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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (43721)	7/5/1999 1:01:00 AM
From: Achilles	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

> I fear you will be led astray by others and am greedy to either help halt the USA's slide into total parrothood -- or set up base on a tax-free island if things get too crazy here.< Here, of course, you have slipped into metaphor. If it were true, you would stop participating once you realized that there were no 'converts' here, or at least you would stop talking to me once you realized that I am permanently wedded to 'the dark side' or that as a Canadian I am probably a bad influence on the USA anyway ('liberal' is not a bad word here yet, and 'socialist' normally refers to a real set of ideas rather than a bogeyman... er, bogeyperson). Once you saw the chance of convincing me diminish, you would give up and go elsewhere. That won't happen. Why? Because you like me, and I like you, and you are enjoying our conversation as much as I am. Neither is gaining anything at the expense of the other. There is no greed; there is no fear. There are other human impulses at work in human interaction. A very important one--and one that I believe is very much at work in threads like this--is reciprocity. Let us consider what we are all doing. We meet, we talk, we enjoy one another's company. But in the end, if we feel that we've contributed more to the group (or less!) than we've received, we are dissatisfied. It is like when we go the pub: I buy a round, you buy a round, Joan buys a round. Again, if we leave before everyone has spent (and consumed) roughly the same amount of money (and alcohol), there is a cultural dissonance that needs resolution--perhaps by meeting again and allowing the debtor friend to buy the first round. The debtor friend on the fear/greed model leaves the 'winner' (he gained the most alcohol while spending the least money). But that is only because it judges the game by the wrong rules. He left the loser in the reciprocity game, because his contribution is out-of-sync with the rest of the group. Now you might say that in pubbing I fear imbalance in reciprocity, or that you are greedy that reciprocity be reached. But when you do this you are putting the English language on the procrustean bed of an increasingly untenable position. The world is more complex that fear/greed allows. In fact, these are among the least important (or interesting) human motivations.