Qualifiers

Posted by Mamaemma 9 years ago to Culture
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I was reading a post of Johnpe1, and he ended it with IMHO. I recognized what he was doing as I have done it a lot in my life. I call it putting qualifiers into anything I say to other people.
Some examples of qualifiers:
IMHO
Well, I may be wrong, but I think.....
I don't mean to disagree with you, but ......

My point is that in my life I have dealt with a lot of jealousy and resentment from other people, and I have tried very hard to deflect it or try to make the other person see that I am a person, too, you don't need to be jealous of me.
The hate inspired by jealousy has been a recurring theme in my life, and I wonder if any other Gulchers have encountered this. Could you tell me if this has happened to you, how it has affected you, and how you have dealt with it?
Recently a person who has fixated on me attacked me through attacking my child, and it has caused me a lot of anxiety and pain, even though in the end my child was able to overcome the considerable obstacles he put in her path in order to hurt me.
I am curious to know if jealousy is something other Gulchers have had to deal with.
And by the way, John, your opinion should be anything but humble. Your comments are intelligent and interesting and often fun.

All Comments

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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I concede that I may be nit picking. On the other hand, as AR said many times, words are labels for concepts. If labeling is imprecise, the communication does not work well, just as if the concepts were foggy.

    In this case, I was complaining about your saying to believe is a strict adherence to dogma, because, among other reasons, I believe that you are a gentleman. Left uncorrected, that would be a contradiction, wouldn't it? (Smile, please!)
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Religion is one example where "belief" is not based on reason. Of course, we are dissecting English beyond the limited rationale that English is based on...
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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I think that "to believe" means to be persuaded of the truth of something by reasoning. Whether that something is objectively true, does not matter. As we all know, innumerable people have had extremely strong beliefs in objective falsehoods throughout millennia.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I think that you are missing the point: jealousy and envy are emotions, As such, entirely subjective. They are not "aspects" of a rational and objective "comparison".

    "Grass is always greener" is not a "fable". It is an irrational expression of envy. The definition of fable, from Wikipedia, is below.

    Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as verbal communication) and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

    Sorry to disagree, but A must be A here.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I appreciate your comment. I understand where you're coming from. But, this is where I depart from your logic. "If you believe that human nature is fundamentally moral (morality based on rational self-interest) you have to accept that publicizing poor behavior will eventually generate a counter pressure generated from negative reactions that such outbursts. But, we must not give up. We must, always politely, point out the misdeeds." I just don't believe these things. I no longer want to be tasked with pointing out the misdeeds of angry cowards. I'm retired from that activity...gone Galt, you could say. And, the internet does exactly that - publicize bad behavior. I see little to no resulting back pressure. But, you may be right regarding cause/effect.

    Happy Friday
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    My take on the words "think" and "believe" are the opposite. To me, "think" is the result of logical evaluation of facts; "believe" is a strict adherence to a dogma.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, if you do your physics study, time didn't exist before the Big Bang either.

    What is time really? It is the perception of change from one point to another. Without anything to be subject to change, time doesn't exist. You have to have agents (something that can act on something else) in order to create time in the first place. So what you can really postulate is that the Big Bang coincided (I'm not quite going to use the word causality) with an "explosion" of agents - not just matter.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    And both are aspects of comparison: one human being against another and who is "better".

    Concentrate on the truth - not another's perceived shortcomings or excellence because you'll never see the whole story of them. It's the "grass is always greener" fable.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    "Not only do their opinions not matter to me, I cannot allow them to matter."

    If we are concerned about the truth more than we are concerned about the approval of others, we'll have not only positive discussions, but seek for true answers. If on the other hand we subject ourselves to the whim and pleasure of popular opinion, any sense of principle must fly out the window.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I hate to be a bore, but I suspect that your 50th law statement also confuses jealousy and envy. They are different emotions. See definitions above.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I think that here too there is some confusion of jealousy and envy. See definitions in my comment above.
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    In the grand old days of the est Training, one of the mantras was "Thank you for sharing that..."

    After a while, its use became similar to your 'I can't remember your name' message... :)

    If you use either phrase, the best next thing to do is the 'walk away' part!
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 9 years ago
    Jealousy, is not pat of my thinking or vocabulary. I love to debate the issues at times or type out an idea. I don't understand in this day in age that emotion should come into play unless one is predisposed to such dangerous twisted sociological emotions or aberant psychological fixation.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Interesting that the theory of creation would come up in this topic but I will bite. If space is curved and time is the fourth dimension, why was there ever a time when there was nothing? Any explosions moving matter in time and space would not be creation, just repositioning. With infinite time, why wouldn't every possible combination of atomic matter occur? Aren't we fortunate to exist in a state of evolution where we can wonder about all this?
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years ago
    Jealousy has always been one of the strongest motivators. Arabs have always dressed their boys in girls' clothes until the age of five so that their neighbors don't cast an evil eye on the child. In our more refined culture, jealousy is the prime motivator for Ellsworth Tooheys who seek to destroy everything that they cannot achieve. Although usually negative, jealousy doesn't have to be. One can be jealous in a positive way, by wanting not only the outcome of one's achievement, but also willing to do what the other person did to achieve it. And, of course, jealousy is one of the best economic catalysts - like George Carlin said in his Ten Commandments skit - "your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays Come All Ye Faithful, you run out and get one too!"
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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years ago
    I should add that there really are two types of qualifiers. The discussion here covers the type that is added to people's opinions, viewpoints and moral stands. I agree that qualifiers in those cases should not exist. One either believes in something, or does not. If one is not sure, then perhaps keeping the mouth shut and learning is the best action.
    However, it is another case completely to use qualifiers when discussing technical matters. There, it is not a matter of one's moral fiber, but technical knowledge, which is, almost by definition, never complete. Thus, predicating one's position with "in my opinion," for example, is just good manners.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years ago
    The qualifiers are symptomatic of partial acquiescence to the non-Gulch culture in our lives. I dealt with jealousy often as a kid and teenager. I was not humble at all then. I learned a little humility when I got to college and found a few people with whom I could relate intellectually. Humility is generally overdone in this era.
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  • Posted by Snoogoo 9 years ago
    Hi Mama, jealousy, yes, tons of it. It is the reason I dumped my spouse.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh, Maritimus, what a wonderful comment, and you are so right. You have pointed out what is important here.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years ago
    What you call "qualifiers" are merely a subset of "trigger warnings." I think they're a stupid thing to have or use, but some people insist on them, and only you can decide for yourself whether it's worth the extra effort to please those people rather than run them out of your life.

    As far as the feelings stuff, I don't see the point of discussing them in public. They should be private between you and your shrink, priest, bartender, or close friend of choice.
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