gullibility and sweetness, do they go together?

[ygolo]

In my mother toungue, there is the same word used to mean both things. So I have a bit of an association between the trait of being gullible and that of being sweet.

Frankly, I don't really know what people mean when the say that someone is sweet. But gullibility, I do understand...and I am fairly gullible.

So what about you guys? Do you a associate someone being sweet with being gullible? or vice versa?

 

[darkmoon]

I don't think in reality sweetness and gullibility need necessarily be related. But I do think there is a stereotype that those two things go together.

 

[Mole]

In my mother toungue, there is the same word used to mean both things. So I have a bit of an association between the trait of being gullible and that of being sweet.

Frankly, I don't really know what people mean when the say that someone is sweet. But gullibility, I do understand...and I am fairly gullible.

So what about you guys? Do you a associate someone being sweet with being gullible? or vice versa?

We know that the number of converts in the world is vanishingly small.

And we know that almost all believers are born into their faith.

So for all intents and purposes, across the world, we learn what to believe at our mother's knee.

This is because children have yet to develop their critical faculties and so are in a trance most of the time.

And in a trance we are highly susceptible to suggestion, that is, we will sweetly believe what we are told.

And so it is fair to say that children are sweet and suggestible.

However if you grow up without developing your critical faculties, instead of being sweet and suggestible, you become sweet and gullible.

 

[Mole]

I don't think in reality sweetness and gullibility need necessarily be related. But I do think there is a stereotype that those two things go together.

Little girls are sugar and spice and all things nice.

While little boys are frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails.

And little girls, and big girls, do their level best to be sweet.

And as they were naturally sweet and suggestible as children, they continue this into adulthood, and so become sweet and gullible.

And this is why every women's magazine has a substantial astrology section at the back.

And women are sweetly gullible - until you call them on it.

And then they make, "frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails", look like a teddy bears' picnic.

 

[Moiety]

"Sweet" is an even more subjective term than "gullible" but I'd say you can be sweet knowing full well about other people's potential (for good and bad), so that does not make you gullible. Gullible probably means you'd be blind to that potential (for good and bad) in other people.

 

[me_plus_one]

No, they don't go together.

I personally prefer gullible persons, because they are automatically truthfull and ...well, gullible.

Sweetness however, if not accompanied by gullibility, becomes a mean to deceive people.

 

[Mole]

No, they don't go together.

I personally prefer gullible persons, because they are automatically truthfull and ...well, gullible.

Sweetness however, if not accompanied by gullibility, becomes a mean to deceive people.

To gull means to deceive.

 

[Qre:us]

In my mother toungue, there is the same word used to mean both things. So I have a bit of an association between the trait of being gullible and that of being sweet.

Frankly, I don't really know what people mean when the say that someone is sweet. But gullibility, I do understand...and I am fairly gullible.

So what about you guys? Do you a associate someone being sweet with being gullible? or vice versa?

Maybe if sweet can relate to innocence? Then, yeah, I can see how it could also mean gullible.

Like, Adam and Eve and the apple, or Pandora and her curiosity to open the box. With knowledge comes the diminishing of innocence, and with that, a shwred awareness (killing gullibility).

 

[me_plus_one]

Hm, well that depends. Do you consider gullibility as stupidness or as naivete?

 

[Mole]

Maybe if sweet can relate to innocence? Then, yeah, I can see how it could also mean gullible.

Like, Adam and Eve and the apple, or Pandora and her curiosity to open the box. With knowledge comes the diminishing of innocence, and with that, a shwred awareness (killing gullibility).

And to gull means to deceive.

So those who gull do deceive.

And those who are gulled are deceived.

And the gullible are those who have been deceived.

This is complicated by the fact that the gullible want to be deceived.

The gullible read the astrological charts at the back of women's magazines because they want to be deceived.

And the gullible follow MBTI because they want to be deceived.

 

[Qre:us]

This is complicated by the fact that the gullible want to be deceived.

I don't think a gullible wants to be deceived. Want assumes an awareness. They are too gullible to know deceit to either, (a) avoid it in the first place, and/or (b) want it. As to want is to know of the want.

 

[kyuuei]

I think the two usually do go together. Sweet people are partly that way because they can't seem to recognize the things around them that would make them susceptible to being cynical. There's an aura of innocence around sweetness or gullibility.

That said, there are definitely unsweet gullible people, and sweet people that have enough experience to protect themselves from being gulled.

No, they don't go together.

I personally prefer gullible persons, because they are automatically truthfull and ...well, gullible.

Sweetness however, if not accompanied by gullibility, becomes a mean to deceive people.

Hmph. I don't think you should be so quick to judge people as being deceiving if they're sweet in nature. Some people really are nice as a personality trait.

The fact that you'd value gullibility in people seems to indicate more to your want to manipulate people. Gullibility is cute, at best, but not very practical unless you're wanting to deceive people.

Maybe if sweet can relate to innocence? Then, yeah, I can see how it could also mean gullible.

Like, Adam and Eve and the apple, or Pandora and her curiosity to open the box. With knowledge comes the diminishing of innocence, and with that, a shwred awareness (killing gullibility).

Well said.

Hm, well that depends. Do you consider gullibility as stupidness or as naivete?

I consider it stupidness out of naivete.

 

[kiddykat]

I think perhaps for those who are sweet, in a wise-sense, those who tend to laugh at things, they're probably more keen/aware than most people?

My motto: those who appear strongest are sometimes, weakest. Those who appear weakest are sometimes strongest. I don't think Ghandi was naiive, as sweet as he was. I think he was wise enough to be understanding, and defenseless, which can be taken for granted by those who seek ignorance, instead of enlightenment.

 

[Mole]

I don't think a gullible wants to be deceived.

Just as the damaged want to damage,

And the deceived want to deceive,

The gullible want to gull.

 

[Qre:us]

And to gull means to deceive.

And the gullible follow MBTI because they want to be deceived.

Just as the damaged want to damage,

And the deceived want to deceive,

The gullible want to gull.

To clear up the discrepency: Does the gullible want to be gulled (be deceived) or does the gullible want to gull (to deceive), because of what's been done to them (i.e., assuming then they know they've been deceived)?

Maybe you want to say, that the gullible who wants to deceive, by the very act of wanting then to deceive, has thus, once again been deceived? If so, how has then he/she been deceived?

And round and round we go on the merry-go-round of cognitive dissonance. The dizziness is a form of clarity itself, you'll argue?

 

[Mole]

To clear up the discrepency: Does the gullible want to be gulled (be deceived) or does the gullible want to gull (to deceive), because of what's been done to them (i.e., assuming then they know they've been deceived)?

Maybe you want to say, that the gullible who wants to deceive, by the very act of wanting then to deceive, has thus, once again been deceived? If so, how has then he/she been deceived?

And round and round we go on the merry-go-round of cognitive dissonance. The dizziness is a form of clarity itself, you'll argue?

Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.

 

[Qre:us]

Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.

Forgiveness is the strongest solitary soldier against an army of evil.

 

[Mole]

Forgiveness is the strongest solitary soldier against an army of evil.

Forgiveness is a solitary reed against the rising tide.

 

[Qre:us]

Forgiveness is a solitary reed against the rising tide.

And just as the tides shall move to the song of the fickle moon, so shall the reed sway but an inch, rooted to the pull of the steadfast earth.

 

[ygolo]

You know, out of all of this, I think I found the best translation for the word I had in mind: innocent.

Also, I think Gandhi was a very good example where kindness and naivete did not go together. He had a better understanding of human nature than most in his time, and what's even more great was his ability bring out and make use of the better natures in human beings.

Gandhi believed and executed Satyagraha where

"[t]he [...] object is to convert, not to coerce, the wrong-doer.”[1] Success is defined as cooperating with the opponent to meet a just end that the opponent is unwittingly obstructing. The opponent must be converted, at least as far as to stop obstructing the just end, for this cooperation to take place.

He was able to convert his enemies, just as Martin Luther King did during the struggle for civil rights in the U.S.

In a world full of gray areas and compromise, a person who sees things as black and white, is either incredibly naive, or posses a conscience of the highest order.

I hope to develop such a conscience some day.