[FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

Thu Nov 12 13:54:48 EST 2020

Frank wrote

and feel angry at them

But you are always free to feel angry at them.  The question is, “What is that doing for you?  Why bother? And why do you NOT feel free to be angry, any time you want?  And does “feeling free to be angry” have anything to do with “being angry”?  Who knows what evil lurks in the depths of the human heart?  The Shadow Knows.  

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to reject the Trumpers and feel angry at them.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I feel he has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am taking action.  

(Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything you say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact identical Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.

Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be saying that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are either in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores *time*. Sure, I feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of them, at other times.

If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a relationship, then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes on, the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience. The abuser only has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder him in his sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.

Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would fail to understand that, though.

On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:
> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?  
> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.  I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.  So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel.

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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Research:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

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