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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (67120)	11/18/2002 8:10:07 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

Okay, one, I correct my statement from "you gelieve the damage was real" to "you believe there was some real damage." That's a good clarification. Surely you can agree that the incident had substantive negative effect on Poet, can't you? That's a content-packed statement. Even leaving aside the question how much is substantive? First of all, something having negative effect can be entirely an internally generated response. For example, maybe not a good one but one for the spur of the moment, one can dream of their spouse dying horribly and wake up drenched in sweat and terrified and have significant negative effects from it, all entirely generated by oneself from one's own mind. Now, obviously that's not the identical case here, because there was an interaction. But the point is that one can create very significant negative effects entirely as internal responses without any fault of the external stimulus. Second, the negative impacts, if they exist, can arise not from the stimulus at all but from one's dissatisfaction in the way one has dealt with the stimulus. That's not really clear, put like that, but let's see. If I go into trial and do an okay job but feel that I have done a bad job, I can created in myself a very real negative effect which has nothing to do with how well I did, but is entirely a function of feeling that I didn't do well. It that doesn't make sense, I can try again, but it's the difference between being harmed by an event and being harmed by one's negative evaluation of one's response to what was in reality a non-harmful event. I don't think you meant this sense when you said what you did, but IMO if there was real harm, it much more likely arose from this aspect than from actual harm from the actual events, since if one is honest one has, I think, to admit that it is irrational to take actual damage from what one alias on a chat board says to another alias on a chat board. My internet connection has been cutting in and out so I'll put the next comment in a separate message so I don't lose this one entirely if the connection bails. And I hope you will realize that this is draft level thinking, not polished essay level thinking, and treat it as such.

To: Lane3 who wrote (67120)	11/18/2002 8:22:22 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

No, your pride is not "really important" in the grand scheme of things. Pride, no. But self-image, self-belief, yes. In the end, all any person really is is what they believe they are. Oh, sure, some people can bench press 300 pounds and some can't, and thinking you can doesn't make you able to (but thinking you can't may make you unable to.). But in terms of what gives people value, it rests solely in what people believe about themselves. Some people will say that what others think about you is part of it, but that's not true. It's what you DO with what others think about you that's important. Eleanor Roosevelt made the point, if I quote her exactly, "no person can make you feel inferior without your consent." And no person can make you feel superior without our acquiescence, either. I think I know enough about you to think that you would resist thinking of yourself as a blonde bimbo. Suppose you said something here that you thought was sensible and logical, but others were adamant that it was just blonde bimbo thinking. Would you be able to bring yourself to say here "yes, with regard to that I was a blonde bimbo" if that would make somebody feel better? I don't think you would say it even under those circumstances, because you wouldn't believe it, and you wouldn't be dishonest to yourself.