Types of people you don't like

[Mort Divine]

You don't trivialize shit with rape jokes. The audience does if they so choose. Words don't automatically mean something to every single person. I've attempted suicide and will say something sucks so much I want to kill myself, and I'm in no way trivializing the shit I went through, but someone else may think that I'm trivializing suicide.

That's just how they see it and they're pretending their perspective of what you say is embedded in your words and that they'll magically put the perspective in others. There isn't any arguing with these people. They want a crusade and have a filter for how they interpret things that they mistake for reality.

It's like when people say "you make me feel x." The person feeling the emotion has a part in it, too. If they ignore it, the world "makes" them feel things. You don't have to accept any ideas you don't want to. In fact, even getting angry about it means part of you doesn't want to accept it.

You can't always "ignore" things. Not everyone is some stoic wall of emotional strength. It is easy to say that people have a part in the way they feel about something or react to something - but the reality is far different from that.

If someone is a rape victim (or someone who has undergone any kind of traumatic experience) and they have not recovered from the trauma, they may not be able to control their reaction to it being discussed/joked about and if you judge them for their inability to control that you're a certified asshole.

Don't apply what YOU are capable of doing to everyone.

 

[Dak]

Just because someone may not be capable of recognition or control of their psyche/action, doesn't mean they don't play a part, and that doesn't mean we can't judge in some way.

 

[Vimana]

It's the opposite of being stoic or having an emotional wall. You react to your reality and some pain has nothing to do with the mind's ability to create simulated realities. But after it's over, it's all a creation of the mind that people have power to get over. Realizing it's a creation is what gets people over it.

Getting people to shut up to avoid potential triggers doesn't solve shit. Removing the trigger by oneself is the ultimate solution. It's easier with some things than others, but people ultimately have the power.

 

[Einherjar86]

Language is history. The network of signification is bound to past injustices in ways that we cannot avoid, but simultaneously in ways that only language allows us to discuss.

We can speak of nothing innocently, despite what we believe are pure intentions.

 

[Vimana]

We can choose what ideas we attach to. We don't have to relive history in words if we don't want to.

 

[mutantllama]

People who yell at cashiers or act like assholes when they are getting their shit checked out.

 

[Einherjar86]

We can choose what ideas we attach to. We don't have to relive history in words if we don't want to.

That's only true if you maintain that the meaning of words can successfully be traced back to the utterance of the speaker. This is, unfortunately, a fantasy. The association of ideas and meanings exceeds the bounds of subjectivity. Language is a social system. Without someone to interpret what you say, your words are futile; and when we speak of things like rape, the network of meanings is vast and controversial.

Sadly, we can do nothing but talk about these issues. To quote Niels Bohr, we are "suspended in language."

 

[The Butt]

Words are gay.

 

[Mort Divine]

We can choose what ideas we attach to. We don't have to relive history in words if we don't want to.

How can we choose? I am interested to hear just how you think this happens, because I just do not buy that we consciously decide what we do and don't attach ourselves to.

 

[Vimana]

That's only true if you maintain that the meaning of words can successfully be traced back to the utterance of the speaker. This is, unfortunately, a fantasy. The association of ideas and meanings exceeds the bounds of subjectivity. Language is a social system. Without someone to interpret what you say, your words are futile; and when we speak of things like rape, the network of meanings is vast and controversial.

Sadly, we can do nothing but talk about these issues. To quote Niels Bohr, we are "suspended in language."

The origin of the words may be behind the speaker chronologically, but the speaker themselves has power over their meaning if they are aware that they do. Even if the meaning comes from before, they are still the mental nexus that is creating meaning from their surroundings and attaching it to words. One had power over this process with awareness.

Second, words are only symbols for concepts, and conceptual cognition and nonconceptual cognition are both possible. We are not suspended in language if we do not wish to be. Otherwise, how could humans go beyond their existing verbal framework when it comes to conceptualizing? The history of philosophy (especially in the East with advaita, Hinduism, Zen, and Buddhism) is full of it.

 

[Vimana]

How can we choose? I am interested to hear just how you think this happens, because I just do not buy that we consciously decide what we do and don't attach ourselves to.

You are made of poop. Do you believe you are made of poop now, or do you not accept that statement?

 

[Mort Divine]

You are made of poop. Do you believe you are made of poop now, or do you not accept that statement?

That is dealing with something that is factually determinable - not dealing with how we emotionally respond to a given situation.

People might have varying degrees of "control" with how they deal with - say PTSD but that does not mean that they are able to determine just how much they can handle.

 

[Vimana]

The emotions of a situation (after it has passed) come from ideas since the mind forms a picture. One can recognize the picture as not real and detach themselves from it. It's not always easy, but it's possible.

 

[The Ozzman]

People who yell at cashiers or act like assholes when they are getting their shit checked out.

People who are rude to customer service people in general

 

[Einherjar86]

The origin of the words may be behind the speaker chronologically, but the speaker themselves has power over their meaning if they are aware that they do. Even if the meaning comes from before, they are still the mental nexus that is creating meaning from their surroundings and attaching it to words. One had power over this process with awareness.

Second, words are only symbols for concepts, and conceptual cognition and nonconceptual cognition are both possible. We are not suspended in language if we do not wish to be. Otherwise, how could humans go beyond their existing verbal framework when it comes to conceptualizing? The history of philosophy (especially in the East with advaita, Hinduism, Zen, and Buddhism) is full of it.

You award, to your hypothetical speakers, intentions and awareness that do not exist. We have power over meaning "if we are aware that we do", or we can be free of language "if we choose to be"; these are both impossible to actualize.

The history of philosophy is not full of nonconceptual cognition. It is full of hypostatized notions of cognition beyond thought, which can (paradoxically) only be communicated in language. The fantasy of transcendence is just that: a fantasy. The Eastern sophistries of dispelling the ego and achieving some kind of nonlinguistic wholeness are undermined by the fact that such wholeness is only ever transmitted, or communicated, through language.

 

[Vimana]

Cognition comes from the senses, not language. Otherwise, how would nonduality be found in the first place? Meaning is independent of words, even if one fixates on words to the degree that they do not notice all of the nonconceptual cognition going on. Do you meditate? If you do a frequent practice for months, it's really clear how flimsy words are and how much more meaning lies within the mind when it is not trying to find a way to communicate it with symbols.

By the way, you don't get nonduality if you think it can be communicated. All you can communicate are ways to negate what blocks it.

 

[Dak]

Let me jump in here and bring this thing to the metaphorical ground for a minute:

I met guy who had the following two triggers for his PTSD: The smell of grilling meat and the smell of bleach. So these two things are triggers. So should we post warnings/trigger warnings around all bleach products and bleach use and at/around/prior to all grilling related things? Going further, should we ban them because someone might be triggered, or at the least, run around mentioning at all FB party pics that "its not cool to flagrantly grill when it is making people suffer"? Is triggering now inherent in those things?

If the answer to all or any of those things is no*, why does this not extend to words?

 

[Einherjar86]

Cognition comes from the senses, not language. Otherwise, how would nonduality be found in the first place? Meaning is independent of words, even if one fixates on words to the degree that they do not notice all of the nonconceptual cognition going on. Do you meditate? If you do a frequent practice for months, it's really clear how flimsy words are and how much more meaning lies within the mind when it is not trying to find a way to communicate it with symbols.

By the way, you don't get nonduality if you think it can be communicated. All you can communicate are ways to negate what blocks it.

Cognition entails language; language entails cognition. Yes, we rely on our senses to know the world around us; but we rely on our language to realize that we know. Cognition entails awareness, and awareness isn't possible without awareness of itself, which is a conceptual behavior. You're separating language from some inner essence - meaning, knowledge, intention, etc. Language cannot be separated from those things. The only reason you encounter something like meaning within yourself when you meditate is because your previous suspension in language has put the fantasy in your brain of an ideal, untouched, pure non-linguistic space inside you.

You seem to be treating language as a barrier. It isn't. Language is an amazing thing, even in all its imperfection and inconsistency. Language doesn't merely impede meaning - language elicits and facilitates meaning while at the same time altering and transforming it. Meaning certainly exists, but it is nothing without language.

 

[Einherjar86]

Let me jump in here and bring this thing to the metaphorical ground for a minute:

I met guy who had the following two triggers for his PTSD: The smell of grilling meat and the smell of bleach. So these two things are triggers. So should we post warnings trigger warnings around all bleach products and bleach use and at/around/prior to all grilling related things? Going further, should we ban them because someone might be triggered, or at the least, run around mentioning at all FB party pics that "its not cool to flagrantly grill when it is making people suffer"? Is triggering now inherent in those things?

If the answer to all or any of those things, why does this not extend to words?

You cannot hope to deal with such issues through hegemonic restriction or even limitless warning labels. PTSD and other psychiatric problems are unique to the individual, not inherent in the language; you have to deal with such symptoms/patients on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Vimana]

Cognition entails language; language entails cognition. Yes, we rely on our senses to know the world around us; but we rely on our language to realize that we know.

Maybe you do. I don't. I don't need to know words to understand I exist. The existence and all of the inferences that can come from it don't require words. A big chunk of my cognition is nonverbal. I only use verbal cognition if I want to say something.

Cognition entails awareness, and awareness isn't possible without awareness of itself, which is a conceptual behavior. You're separating language from some inner essence - meaning, knowledge, intention, etc. Language cannot be separated from those things. The only reason you encounter something like meaning within yourself when you meditate is because your previous suspension in language has put the fantasy in your brain of an ideal, untouched, pure non-linguistic space inside you.

False on all counts. There is a spot of awareness with no language or concept. It's what gives meaning to language or concept or takes it away.

You seem to be treating language as a barrier. It isn't. Language is an amazing thing, even in all its imperfection and inconsistency. Language doesn't merely impede meaning - language elicits and facilitates meaning while at the same time altering and transforming it. Meaning certainly exists, but it is nothing without language.

It's a barrier or not a barrier depending on what you want to get to. Meaning does exist without language. I "think" in pure meaning all the time and it can actually be a fucking hassle to translate it into words. I love language, but tons of meaning exists outside it.

Again, do you meditate?