SolitaryWalker
Tenured roisterer
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 3,504
- MBTI Type
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5w6
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
Very often we come across a convocation that one may describe as that between the ruthlessly cold and the omni-compassionate. The sentimental twaddlers and the sound logical thinkers, and so on.
But in essence, I wonder what is going on in such situations?
What we have on one side is a group of people who prefer to make decisions based on principles of objective reality. And on the other side we have a group of people who seek to force their passions and prejudices onto the world and insist that we should do as they say even if what they say does not make sense.
An example of the latter would be religious law. We simply do the ritual and believe in miracles because we value the Bible and not because we have any good reason to do so. Other legal habits similar to this are also rooted in value based judgments. Consider the case of monarchy or family hierarchy, such enterprises are maintained not because there is any good reason to do so, but because of us valuing traditions. Father is the head of the family because this is how we have always done it, the King knows all (just like father Stalin) and his word ought not to be questioned because this is just the way you do it. And ultimately we worship God without question because it is written in the highest law that we VALUE. We VALUE this and thats the bottom line.
Now, why do we value this? Because we were taught to do so. Aristotle wrote in his treatise on Poetry that we all have a drive to be liked. This drive leads us to wish to be liked by those that we like. And when we spend time around those that we like we naturally emulate them or become like them. In addition to this discovery I should point out that we renounce our values to be better liked by them. A striking example of this would be a religious person who changes his ways strictly to be liked by his community, this practice is very well endorsed. Another example to be observed even more frequently is wives submitting to their husbands strictly for the sake of saving the relationship. They of course do not know what they do, or that this is what they have done because they made such a decision not based no rationale but based on a Value judgment. They were carried away by the passions of their unconscious and did not realize that they have prostituted themselves for the vainglory of those who 'matter'.
To connect all the points I have made here, we have at the heart the idea of value based decision making. This leads us to cling with great passion to the values that we have and fear, revile or abandon what does not agree with our values. We have such values again, because of the relentlessly drive to be liked. No matter how vehemently we may stand up for what we value, do not be fooled, it does not at all mean that we (feelers) have a solid core of personal ethic. Should someone get close to us who wishes to change us, just the longing for approval shall be enough for us to abandon the most deeply felt values without even noticing this. Approval to a feeler has the same relationship as gas to a car. This problem can only be solved through cultivation of dispassionate judgment. It does not matter what anybody likes or under what conditions one shall approve of us principles shall exist in their own right by virtue of being consistent with what I value irrspectively of what others feel I ought to value! They shall be matters of fact, not matters of mood.
When we compare the two we get the following. A position akin to the one described below tends to be line with ideas endorsed by value centered perspectives. A politician must be like the father figure to the people, like God to men. The Pope tends to serve this purpose well. Because men are feeble minded and impressionate we need a strong leader to put them on the path of virtue! All should be inculcated to value what the leader does. This position is still taken seriously by many conservative Christians and that is the reason for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
Yet a more clear-thinking individual would argue that all measurements should be taken to prevent people from being feeble minded and impressionate. Instead of taking care of them like children, we should grant them the liberty to decide how they ought to live their lives. Do not give them a fish, teach them to fish instead. As obviously doing the former leads to a myriad of problems, the most prominent of which is the dependency problem. This leads the ignorant folk to be abused by their political or religious leaders and for wives by their husbands.
We must do all that is necessary in order to arrive at a position where people shall be independently minded. We should start by first deposing individuals and organizations that champion value centered thinking. Accordingly, any politician who makes a decision based on religion, taste, influence of his friends, family or colleagues must be removed from office for flagrant abuse of authority. Organized religion must be banned because it teaches people to embrace ideas on faith, strictly out of will to believe as it makes very little effort to provide a justification for the propounded teaching. All religious philosophers who shall expostulate this statement are forced to concede that the axioms of their religion have been accepted on faith. As even Saint Thomas Aquinas has maintained so. We have no evidence for a belief in the afterlife or belief in the personal god as those things stem outside of our experience.
Verily these sects shall go underground after the ban, but we must go underground with them, as personal values are to be a strictly private matter. The term personal even seems to denote this. Personal implies, a personal preferrence, strictly up to the individual. It has nothing to do with objective reality. To force a personal preferrence upon another individual is the gravest crime against the individual one's mind can conjure.
Arts and literature are not to be taught at public schools in a fashion they currently are because matters of taste and personal value are central to such curriculums. It is fine to teach these subjects from a strictly objective standpoint without discussing matters of taste or preferrence in depth. For example, author A wrote such a story, his plot is as follows, (quoting the author as much as possible, to ensure that the teacher imposes as little of his personal tastes and biases onto the student as possible). Same is to be done with art, or even religion. Stick strictly to the facts, not values.
Marital ceremonies and private religious schools are acceptable, as individuals who do not wilfully share the values endorsed at those congregations can choose not to attend.
The purpose of education should be to teach people to think for themselves, not to inculcate a set of values upon them. If we have any respect for the truth we shall make decisions based on logical and dispassionate thinking, as this is what leads to discovery of how the world works. When we express our values we merely produce a reflection of self. This is far less reliable of a method to making sound decisions in life.
When a Thinker delivers his opinion what he states is not easily influencable by his moods, the moods of his observers or any other strange personal factor. When a Feeler delivers, that of course depends first and foremost on how it will be received, and secondly on his private moods. So, if I came out to deliver the message that the sky is blue and I suddenly realize that the congregation prefers it red, my answer shall be changed to red accordingly. If there is noone around to direct me how I ought to feel and what I ought to do, it will be based on my subjective predilections. I look at a white wall and say its red. Of course I cannot go on living like this for long as such attitudes do not give me the knowledge I need to get by in life. To rectify the problem I shall find someone to tell me what to do and what to value.
It is not at all surprising that archaic societies, which modern day religions are a representation of adhered to a value centered worldview. Traditional ways of thinking. (God being the center of my life, the pope his successor and secondly the father of the family. God delivers instructions on how we are to live to the Book of dogma at the supervision of the pope who then passes down the instructions to the father whom we obey without question.)
This too is now silly and outdated, and has become outdated only because we have embraced science and philosophy instead, or dispassionate ways of thinking. We now make decisions based on what makes sense, and not based on what we value and why we value we know not. A child often starts out as reverent of both mother and father and observer of all the family rites and rituals, yet as soon as he attends University, he not only looses his faith but also sees no reason to engage in such practices as he no longer depends on them and his family for establishment of his identity. This is a classical case in point of Thinking coming to the rescue. The child now values things not because he is supposed to, or because of some strange feeling, but because he sees them as desirable in their own right. Another case, closer to home for me is my ENFP former preacher friend. I met him at a philosophy class one year ago when he was a devout Christian and Pentacoste preacher. His life revolved around his church community and his family, as he even said 'I used to live for the people'. Every time he thought of leaving the church his consternation was the strange suffocating feeling he received in the back of his head which he took to be the voice of God as well as the reproof of his pastor, family and those in church who admire him. As he read more philosophy and approached finishing his degree in philosophy he confidently moved on. The remonstrates of his religiously zealous friends and family did not stop him because his agenda had nothing to do with the values of others. It is also no surprise that the more educated people are less likely to act out on the spur of a moment or a heat of passion, or even go so far as wholly commiting themselves to a value. We rarely hear of university professors as suicide bombers, champions of religions, Hitlers, or Mother Theresas. All of those things have been inspired by passion, and not because there has been any good reason to do any of those things.
How would a Feeler respond to this! I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS! IT IS OFFENSIVE TO ME! FGHSIHFODSOHFISDOFIDSHFSDOIHFDSOIOSFIHSOFIDHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOHIFDSOIHOFDSIHFDSOHIFSDOIHSFDOIHFDS
I can easily say you are OFFENSIVE TO ME in response! As after all, there is no need to justify the value, its offensive to me and period. Justification is a strictly Thinking activity.
This is much akin to how two beasts once have come head to head on a field. One said 'ARHGFGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!'
and the other 'ARHGFGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!'
but louder, so the first has yielded.
What happens when a reasonable person comes across the one described above? This conflict has been classically depicted in convocation of science and religion. The first says, this is how the world works, here are OBJECTIVE reasons for this. You can see for yourself if they are sound by thinking it through on your own. The latter had a VALUE of how things should work and because we VALUE this, this is how it is. This is not a way to make reasonable decisions, it is mere prejudice.
The disagreement between Thinking and Feeling approaches to life is not a dispute between two respectable temperaments, but a dispute between the know-alls and know-nothings.
But in essence, I wonder what is going on in such situations?
What we have on one side is a group of people who prefer to make decisions based on principles of objective reality. And on the other side we have a group of people who seek to force their passions and prejudices onto the world and insist that we should do as they say even if what they say does not make sense.
An example of the latter would be religious law. We simply do the ritual and believe in miracles because we value the Bible and not because we have any good reason to do so. Other legal habits similar to this are also rooted in value based judgments. Consider the case of monarchy or family hierarchy, such enterprises are maintained not because there is any good reason to do so, but because of us valuing traditions. Father is the head of the family because this is how we have always done it, the King knows all (just like father Stalin) and his word ought not to be questioned because this is just the way you do it. And ultimately we worship God without question because it is written in the highest law that we VALUE. We VALUE this and thats the bottom line.
Now, why do we value this? Because we were taught to do so. Aristotle wrote in his treatise on Poetry that we all have a drive to be liked. This drive leads us to wish to be liked by those that we like. And when we spend time around those that we like we naturally emulate them or become like them. In addition to this discovery I should point out that we renounce our values to be better liked by them. A striking example of this would be a religious person who changes his ways strictly to be liked by his community, this practice is very well endorsed. Another example to be observed even more frequently is wives submitting to their husbands strictly for the sake of saving the relationship. They of course do not know what they do, or that this is what they have done because they made such a decision not based no rationale but based on a Value judgment. They were carried away by the passions of their unconscious and did not realize that they have prostituted themselves for the vainglory of those who 'matter'.
To connect all the points I have made here, we have at the heart the idea of value based decision making. This leads us to cling with great passion to the values that we have and fear, revile or abandon what does not agree with our values. We have such values again, because of the relentlessly drive to be liked. No matter how vehemently we may stand up for what we value, do not be fooled, it does not at all mean that we (feelers) have a solid core of personal ethic. Should someone get close to us who wishes to change us, just the longing for approval shall be enough for us to abandon the most deeply felt values without even noticing this. Approval to a feeler has the same relationship as gas to a car. This problem can only be solved through cultivation of dispassionate judgment. It does not matter what anybody likes or under what conditions one shall approve of us principles shall exist in their own right by virtue of being consistent with what I value irrspectively of what others feel I ought to value! They shall be matters of fact, not matters of mood.
When we compare the two we get the following. A position akin to the one described below tends to be line with ideas endorsed by value centered perspectives. A politician must be like the father figure to the people, like God to men. The Pope tends to serve this purpose well. Because men are feeble minded and impressionate we need a strong leader to put them on the path of virtue! All should be inculcated to value what the leader does. This position is still taken seriously by many conservative Christians and that is the reason for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
Yet a more clear-thinking individual would argue that all measurements should be taken to prevent people from being feeble minded and impressionate. Instead of taking care of them like children, we should grant them the liberty to decide how they ought to live their lives. Do not give them a fish, teach them to fish instead. As obviously doing the former leads to a myriad of problems, the most prominent of which is the dependency problem. This leads the ignorant folk to be abused by their political or religious leaders and for wives by their husbands.
We must do all that is necessary in order to arrive at a position where people shall be independently minded. We should start by first deposing individuals and organizations that champion value centered thinking. Accordingly, any politician who makes a decision based on religion, taste, influence of his friends, family or colleagues must be removed from office for flagrant abuse of authority. Organized religion must be banned because it teaches people to embrace ideas on faith, strictly out of will to believe as it makes very little effort to provide a justification for the propounded teaching. All religious philosophers who shall expostulate this statement are forced to concede that the axioms of their religion have been accepted on faith. As even Saint Thomas Aquinas has maintained so. We have no evidence for a belief in the afterlife or belief in the personal god as those things stem outside of our experience.
Verily these sects shall go underground after the ban, but we must go underground with them, as personal values are to be a strictly private matter. The term personal even seems to denote this. Personal implies, a personal preferrence, strictly up to the individual. It has nothing to do with objective reality. To force a personal preferrence upon another individual is the gravest crime against the individual one's mind can conjure.
Arts and literature are not to be taught at public schools in a fashion they currently are because matters of taste and personal value are central to such curriculums. It is fine to teach these subjects from a strictly objective standpoint without discussing matters of taste or preferrence in depth. For example, author A wrote such a story, his plot is as follows, (quoting the author as much as possible, to ensure that the teacher imposes as little of his personal tastes and biases onto the student as possible). Same is to be done with art, or even religion. Stick strictly to the facts, not values.
Marital ceremonies and private religious schools are acceptable, as individuals who do not wilfully share the values endorsed at those congregations can choose not to attend.
The purpose of education should be to teach people to think for themselves, not to inculcate a set of values upon them. If we have any respect for the truth we shall make decisions based on logical and dispassionate thinking, as this is what leads to discovery of how the world works. When we express our values we merely produce a reflection of self. This is far less reliable of a method to making sound decisions in life.
When a Thinker delivers his opinion what he states is not easily influencable by his moods, the moods of his observers or any other strange personal factor. When a Feeler delivers, that of course depends first and foremost on how it will be received, and secondly on his private moods. So, if I came out to deliver the message that the sky is blue and I suddenly realize that the congregation prefers it red, my answer shall be changed to red accordingly. If there is noone around to direct me how I ought to feel and what I ought to do, it will be based on my subjective predilections. I look at a white wall and say its red. Of course I cannot go on living like this for long as such attitudes do not give me the knowledge I need to get by in life. To rectify the problem I shall find someone to tell me what to do and what to value.
It is not at all surprising that archaic societies, which modern day religions are a representation of adhered to a value centered worldview. Traditional ways of thinking. (God being the center of my life, the pope his successor and secondly the father of the family. God delivers instructions on how we are to live to the Book of dogma at the supervision of the pope who then passes down the instructions to the father whom we obey without question.)
This too is now silly and outdated, and has become outdated only because we have embraced science and philosophy instead, or dispassionate ways of thinking. We now make decisions based on what makes sense, and not based on what we value and why we value we know not. A child often starts out as reverent of both mother and father and observer of all the family rites and rituals, yet as soon as he attends University, he not only looses his faith but also sees no reason to engage in such practices as he no longer depends on them and his family for establishment of his identity. This is a classical case in point of Thinking coming to the rescue. The child now values things not because he is supposed to, or because of some strange feeling, but because he sees them as desirable in their own right. Another case, closer to home for me is my ENFP former preacher friend. I met him at a philosophy class one year ago when he was a devout Christian and Pentacoste preacher. His life revolved around his church community and his family, as he even said 'I used to live for the people'. Every time he thought of leaving the church his consternation was the strange suffocating feeling he received in the back of his head which he took to be the voice of God as well as the reproof of his pastor, family and those in church who admire him. As he read more philosophy and approached finishing his degree in philosophy he confidently moved on. The remonstrates of his religiously zealous friends and family did not stop him because his agenda had nothing to do with the values of others. It is also no surprise that the more educated people are less likely to act out on the spur of a moment or a heat of passion, or even go so far as wholly commiting themselves to a value. We rarely hear of university professors as suicide bombers, champions of religions, Hitlers, or Mother Theresas. All of those things have been inspired by passion, and not because there has been any good reason to do any of those things.
How would a Feeler respond to this! I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS! IT IS OFFENSIVE TO ME! FGHSIHFODSOHFISDOFIDSHFSDOIHFDSOIOSFIHSOFIDHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOIHFDSOHIFDSOIHOFDSIHFDSOHIFSDOIHSFDOIHFDS
I can easily say you are OFFENSIVE TO ME in response! As after all, there is no need to justify the value, its offensive to me and period. Justification is a strictly Thinking activity.
This is much akin to how two beasts once have come head to head on a field. One said 'ARHGFGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!'
and the other 'ARHGFGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!'
but louder, so the first has yielded.
What happens when a reasonable person comes across the one described above? This conflict has been classically depicted in convocation of science and religion. The first says, this is how the world works, here are OBJECTIVE reasons for this. You can see for yourself if they are sound by thinking it through on your own. The latter had a VALUE of how things should work and because we VALUE this, this is how it is. This is not a way to make reasonable decisions, it is mere prejudice.
The disagreement between Thinking and Feeling approaches to life is not a dispute between two respectable temperaments, but a dispute between the know-alls and know-nothings.