[FRIAM] OFFLINE:Today's Sermon:: a minor awokening

[Eric Charles]

"The truth he tells is that he sees elephants.  There are no elephants.
But there are a lot of people who see elephants, and they are weary unto
death of pretending that they don’t see them. "

Nope, nope, nope. Anyone else on this list gets to say that, and maybe I
would even agree with it coming from anyone else, but Nick Thompson does
not get to say that. Nick must concede that there is *something* those
people are responding to, and does *not *get to assert "there are no
elephants." Nick must concede, both as a New Realist and as the type of New
England Liberal he strives to be, that there is a point of view from which
there *are *elephants in the room, and that he has some obligation to meet
the people at the place where that view is, especially if he wants to try
to talk those people into moving somewhere else. And he can't do that while
also making a blanket declaration of the non-existence of the elephants.

Nick could be fully consistent with what I have said above while *also
*believing
that the elephant-seeing point of view is (developmentally speaking) some
sort of unstable equilibrium, and that those people would change when
exposed to additional aspects of the world -- whereas Nick's own
non-elephant-seeing point of view is (developmentally speaking) a much more
stable equilibrium, robust to the effects of wider-world exposure.* The
problem comes when Nick wants to assert that in a mythic future, when the
dust of investigation settles, and everyone has experienced all there is to
experience about the world, the elephant-seeing view will be gone, and only
the non-elephant-seeing view will remain. (With that being what we are
shaking our stick at with claims regarding "truth" and "real".) But *if*
psychology works like the other sciences, that is not what will happen.
Rather, in that mythic future, we will have mapped out the conditions under
which elephant-seeing occurs and the situations in which it does not.**
This is just as the chemist maps out situations in which a given chemical
reaction occurs and situations in which it does not, and just as a
mathematician maps out the postulates combinations that lead to certain
mathematical phenomena. In the end, when the dust of investigation settles,
we will understand the conditions under which elephant-seeing occurs and
the situations under which it does not. And when we find ourselves in a
world that meets elephant-seeing conditions (among the concaphone of
conditions present at any given time), we must admit that there is a place
to stand from which elephants will be seen!



*  That is, of course, an empirical assertion, and as Nick tries to share
aspects of the world with them, those other people will no doubt try to
share with him, and the robustness of both sides will be tested.

** I hope it is clear that "situation" is being used in the broadest sense
of the word, to include the developmental history of those involved, among
other factors.

P.S. I know Nick doesn't like it when messages over the FRIAM list get
overly personal, but I hope you will all indulge me on occasion, as the
issues seem pertinent to several past and present discussions on the list.
<echarles at american.edu>


On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 1:25 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Eric,
>
>
>
> The truth he tells is that he sees elephants.  There are no elephants.
> But there are a lot of people who see elephants, and they are weary unto
> death of pretending that they don’t see them.   When Trump speaks, they get
> to say, “Oh, you see elephants, too!  I am not the only one!”
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 5, 2020 11:01 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] OFFLINE:Today's Sermon:: a minor awokening
>
>
>
> "Perhaps I should have said, early on, “Look, I’m sorry, I keep seeing
> you  as Uncle Remus.  I am sure, as I get to know you better, I will get
> over it.  Please be patient with me, and please call me out whenever you
> feel confined by it. ”
>
>
>
> A Liberalism that does not free me is not worth the name."
>
>
>
> It will probably not surprise you to know that I find this narration
> baffling. You definitely *could* say that to him, at any time. There is
> nothing "liberal" about feeling trapped to not discuss something like that.
> If you felt trapped for a bit, not saying anything seems wise. However, at
> some point, you just say it, or give up on the idea that you actually have
> a problem with it. Personally, I'd stay away from an Uncle Remus reference,
> but the whole point here is that the two of you are old, so it might make
> sense in your world. At any rate, the worst case result will be that you
> have been honest with him, and he never spoke to you again. Which is, IMHO,
> a better outcome than your not being honest with him, and he never spoke to
> you again, which seems to be where you are now. Sometimes, certainly not
> always, but sometimes, when I make moves like that in a conversation, you
> later express admiration and/or envy.
>
>
>
> I think this relates to the larger question of what some people see in
> Trump. They see him as constantly pointing out what they (his fans) see as
> the "elephant in the room." Sure, he says a boat load of other things, and
> lots of those things are not true, but those aren't the important things.
> "Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?" is a
> great example of a perceived elephant. "There are good people on both
> sides" is another, as is the recent dust-up about "anti-racist" workshops.
> When Trump gets hammered for saying such things, they take away 1) See I
> was right not to risk saying that myself, because my supposedly friendly,
> supposedly open-minded neighbors would have attacked me just for saying it,
> and maybe even tried to get me fired, because apparently they think my kids
> should go hungry if I think something they don't like. 2) Thank God *someone
> *had the guts to ask the question! 3) What kind of crazy country do these
> libs want to turn us into, with all these elephants wandering all around
> the room, and it's not even enough to not say anything, because now you
> gotta be worried about getting fired if they think you might even have
> looked at one? 4) If I could be me, but also have the guts to talk about
> the elephants, I would be A Better Person. He talks about the elephants, so
> he is A Better Person.
>
>
>
> Did that comparison hold together? It felt like it did.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> P.S. Add on top of that that a huge chunk of the "lies" are puffery, which
> amounts to telling his supporters that it is ok to feel good about
> themselves and good about their country. This started in earnest with the
> claims about inauguration attendance and continues, for example, with any
> suggestion that we might be doing anything half-decent with our Covid
> response. When Trump gets hammered for saying such things, they take away
> 1) I guess the libs really do want us to feel bad about our country. 2)
> They really think it would be horrible if I felt good about myself for even
> a minute. 3) They are ok judging me when they know nothing about me.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 11:19 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> My solution is to elect Biden and to use Trump as an example of the kind
> of person to never elect again.  But that's just me.
>
> Sounds like a partial lobotomy.   I'm game for this... but not sure it is
> more than "a good start", which of course is, in fact, a good start.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2020, 8:15 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Yes, you could say that government in general and especially lawmakers
> > are our superego.  The best common word synonym for superego is
> > conscience.  Since a lot of people have lacunae of their own superego
> > we need laws and law enforcers.
>
> So right now we are in the midst of a collective id/ego/superego that is
> experiencing a dissociative episode, both governmental and social?
>
> to the extent the analogy holds, what is an exit/recovery strategy?
>
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