they mean do the whole thing, take total responsibility for it, including protecting and defending them and cleaning up the mess they've already made of it (which they will neglect to fill you in on because they haven't really been paying attention, have they, so how would they know??). They will not have considered for one second how much of your time it will take, how much trouble it may get you into in their behalf, that they will owe you BIG for this -- no, you're just going to do it all out of the goodness of your heart, which they are delighted to exploit yet again, and your virtue will be its own reward: it's

supposed

to just tickle you pink to be offered this generous opportunity of showing how much you love them and/or how lucky you are to be the servant of such a luminous personage. ��No lie -- they think other people do stuff for the same reason they do: to show off, to perform for an audience. That's one of the reasons they make outrageous demands, put you on the spot and create scenes in public: they're being

generous

-- they're trying to share the spotlight with you by giving you the chance to show off how absolutely stunningly devoted-to-them you are. It means that they love you; that's why they're hurt and bewildered when you angrily reject this invitation.

Appearances are all there is with narcissists

-- and their self-hatred knows no bounds. The most dramatic example I can think of is from

John Cheever's journals

. Throughout his life he had pursued surreptitious homosexual activities, being transiently infatuated with young men who reminded him of himself in his youth, while also living in a superficially settled way as a married family man, a respected writer with an enviable suburban life, breeding pedigreed dogs and serving on the vestry of the Episcopal church. When his secret life (going to New York City for a few days every now and then to pick up sailors and other beautiful boys for brief flings) came to scandalous light, his family sought to reassure him by telling him that they'd known about his homosexual activities for years. Now, a normal person would be ashamed and embarrassed but also relieved and grateful that scandal, not to mention chronic emotional and marital infidelity, had not caused his wife and children to reject and abandon him -- but not the narcissist! Oh, no, Cheever was enraged that they would ever have thought such a thing of him -- if they really loved him, they'd have bought his artificial "country squire" persona: they would have seen him as he wished to be seen: they would have believed his lies without question or doubt.

Narcissists don't volunteer the usual personal information about themselves, so they may seem

secretive or perhaps unusually reserved or very jealous of their privacy

. All these things are true, but with the special narcissistic twist that, first, their real life isn't interesting to them so it doesn't occur to them that it would be interesting to anyone else and, second, since they have not yet been transfigured into the Star of the Universe, they're ashamed of their real life. They feel that their jobs, their friends and families, their homes and possessions aren't good enough for them, they deserve better.

Narcissists not only don't recognize the feelings and autonomy of others,

they don't recognize their own feelings as their own

. Their feelings are sort of like the weather, atmospheric, acts of God. The narcissistic think that everyone's having the same feeling as they are. This means that usually their own pain means nothing to them beyond the physical discomfort -- it has no affective component. When they do get some painful affect, they think that God is punishing them -- they think that their trivial errors are worth God's specific attention to their punishment. If you try to straighten them out, by telling them that your feelings are different, beware: their idea of sharing their feelings is to do or say something that makes you feel the way they're feeling and, as they make a point of not sharing anything desirable, you can expect something really nasty. The sad fact seems to be that narcissists feel just as bad about themselves as they make others feel about them.

Narcissists are noted for their

negative, pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy

outlook on life. Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite. Lacking love and pleasure, they don't have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just like them, except they're honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly complaining and criticizing -- to the point of verbal abuse and insult.

Narcissists are

impulsive

. They undo themselves by behavior that seems oddly stupid for people as intelligent as they are. Somehow, they don't consider the probable consequences of their actions. It's not clear to me whether they just expect to get away with doing anything they feel like at the moment or whether this impulsiveness is essentially a cognitive shortcoming deriving from the static psychic state with its distorted perception of time.

Narcissists

hate to live alone

. Their inner resources are skimpy, static, and sterile, nothing interesting or attractive going on in their hearts and minds, so they don't want to be stuck with themselves. All they have inside is the image of perfection that, being mere mortals like the rest of us, they will inevitably fall short of attaining.

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psychcharted · 7 years ago

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SOCIOPATHY: A Study in Rafe Adler. (Uncharted 4)

Sometimes, when I watch a show or play a game, one of the characters pops out to me as someone who would be incredibly interesting to psychoanalyze. It isn’t often, but on occasion, I can already give a pretty good guess at which category a “crazy” character falls under upon my first time around being introduced to them. Whilst exploring some of the already known and beloved characters of Uncharted and being introduced to the game’s new characters in its 4th and final game of the series, I was immediately intrigued by the character of Rafe Adler. Superficial charm, egocentricity, manipulative behaviors: these traits and many more were practically crystal clear indicators that everyone’s favorite “psycho” in Uncharted was actually a nearly by-the-book sociopath.

Before we begin, I will preface this analysis with the DSM-5 definition of what will be addressed below. Sociopathy is less-commonly known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. These two may not sound the same when one thinks about it colloquially, but in my own words, the “antisocial” component simply refers to a disregard for other people.

I do not have access to the full DSM-5 yet myself, but I have done research online and found several useful pieces of information to aid this analysis:

“APD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), diagnosis assigned to individuals who habitually and pervasively disregard or violate the rights and considerations of others without remorse. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder may be habitual criminals, or engage in behavior which would be grounds for criminal arrest and prosecution, or they may engage in behaviors which skirt the edges of the law, or manipulate and hurt others in non-criminal ways which are widely regarded as unethical, immoral, irresponsible, or in violation of social norms and expectations. Those with APD often possess an impaired moral conscience and make decisions driven purely by their own desires without considering the needs or negative effects of their actions on others. Impulsive and criminal behavior is common. The terms psychopathy or sociopathy are also used, in some contexts synonymously, in others, sociopath is differentiated from a psychopath, in that a sociopathy is rooted in environmental causes, while psychopathy is genetically based.“ (Reference)

I have highlighted the points that fit Rafe specifically, which (as you may note) actually completely cover the entire definition of APD. I don’t know much about Rafe’s past besides what we were told, but I can pretty much confirm the causes were environmental. (Nature AND Nurture) Take this excerpt from the Uncharted Wikipedia page for Rafe as a prime example of environmental factors influencing his sociopathy:

"Initially groomed to take over his family's business empire, Rafe Adler spent much of his youth consorting with the thieves, smugglers, and criminals in the black market antiquities trade. Now a respected businessman, he still makes time to seek out treasures for his collection. Thanks in no small part to the flexibility and power his wealth affords him, he usually gets what he wants. Cunning, cold, and quick to anger, he is not an opponent to take lightly."

The bolded points are clearly environmental factors. I will get into personality traits in just a moment, but I would like to preface the rest of the analysis with the fact that I do not know for certain whether genetics had anything to do with Rafe’s mental state, but from what we know about him, I can make a confident assumption that nature and nurture caused his sociopathic tendencies.

Now, to get into what else the DSM-5 says about APD. I will be using THIS SITE for this section of the analysis, and I will also be utilizing videos / pictures / gifs to effectively support my points. Below are some traits I have chosen to discuss that people with APD commonly possess / display. (Once again, I am using this as reference)

“Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.”

This is self explanatory. Rafe is a treasure hunter, who has quite obviously partaken in many acts that have gotten him into trouble, even prison.

“Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.”

Rafe is very obviously characterized as selfish, but what I’d like to focus on is when Rafe backs Nadine into a corner for his own personal gain. Unknown by Nadine up until this point, Rafe bought the loyalty of her remaining men, ergo leaving Nadine standing completely alone when she wishes to leave with the treasure they found without stepping foot on Avery’s ship. When Rafe hears her uncertainty and ultimately the wish to save her own life by avoiding the deadly traps set by the long-dead pirate, he becomes incredibly aggressive and manipulative, even slapping her before once again speaking to her in a tone that clearly indicates he is exerting his power over her. By the way he speaks, viewers can tell this behavior is not new to him, as he clearly knows what to say in order to get even a strong person such as Nadine to submit to his will. One can most definitely say he conned her in this sense; she thought she had control, but when she needed it most, Rafe completely flipped the board on her.

As for the rest of the definition, one can only assume that, with the profession Rafe has pursued, he has deceived others, lied to others, used aliases, and most certainly conned others for his own personal gain.

“Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.”

The scene discussed above is also applicable to this point, but his attitude as a whole also clearly displays this behavior. Here are some scenes in which Rafe is irritable, aggressive, or involved in an assault or fight:

VIDEO 1 (senseless anger turned to murder; the latter will be discussed later but I put it here as an extreme example)

VIDEO 2 (threat)

VIDEO 3 (assault)

VIDEO 4 (fight)

This irritable and aggressive behavior is almost an underlying default for Rafe, though his sociopathic charm masks it the majority of the time.

“Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.”

“Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing.”

Another self-explanatory point. Rafe does not care about the safety of others by any means, and he occasionally puts his own life on the line if it means having the chance to increase his eventual personal gain. Rafe is reckless during the prison break scene, remorselessly killing Vargas and causing chaos to break out. He also does not care about Sam’s “death,” not showing any intention to find out whether or not his “friend” is actually alive and treating his brother Nate insensitively before heading off with full intent to leave him behind. Even though they went through everything together, Rafe was reckless and willing to leave Nate behind on a whim. He had no remorse in killing Vargas, and similarly showed no remorse for Nate upon losing his brother. Sure, they were in the middle of an intense prison-break, but someone without remorse would be able to easily treat someone harshly immediately after a loved one’s death.

Rafe is also completely willing to let Nadine die when Sam is about to shoot her, despite what he says about Sam “not having it in him.” Rafe kept pushing Sam, stepping closer and provoking him; he was at one point literally asking - arguably egging - for him to shoot her. He refuses to put his gun down, even when Nadine warns him that Sam is on edge and incredibly serious about shooting her. Rafe then brushes it off very insensitively, with a laugh, when Nadine gets freed and expresses her anger towards him.

Other quick notes from the DSM.pdf that fit core components of Rafe’s personality with any other added points I wish to contribute:

Ego-centrism; Self-esteem derived from personal gain, power, or pleasure.

Rafe’s ego is hard to miss throughout the events of Uncharted 4; many people in the Uncharted fanbase even refer to him as a “brat,” which is usually associated with a large ego. Ego-centrism is the focus on oneself, which usually comes hand in hand with the colloquial definition of “having a big ego.”

Goal-setting based on personal gratification; absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behavior.

Selfishness, actions during prison-break.

Lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another.

E.g. Lack of remorse in killing of Vargas, lack of remorse for loss of Sam, lack of remorse in abuse of Nadine, lack of remorse in almost getting Nadine killed.

Incapacity for mutually intimate relationships, as exploitation is a primary means of relating to others, including by deceit and coercion; use of dominance or intimidation to control others.

It is quite clear that there is some sort of pre-established connection between Rafe and Nadine upon first seeing them together, but their relationship is incredibly toxic. Rafe does not care about Nadine at all; he uses her own men against her, manipulating her and forcing her to submit to his will against her own. He physically assaults her and ultimately shows no lack of concern for her safety at any point.

E.g. Once again, his abuse and manipulation of Nadine, and the fact that he did not care about the possibility of getting her killed.

People with Antisocial Personality Disorder are also categorized to be charming, callous, hostile, and risk-takers, all traits that Rafe displays throughout the plot of Uncharted 4. I can most definitely go into further analysis of this character and his sociopathic traits, so if anyone would like a second post to follow this at some point in the future, I would be more than happy to elaborate further on this intricate character. This post is meant to be a crash-course on the character of Rafe Adler and his sociopathy. Below, I have included some general links about sociopaths, in case anyone is intrigued by the personality disorder itself.

5 Signs You’ve Met a Sociopath But Just Don’t Know It (video)

Sociopath vs Psychopath: What's the Difference? (video)

11 Signs Of A Sneaky Sociopath (video)

Psychopaths and Sociopaths-Body Language Analysis (video)

How to Spot a Sociopath (web page)

Antisocial Personality Disorder (web page)

9 Ways to Spot a Sociopath (web page)

Antisocial personality disorder (web page)

Antisocial Personality Disorder (article)

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Treatment, Management and Prevention (article)

#uncharted #rafe adler #sociopath #analyzation #psychology #uncharted 4 #long post

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kai-skai · 7 years ago

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I (probably) lost a friend recently

(whining about it beneath the cut, 1,596 words)

At the beginning of this month, I got into an argument about sexual abuse allegations against celebrities with him. The tone got pretty sharp by our standards, and eventually I got so upset I stopped responding. When we talked again the following day, neither of us mentioned the topic. I was relieved and happy to let it be.

Two days later, he sent me an email as part of an ongoing debate on various other topics. He had added a section on the sexual abuse discussion, arguing his point. I very much didn't want to get into that particular minefield again. I considered just responding to the rest and simply dropping the section, but he frequently criticized me whenever I didn't want to debate a particular topic, and I could already hear him doing so again even just thinking about it, so instead I hammered out a furious first draft, took some time to calm down, and then went back to clean it up later.

After brief consideration, I kept a paragraph emphasizing how much the debate upset me and about how I expected him to complain about that again as well as a few of the original all-caps words. It's a known factor that he's bad at picking up subtle cues regarding emotions; maybe some caps would get across how badly the topic was affecting me and cause him to reconsider and relent on his own.

For the next few days, he didn't message me as usual. I wasn't sure how to interpret his silence. Maybe he was pissed, maybe he was simply busy, maybe he had stuff to think through and work on. Without knowing details, I wasn't sure how to go about messaging him first, and feared that picking the wrong approach would lead to a fight. I didn't find the time and energy tor risk that outcome, so I waited.

In his next email, he expressed disappointment that I hadn't reached out to him in his days of absence. The fact that I'd just let all contact cease like that hurt him. (He had the reason wrong, thinking I was afraid to be annoying rather than just afraid of a fight.) I felt guilty about that for quite a while. (I'm not exactly good friend material.)

Then I read the rest of the email, which included the expected harsh criticism of my inability to debate some topics without becoming upset as well as that he could only hope I was as upset as him.

He referenced a mutual friend in his criticism who apparently agreed with him, so I spent the next few hours in a state of EVERYONE ACTUALLY HATES ME AND I AM HORRIBLE AND SHOULD NEVER SPEAK AGAIN, trying to troubleshoot the issue in question and failing miserably due to a lack of specifics and alternatives.

The last time I had the complaint in question raised against me was after I had expressed doubt about a statistic on what percentages of information in social interactions were verbal vs. non-verbal. The only alternative behavior I could think of that wasn't outright lying (which I very much do not want to do) was silence, but silence often gets me complaints as well, and falling silent on the sexual abuse debate had me earned the very complaint in the email. There didn't - and still doesn't - seem to be any way to improve my behavior. I considered just writing back "you are right about everything and I was wrong", but I was pretty damn sure that would not be received well either.

After an evening spent visualizing scenarios in which I walked on egg shells around friends even more than I do, responding in different ways to things I disagreed with, and still not getting it right, I got fed up with it, ruminated on the nature and value of friendship, and decided I just wouldn't have any friends any more and spend the rest of my life alone, which didn't seem too bad and was actually quite a relief compared to the egg shell scenarios.

Then I moved on to the statement about him hoping I was upset and reconsidered.

I may not have the most complete grasp on the nature and intricacies of friendship, but I've watched enough children's TV to know that friends are supposed to care about one another, to comfort each other and cheer each other up when one is upset, and to want good things for one another. Upsetting friends is generally bad. It is sometimes necessary and/or in their best interests, e.g. when their behavior is harmful to others or contradicts their own deeply-held values, but then it is a necessary evil, not a good thing. Friends may be willing to risk upsetting their friends if necessary, but they will try not to, and they definitely won't want to upset their friends. The people I admire and whose example I want to follow tend to be people who even go a step further and don't want to upset anyone, not even their (ideological or literal) enemies unless it is necessary.

And now my friend, whom I believed to share my basic values (happiness good, suffering bad), wanted to upset me?

Necessity did not apply: neither of us is in a position to make any kind of policies around sexual abuse or allegations thereof, neither of us is doing any significant activism regarding these issues, neither of us habitually leaves public comments on articles and whatnot loudly proclaiming our opinions, even the debate was private. Both of us agree that sexual abuse is bad and false allegations are bad, so we're also not in danger of (intentionally) doing any of that. There are virtually no consequences to our specific beliefs about sexual abuse allegations among celebrities. Our opinions on the matter are as close to existing in a void as opinions can be. If I completely changed my mind tomorrow, literally noone would even know unless they brought the matter up first.

Wanting to hold only true beliefs - something both of us (I think) value as well - also doesn't apply. Neither of us has empirical data for the level of detail we're arguing about. All likelihoods are likelihoods we basically pull out of our asses by anecdata, something that has been true in plenty of past discussions for many somewhat-important points. This is fine in mutually enjoyable theoretical debates that serve to sharpen minds and argumentative abilities, but neither of us was enjoying this debate. In fact, we were apparently both horribly upset about it.

It didn't make sense. There was some other value he was working off here, one unknown to me that I did not share and that was more important to him than basic principles of friendship.

Granted, we did not watch the same children's TV, and we never really made friendship principles clear, but he did express a desire not to hurt me, and to keep me safe and make me feel loved. So I think it's safe to assume we were on a similar page regarding what feelings we wanted our friends to have and what feelings we did not want them to have, and that he violated his stated parameters regarding our relationship. Or that I misunderstood them severely, or that they changed since then.

In any case, my model of him was wrong in some major aspect, and I could not and cannot trust it.

Thinking through and digesting all of that took me about four days. He messaged me on the third to ask whether I had received his email, and I didn't answer. He repeated his message on the fourth, and that time, I told him I wouldn't respond to the email, because apparently neither of us benefitted from it and the expected harm didn't seem justified. I was prepared to argue the point, clarify as needed and ask for clarification as the opportunity arose. He didn't reply, and we haven't spoken since.

Sometimes I see stuff I want to message him about, and then I don't. Sometimes I think about stuff we've debated and start working on my next reply in my head before I remember I won't send one. Then I miss him. I know I'll miss him less over time, that he'll fade from my head, just like my mom. Eventually I won't get the impulse to message him about anything anymore, or maybe just once a year or so.

Sometimes I think about reaching out, but he's probably pissed at me. Hell, he actively wanted to upset me even before. I have no reason to expect anything good. And if it results in a fight, disengaging again will be risky as fuck, and engaging further will be hell, and going through some hell might still not get me anywhere.

I should have replied to the rest of the email and just dropped the abuse stuff. Maybe I should just do that even now? I don't know if acting like nothing's wrong will be welcome or infuriating. (Fucking people, how do they work.) And even if we just picked up where we left off, I'd just get stuck having meltdown over emails again, only this time without even the expectation that he might not really want me to. Is that even worth it?

I wish I could have the nice things without the bad things, which is probably what everyone who has ever been my friend wishes about me. (It's what I wish about myself too, come to think of it.)

#I don't want to tag this because then I might find it again someday when I don't want to remember it

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wrath-of-conlang · 7 years ago

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Fantasy Phonoaesthetics 5- Goblin

People often don’t bother to present a goblin language at all. When they do, it either sounds kind of like Hebrew, because of antisemitism, or like a higher-pitched version of whatever it is the orcs are speaking, because Tolkien never came up with a goblin language and people don’t want to think too hard, I guess?

My goblin language was made to sound like French. I have two justifications for this. One, French is considered a high, elegant language of culture, so making Goblin sound like French is exactly the kind of unlikely matchup I’m aiming for here. Two, I thought it would be funny. Sue me.

That said, I actually put a ton of cool stuff into this language, and it actually turned out being one of the best of the five, in my opinion. Features of Goblin include- tone (stolen wholesale from Mandarin), evidentiality, and a verbal system inspired by Swahili, which is my favorite verbal system of any language I’ve studied.

Phonology

p b t d k g i y

m n e o̞

f v s ʒ x œ

ʀ a

w l j

And, as I mentioned, there is also tone, which I basically took straight out of Mandarin Chinese. There are five tones, plus a neutral tone- first tone is high and level, the second tone rises, the third tone falls and then rises, and the fourth tone falls. The neutral tone is unmarked and just pronounced short and flat.

Orthography

The tones should properly be written the same as they are in hanyu pinyin, with diacritics on top of the vowels to indicate tone, but it would be a shame to break my ascii streak so late in the game, so I’m going to break a personal code of mine and use a bastardized Wade-Giles notation. Syllables will be followed by a number which will indicate tone. Remember:

1- high and level - 2- starts low and rises / 3- starts high, falls and rises again \/ 4- starts high and falls \ no number- neutral tone

Beyond the tones orthography is pretty straightforward. /ʒ/ > <z>, /ʀ/ > <r>, /o̞/ > <o>, /œ/ > <u>. Watch out for y and j. Again, no idea why I was so into /y/ when I made these, but at least it makes sense for it to be in this one, I guess.

Grammar

Basic word order is SVO.

Nouns and pronouns

There are no plural markers, although there is a possessive marker, le-.

Pronouns have separate subject and object inflections, nouns only inflect into a possessive form.

Pronouns:

subject object possessive

1 to3li4 to3 leto3

2 an4zen2 an4 lean4

3 sy2la2 sy2 lesy2

Verbs

Verbs work as follows: There is a vowel stem, after which there are a series of suffixes attached. These mark for person, then tense, and then evidentiality

person tense evidentiality

1 si past vo direct li

Verb stem + 2 no pres pa reported me

3 re fut ly inferred so

hab sto

The verb can also be negated with the suffix -xrat, which comes at the very end.

There are a few things to clear up here. One, the tense marked hab. is short for habitual, meaning that something is done habitually, frequently, or usually.

Two, the evidentiality. These tell you how you know an action took place. Direct is the most basic. It means that you know something directly, either because you saw it or because you consider it a self-evident fact (e.g. the sun is hot). Reported means it was told to you indirectly by another party. Inferred means that while you didn’t see it and weren’t told, you infer, suppose or assume it to be true. The inferred marker can be used for speculation, hypotheses or assumptions.

Three, you might notice none of these have tone markers. All verb inflections are neutral tone.

Imperatives work similarly although they’re more streamlined. For a command, you just take the stem and add -no, the second person marker, with no tense or evidentiality markers. To soften it to a request, add -me or -so after the -no. This translates literally to something like “I hear you’re going to do x” or “I’m assuming you’re going to do x,” but the imperative is clear because of the lack of tense marker.

Again, imperatives can be negated with a final -xrat.

Adjectives

Adjectives attach to the end of the noun as suffixes.

Vocab

be- pi2e1 love- vu3le2 eat- zul3 see- de4me4 help- xo2

permit/allow- fu4dy4 think- mu3r34

home- e2sta4bo2 name- flo2 friend- ti2sen4 water- grem2 tree- we4do2

dog- su1pe4 goblin- mu3si2 orc- fy3me4 elf- vlu2 dwarf- ja1sem4

human- be2sin2

good- se3 bad- mu4 tall- fon2e4 short- xa2vu3 hot- zi1li1 cold- ny2fem2

blue- lu1la4 desperate- te4ji2

goodbye/leave(v)- su3

or- si4le again- ke3

Example sentences

Flo2 leto3 pi2e1sipali ____.

name POSS.1PRON be.1.PRES.DIR _____.

My name is ____.

To3li4 de4me4sivoli ti2sen4. To3li4 vu3le2sipali an4.

1PRON see.1.PAST.DIR friend. 1PRON love.1.PRES.DIR 2PRON-O

I saw a friend. I love you.

An4zen2 pi2e1nopalixrat ti2sen4 leto3.

2PRON be.2.PRES.DIR.NEG friend POSS.1PRON

You are not my friend.

To3li4 zul3sistolixrat we4do2. To3li4 de4me4sipali we4do2fo2ne4.

1PRON eat.1.HAB.DIR.NEG tree 1SPRON see.1.PRES.DIR tree.tall

I do not eat trees. I see the tall tree.

Su1pe4 pi2e1repali lu1la4. To2li4 pi2e1sipali mu3si2.

Dog be.3.PRES.DIR blue 1PRON be.1.PRES.DIR goblin

The dog is blue. I am a goblin.

De4me4no! De4me4nosoxrat.

see.2 see.2.INF.NEG

Look! You won’t look?/Don’t look, please.

Xo2noso to3, to3li4 pi2e1sipali te4ji2.

help.2.INF 1PRON-O, 1PRON be.1.PRES.DIR desperate

Help me, I am desperate.

And now, for the final time,

Zim1...su3silyli, te1...te1ha1la1 leto3. To3li4 fu3dy4silylixrat ke3 mu3re4silyli an4 si4le flo2 lean4.

Jim...leave.1.FUT.DIR, t’...t’hy’la POSS.1PRON. 1PRON allow.1.FUT.DIR.NEG even think.1.FUT.DIR 2PRON-O or name POSS.2PRON

Jim...goodbye, my...my t’hy’la. I won’t allow myself to think of you or even your name again.

So there we go, the end of my series. Let me know what you think if you actually read all of this.

#conlangs #conlanging #my conlangs #goblin #phonoaesthetics

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paulatoo · 6 years ago

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To impeach or not to impeach has taken center stage... for a minute anyway.

Now that the Mueller report is out the question of to impeach or not to impeach has taken center stage. Sadly even before the time that President Trump took office there was a ruling that lying politicians are allowed to because campaign rhetoric, for some reason, doesn't carry the same weight as a lie in any other situation. To some extent there's a benefit to that for any otherwise honest candidates who get into office and find themselves unable to fulfill campaign promises.

However, in a situation where you have individual chronically, habitually and intentionally disseminating false information, especially when they are using the Office of the President of the United States as their platform, we need to have an option for removal. For those reasons I think the Republican Party should have moved to remove him at most three months into his presidency.

The Mueller report is detailing a lot of the ways Russia has attempt to interfere with our elections, actual areas of interference, covering some of the interactions between Donald J Trump and Russia that predate his candidacy, and his obstruction of/attempts to obstruct the investigation in to those things, impeachment is a buzzword.

I'd like to look at these options even though I'm more strongly in favor of removing him from office via the 25th Amendment and think that that is long overdue as well.

First question: Is there enough evidence to impeach successfully? Although we do not have option to view the unredacted information in the Mueller report, that may contain information that could verify a successful impeachment, is there enough evidence to bring a strong enough case to actually successfully impeach Trump?

To remind you Despite what Donald says, there is a lot of evidence in the Mueller report, he definitely repeatedly at least attempts to obstruct justice or ordered an obstructionary act. Fortunately for him now, the people who President Trump told or ordered to obstruct the investigation, or fire someone, or otherwise stop, silence, etc. didn't listen to him. His reaction to that has been to trash those individuals all over the place on Twitter and in the press, when he should be thanking them so that takes us back to the 25th Amendment. Then there is Trump & Putin referring to all of this as a ‘mouse’.

If they attempt to impeach Trump and fail( primarily due to the overly Republican Senate having and cashed in the security of the country in favor of maintaining a unified front, regardless of the fact that's a President could potentially be working on behalf of Russia, or even another foreign national to bring down the country. It's not like we're seeing the 1990s Lindsey Graham trying to hold Bill Clinton accountable, sadly he's gone the opposite direction this time, quoting misleading statements. Do they have him too? Btw I was not Bill Clinton’s biggest fan back then either) would that preclude him being charged once the protections of the office of a sitting President are removed? Reportedly no, even post successful impeachment, he could still be charged, but post impeachment the court would most likely go easier on him since he already had penalties placed on him by virtue of the impeachment.

At this point it is my understanding that the Trump 2020 campaign could be run under the slogan: ‘Please vote for me, I don't want to go to jail’. Will he be charged when leaving office if he's not impeached or removed under the 25th amendment? We will have to wait and see. http://time.com/5123598/president-trump-impeach-criminal-constitution/

What will the tear in the societal fabric be when unfortunately, despite the evidence in both the congressional election interference investigations and Mueller report, many Republicans still don't understand what has been happening with Donald Trump and Russia. The stuff he keeps claiming is a hoax (when there's definitely, proven times over, been interference and interference attempts by Russia and other countries in our electoral process and in our society as a whole.) Information that the Senate Investigative Committee publish in 2018 (The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) July 3, 2018 https://www.burr.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SSCI%20ICA%20ASSESSMENT_FINALJULY3.pdf ) (Remember they also released information on many of the false Facebook pages & ads as well as other social media accounts involved.) The things Trump has still been dismissive about if not straight up denying. More of Trump & Putin’s ‘mouse’.

What will the cost of not acting be? The lack of action on the part of the Republican majority and super-majority has already made it acceptable for another highly contradictory, pathological liar to behave in the ways that Donald Trump has behaved in office going forward. God knows Nixon must be on full spin rotation in his grave during this Presidency. I am not sure we can afford this Presidency let alone this precedent.

If no action is taken will the message going forward be that it's okay to at least strongly attempt to obstruct Justice? Will being charged, and possibly landing in prison, after leaving office be enough of a deterrent to prevent future presidents from obstructing justice?

As I said earlier I think the Republican party should have removed him from office very shortly after he took office for all the other things he does wrong. The whole of the country should remove him from office, invoking the 25th Amendment because of the things he does and says, and the way he behaves so very inconsistently and untruthfully. Not long ago he was claiming his own father, born in New York City, was actually born in Germany. Prior to his campaign he was claiming President Obama was not a United States citizen.

There are lines that can be drawn to separate the difference of a misstatement, or something that turns out not to be true(singular event, or very infrequent event done without the intent to fool or defraud) from a fraud, and intentionally, pathologically misstating information and flat out lying, as well as the crazy statements he makes to prevent abuse of this precedent in the future.

As badly as I want this incompetent, divisive, liar out of office, even I am weary of the continual hearings. If you don’t know me I am sure it is hard to read this & believe I am nonpartisan, but it’s not about Rep vs. Dem or Ind or any of the other 20+ political parties. It is about behavior & protecting my country. All I can do is assure you that I would react the same way to anyone from any party behaving this way.

Again, I was not Bill Clinton’s biggest fan back then either. The Republican Party has lost me at least the Democrats have done a better job of consistently presenting factual information this century to date. Hopefully when DJT is done breaking the Republicans they can choose truth over spin, and we will all have more honest trustworthy politicians until we https://paulatoo.tumblr.com/post/176167819317/tired-of-congress-not-getting-things-done-not anyway.

I think it’s beyond time that Republican members of Congress start using facts to educate their party and American’s in general, but most of them are acting like a Democrat will replace an impeached Trump instead of Pence, that’s concerning on it’s own.

We didn’t start the fire, but we need to put it out! What other choice do we have to preserve our legal & behavioral standards for the office of the president, or any office really? I am already very concerned about what we are going to do when another Donald Trump type candidate, without the 30 years of public red flags, comes along. If people could be so fooled by this one how will we ever avoid another less obvious one?

Some resources for the honest politicians & honest ads movement

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/great-leaders-may-lie-but-great-liars-dont-lead-2016-07-06

I think between partyist political spin machines & multination interference via social media inroads manipulating opinions https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/when-lying-demagogue-authentic-candidate Lying ads https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/political-speech-protection-and-supreme-court-united-states Sword cuts both ways http://www.klrn.org/blogs/texas-week/this-isnt-first-time-a-judges-ruling-considered-political-rhetoric/ “Where false claims are made to effect a fraud or secure moneys or other valuable considerations, say offers of employment, it is well established that the Government may restrict speech without affronting the First Amendment. See, e.g., Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U. S., at 771 (noting that fraudulent speech generally falls outside the protections of the First Amendment)” &” But to recite the Government’s compelling interests is not to end the matter. The First Amendment requires that the Government’s chosen restriction on the speech at issue be “actually necessary” to achieve its interest. Entertainment Merchants Assn., 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at12). There must be a direct causal link between the restriction imposed and the injury to be prevented. See ibid.” Justice Kennedy, UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-210d4e9.pdf I think the last few years prove we are closer to establishing a link to demolish lies told from being protected as political rhetoric, hopefully anyway. In an environment where so much spin & misinformation is allowed to grow & spread too many people seem unable to discern truth from lies at the expense of all of us.

Please note that I rabbit holed my way into that First Amendment information by, instead of just emotionally reacting to the headlines(in this case a synopsis I found inflaming):” The Court held that the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to lie about having received military honors or decorations, violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.” https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/supreme-court-cases/ I read on to discover it wasn’t pro imitator as much as anti-poorly written law. Researching past click bait headlines is part of our best defense against manipulation and poor decision making. One thing we can thank the Trump campaign above others for is pointing out how misinformed how many people are, even in the information age. I pray we learn from that soon, but sadly still see people sharing opinions, articles & videos with headlines they support, but content they may not agree with.

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passitonandon · 7 years ago

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The purpose of keeping this private to ONE DAY SAY “I am a writer” and “an artist” and why was this so hard. THE DENIA of safety means everything is questioned & why I make choices based on what I’ve learned.

The past is beautiful again : TY #words

This being to relevant to everything, I’m going to make a connection fortify a new ring, circle, hoop, a record sings on replay, grateful now my mind words this way statements I can recall easily that have much more meaning, are the links to make the strongest bonds, the ones done covalently so taking this post with knowledge of writing it for the purpose over there, finding times I have to hold two thoughts, edit in my brain, push keys, stand still, have to think up words, like poof, in air! Getting my voice is not done easily, going to try and explain this, easy 1, 2, 3 and it also quells the panic growing up in my, from he tingles in my face and spine, it’s like a solid rod I can’t define, if my butt starts to spasm I’ll lose my mind so put it over there & now go back SAFELY, go ahead, you can do it, push rewind.

Write a intro for the feeling “ in the moment” noting physical sensations starting with strongest felt (sharp, acute, burning) to less so (numbness, sensitivity to touch) and then good spots (often my legs feels sturdy)

Read what was written making editing comments : minimize to things you want to recall for later that can help e.g. emotional flared up, body pain became noteworthy, feel free to delete anything that is not relevant to right now or future or is readable or “clear” and has a purpose in keeping.

Recall other moments when making choices were successful & try to connect something to make both memories stick so that you’re habitually feeling capable (this is the connection made to another dimension while manually doing it while conscious to see if it kicks more anxiety to the curb?” note: ever since someone said anxiety & ptsd are not related, I became terrified. There is simply not enough knowledge on topics that big decisions are being made affecting lives. Those making decisions seem to have the least empathy & if not sure if it matters, it does to lil lives every day in mini societies called schools.

The Past

When you feel like you have nothing, are nothing or unsure what meaning is, you can still offer kindness & beauty & you can start right now! It cost nothing & effort is minimal. We all require attention, care & concern. Those most in need do see & feel the subtleties when others turn away, are talked about. I know because to a disorganized/anxious/depressed mind, words are confusing & meaning’s felt first having been both advocate & patient--split between two worlds & at a time found myself somewhere in-between listening & watching the sh&#iest behavior unfurl. I’m so glad that’s not me [I got out!]. More than putdowns & contradictions, but a topsy-turvy belief systems under the guise of protection and support. Stating those words here is a strategy, to put it out there, let the body experience it, react & then one day, attack it hard--say what I want, knowing full well this is the direction to take--follow the triggers. In my experience where students could not imagine themselves capable, smart or social, a little investigating revealed why skills would not stick & it isn’t that they were “low”--shhh, not being taught--when you see how ‘lil collaboration there is, you find yourself in your imagination, a lot thinking of ways to ensure self-advocacy sticks. In some ways, doing this, living out loud (my ideas are private) is super easy in comparison! Children [with or without special needs], the elderly, victims of abuse, homeless & the mentally ill rarely expect generosity, kindness & beauty, so with very ‘lil effort--a smile, a word, gifts in all shapes & sizes, deeds that SHOW protection, what’s the harm in helping them feel safe, emotionally/physically--oh yes, my experiences continues to shape me & the appreciation felt, a cycle of giving like no else, truly anything you can spare. It will mean the world to them in ways that help self-motivate, increase self-reflections, a step in the right direction that being independent thinking & living, a life model that’s more give than take and less dependence on others & systems, too. We ALL want to be seen for who we are, not taken care of, to me that sounds like someone is going to murder you. (Oops, just showed a fear...) That’s right, put them here & dampen the motherfu%ers out.

The content of what you say, how you say it, first impressions, effort & saying hello and goodbye still [or should] matter. Words & emotions held in a delicate balance between what’s inside & that image, the outside, if not in line, a lack of harmony, peace cannot exist--how do I know? Just listen & use your eyes (duh), you’ll see it. Stress & deviousness. Beauty is only skin deep? It penetrates every part of me! I know when I’ve been “unclean.” It’s natural to make assumptions, our brains predictive, consciously & subconsciously processing information through the senses as we navigate our world---that place where my fears culminate, a combo of caustic experiences that happened “out there” or “in this environment,” the world is where people are. Functioning has been altered in ways I cannot fully understand, nor describe, but that is life. No boo hoo, in fact, I’ve learned so much about OT/PT/Vestibular & Vertigo, that I see exactly what my students meant, going back in the past, part of therapy to really identify these fears [make ‘em all real], so like any good teacher I made detailed notes. Thank goodness I did. It’s reminded me of the writer I was & why all their words--I can’t concentrate, my body hurts, my eyes don’t work!--makes sense & where stigma & judgement collide into an invisible stew that’s hard to stomach, but I’ll keep ingesting it. That being a systematic approach (thank you Special Ed) 1/2 exposing myself to what’s most harrowing in my mind & causes the greatest physical reactions, 1/2 dreaming the biggest motherfu%ing dreams ever--getting through & over this--is what’s healing & since I am/was a teacher when you learn something new that can help, you share, and singe I don’t know what’s appropriate, I’ll use tech to do it, had to learn it, was way suspect since my privacy is everything, someone out there knew this/used this to CREATE more fear & shame. The proof, I’m “on” it and it’s true, you can dampen ev-er-y-thing.

One thing I did that many people cannot is leave the country. A safe place where they speak my language, but also familiar to me. It’s where Poetry, Literature, Art & History come together & I rebuilt trust in a city setting, Chicago not that for me. Triggers of these past years are ev-er-y-where--oh, when I share...I just want to make sure it feels good, right, doesn’t make the night come in, see, you must feel in control & no one can control anything except their own misery. Memories are amazing-Wow!-brings me back there--walking through the Tate Museum I come across these wonderful words that concisely says what I feel, affects how I hear since it’s clearer, a model, a way to get these stuck thoughts out. Take a photo. Remind myself of that moment. Revel in the sense of safety. This is real validation, another theme having been around the “phony kind.” This connection gave me back time because when you share an idea with someone whether you know it or not, you have participated in a moment that will never happen again. A true connection that does not lie to my mind & body, a perfect fit that my senses, endocrine & nervous systems can’t argue with.

The Topic I can’t Wrap My Head Around Comes Out in Ebbs & Floe`

So many thoughts that used to comfortably roll & slide in my mind, now collide, events send me spiraling in either direction, too high/too low, the goal I’m told is to be made whole--how about just be safe and prevent more harms from happening? I accept accidents do happen, giving those who made decisions & acted on them the biggest benefit of the doubt that they did not intend, but when you keep doing it, are you really going to ask me to pretend? Learn from tragedy please, that’s the point of ED & it’s practical, so for the next time. At the very least, what happened to me won’t happen again, but then I see, it’s the continual scheming, repeated lying to one’s face, a boundary I didn’t think [some] people could cross, those being the ones who make choices to say “I protect,” we’re a “family.” Good grief! These words/themes are everywhere in life, in stories, on TV, shopping, in loops, and then all the memories of being a “team” player, ok ok, yes you must do things to sure the greater good, just make sure the goal is fully understood by all since that’s when lies are cerated, my parents always told me eventually you won’t be believed & now with memory, I don’t have a need (what am I trying to say?) it’s storage, the capacity, the rule being, whatever comes up comes out. To say it, finally, having listened to myself for over 2 years with these fragmented sounds/words/noises, to just get it out is why I have to scream & shout now--How [some] people can never re-structure after trauma with so many re-triggers & why this task seems insurmountable but I never shied away from a challenge. Those who really know me know that very well.

The way I see the world is different, a combination of Music, Poetry, Science, Education, History, Philosophy, Art, pieces or shards, some painful, some not. I trust my feelings finally, they will dictate everything. The decisions I make, not able to trust a mind that’s been jostled a little too hard lately & why I am thankful for my philosophies, the ones in place from long ago. If don’t have a way to be moral, that part of decision-making you should figure it out fast (you never know) when a tap on the head, punch/kick to the face is going to change all the rules--a displacement of past tools. For me, it’s simple. Go back to Nature. Go back to School! Morality & Mythology, Stories show us how to live, the benefit is we get to do it vicariously & the past, where there were REAL fears. Living every day in darkness, death, daily tears, suffering to body, mind, spirt, no rights, no luxuries, then I walk these streets & see things that will never be okay with me.

Your body will tell you exactly what you need & if given the opportunity try the benefits of offering yourself to another through beauty & kindness, to anyone, really. How did we lose our imagination? Was it back in school when that teacher told us we couldn’t do whatever it was we were putting our minds to? A parent who put us down, left town, growing up doesn’t mean you stop showing up. A relationship who treated us a little too rough? Embarrassment, shame & fear are powerful weapons for some & if you are stuck in loops or using strategies that you know aren’t the right ones, there’s a way to stop. It’s a deliberate mindfu*k, you have to prove to yourself you’re greater than what you’ve been forced to put on that shelf. See, to me, if you do not, you could be missing some great adventures or discovery that such close-minded thinking prevents any possibility for curiosity to spring, it’s all about the seeds you sow and that is unacceptable. Keep writing, keep striving, keep thriving in the ways that work for your unique special heart. Sing, dance, play, draw, make goals, eat well, love much, whatever you choose to do, never..stop...making...art, never stop being in-touch.

source: The Village Voice; Edge.org; Oprah.com; USLegal.com

#tate museum #<3 art #teaching #depression #brain & function #choose your own direction #mark wallinger #lisa feldman barrett #andrew w.k.#@rpbracker #theaster gates

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unillustratedadventures · 8 years ago

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Another Voice on Narcissistic Abuse

Mahari, discussing narcissistic abuse (she focuses on abusers who have either narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder):

“We cannot compare or measure our pain [when on the receiving end of narcissistic abuse] in any accurate way. What is clear, as I’ve experienced in my own life, with my family and from a relationship with someone with co-morbid BPD/NPD, and from clients, is that it is very painful. We end up feeling invisible to their wants, needs, demands, tirades, rage, silent treatments, verbal abuse, gaslighting, “future-faking”, and the never-ending ways they either idealize you or devalue you. These on-going cyclical patterns of everything being about them, and their inability to relate in healthy ways, hurt like hell until you learn how to detach, to observe (and not absorb), and either take good self-care or move on.“

Mahari provides the following list of just some of the features of narcissistic abuse and narcissistic abusers:

”-Love-bombing: In the initial idealization phase, you are put on a pedestal and uncritically praised (until the devaluation begins). This feels good, but it also gets you hooked and sets you up for trauma bonding and gaslighting. Despite appearances, idealization is just as objectifying as devaluation. You are not a person with your own reasons and intentions and feelings. You are just an object onto which they are projecting how you are making them feel, or an object that they are blaming for how they are feeling or what they are doing.

-Gaslighting: Twisting reality so much that they impose their distorted, self-centred, unaware “truth” onto you. This is among the worst features of narcissistic abuse.

-Projection/blame-shifting: They accuse you of doing to them what they are doing to you, as they make accusations and blame you.

-Exploitation and Entitlement: They are exploitative and want what they want *when* they want it and exactly *how* they want it. No one can meet these demanding, entitled criteria.

-They want to control you according to their every feeling, need, and desire. They make demands rather than giving explanations or having conversations, and they abuse and punish you when you don’t meet their demands.

-Lying more than telling the truth, even after admitting having lied to you in the past. Apologies are either of the “I’m sorry you feel that way” variety, or else they seem detached from the specific reasons for the apology (the reasons that their behaviour hurt you, etc.).

-Future-faking: Lying about a future in which the two of you are still together (especially in the idealization phase). Feigning confidence or promising that things will get better, or return to the way they were in the idealization phase. Feigning commitment to change. Feigning commitment in general.

-Grandiosity: Entitlement is expressed in fantasies of good fortune that are treated as being inevtitable, no matter how implausible. Covert narcissists are relatively good at keeping grandiose fantasies hidden.

-Magical thinking and “Mind-reading”: Inflexible convictions regarding your feelings, intentions, or the effects of your actions, where nothing you say or do seems to make any difference to what they believe about you. For example, the conviction that you have specific bad intentions, despite the implausibility of this. When these inflexible convictions are about your own feelings and intentions, this is a form of psychological abuse called ‘mind-reading’. Convictions of this sort tend to be the result of psychological projection—the narcissists are the ones who really have the bad intentions. Alternatively, they might result from projective identification—your bad actions are to blame for the narcissists’ bad behaviour or unpleasant feelings, and your bad intentions therefore make you responsible for the narcissists’ bad behaviour or unpleasant feelings. The link between your actions and their alleged effects can be highly implausible—an instance of ‘magical thinking’. The insensitivity of these convictions to the evidence, and the fact that nothing you say or do seems to be taken on board, point to the fact that the convictions are not beliefs in the typical sense, and that the narcissists have an ulterior motive for believing these things.

-They pretend to care, but then they do not really remember a thing that you’ve told them. If it’s not about them, and they are not energized by a selfish motive (e.g., obtaining information about you to use against you later), then they are bored.

-Lack of mutuality and reciprocity at least some of the time, to the point of zero mutuality and reciprocity.

-Lack or absence of empathy and compassion.

-Charisma and charm, towards acquaintances or the people that they are currently idealizing. You are ‘being played’. This charisma and charm can be switched on and off so suddenly that it can appear obviously strategic or robotic, or like a mask that is being put on or taken off. This is especially evident, for example, if they interact with a devalued person and an idealized (or a relatively unknown) person within a short period of time. The charisma and charm are completely missing when they deal with the devalued person, but then suddenly appear to be natural and effortless in response to the idealized (or relatively unknown) person. Of course, this sort of abrupt, manipulative change is anything but natural.

-(In the devaluation phase:) Being told that you are not good enough, or that you have failed to meet their rules or standards. Being told outright that what they feel or want is important and takes precedence, to the complete exclusion of what you feel and the pain they are causing you.

-Narcissistic Rage (Silent Treatment, or Verbal/Physical attack): When you disagree with them (or they perceive they you have slighted them or criticized them), then they will either give you the silent treatment and stonewall you, as though you don’t even exist, or they will explode into a fit of rage and viciously attack you, using whatever they can against you. This is basically the difference between ‘cold’ fury and ‘hot’ fury. Eventually, an episode of silent treatment and stonewalling will turn out to be a narcissistic discard. You will slowly come to realise that they have tossed you aside, as though you are a worthless object and never meant anything to them.“

Mahari provides some quotations from clients:

“I was vulnerable, but the narcissist in my life just kept using that to lie to me, manipulate me, and gaslight me, before I even knew what any of that meant.”

“I was with someone who had borderline personality disorder. She said she loved me so very much. She played on my feelings in ways that I don’t know how to get over. Who is she, really? I think I know, but it is so painful to think that it’s over.”

“He told me he loved me and he was wonderful, until we got married. Then the rages, and the devaluation. Things no one had ever said about me. Things that were true of him, not me.”

Mahari continues:

“So many try so hard for so long not to give in or give up. Yet the pain keeps getting undeniably worse. You do not deserve the way you are hurting and being hurt. Nothing that the person with BPD or NPD is doing to you has anything to do with love. And your love can’t penetrate their ‘projective identification’, their triggered emotional dysregulation, their rage, or even the place inside them where they are screaming to be helped. Sadly, too often, the borderline and/or narcissist is not aware of needing help. They think all their problems are because of you. They are habitual blamers. You can’t help them. You can only help yourself. Clients who find themselves trapped between ‘toxic love’ and a breaking or broken heart often benefit from looking at their own past issues. That’s something that you can control.

No one who is close to someone with BPD or NPD, not even a counselor such as myself, is immune to the abusive nature of people with these personality disorders. It’s vital for your own mental health that you recognize the ‘toxic dynamic’ that you may be in, and get help and support to learn more about how you can take care of yourself.”

#narcissism #narcissistic abuse #emotional abuse #idealise devalue discard #idealisation #idealization #love bombing #devaluation #gaslighting #psychological projection #narcissistic victim syndrome

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Wharton 2015-2016 Essay Topic Analysis

'Huntsman H onlyFollowing up our announcement rather this week with Whartons home of 2018 screening screens, we valued to offer our Wharton 2015-2016 examine topic depth psychology for this geezerhood nip off of UPenn MBA applyfuls.\nThe Wharton adcom has decided to remain the same under deplete structure it utilise for last years accessions epoch, with one filmful judge close to what the applicant hopes to consume taboo of the Wharton MBA, an open-ended facultative analyse capped at 400 war crys, and an redundant 250- vocalise position for habituate by reapplicants and first- m candidates who aspiration to pardon rationalize circum quadments. This would suggest that the admissions committee was satisfied with the info these questions yielded last season as they groom inter sop up and admission decisivenesss (though its as well as viable that the adcom lacks to preserve whatsoever continuity as a saucy Director comes on board).\nLets take a close r nip at several(prenominal)ly(prenominal) of Whartons prompts and consider how each business leader constituent into an applicants strategy:\n canvas 1 (Required): What do you hope to elucidate several(prenominal)(prenominal) in person and master copyly from the Wharton MBA? (500 words)\nA variation on the typical flight goals essay, this question asks applicants to consume a big- cinema view of their b-school aspirations, pointing on their hopes for two their individual(prenominal) take up turn outment and post-MBA master copy direction. On the master front, candidates entrust want to take several(prenominal) culture approximately their immediate post-MBA course goals, as nearly as their long-term aspirations and the broad meeting they hope to yield on their industry, community, uncouth or region. This go away assistance the admissions reviewer understand how note of hand school add to postulatehers into your professional arc and video display that youre making a well reasoned decision in applying.\nMeanwhile, applicants way out to a fault motif to touch upon how they hope to break away on a to a greater extent in the flesh(predicate) level during their snip in the Wharton MBA chopine. We cheer that you provide an honest answer to this component of the question that provides a window into your set and/or your sentiency around dominance champaigns for growth. For example, some applicants might comment that they hope to hone leadership-related skills handle their ability to run others, collaborate with colleagues from disparate disciplines, or to a greater extent effectively flirt across cultures. This would resile an appreciation for the quiet skills that business schools and employers prize. Meanwhile, others may choose to cozy up a ad hominem interest that they gaze to deepen on board their classmates through elaboration in a student club, or comment on a envisage involvement in the larger Philadelphia community. such remarks every last(predicate)ow serve the adcom form a salutaryer picture of the person tin the file. Of course, applicants would likewise do well to name and jiberess how they see themselves bestow at Wharton, both in and out of the classroom a topic in which the Wharton adcom has always been interested.\n inclined the tight word limit, applicants see behind need to write thoughtfully and concisely, demonstrating a difficult understanding of how Whartons program would enable them to pull through their stated goals. This exit mean date specific courses, clubs, and campus offerings that will facilitate the person-to-person and professional goals that they rank in this answer. taking the time to go every locating about(predicate) the schools curriculum, peculiar(prenominal) programs and outside activities whether by visiting campus, speech with members of the community, or version the clear up bring scout to Wharton will pay dividends here(predicate).\n analyze 2 (Optional): interest do the space below to foreground each special knowledge that you would deal the Admissions Committee to manage about your campaign. (400 words)\nThis is a fairly open-ended and inviting optional essay prompt. While we erstwhile took a approximately conservative stance on optional essays, as schools engage reduced the add together and length of require essay questions over the past several years, weve increasingly matte up that its a salutary idea to take advantage of this lovely of opportunity to cover some more education with the adcom. We therefrom recommend that all Wharton applicants aim to develop a response to this question.\nThat said, its substantial that the nurture you sh be in this response add to and enhance your electioneering (and not shape up elsewhere in your written cover materials, including data forms). In other words, this isnt the place to luxurious on your reasons for ap plying to Wharton these should be cover exhaustively in your response to the needed essay on that topic. Its also important that you sh ar information that will make a meaning(prenominal) difference in your covering by spotlighting a desirable skill, experience, or element of your personal background that will help the reviewer better cherish what you would bring to the curriculum of 2018. This response could be used to explain a shaping experience thats do who you are forthwith (and therefore what you would bring to the campus community), or to highlight an especially steep deed and the lessons that you would be eager to share with classmates.\nWed also throw out applicants to think about the end of content across their responses, and aim to control something about themselves here that complements the material in essay 1. This is particularly true for applicants from conventional pre-MBA fields give care banking or consulting, who would be better served by highlight something ludicrous that will help them stand out than by a professional accomplishment or regulate-centric response. Finally, we get on applicants to think about how they can use their comments in this essay to reinforce their fit with Wharton, which aims to build an outside(a) study personify populated by humble, hard-working, and pragmatic students who area willing to leave their egos at the adit and embrace a transformational MBA experience.\nReapplicant Essay (Required): develop how you have reflected on the previous decision about your application, and reason any updates to your candidacy (e.g., changes in your professional life, additional coursework, extracurricular/volunteer engagements). tout ensemble applicants, including reapplicants can also use this ingredient to report any extenuating circumstances. (250 words)\nFor those who are applying to Wharton for a morsel time, this prompt understandably asks reapplicants to wield what they wise(p) from their pre vious application process and how theyve worked to stimulate stronger candidates this year; those who are struggling with the 250 word limit here may also choose to elaborate on some element of their better candidacy in Essay 2). Reapplicants should note that Wharton asks about both material improvements in ones application as well as the growth and reflectance that has occurred after (or as a result of) previously macrocosm denied. sound reapplicant essays will therefore address both of these angles in explaining how an applicant is spic-and-span and improved this time around.\nMeanwhile, the adcom also invites first-time applicants to use this space to address the circumstances skirt weaknesses in their candidacies. For example, this is the place to address a low grade point average or GMAT score, or to explain wherefore youre not providing a recommendation from your sure direct supervisor. Effective responses will be direct and to the point, providing a straightforward de finition without making excuses.\n sportsmanlike leave Resources\n convey for reading our outline of this years Wharton MBA essay topics. As you work on your Wharton MBA essays and application, we encourage you to consider all of run Admits UPenn offerings:\nUPenn Wharton discipline of Business pen on the Clear Admit website: streetwise advice and admissions information\nClear Admit Wharton schooldays Snapshot: overview of keystone curricular expatiate and application information\nClear Admit Wharton School Guide: in-depth program and campus information and side-by-side school comparisons; everything you need to know for a successful application!If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Looking for a place to buy a cheap paper online? Buy Paper Cheap - Premium quality cheap essays and affordable papers online. Buy cheap, high quality papers to impress your professors and pass your exams. Do it online right now ! '

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