That’s been obvious for a while now, and not just with me.
Have it your way.
Call it a lesson learned on these boards. Never attempt to understand what the person intended, because the same person will mean a dozen different things in the same post, just as soon as their earlier ‘intention’ becomes inconvenient or uncomfortable. And it happens over and over again, with different people. Heck, some people go so far as to pretend to be someone else, just to insist there was really something else going on, and ho ho ho, we were all fools for not seeing it.
And then a few days later, they’ll loudly and defiantly claim that was all a sham and we totally fell into the trap of being manipulated. For example, you don’t think Blackguard Intratech was anything new, do you? Something we haven’t all seen time and again? It wasn’t.
So, since people insist on being horrible crap, I gave up on caring what they were trying to say. I respond to what they say. And if you don’t like what you said, be more careful when saying it.
No. I’m tired.
Then get some rest. After all, if you don’t have your health, you haven’t got anything.
1 Like
I think you are missing her point. To be fair to you however, Im not sure if Arrendis also isnt being clear on her point either.
What Arrendis is arguing (as I understand it) is that she is going to take what you say at face value, exactly as you said it. If you say that the apple is blue, she will understand it as the apple is blue. She might argue that “No! your clearly blind, as the apple is red” - but she at least is arguing from the same basic place that you are - That you see that apple as blue. That you meant anything else is entirely irrelevant because thats not what you said
If you said that the apple ‘might’ be blue, same thing, except now you are giving her the option that colors may exist, and she will take that, again, at face value.
The Rule of thumb that I operate under, (its served me well and would recommend to others) when talking to Arrendis, is to be
-literal to the point of having absolutely no possible alternative understanding. -
I’m not sure if she just prefers to operate that way ir what, but what she is asking you to Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Being vague with Arrendis is mistake.
1 Like
And for an added statement - Even though Arrendis can be mind numbingly intense about it, I tend to agree with the approuch. It’s not our fault for not understanding you (or any one else this may apply to.) You should learn to communicate more efficiently.
And you didn’t even put this in ‘kind words’… 
On the topic of rights:
Caldari corporates have some provisos for things like human rights under Caldari State Basic Laws. However, they are understood to be legal constructs existing as part of the notion that there exists a shared social contract among corporate citizens. They only apply to Caldari citizens.
Asserting rights are fundamental or inherent seems arrogant to me. It’s taking a legal construct created by people and saying it applies to everyone at all times – even those not part of the society in which such conception of rights was formulated.
3 Likes
No one is doing that.
Every reading, every listening, even, is an interpretation. What anyone - and that obviously includes Arrendis - is understanding when they read something is colored by previous experiences. Is coloured by emotions towards the person who wrote it. Colored by emotions in regards to the topic at hand. I could go on…
So, Arrendis, instead of making an effort to understand, to reduce the bias she brings into something others say or write, is really just giving in to her preconceptions.
And to make it even worse, she holds it against people that they might not know what they exactly want to say. But then, people rarely know exactly what they want to say prior to formulating it and in formulating it and having a dialogue about it, most people get to know -explore- what they want to say, what their position actually is.
To decry that as “the same person will mean a dozen different things in the same post, just as soon as their earlier ‘intention’ becomes inconvenient or uncomfortable” really kills any conversation. It’s a mindset that goes blatantly against how human minds work together to work something out. As if you were in a conversation - always and exclusively - to ‘win’ a debate.
That’s so narrow.
Also, she makes the mistake to go from the observation that some people are crap to the conclusion that all people are crap and thus thinks to be justified to treat people as crap. Which only means she digs herself into the hole that she accuses all others to sit in.
2 Likes
How does your concept of andesh compare to something like sophrosyne [translator note: Balanced behavior, knowing and doing what’s right, both humble and competent at same time], are they roughly similar? Is it a particular action that is andesh or can it describe a person as a whole?
1 Like
Again, I can speak only for myself and my own clan’s beliefs, but andesh can be applied to anything; an action, a thought, a person, a group, a situation.
While I use the word “virtue” here, it translates badly. Andesh is not necessarily any particular kind of behaviour, it is not the same as “good” or “kind”. It means “things alinged with one’s Fate / ancestry / true nature”, and that what is proper for me here and now, might not be it to someone else, or in another situation.
The main virtues describe things that my people believe are proper practically always, but they are not definitions of andesh, they are more like examples of it.
A properly raised person feels when they are proper. If you are spiritually connected, you will know what is and is not andesh.
2 Likes
Actually, while virtue usually denotes moral excellence, in it’s broader sense it means “inherently advantageous or excellent quality of something or someone”. If it’s inherent, then it means functioning in accordance with its true nature.
What do you do with a person that is not properly raised, that doesn’t feel when they are proper? or with someone who - even worse - feels that they are proper when they are improper or even outright vicious?
Except, ma’am? That “inherently” is an adverb modifying the “advantageous or excellent.” So it seems like its true nature is to be advantageous or excellent, but it’s not necessarily true to the nature of the person practicing the virtue.
A truly arrogant person may struggle to practice humility, but it doesn’t follow that humility is therefore not a virtue in that person’s case.
Now, if it is its true nature of a property or behaviour to be advantageous or excellent, then I’d claim that the property or behaviour needs to be within the true nature of the thing it is said of.
Perhaps, ma’am. But that seems to deny virtues to those who have to struggle for them.
It’s been thought and argued from time to time that humans are naturally arrogant, avaricious, and cruel-- that our true nature is corrupt. You may disagree with this assessment, but it’s not obviously wrong. If it is true, then the path of virtue is to struggle against those qualities, to try always to be better than we are.
Which is more admirable: to simply be that which is desirable, or to struggle to attain it-- and succeed?
You may say that in order for success to be truly possible, the virtue must also be truly part of one’s nature, and that’s likely so, if only in trace quantities. But it seems to drain the meaning from the discussion to say, in effect, that even an infant has strength.
Nothing particular?
I mean, if they are close to me, I might argue with them and try and get them to see where they are wrong, or if their viciousness targets me or mine I might fight them, of course.
But as a rule, it’s not my job to worry about random people’s spiritual states or concepts of propriety.
If you struggle for a virtue, by the very definition of struggling for something, you can’t actually have that certain virtue while you do so. (At least not fully.) So, yes, if I am struggling to realize a certain virtue I am actually lacking (in) that certain virtue - else I wouldn’t have to struggle for it.
That is not to deny that it is in itself commendable to struggle to realize any of the virtues or even to just struggle to realize a virtue more fully. Still, it is better to have virtue realized and the better the more fully it is realized then to merely strive for it. To ‘simply’ be what is desirable isn’t that simple after all, but yes. The less effort one needs to be virtuous, the more one deserves admiration for that. Because it always presupposes that one succeeded in struggling to attain it.
And of course, even an infant has strength, but one has to qualify this: Potentially. After all, we couldn’t realize anything, if we weren’t potentially so. So, attaining virtue is not in acquiring something we lacked, but rather in realizing in actuality, what we are in potentiality. And thus bringing our true nature to blossoming.
For what is arrogance, but a lack of humility? And what is avarice, but a lack of generosity? And what else is cruelty, but a lack of empathy? They aren’t so much qualities in themselves, but the privation of quality.
Well, but you could also describe humility as a lack of arrogance. I don’t actually even think that cruelty is opposed to empathy; it can take a fair amount of empathy to be really cruel, just as it takes empathy to be really kind. Empathy tells you what will hurt or help the most; it’s up to the empathetic soul how to use it.
A lot of the virtue/vice continuum is weird like this. If bravery (a commonly-cited virtue) is overcoming fear and cowardice is surrender to it, either path requires fear. Without fear you can be neither brave nor cowardly.
Actually it wouldn’t surprise me all that much to meet a very greedy, but also very generous, soul-- one who takes all they can, but finds less pleasure in the having than the getting and therefore gives much away.
2 Likes
Well, I might not have found the right words there - kindness is indeed much better than empathy.
Also, I don’t think the virtue/vice continuum is weird like that. It’d just a different kind of greed that is indifferent to giving away but tries to acquire everything, then the one that does the inverse or wants for acquiring and keeping. Conceptually you will be able to find a fitting opposite none the less.
And of course, most virtues deal with getting ourselves in the right relation to our emotions and desires:
Bravery isn’t just overcoming fear, it’s overcoming fear while still taking it into advice. Else it would be foolhardiness or whatever is the right word there.
So, ethical virtues are aiming at a mean - a golden mean, if you will - in regard to undershooting and overshooting in response to our emotions and desires. And while it’s true that one can descriptively frame humility as a lack of arrogance, that is a possibility in the realm of language. I was arguing, though, that arrogance is ontologically a lack of something, the privation of something. (And possibility in language doesn’t imply that it is ontologically true. Language can express things that are ontologically impossible.) And if we stay in the picture of aim, I think it becomes clear that one can express - in language - good aim as a lack of a lack of good aim or a lack of bad aim. But bad aim means that there is less aim involved and good aim means there is more aim involved. Ontologically speaking, bad aim is the privation of good aim.
And if my analogy holds, the same is true for virtues and vices.
Hm.
Respectfully, ma’am, I don’t think “being virtuous” is like target shooting.
Take for example the Achur virtue of curiosity. An incurious person is failing to appreciate the wonder that is existence (not that I think the universe really takes offense, but it might if it could), and furthermore might miss loads of important stuff. However, someone who is only curious isn’t praiseworthy either: curiosity in that case becomes something aggressive and predatory, a hunger for knowledge that doesn’t accept limits.
Real virtue is generally found in a balance between multiple concepts. One should be compassionate, but maybe not to an extravagant degree that, for example, impoverishes one’s family. One should be humble, but maybe not to a degree that fails to offer needed resources or skills when needed. One should be moderate, but perhaps there are qualities it’s better not to possess at all (hatred, cruelty), even if shunning them is in some way “extreme.”
These virtues balance and moderate each other, as well as “curiosity.” A truly virtuous person hovers between these concepts, possessing all in abundance, some usually stronger than others, but hopefully lacking none.