TIL: Today I Learned

[Hygro]

That isn't fair. Actually it is quite indicative of your lack of modesty to attack me. For starters, i cannot be described by anyone of less intellect than myself.
No one gets me /cry

My avatar is not one but two rockstars in front of adoring fans. Yours is your own face garnished in royal jewelry. Neither of us can be expected modesty.

 

[Kyriakos]

My avatar is not one but two rockstars in front of adoring fans. Yours is your own face garnished in royal jewelry. Neither of us can be expected modesty.

But while yours just has some merely ornamental purple, i am born in purple.

 

[Hygro]

Man you just had a rectangle and needed fill the space.

 

[Traitorfish]

It doesn't show that it originated from antisemitic conspiracy theories. It simply highlights certain anti-Semites who have used the trope. "Racists support X, therefore all support of X is really disguised racism" is such a common smear tactic I'm not going to even read the rest of the article.

"Cultural Marxism" wasn't something invented by moderates and appropriate by the far-right, though, it originated with them. It's blood-and-soil stuff through and through.

 

[Lexicus]

It doesn't show that it originated from antisemitic conspiracy theories. It simply highlights certain anti-Semites who have used the trope. "Racists support X, therefore all support of X is really disguised racism" is such a common smear tactic I'm not going to even read the rest of the article.

Well it is a bit silly of you to dismiss the entire thing on the basis of a misrepresentation of what is essentially an aside to the main thrust of the piece. They are not claiming that Peterson's arguments are disguised anti-Semitism and there is not even an implicit claim that Peterson is an anti-Semite. And actually, it does show that the idea originated with far-right anti-Semites, as a conspiracy theory. Whether those origins make it inherently anti-Semitic is an entirely different question that can be legitimately argued, I suppose, but the intellectual roots are undeniable.

Both Marxists and a certain strain of poststructuralist are pretty on board with the whole "destroy the family, destroy modern institutions" thing. They may be opposed philosophies, but there's definitely some crossover in their goals.

"Marxists" can't agree on what types of facial hair make you a revisionist dupe of the CIA, let alone on "goals." And I'm not even really aware of any contemporary public figure who identifies as a "poststructuralist," can you provide any examples?

 

[Hygro]

The hard impact is what helped me grok it(I think, grok is probably too strong). Every now and then I can handle a little "tellin' it like it is" in direct response to a direct question.

At least he didn't wander into small talk with the person who asked!

The irony of not liking small talk but not liking bruntness about small talk almost escaped me. Nice catch.

Yes. Talk about a subject you actually want to talk about. Skip the meter stick. If someone's going to be a knob, they're going to be that whether you first tentatively approach a chat about the weather or if you jump right in to the meat and potatoes.

I'm down. I also skip to the dick pics.

 

[Mouthwash]

Well it is a bit silly of you to dismiss the entire thing on the basis of a misrepresentation of what is essentially an aside to the main thrust of the piece. They are not claiming that Peterson's arguments are disguised anti-Semitism and there is not even an implicit claim that Peterson is an anti-Semite.

Did you read the same thing I did? They absolutely tried to associate the term with antisemitism and racism.

"Marxists" can't agree on what types of facial hair make you a revisionist dupe of the CIA, let alone on "goals."

I think you're confusing Marxists with communists.

And I'm not even really aware of any contemporary public figure who identifies as a "poststructuralist," can you provide any examples?

Judith Butler. And according to Owen, literally generations of social scientists have been influenced by it. I'll grant you that not many actually call themselves card-carrying postmodernists, but in my lazy fashion, here's a link to the postmodernist "feminist critique of objectivity." It's the SEP, not Breitbart.

(Also, I didn't mean poststructuralism but postmodernism. Whoops. )

 

[Hygro]

The problem of modernity was, say, that "good taste" as a concept to be valued was tied to the particular fetish of the time. So yeah, modernity rules, it values good taste. Except if the rulers of society agreed good taste in music was well orchestrated symphonies, then forever our society is stuck with an increasingly divorced-from-elegance fixation on having orchestras refined further and further, and music would suck because our environment is no longer strings and horns but electricity. I mean, the whole category of music would suck at doing what music does for us compared to what it could be doing given the real environment.

The postmodern critique is the tool devised in modernity to make that distinction that allows to not get stuck on a fetish form of the thing that the thing is seeking to achieve.

Can't get stuck on postmodernism's attempted takedown of all things and end up an annihilated onion peeled of its layers. But the solution is forward from that, not backward to where that was modernity's forward solution.

 

[Arakhor]

I found the last 30 posts thoroughly boring, but that might be less to do with actually being on the autistic spectrum and more to do wondering how this has managed to divert the thread so thoroughly!

 

[Lexicus]

Did you read the same thing I did? They absolutely tried to associate the term with antisemitism and racism.

Look dude, I read the whole thing and you read a couple of paragraphs that I quoted here and refused to read the rest. Who do you think has the more informed opinion about what the piece is and isn't doing?

Judith Butler.

Okay, so that's one. Can you quote her identifying herself as a "postmodernist?" Can you expand a little bit on her "goals"?

(Also, I didn't mean poststructuralism but postmodernism. Whoops. )

Just read the darn article. Postmodernism isn't a "theory", and it's most commonly considered as a period in artistic, intellectual, or cultural history rather than a worldview.

And according to Owen, literally generations of social scientists have been influenced by it.

Yes, and being influenced by something is very different than identifying as that thing. Or do you think there is no difference between being influenced by Marx and being a Marxist?

but in my lazy fashion, here's a link to the postmodernist "feminist critique of objectivity."

I didn't read this whole section but from what I've read it seems like these are pretty much entirely uncontroversial principles of philosophical skepticism. At least one of those lettered bullet points can be found in Nietzsche, and many have traditions that go back quite deep into Western philosophy (again, the thing that Jordan Peterson & co claim to be defending here). This is the whole problem that poststructuralism raised: the Ideal, True Knowledge, can never be reached, we are forced to grope toward it using imperfect media all derived from language. It's kind of amazing how simply observing this elicits claims that you are trying to destroy the whole structure of Western civilization, when in reality everything worth taking from the Western tradition is in keeping with this tradition of skepticism, of constantly critiquing the received wisdom, which in our day and age is frequently a critique of some previous generation's received wisdom.

 

[Hygro]

I found the last 30 posts thoroughly boring, but that might be less to do with actually being on the autistic spectrum and more to do wondering how this has managed to divert the thread so thoroughly!

My sense of humor recognition is tingling to me that you're making a joke but I'm missing it. So if you're not, we have like a bunch of posters excitedly responding to multiple posts at a time helixing around two related topics tied to one person, which means from an objective forum measure this is an interesting conversation.

Yes. Talk about a subject you actually want to talk about. Skip the meter stick. If someone's going to be a knob, they're going to be that whether you first tentatively approach a chat about the weather or if you jump right in to the meat and potatoes.

Thinking more: dick pics was my extreme example. But dick pics to strangers/new acquaintances according to an askreddit garnered a 10% success rate which when you think about it, is extremely efficient. 10% success rate of getting some. Take it with grain of salt, I wouldn't know and no one said they were keeping a spreadsheet.

Another thing that skips small talk is advertising. Also highly effective for the effort yet totally offensive to the rest of us.

If you're going to share meat and potatoes well you are going to have to converse well. To converse well, you are going to have the skills that make small talk an avenue for large talk, or no talk, or whatever you want it to be. If you are good at small talk, it won't bother you. This is almost by definition. If it's bothering you, you aren't doing the conversation right by you, which means you are in a conversation that it outside a good conversation, which means you aren't good at conversing. But it's the other person! Really? A conversation ends as soon as you don't reply. And a conversation changes as soon as you change it. If you can't use small talk as the abstract before an article to calibrate the conversants, then you will be able to converse your favorite subjects maximally or optimally. This is in part because you will require that the person you are talking to is already on your wavelength (like, the same, or yin to yang or how is the shared connection axis) AND is interested in the topic.

Here's the kicker, if you're really good at small talk you A) skip through it way faster and B) exchange more useful real information than if you were bad at that connection but went straight to your ideas.

So yeah, avoiding small talk categorically works if you have the kind of alignment needed for dpix to work. But if you wanna sex the best, you should probably start with flirting.

 

[Synobun]

Thinking more: dick pics was my extreme example. But dick pics to strangers/new acquaintances according to an askreddit garnered a 10% success rate which when you think about it, is extremely efficient. 10% success rate of getting some. Take it with grain of salt, I wouldn't know and no one said they were keeping a spreadsheet.

Another thing that skips small talk is advertising. Also highly effective for the effort yet totally offensive to the rest of us.

If you're going to share meat and potatoes well you are going to have to converse well. To converse well, you are going to have the skills that make small talk an avenue for large talk, or no talk, or whatever you want it to be. If you are good at small talk, it won't bother you. This is almost by definition. If it's bothering you, you aren't doing the conversation right by you, which means you are in a conversation that it outside a good conversation, which means you aren't good at conversing. But it's the other person! Really? A conversation ends as soon as you don't reply. And a conversation changes as soon as you change it. If you can't use small talk as the abstract before an article to calibrate the conversants, then you will be able to converse your favorite subjects maximally or optimally. This is in part because you will require that the person you are talking to is already on your wavelength (like, the same, or yin to yang or how is the shared connection axis) AND is interested in the topic.

Here's the kicker, if you're really good at small talk you A) skip through it way faster and B) exchange more useful real information than if you were bad at that connection but went straight to your ideas.

I'm not sure how valuable of a response I can give to you here since you're operating from the premise that no small talk = you're bad at talking. I don't feel that describes me but then you can just say that proves Peterson right and I'm the narcissist in this equation, and of course I would disagree with anything that reflects poorly on me. Your premise, however, proves my resistance. My resistance to small talk is, "It's not necessary for me so I don't do it" while your resistance to no small talk is, "You're not good at talking, exhibit narcissistic tendencies, and you're being self-absorbed ('other person to blame instead of you')".

I think it's doable, even easy, to simply acknowledge that some people like small talk and some people don't, and that being in either category is not symptomatic of a disability or negative trait.

Socializing with another human being is not at all the binary you make it out to be. You can opt out, or despise, small talk without also opting out of valuable communicating. It is not a necessity to conversing. Your point that the other person has to be interested in the same thing as you isn't a point at all: this is still true even if you go through the process of small talk first. The question of whether or not your conversational partner is into you still exists with your model.

I also don't agree with the flirting/sex comparison, mostly because flirtation is an entire element and pleasure of its own. I don't see it as the small talk of the sexual world.

 

[Lexicus]

I feel like I kind of exhibit narcissistic tendencies a lot, but I've learned to conceal them to some degree

 

[Farm Boy]

So I find myself in the unusual position of playing the moderate.

Getting old is a &#%@*.

 

[Hygro]

Flirting is small talk.

 

[sophie]

Just to make sure we're all on the same page here:

Poststructuralism was a reaction to and criticism of Structuralism i.e. Linguistic Structuralism, i.e. the theory of society posited by Saussure (and later and more robustly/broadly by Claude Lévi-Strauss, and others; notably Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida all made their bones initially as structuralists) which locates all of society in language, specifically in the way that language is a representation of inherited signs whose meaning derives from its binary opposition to other signs.

A structuralist reading of, say, myth is to condense a myth into a series of irreducible elements (in the same way that an utterance or a word can be reduced to a series of irreducible morphemes/phonemes) and look for binary pairs present in the structure of the myth. For example Claude Lévi-Strauss identifies two pairs in the Oedipus myth: one is overrating vs underrating blood relations, where Oedipus marrying Jocasta, and Antigone burying Polynices despite prohibition are examples of overrating, and Oedipus killing his father and Eteocles murdering Polynices are examples of underrating; and then denial vs persistence of the autochthanous nature of man would be the second binary; with destruction of monsters (Cadmos must kill the Dragon in order to create literal humans; Oedipus kills the Sphinx as a repetition of the first; i.e. killing the very thing which is necessary for your creation) representing the denial of autochthany, and the fact that Labdacos (lame), Laios (left-sided), and Oedipus (swollen-foot) have names which all have to do with lameness or inability to stand upright echoes a common trope of the birth of mankind; that it cannot walk properly initially. And a structuralist can say that we can deduce from this myth that it serves as a necessary mediating process through which man can reconcile its belief in autochthany (that man is born from the Earth/dust/what have you; that man is born from one), and that every human being necessarily has two parents (man is born from two). The mediation in the first binary is reflected in the second, and thus "although experience contradicts theory, social life validates cosmology by its similarity of structure. Hence cosmology is true."

That's what we're talking about here. That's structuralism. Poststructuralism is a reaction against this, hence the name. Not Marxism.

Which seems like something that would be deeply upsetting to the poststructuralists.

Attempting to debunk the poststructuralists by rehashing old structuralist and positivist positions is like, the most postmodern thing ever.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I found the last 30 posts thoroughly boring, but that might be less to do with actually being on the autistic spectrum and more to do wondering how this has managed to divert the thread so thoroughly!

From each individual's perspective it's "today" and they appear to be learning things.

So everything's cool and not at all off-topic.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's a sin that we've spent three pages arguing about small talk and nobody's posted the Ivor Cutler song.

 

[Lexicus]

Attempting to debunk the poststructuralists by rehashing old structuralist and positivist positions is like, the most postmodern thing ever.

I think it's basically positivism that Peterson and others in his ilk are reflexively defending. Positivism is what small minds make of empiricism and rationalism and all those things.

 

[sophie]

I think it's basically positivism that Peterson and others in his ilk are reflexively defending. Positivism is what small minds make of empiricism and rationalism and all those things.

Eh, positivism is still a major part of psychology today, and in particular of clinical psychology. Experiencing it was one of the most delightful parts of my last quarter, by which I mean: watching a cohort full of historians trying to...I guess...understand how its epistemology can possibly be verifiable(?) was a highlight of my first quarter. Apparently the discipline has been running into some issues over precisely this topic.