Dear Friammers, As often happens, this list again throws up an interesting thread just when I am trying to concentrate on something else, and so cannot properly participate. This thread is about communication, which I spent my career studying, and communication in writing, in particular, which I spent my career doing. It raises for me the fascinating question about the force of talking about the self as a way of communicating universal understanding. This technique is the hall mark of the E.B. White essay, which often begins with some scene observed from a sharply personal point of view, but reaches out rapidly to the [hypothetical] reader's experience. The writer of an E.B.White essay always skates on the edge of narcissism because s/he assumes that his own experience is the same as that of everybody else. That error, the egocentric fallacy, is the deep core of narcissism. And yet, when done well, such essays can be enormously disarming and persuasive.
I cannot say more at the moment, but do want to thank you for airing this, and hope you continue. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels Sent: Monday, August 01, 2016 4:29 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Narcissism and Mass Shootings I don't think a reader should be forced to choose between (1) or (2), but I would prefer that the writer be aware enough to refer to context rather than restating it as if it were their invention. How is this agent different than the environment which the reader is already equipped to assess? The pseudo-profound bullshit is debatable, but reasonable people know it is. It's just a placeholder (in spite of the Portlandians) to get on to more interesting unique details -- the stuff not in the compression dictionaries that represent the prevailing culture. -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of glen ? Sent: Monday, August 01, 2016 2:00 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Narcissism and Mass Shootings Well, sure, competence in communication involves both abilities: 1) to compress/abstract out detail so as to state your point clearly and 2) to place such a point inside a use case, a narrative. And although I think of abstraction as one of my skills (at least I tend to do it all the time, perhaps badly), I'm wary of the inscribed _bias_ that comes with pre-[compressed|abstracted] morals-of-the-story. This is, I think, why that paper on "pseudo-profound bullshit" was interesting. Any compression of someone's experience will be very helpful _if_ accompanied by the very boring type of facts of interest to a private investigator. But all compressions of someone's experience are merely pseudo-profound bullshit in the _absence_ of those tedious details. If forced to choose between (1) xor (2), I much prefer (2). This is pretty much the only reason I'm willing to vote for Clinton. (willing but not yet decided... I may still go for Stein or Johnson ... or maybe Cthulhu: https://cthulhuforamerica.com/) She's a bit of a wonk, much less capable of the vacuous, warm and fuzzy platitudes Obama gives us, but much more credible sounding than Trump because she articulates (at least some of) the details. On 08/01/2016 10:12 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > One may or may not find this distasteful, depending on the situation, but my > real complaint is not with the exploiters, it is with the tendency of people > to seek and expect relationships but without offering any "terse and present > context-less" analysis of their experience. Write a novel, paint a > picture. Capture the concept to express somehow so that individuals can > exchange information in the space of ideas and not in the space of (all of > our) tedious and highly-replicated personal problems. > > Marcus.. who is looking forward to an introverted president and not a > narcissist. They are not the same thing. -- ☢ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
