I've pointed out before I have a hard time taking much of the Manosphere seriously. For one thing, the concepts are simple-minded, although its supporters think they're not.
Simple-minded concepts, as Communism and Objectivism, are easy to understand. The narcissistic concepts of the Manosphere are easy to understand. Men good, women bad. That's why it's the mirror image of feminism.
I've probably taken too many philosophy classes in college. There is an old concept in philosophy called Naive Realism, which is the belief we perceive reality directly. We don't, although today some philosophers and psychologists still argue that we do.
The ancient Greeks (and the Buddists, for that matter) subdivided matter, which is why the Greeks came up with the word "atom." The Buddhists were a bit more sophisticated and argued these "atoms" flashed into and out of existence. Science has confirmed these things - yet we cannot directly perceive atoms. Reality is about 99.999% "empty" - just a bunch of subatomic particles whirling so fast they appear solid.
Yet we cannot directly perceive atoms and subatomic particles, except then we use billion-dollar machines.
Naive realism argues everything is solid, just the way in the past it argued the sun went around the Earth. That's what it appears like, doesn't it?
We cannot directly perceive Alphas and Betas and Gammas, "hypergamy," etc. Some looked at the behavior and came up with concepts to explain them. In other words, we impose the concepts in our heads (the ideas) on reality, to explain it. These ideas are never 100% accurate.
Yet there are those who think these ideas are 100% accurate. I'll give some examples - the ludicrous "The Rational Male." Vox Day when he ceases to write about science fiction. Roissy, clearly a liar.
All of them have ideas in their heads, which they think is the Absolute Truth, which they impose on reality and think is 100% accurate. None of them have never written of any philosophical concepts such as Realism and Idealism. I doubt they know what they are.
Everyone does this, this imposition of ideas to explain reality. I do it. You do it.
But at least I know I do it.
17 comments:
So isn't the delusion when you tell yourself that your ideas are in fact always reality?
Even the greek letter soup can change dependent on people involved, time, location, status, etc. Nobody is 'alpha' all the time plus the perception you paint to the masses may not be in fact reality. It's the type of stuff you'd see in the Pravda.
Besides most 'alpha' behaviors that are touted in the sphere are what sneaky males would do.
Yes, that is the delusion: to think the ideas in one's head are the same as reality out there.
"Men good, women bad."
That's not what I come away with when reading manosphere tracts.
Men and women both have evolved behavioural traits, which are to a greater or lesser extent suppressed by a civilisational veneer.
Both have reproductive imperatives, both pursue those imperatives via differing strategies.
We have civilisation because we have been able to restrain some of the more extreme aspects of each others mating strategies.
There is tension and an equilibrium in the dynamic.
It's actually quite beautiful.
You're writing of Evo-Psych, which isn't a real science, and one of the frauds that the more nutty in the Manosphere twist to justify their beliefs.
I feel that I begin to gather a slight glimmering of things.
I'm certain to backslide, though. It seems to happen a lot.
So you're saying that successive approximations are a double-edged sword. That they may aid understanding, but also risk misleading via 'the map is not the territory' errors.
Bob, if you still remember your philosophy classes, what do you think about the problem of universals. Can they exist without minds hosting them? Do you remember Bertrand Russell and his reality theory? Does knowledge of universals consist of facts? Or is it always provisional to some degree?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type%E2%80%93token_distinction - a hint. What divides tokens into types? Set theory and so on....
I bet nobody else here could make a guess now what possible use has the title "Saya no Uta" in illustrating these ideas. :)
I always had problems with the theory of universals, but I believe they do exist.
"Saya no Uta"
Oh good Lord I Googled it. Now I have to read it. Right up my alley.
"You're writing of Evo-Psych, which isn't a real science .. "
Lots of Psychology isn't 'real science' in that attempting to test some of the hypotheses might be cruel or take more than a human lifetime to establish the results.
As a theory, that allows an individual to test his or her own behaviour against, it's as good a tool as,
[name your unprovable religion of choice, here]
"Saya no Uta" - that actually looks pretty damn interesting!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_maxim - what do you think of this maxim? It might be understood as if one can't perceive some distinction (say, because of some mental disability that can be grouped under the rubric of agnosia), then the distinction doesn't exist. Even intuitively it seems to be wrong. If I can't perceive objects as things-in-themselves (in the Kantian sense), that does not necessarily mean that they (and their supposedly imperceptible aspects) don't exist. It just means that my perceptions of them (phenomena) are more or less imperfect, sometimes being completely off the mark.
It should be quite obvious to a fan of science fiction, that an alien perspective might be inconceivable to a human. And, for a human attempting to grasp it, that might require to 'step outside' the boundaries of human cognition. Hence, Lovecraftian horror is evoked.
Another, far less viscerally repellent example would be an old SF novel "Collision Course" by Barrington J. Bayley.
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