I haven't read your other reply yet, so excuse me if some of what follows has already been anticipated (but it would be too much to carry in my head to read both articles at once and hold back all my responses).
On Jan 19, 8:13 pm, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: > Three things I've found in my life: > > 1. When there is a trend of negative circumstances in my life, I try to > approach them the same as I would any trend analysis; by searching for the > commonalities. In most cases, I find that the commonality is me. This has > been true of the relationship issues I repeated for some time, as well as > various other interpersonal problems. > > 2. I've found that many of my friends or acquaintances who often encounter > social issues have some sort of recognizable social disorder. It seems to > have been a question in your life which has not been fully answered. Yes, all this is exactly the way I used to approach things. > 3. Those in "perceived position of authority" are often > non-committal towards situations where the response seems overblown to the > stimulus; the vast majority of us are used to encountering boors, understand > that it really isn't anything personal, and demonstrate maturity by ignoring > it. I don't feel as though I've been subject to a "verbal onslaught" when an > obnoxious drunk calls me a shit head. Perception makes a lot of difference > in how people react to a situation. As I was explaining it to myself today, this aspect of my character and my suffering at least seems very simple to explain, at least in outline. Putting it as briefly as possible: I am extremely sensitive to language, and although this can, of course, be an asset (to myself and others), it is also a liability, because it simply cannot be switched off. Therefore, unless I isolate myself from society (as I have in fact done, with a consequent marked reduction in suicidal thinking, although it is still very frequent), I have absolutely no defence whatsoever against any verbal attack whatsoever, not even one coming from some moronic feral youth or gang of youths on the street. I simply cannot "consider the source". On many occasions, I can defend myself very well, after the fact, usually using some combination of reason and humour, but the damage has in every case already been done, the horse having bolted before the stable door was closed. Like a schizophrenic (although I am not schizophrenic), I have several skins too few, sometimes it seems no skins at all, just exposed flesh. That explanation seems clear to me, as far as it goes, but is it clear to you, or to anyone else? I imagine what is most missing from it is any statement from me as to how I imagine other people ought to behave towards me (here or anywhere else), and as to whether I think I deserve or require any "special" treatment. Do people have to walk on eggs around me? Do I expect them to? Can debate not be robust, not even if I say something really stupid or annoying? Can I have the piss taken out of me, without blowing up or whining about it? I think the answer is that I can cope pretty well with anything in the normal run of things, so long as rationality is respected, and if necessary enforced. I actually meant to try to write something about this in the OP of this thread, not with respect to my own case, but more generally in answer to the question as to how ideas about "minds, persons, selves" are tested. I think there is something very important (and also quite mysterious) about the idea of rationality in ordinary everyday human interactions such as these. If I sense that that is genuinely respected, then I will feel pretty safe. Perhaps one more thing. (Columbo is indeed my favourite detective!) This idea also has some special reference to my own (unquestionably very odd) case, but also has (I believe) some important general and objective reference: I have described myself in odd terms. I am visibly odd. (I mean that metaphorically: you can't actually see me, but my use of language is odd, indeed quite visibly odd on the computer screen, so this is not entirely a metaphor.) I ask you only to accept that there is something about me that is not only odd, but /real/. I do not know, myself, what this odd thing is. A series of consultant psychiatrists also do not know what it is. (A series of psychotherapists were happy to take my money, and were not as honest as the psychiatrists about not knowing what the ____ is the matter with me, but it at long last it became plain to me that they did not know, either.) So I'm not expecting you or anyone else to know what it is. It certainly does not belong on any list of "politically correct" classes of persons who are deemed to be entitled to some special consideration. Special treatment? Yes and no. I am just an extreme case of someone needing just the same kind of rationality and respect in conversation as anyone else. Part of our common understanding of each other is that we are all different, we are all in a sense "special", we all have "special needs". The only concept that seems to be needed to be taken very seriously here, apart from rationality which I have already mentioned, is realism. Persons /exist/. We /really exist. And we have real attributes, some of which cannot be changed. (See the Niebuhr thread for something about this.) This is something that should be borne in mind by all people at all times. It is surely obviously not "political correctness". It is not even "special needs". I am just an extreme case of we are all like, and what we all need. I am a canary in a coal mine. All this is, of course, highly debatable. I am willing to debate it.
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