E is for E.S.P.

[the_siobhan]

I used to date somebody who was really big on the concept of taking a stand. He believed very strongly that most people are apathetic or cowardly when it came to confronting anything wrong or unjust, that the world would be a better place if more people were willing to call out bad behaviour when they saw it.

I had the experience of growing up in the era when cops wouldn't press charges in cases of "domestics" and when teachers and doctors refused to get involved even when I flat-out told them what was going on in my house. So this kind of commitment to getting involved pushes a great big button for me. But after a while I started to come to the conclusion that in his eagerness to take some kind of decisive action, he didn't appear to be all that interested in making sure he knew what the best action was to take. He just wanted to be doing something, and once he had made his mind up any new information was deemed to be making excuses. I was frequently confused by his conviction that he could pick out the guilty parties in a dispute where (in my mind) he really didn't seem to be in a position to know what had really happened. When he started making pronouncements about events that I had witnessed and he hadn't I finally decided he was full of shit, and that was the end of my emotional investment in his desire to take a stand on the side of righteousness.

I bring him up because he was an extreme example, and because, well, extreme or not he's an example of something that I see all the time. People seem to want a conclusion, any conclusion. When the OJ trial was going on people would occasionally ask me whether or not I thought he was guilty. I would respond that I didn't know, I hadn't been following the case. "But what do you think?" they would persist. They seemed baffled at the idea that I could honestly have no opinion. I, for my part, was baffled that seemed to want me to have an opinion based on... air or something.

I am probably especially conscious of this kind of thing. One of the ways in which I carry around my damage is that I am extremely over-sensitive to feeling like I have been convicted without benefit of trial. I can't count the number of relationships (friendships and otherwise) that have ended because somebody decided they already knew What I Did - and for bonus points Why I Did It - without deigning to ask me about it first. As soon as I feel like I'm being called upon to justify somebody else's versions of my actions, I pretty much immediately lose all interest in having the discussion at all and that's not really conducive to working things out.

So when I see people taking sides on a issue - any issue - the first thing I want to know is what they are basing their conclusions on. And a lot of the times the answer is information sources that I honestly don't know how to evaluate. What it looks like from my perspective is that people are putting a lot of faith in third- or forth-hand reports - whereas I tend to assume that even people who were there don't necessarily have the whole story. Or that people are making the emotional decision to believe person X over person Y because they simply like person X better - whereas I tend to assume that even the best of people screw up and make mistakes and misunderstand things and make errors in judgment.

It's possible that I am hyper-critical of information. I do happen to believe that most people usually try to tell the truth. I just don't believe that people unfailingly know what the truth is. If you've ever read Stranger in a Strange Land there's a passage where somebody asks a character in the story what colour a house is. She responds, "It's painted white on this side." That's me.

And this disconnect happens often enough that I've actually started to wonder if there is some additional information going around that I just don't have the skills to access. I mean, the whole time I was growing up I kept running afoul of all the unwritten rules that nobody ever explained but that everybody else seemed to understand through some kind of osmosis. It took me many years of watching people to figure out just how much information is transmitted non-verbally. Maybe this is another one of those cases where I'm missing something that is so obvious to other people that they can't even articulate where they got it - it just becomes yet another thing that "everybody knows".

Or maybe people just have ESP.

Comments

[mr-sharkey.livejournal.com]

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Somebody Irish

Sometimes you decide just standing there isn't enough. When you decide, or why you decide, is no one's business but your own.


M.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

But if you decide to act, does that not affect other people?

Do you not have an obligation to the people you impact through your actions?

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Conversely, if you decide not to act, does that not affect other people? Do you not have an obligation to the people you impact through your lack of action, and make no mistake, lack of action can have a very strong impact.

The bottom line, as you stated so well, is that there are no absolutes. I would rather be damned for doing than for not.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Conversely, if you decide not to act, does that not affect other people? Do you not have an obligation to the people you impact through your lack of action, and make no mistake, lack of action can have a very strong impact.

Yes.

And I happen to believe that the crux of that obligation is to make sure that you know what you are doing to the best of your ability.

The bottom line, as you stated so well, is that there are no absolutes. I would rather be damned for doing than for not.

Actually, the theme of my post was that most people don't spend the time to gather all the info possible before running off half-cocked. The ex I mentioned was really good at doing things like talking to one person in a conflict and then going to the other person in the conflict and laying down the law about How Things Are. I thought that was incredibly arrogant of him.

There are no absolutes I agree, and sometimes you just have to hold your breath and leap into the fray. My confusion is mostly directed at people who would rather do that with little or no information rather than take the time to gather what little is available to guide their actions.

And sometimes we have to face the fact that our contribution is not wanted and that the best "action" we can take is just to shut up and mind our damn business. If the person isn't actually on fire at that particular moment, you have the time to sit back and see where things are going first and to find out when and where your support is needed or is welcome.

All those pro-lifers who wave mutilated baby posters at women visiting clinics are genuinely trying to help. What they are not getting is that their help is not needed. (I'm aware this is another extreme example, but I'm trying to illustrate a point that anybody on my f-list is likely to get.)

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

And sometimes we have to face the fact that our contribution is not wanted and that the best "action" we can take is just to shut up and mind our damn business. If the person isn't actually on fire at that particular moment, you have the time to sit back and see where things are going first and to find out when and where your support is needed or is welcome.
Myup, that's pretty much where I'm at, with most things at the moment. Someone did say to me "Help, I'm on fire" and I helped put out that particular fire. I did not, however, take part in the arson investigation. That's not what I was asked to do, and is not what I should be doing. Not to mention I have my own fires to put out. I'm also a bit wary on ruminating on the nature of fire in general.

Pardon my rather extended metaphor.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

One of my hardest learned lessons when people come to me with problems is to ask, "Do you want suggestions or are you just venting?"

I suffer from Male Answer Syndrome in the worst possible way.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

Male Answer Syndrome
That's just about enough to drive me to murder sometimes. ;)

[missjanette.livejournal.com]

hahahah.

I sometimes rant at my supervisor who ends up looking at me with the deer-in-headlights face until I tell her "i'm just complaining so my head won't explode." This eases things considerably, when ppl realise you're not looking to them for a solution.

also, Male Answer Syndrome is often quite refreshing.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

I can respect an individual's right to cognitive integrity, but I also agree that resulting actions and even the quality of one's judgment are consequently open to critique.

Excluded middle: deciding to investigate further (to minimize unintended consequences) before engaging is also an action.

I'm also wary of hidden biases in moral intuitions. This researcher captures my concerns in a nutshell:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/

A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one? Most people say yes. Now consider a slightly different dilemma. Once again, the trolley is headed for five people. You are on a footbridge over the tracks next to a large man. The only way to save the five people is to push this man off the bridge and into the path of the trolley. Is that morally permissible? Most people say no.
These two cases create a puzzle for moral philosophers: What makes it okay to sacrifice one person for the sake of five others in the first case but not in the second case? But there is also a psychological puzzle here: How does everyone know (or "know") that it's okay to turn the trolley but not okay to push the man off the bridge? My collaborators and I have collected brain imaging data suggesting that emotional responses are an important part of the answer...

As everyone knows, we humans are beset by a number of serious social problems: war, terrorism, the destruction of the environment, etc. Most people think that the cure for these ills is a heaping helping of common sense morality: "If only people everywhere would do what they know, deep down, is right, we'd all get along."
I believe that the opposite is true, that the aforementioned problems are a product of well-intentioned people abiding by their respective common senses, and that the only long-run solution to these problems is for people to develop a healthy distrust of moral common sense. This is largely because our social instincts were not designed for the modern world. Nor, for that matter, were they designed to promote peace and happiness in the world for which they were designed, the world of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Ergh, sorry for the spammage. I wonder if lj-cuts work in comments...

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Alas, no.