Psychologizing

[George H. Smith]

Brant,

If Phil is seriously making an effort to change his posting style, there is one simple thing he could do that would score a lot of points with me. He could start using the quote function, instead of reproducing snippets. I can't tell you how many times I have gotten frustrated and annoyed while scrolling up in an attempt to find the post to which Phil was responding.

Some time ago Phil posted a justification for his procedure. He made it sound as if he was doing OLers a favor, even though many have complained about it. In addition to the inconvenience, I also dislike it because it easily permits Phil to focus on one sentence, or even a sentence fragment, without providing the broader context.

So why doesn't Phil make this simple change, given how many people have requested it? And why does he insist that he uses this procedure to make things easier for others, when virtually no one finds it easier? This is "typical Phil." If we don't find something more convenient, then he lectures us about why we should find it more convenient.

There is something very strange going on here....

Ghs

I find it completely dumbfounding. You can use it in the very simple way I do by hitting the "Reply" which brings up the entire post you wish to quote out of and highlight all the material you don't want and delete it, then make your comments below.

--Brant

Yup. And even with a lot of deletions, people can quickly locate the original post if they want to read more. There are times when knowing what a person chooses not to respond to tells us more than his actual response.

My best guess -- and it is only a guess -- is that Phil dug in his heels on this subject and doesn't want to give the impression of having capitulated to pressure. This is not the way I would see the change, however. I would respect Phil for having the guts to put his natural resistance aside and making an overt effort to improve communication with others.

Many times, when responding to one of Phil's heavily snipped posts, I have had to insert initials next to the snippets so that my readers will know what is going on. There is no good reason why I should need to do this, and the extra work does not exactly inspire a feeling of benevolence towards Phil.

Phil can easily get on my nerves in the best of circumstances -- some of this may be owing to a personality clash -- and I don't understand why he would go out of his way, via his use of snippets, to aggravate people for no good reason.

I recall that Phil has had some nasty exchanges over this problem. (I think one was with Ellen Stuttle.) He defends his procedure as if it were a matter of defending a fundamental principle. This alone is quite disturbing.

Sometimes I wonder if Phil likes the sense of individuality and nonconformity conveyed by his stubborn resistance. I understand this in a general way. I would rather that posters use their real pics instead of avatars, because a pic gives me better sense of the person I am dealing with. Still, I find the choice of alter-egos, as manifested in the choice of avatars, interesting at times.

Around a decade ago I started writing my initials as Ghs instead of GHS -- partly because I liked the aesthetics of the downward slope to the right, partly because I could type it more quickly, and partly because it was an unorthodox sig for my bland name. So I suppose you could say that Ghs was my bid for attention and individuality.

Even so, if Ghs proved to be a major inconvenience to others for some reason -- say, if it caused me to be confused with someone else -- I would not have hesitated to use another sig.

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

[caroljane]

[ghs] I would rather that posters use their real pics instead of avatars, because a pic gives me better sense of the person I am dealing with. Still, I find the choice of alter-egos, as manifested in the choice of avatars, interesting at times.

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

As an avatar person I am of two minds on this. It would be interesting to know what the posters look like, but I am sure everyone will forgive a lady of my mature years and unfortunate resemblance to Ludwig von Mises for denying you the opportunity in my case. We build a vague image of the person in any event. For me it is based on their names because of synaesthesia --Ninth is a slim black name, for example, Ghs you are brown and pink, and so on. I don't mean I visualize the person as being black-or-green-skinned, it is just the name.

I enjoy most of the avatars, especially Ninth's aforementioned, Mikee's cat and Ted's, even though I now know what it is. I'll just keep pretending it's a Dalek. Phil's, well....Phil, if you ever decide to use a photo instead, you should definitely have a lectern like George's. But bigger, of course.

[caroljane]

pasa doble, sorry.

Edited March 25, 2011 by daunce lynam

[Brant Gaede]

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

Uh, okay George. Okaaaay. (I hope to get to the gate in time.)

--Brant

[Jonathan]

We build a vague image of the person in any event. For me it is based on their names because of synaesthesia --Ninth is a slim black name, for example, Ghs you are brown and pink, and so on. I don't mean I visualize the person as being black-or-green-skinned, it is just the name.

What does "Jonathan" translate to?

J

[caroljane]

We build a vague image of the person in any event. For me it is based on their names because of synaesthesia --Ninth is a slim black name, for example, Ghs you are brown and pink, and so on. I don't mean I visualize the person as being black-or-green-skinned, it is just the name.

What does "Jonathan" translate to?

J

Jonathan is greyish pink, the sort of shade they used to call ashes-of=roses I think. For me the rainbow is small; most names are black, brown, pink, grey, white or yellow, very few are blue or green. They are each different shades of the colours. There are shades of black even.

Ayn Rand is white and yellow. The white is near the shade - I have just realized this! - of Mrs W's cap in my avatar.

[Brant Gaede]

We build a vague image of the person in any event. For me it is based on their names because of synaesthesia --Ninth is a slim black name, for example, Ghs you are brown and pink, and so on. I don't mean I visualize the person as being black-or-green-skinned, it is just the name.

What does "Jonathan" translate to?

J

Jonathan is greyish pink, the sort of shade they used to call ashes-of=roses I think. For me the rainbow is small; most names are black, brown, pink, grey, white or yellow, very few are blue or green. They are each different shades of the colours. There are shades of black even.

Ayn Rand is white and yellow. The white is near the shade - I have just realized this! - of Mrs W's cap in my avatar.

Jonathan is greyish-brown. Ayn Rand is orange and red. Brant Gaede is blue and white.

You guys should have your eyes checked.

--Brant

rant is red

[George H. Smith]

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

Uh, okay George. Okaaaay. (I hope to get to the gate in time.)

--Brant

There he goes! The guy running toward the gate! He's Spartacus! Get him!

Can I go now?

Ghs

[caroljane]

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

Uh, okay George. Okaaaay. (I hope to get to the gate in time.)

--Brant

There he goes! The guy running toward the gate! He's Spartacus! Get him!

Can I go now?

Ghs

[Selene]

A change is too late now, however, whatever the complaint. Ghs is mine -- mine, do you hear? Ghs is who I am, and I will not tolerate any of that "I am Spartacus" crap. I am a man of self-made soul! Better all of us be crucified than I should abandon my soul.

Ghs

Uh, okay George. Okaaaay. (I hope to get to the gate in time.)

--Brant

There he goes! The guy running toward the gate! He's Spartacus! Get him!

Can I go now?

Ghs

Oh to be color blind like our spectacularly successful President...

[Philip Coates]

> Phil, if you ever decide to use a photo instead, you should definitely have a lectern like George's. But bigger, of course. [Daunce]

Well, of course.

By the way, here are just some of the charges George has made against me recently: "evader", "dishonest", "hypocrite", "sleazy". Those are just the character or moral attacks. I left out the ones where he says my posts have no value or various critiques of my basic intellect.

I'm so relieved he's not letting personalities get in the way of the intellectual topic he started the thread about.

If I do get a lectern, I wonder if he's going to spray paint it or set it on fire.

Edited March 25, 2011 by Philip Coates

[caroljane]

> Phil, if you ever decide to use a photo instead, you should definitely have a lectern like George's. But bigger, of course. [Daunce]

Well, of course.

By the way, here are just some of the charges George has made against me recently: "evader", "dishonest", "hypocrite", "sleazy". Those are just the character or moral attacks. I left out the ones where he says my posts have no value or various critiques of my basic intellect.

I'm so relieved he's not letting personalities get in the way of the intellectual topic he started the thread about.

If I do get a lectern, I wonder if he's going to spray paint it or set it on fire.

Brown pinks like George and black reds like you never seem to get along. I see it over and over again.

I would like to refute Brant's laughable misperceptions of name colours, but obviously he is not open to reason. I mean, the man believes he is blue and white when he is obviously bronze and slate grey/green.

[George H. Smith]

> Phil, if you ever decide to use a photo instead, you should definitely have a lectern like George's. But bigger, of course. [Daunce]

Well, of course.

By the way, here are just some of the charges George has made against me recently: "evader", "dishonest", "hypocrite", "sleazy". Those are just the character or moral attacks. I left out the ones where he says my posts have no value or various critiques of my basic intellect.

I'm so relieved he's not letting personalities get in the way of the intellectual topic he started the thread about.

If I do get a lectern, I wonder if he's going to spray paint it or set it on fire.

That was not my lectern, Phil. I used it at an ISIL conference in New Zealand. Getting your own lectern so you can play-lecture is a little pathetic, don't you think?

Is it forbidden for me to say that I find little or no value in your posts? Should I lie to make you feel better? If you got off your civility kick and and wrote some substantive posts, I probably would find some value in them.

And guess what, Phil -- someone who preaches one thing and practices another is a hypocrite. Neither of us practices civility, but I don't preach it and you do. That makes you a hypocrite. Look it up.

I guess Brant was mistaken, eh? A reformed Phil sounded too good to be true.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

Brown pinks like George and black reds like you never seem to get along. I see it over and over again.

I would like to refute Brant's laughable misperceptions of name colours, but obviously he is not open to reason. I mean, the man believes he is blue and white when he is obviously bronze and slate grey/green.

Phil is gorgeous in blue and white.

[Brant Gaede]

I guess Brant was mistaken, eh? A reformed Phil sounded too good to be true.

Ghs

A baby tries to walk and falls down. We don't tell him, "I was told you could walk. I knew a walking baby 'sounded too good to be true.'"

--Brant

I too use to be a baby who couldn't walk, then, one day, "My Father! I Can Walk!!!"

[George H. Smith]

I guess Brant was mistaken, eh? A reformed Phil sounded too good to be true.

Ghs

A baby tries to walk and falls down. We don't tell him, "I was told you could walk. I knew a walking baby 'sounded too good to be true.'"

--Brant

I too use to be a baby who couldn't walk, then, one day, "My Father! I Can Walk!!!"

Somehow I don't think Phil will like your analogy.

In any case, all that Phil needs to do is take the following baby steps:

Step 1: Don't write anything on civility, insults, etc., for at least 3 months.

Step 2: Start writing posts on substantive topics -- literature, music, the perils of teaching school, virtually anything will do.

Step 3:: When responding to critics, don't complain about having been insulted. etc., even if you were.

In 3 months, if Phil follows my 3-step program, he will be walking like a man.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BMYZBVbifh8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(Jeez, I'm really asking for it. )

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

The linguistic discipline of pragmatics focuses on the speaker's goal in using various speech acts in certain situations, it focuses on what the speaker wants to convey, what he/she wants to imply without saying so directly.

Translation into plain English:

The linguistic discipline of pragmatics focuses on mind reading.

Helpfully,

JR

Requires absolutely no supernatural powers.

When my husband tells me "Here is the bill from the plumber", the implication of the speech act is that I'm to handle it (the financial paperwork being my job).

Xray is entirely right about linguistic pragmatics not necessarily requiring mind reading.

The reason it doesn't is that many aspects of speech acts are themselves conventionalized.

There's a drawback, of course. A speaker can produce a speech act that, in some respect, is not in accord with the speaker's actual thinking or feeling at the time.

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

Brant,

Your post reminded me of this old but still funny joke:

Johnny, a 7-year-old boy, has never said a word in his life. His parents assume he is "mentally challenged," but they cannot figure out the specifics.

The family is having dinner one night, when Johnny exclaims: "This soup is cold!"

Johnny's parents are astonished. His mother says, "Johnny, my boy, you spoke! Why haven't you said anything until now?"

"Because until now everything has been all right."

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

That people say things on OL (and other forums) that they wouldn't say in face-to-face conservations has been mentioned a number of times. A major reason for this phenomenon is that exchanges are often aimed at third parties as much as at the individuals involved in the exchange. Every time you post on OL you are, in effect, broadcasting to the world. What I have characterized as "third party arguments" (in "Atheism and the Virtue of Reasonableness," a lecture I originally delivered in 1978 and which was reprinted in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies) have different characteristics than two party arguments.

George,

You got it.

All of these exchanges are unfolding in front of an audience (just how large or small is usually hard to tell in listland) and what we write is necessarily influenced by our awareness of this virtual audience.

If inclined to forget the audience, participants should visualize themselves speaking into an open mike, connected to a moderately high-wattage public address system...

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

I guess Brant was mistaken, eh? A reformed Phil sounded too good to be true.

Ghs

A baby tries to walk and falls down. We don't tell him, "I was told you could walk. I knew a walking baby 'sounded too good to be true.'"

--Brant

I too use to be a baby who couldn't walk, then, one day, "My Father! I Can Walk!!!"

Somehow I don't think Phil will like your analogy.

In any case, all that Phil needs to do is take the following baby steps:

Step 1: Don't write anything on civility, insults, etc., for at least 3 months.

Step 2: Start writing posts on substantive topics -- literature, music, the perils of teaching school, virtually anything will do.

Step 3:: When responding to critics, don't complain about having been insulted. etc., even if you were.

In 3 months, if Phil follows my 3-step program, he will be walking like a man.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BMYZBVbifh8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(Jeez, I'm really asking for it. )

Ghs

I have always adored that song, not least because the dad enjoins his son to walk like a man while singing like a girl.

[Robert Campbell]

Psychologizing consists in condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence.

{My italics.]

[…]

Moreover, note that Rand here refers to "psychological problems," not to the attribution of motives. These are much different.

George,

That is her official definition.

Her article on "psychologizing" extends the notion to attributions of motives.

I think this will become clear once you start working through the examples she gives.

In any event, the extension is unavoidable.

To see this, consider moral judgment—a function that Rand invested with considerable importance, and that in this article she contrasted with "psychologizing"—and ask whether you should be judging Danny Dipschitz's particular action in a particular context as a deliberate violation of a moral principle, or deliberate adherence to a moral principle.

Or whether you should instead judge it in terms of Danny's psychological problems, supposing him to have some.

Or whether you should both judge it both morally and as an expression of a psychological problem.

Can you do any of these things without making inferences or drawing conclusions about Danny's motives?

Robert Campbell

[Mikee]

A speaker can produce a speech act that, in some respect, is not in accord with the speaker's actual thinking or feeling at the time.

Robert Campbell

Like...every speech by Barack Obama?

[jriggenbach]

Xray is entirely right about linguistic pragmatics not necessarily requiring mind reading.

The reason it doesn't is that many aspects of speech acts are themselves conventionalized.

There's a drawback, of course. A speaker can produce a speech act that, in some respect, is not in accord with the speaker's actual thinking or feeling at the time.

And if we acknowledge, as you just did, that people do say things that do not accurately reflect their intentions, then how in Galt's name can anyone possibly claim the status of "knowledge" for whatever asinine crap is inferred from an individual's "speech acts" by the practitioners of "linguistic pragmatics"?

Really, folks, is this rocket science? Or is the problem here merely the age-old one that the human animal characteristically wants to claim to know far more than s/he actually does and wants to claim the status of "knowledge" for what is really only belief?

JR

Edited March 26, 2011 by Jeff Riggenbach

[George H. Smith]

That people say things on OL (and other forums) that they wouldn't say in face-to-face conservations has been mentioned a number of times. A major reason for this phenomenon is that exchanges are often aimed at third parties as much as at the individuals involved in the exchange. Every time you post on OL you are, in effect, broadcasting to the world. What I have characterized as "third party arguments" (in "Atheism and the Virtue of Reasonableness," a lecture I originally delivered in 1978 and which was reprinted in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies) have different characteristics than two party arguments.

George,

You got it.

All of these exchanges are unfolding in front of an audience (just how large or small is usually hard to tell in listland) and what we write is necessarily influenced by our awareness of this virtual audience.

If inclined to forget the audience, participants should visualize themselves speaking into an open mike, connected to a moderately high-wattage public address system...

Robert Campbell

I'm not sure if we are talking about exactly the same thing, but here is a mental experiment that will illustrate my point. I invite everyone to try it.

Recall an OL exchange in which you were one of two (primary) participants, an exchange that dragged on way too long. Now imagine if that same exchange had been conducted via regular email correspondence with your adversary. Would you have continued to write emails directly to him for nearly as long?

To ask this question is almost to answer it. In most cases we would quit an email correspondence long before we quit the same exchange on an OL thread. So what is the difference? The fact that other people (third parties) are watching the OL exchange is the only essential difference.

If you (the generic you) can figure out why the presence of third parties makes this huge difference, then you will have unlocked one of the secrets of internet forums. I have my theories, but I'm tired, and I would rather hear what others think.

Ghs

[Mikee]

Reputation.