Provoker
Permabanned
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2008
- Messages
- 252
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
I've thought on and off about the dichotomy between thinking and feeling for about five years now. My ideas on it have evolved over the years. Initially, I thought the thinking-feeling dichotomy was a good way to compartmentalize the way decisions are oriented by different people. Then, for a period of time I came to the conclusion that it's possible for there to be no dichotomy between thoughts and feelings--that a person could fall in love with an idea. More recently, a few ideas have emerged. First, that this "thinking-feeling" binary distinction is based on a gross oversimplification about the way people make decisions. Even the horribly stupid questions on the Myers-Briggs test like "do you make decisions with your head or heart?" is based on a fictitious dichotomy. No one makes decisions with their heart, all decisions stem from the brain. There are those who take others into consideration and there are those who consider only themselves. But to call those who consider others feelers and those who consider themselves logical is an invalid inference. Logic is only a system invented by and used for humans. If a basic assumption is that humans ought to pursue their own self-interest and maximize utility, as Adam Smith posits, then a person's logic should be oriented toward the self. If however we hold the basic assumption that decisions should be oriented around the self and the group (as John Nash posits) than the logic we employ will reflect this end goal which differs from Smith's.
Then we get into the "why" of how logic came to be annexed with self-interest. And I'd argue it has evolved this way primarily due to the influence of the wealthy class. In this sense, the wealthy have brainwashed society into believing that the "Right" is logical and anyone who is on the progressive "Left" who's actually trying to put a little more food on the table or raise the minimum wage must be an illogical feeling type. Such fictitious lies don't square well with economic and social realities, and I am here to expose this myth.
Thoughts?
Then we get into the "why" of how logic came to be annexed with self-interest. And I'd argue it has evolved this way primarily due to the influence of the wealthy class. In this sense, the wealthy have brainwashed society into believing that the "Right" is logical and anyone who is on the progressive "Left" who's actually trying to put a little more food on the table or raise the minimum wage must be an illogical feeling type. Such fictitious lies don't square well with economic and social realities, and I am here to expose this myth.
Thoughts?