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I recently made the statement that I was discouraged by someone allowing their moods to dictate their behavior. The reply was, "Most people do." Yet given why "most people" do what they do - because everyone else is doing it - that is not a sustainable reason to do anything. For myself at least, that is one of the poorest responses ever.

@nilofer recently shared an article from the Journal of Applied Psychology entitled Same Behavior, Different Consequences: Reactions to Men’s and Women’s Altruistic Citizenship Behavior by Madeline E. Heilman and Julie J. Chen which detailed the (perhaps not so surprising) prejudice which occurs when people who are unaware that expectation and should-statements (as well as role identity) are all indicative of cognitive distortion. While we all presumably use highly personalized measuring sticks, it would appear many simply pulled theirs from the freebie bin at the societal norm discount store at checkout. And because everyone is using the same one, it is assumed accurate despite it's manufacturing defect. The entire nation is negatively impacted.

While the below comic by The Oatmeal is timely and sadly humorous, the implication is no matter what the current event issue, society will not have learned how to think in the next 50-years. Once again we will confuse some random event with the process of critical thinking, believing it to be somehow different, or not applicable.




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"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person," Dave Berry said. Character is what you are in the dark. Dave Barry also said that humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. While I agree, I don't find it funny.

What I want, is for everyone to be amicable toward one another, unconditionally. That is to say, no matter the circumstance. It is this that I am teaching my children, and this that I endeavor to live by. My father did this later in life and he wasn't the man I was familiar with. Confused, I asked him why he was behaving in such a manner. "Just being neighborly," he replied. Granted, it was many more years until I understood that. Its not just being helpful to people you know or like, but people you don't know, or even harder, don't like. "Liking" someone is not a prerequisite for attending to them and their needs. This is how I've learned compassion - by acting like to a friend to those I do not care for. Compassion isn't compassion if its limited. Its universal.

Of course I still have a lot to learn about human behavior. Because I laugh at all the rules people think they have to live by in certain circumstances. Its a paradigm, people. It can be broken, and it will empower you. Why should you break paradigms? Because they were more or less established by the majority attempting to mimic each other. You can see how that's flawed, right? No one wanting to step out of line, so they wait to see what others are doing - who are all also waiting to see what others are doing - and then in some sort of critical mass mob mentality, a paradigm was born. Everyone was behaving how everyone else was, because everyone else was.

In attempting to be amicable myself, I require information. Some people are hesitant to ask, others simply assume. Not a showstopper. Unless you then believe you know something from that assumption, or worse - act upon it. I try to not act without information. Yes, that sometimes slows me down. But I prefer to radio back to headquarters to confirm my target before firing. For some people carpet-bombing is also an effective strategy. Of course there is often collateral damage in that approach. My way is not necessarily better, just don't pretend there is no such thing as collateral damage when you execute your own maneuver. Instead, own it.

The only problem I've run into to date, is when information is sought from me, but not believed. My first question in return is very nearly always, "What is my motivation to be untruthful?" More often than not, I am not believed, but its unknown why. This is enormous fail, and honestly? I haven't found a way around that one yet. I mean, the simple answer is to plug these values into a critical thinking equation. But when you're trying to make the data fit your own world view, you're going to run into disbelief time and time again.

It breaks down like this; you feel you know something, but there is another perspective - one perhaps that doesn't make any sense to you. What you chose to do next is very important. You can endeavor to understand the other perspective, or disbelieve it. One of those two choices is extremely limiting, whether you believe it is or not. How do you want to be remembered in life?
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You know, not everybody like onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake! - Donkey



In the year 1526 English playwrite John Heywood (of Rome wasn't built in a day fame) stated, "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?" spawning the Opportunity Cost concept; the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices.

While I don't outright object to commonly perceived mutual exclusion, I do understand that oftentimes it is simply a matter of looking at something in a different light - shifting our paradigms - questioning societal norms. In doing so, many things are possible, even things in which we thought were not. After all, having one's cake and eating it too is a universal pursuit of happiness. I have a feeling that those who utter it in an unflattering light disregard the mechanics behind its intended functionality - or worse, inability to dynamically adjust their perspective.

In critical thinking, there is no virtue in rigid adherence to a position that is not supported by evidence.*

Interesting use of the word virtue; moral excellence, which we know is based upon values - that very fluid derivative of our ever-changing worldview when we reevaluate our beliefs based upon new information. And for those of us who have reached post-conventional values, who autonomously comprehend universal rules which are rational and logical - we do automatically reject "rigid adherence" as a lifestyle choice.

Why? Its simple, really: More options. Options like both having your cake, and eating it too. Micro-Hare Krishna aka "Spoonboy" from The Matrix knew the truth, which can be practically applied in our everyday lives with simple change in perspective that wholly applies in everything:

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead...only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

In the above example, "bending oneself" not only allows for more options, it saves us from ourselves when we run across information which my run contrary to our beliefs. In that scenario there are really only two conclusions - either the new information is incorrect, or our beliefs are. While its far easier to discount the new information than it is our beliefs, we run the risk of living in ignorance - entirely acceptable to some people (I'm just gonna believe what I believe), but not to others. How then to reconcile the two?

I used to be rather close-minded. [livejournal.com profile] drax0r spent a long time gently goading me into questioning my own closely-held ideals. Not to get me to agree with him, but in order for me to understand why he believed what he did, and get me to understand why I believed what I did through analyzing, conceptualizing, defining, examining, inferring, listening, questioning, reasoning & synthesizing. The largest hurdle for me to tackle at the time was the idea that just because a majority of people believed it, didn't make it any more realistic. Think about that for a moment - could all those people be...wrong?

And yet if the "majority" of people are just going to believe what they believe without applying critical thinking skills to it (and questioning their own beliefs), then yes. In fact, I know so few people who question their own beliefs, that the assertion that my ideas are ridiculous because no one else thinks that way proves my very point. What the "majority" of people think is not evidence against my argument - its damn near proof. When I was a lad in shortpants my mother used to ask me, "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it to?" Can anyone here explain what she was trying to illustrate? If the only reason you believe something is because everyone else does...You may as well jump off a bridge.

Because of our inborn tendency to conform to what others think, we cannot assume that agreement leads to truth without knowledge about the manner and condition under which the agreement was arrived. As with other errors in our thinking, we need to develop strategies to recognize and compensate for our human inclination to conform to groupthink.*




Recently, a tendency-toward-depression friend (who unsurprisingly also suffers from black and white thinking) posted something rife with cognitive distortion overgeneralizations. The counterproductive thing about explaining self-fulfilling prophecies to people who perpetuate them is that they don't believe you. Had they the critical thinking skills to connect the dots in the first place, well...suffice it to say they wouldn't suffer from self-fulling prophecies. Again, from the THINK texbook:

People who are depressed may cling to the irrational belief that the only alternative to not having perfect control is having no control. Because they feel they lack any control over their lives, they tend to attribute their misfortune or sadness to other people's actions. A side effect of this negative behavior is that their behavior often alienates other people, thereby confirming a second irrational belief common to depressed people that they are worthless and unlikable. Thus, their distorted expectations lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Be more like spoon-boy.

As for me? I'm going to eat cake.



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To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.

In the broadest terms, what INTJs "do" tends to be what they "know". Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.
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I recently made the deductive statement that one's personal values surely changed as one ascended from one hierarchical need to the next, but when asked to back up my claim I found I wasn't immediately able to deduce why that may be the case. After all, aren't values inherent to who we are not only immovably individual, but also collectively cultural? This is what I have set out to prove or disprove.

In starting my search, I first had to define values - aren't they our guiding principles to differentiate between right and wrong and good and evil? Much easier to subjugate when I was younger, but now that I'm older and have my own thoughts about things, not so much. Perhaps maturity modifies ones values? After all, the passing of time allows intervals for experience; experience may yield lessons; lessons afford us the opportunity to learn; learning expands knowledge; knowledge which can be utilized grants us wisdom; wisdom changes us irrevocably. But is wisdom alone maturity?

"Maturity indicates how a person responds to the circumstances or environment in an appropriate manner. This response is generally learned and encompasses being aware of the correct time and place to behave and knowing when to act appropriately, according to the situation and the culture of the society one lives in."* So a learned response! And what is this about behavior all of a sudden, I thought we were discussing values?

People act according to their values which come from beliefs that stem from their worldview.*

So...values dictate to us how we act; behave. Interesting! I suppose one ought to start with their worldview in order to understand how that translates to behavior, because values seem to be affected by the beliefs which are spawned from it. So what is a worldview? James W. Sire, in Discipleship of the Mind, defines world view as, "... a set of presuppositions...which we hold...about the makeup of our world." Ah, presuppositions!

Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. People's presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions." ~Francis Schaeffer

Basically, your worldview is what you think the world ought to be. Where have we heard that word "ought" before? SHOULD STATEMENTS – Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought" to be rather than the actual situation the person is faced with.

Basically worldviews are manifestations of cognitive distortion! Now we're getting somewhere.

If you deny that your worldview fundamentally affects what you think and do, then you must acknowledge that your behavior is impulsive, reflexive, or emotional at best; ignorant or irrational at worst. Assuming that a worldview can be incorrect or at least inappropriate, if your worldview is erroneous, then your behavior is misguided, even wrong. If you fail to examine, articulate, and refine your worldview, then your worldview may in fact be wrong, with the above consequences, and you will always be ill-prepared to substantiate your beliefs and justify your acts, for you will have only proximate opinions and direct sensory evidence as justification.*

If we are supposed to, "examine, articulate, and refine" our worldview, then by default a change in our beliefs, values, and behavior will follow. Not only does it alter our values, but so does everything connected to it, every single time we reevaluate. And I aggressively reevaluate without provocation.







Like a stack of dominoes, once your worldview is modified, so then are the beliefs which are built atop it - "You want your beliefs to change. It's proof that you are keeping your eyes open, living fully, and welcoming everything that the world and people around you can teach you."* This means that peoples' beliefs should evolve as they gain new experiences, and when a person changes one belief, a multitude of other beliefs seem also to change simultaneously and effortlessly. Dispositionalism suggests that by changing the surrounding beliefs and desires, very different behavior may result.* As we have seen, the link between beliefs and behavior, are values.

If our worldview can and should change as we learn more, which can and rightly should then change our beliefs, then absolutely our values not only can change to match, but also should. This is covered in chapter 9 of the critical thinking textbook, Think where they discuss Lawrence Kohlberg's Development of Moral Reasoning. Development; growth, a process. Not only can values modify themselves, there is an identified, repeatable sequence - it is how we know what values are and measure them. A person's stage of moral development is correlated with his or her behavior.

  1. PRECONVENTIONAL VALUES
    • Stage 1
      • Does only what needs to be done to take care of self and avoid punishment.

    • Stage 2
      • Satisfy own needs first, consider other's needs only if it benefits you.


  2. CONVENTIONAL VALUES
    • Stage 3
      • Put other's needs first, maintain good relationships, conform to peer norms and seek approval from others.

    • Stage 4
      • Respect authority and societal norms; maintain existing social order.


  3. POSTCONVENTIONAL VALUES


Unfortunately less than 10% of American adults ever reach the postconventional level or moral reasoning; values. People with lower levels of moral reasoning tend to come up with simplistic solutions and then are baffled when they do not work. People outgrow their old way of thinking *when* it becomes inadequate for resolving more complex problems. Movement to a higher stage is usually triggered by new ideas or experiences that conflict with their worldview.

Now comes the really interesting part. You don't have to continue living by the same values. You can consciously change them - even radically if desired. You can go from a person who values peace most highly to one whose top priority is success, or vice versa. You are not your values. You are the thinker of your thoughts, but you are not the thoughts themselves. Your values are your current compass, but they aren't the real you. Why would you ever want to change your values? You may want to change your values when you understand and accept where they are taking you, and you realize that what you appear to value right now will not enable you to enjoy the "best" possible life for you.*

Which brings us to behavior. Behavior is the visible portion of our values - which we now understand to be a very fluid thing based on our ever-changing environment and our open-minded incorporation of new data. You cannot be open-minded and remain unchanged. Because of the trickle-up effect we've just outlined, if you find yourself behaving the same year after year, month after month or even day after day you know you are close-minded because your worldview has not changed.

So what are values? Here's a list of 418 of them. The author of that list says, "The next step is to prioritize your list. This is usually the most time consuming and difficult step because it requires some intense thinking." But don't forget our magnificent ability to think we are things we are not! From my Relationships post:

But being honest with yourself is is not so easy. There's a little thing called self-deception that gets in the way.*

I run across this all the time - people who think their values embody something like benevolence and goodwill but who's visible actions denote fear or greed. So while your behavior may be inconsistent with your stated values, there is no such thing as a right or wrong list. Just be aware that someone else's value priority may be different than your own, and this will absolutely manifest itself through behavior.

Me and my values? They are changing all the time. Every time I have a new thought, or leap to a new conclusion, or reach some personal milestone. My values these days are meta-values, those which underpin the kind of peace which can only come from a successful familiarization with one's self. In attempting to compile my list from the 418 options I was shocked I couldn't find my highest priority on there:


Symmetry.




ehowton: (Default)




As usual, I wish I'd taken a "before" shot so you could see for yourself the veritable jungle it was. The weather is cool and breezy without being windy. It won't be that way for long so I'm sure going to take advantage of it now.

My son recently expressed interest in mowing the lawn. I shrugged it off and told him he could mow the lawn when he could start the mower. His mother laughed and said, "Once you do, it will probably be your responsibility," echoing my own childhood mowing adventures. I nodded in silent agreement.

Later, it dawned on me that just because my father never mowed the lawn again once I did didn't mean that I had to do the same with my son. Maybe I'll edge and weed while he mows? Maybe we'll take turns? Maybe it will be completely different where we work cooperatively in the yard. We do many other things together, why not this?

As stated before, I've discovered that many of the judgments I have about things come not from careful analysis and separating fact from feeling, but stem from a default societal view. I therefore react accordingly to new concepts with which I am faced, and would honestly remain so unless challenged. I understand now - empirically of course - that this statement requires an addendum: defaults may also include how you yourself were raised, no matter where they fall in or out of societal norms.

Challenge of ideas absolutely must preceded questioning our views; were it not so we wouldn't know what to question, or when. I don't have to raise my children like my father raised me. And if I can so easily learn something so different than my default just from the issue making itself known on the small things - for this is surely inconsequential in the big scheme of things - it fills me with confidence that I will be able to also tackle the big things as they arise.

Nothing but greatness can come from this.
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In discussing complete disdain for societal conventions, I would often ask my own mentor about the evil men would do upon each other were there not laws in place to prevent such heinous acts. It was he who explained to me the difference between malum in se & malum prohibitum - that is to say, to differentiate between evil for evil's sake and evil because its prohibited; two very different ideas about things.

I need this post here to point back to from time to time if/when my motives are called into question. Needless to say (because its already been said) when you set out to question everything, you absolutely must question everything - not just some things. Not everything except that which you already believe to be true. Not everything except what you know you're not going to change your mind about <-- its that VERY THING which will prevent you from moving forward.

So just to be clear, when I'm talking about living by my own righteousness, my own code of conduct:

SOCIETAL NORMS = MALUM PROHIBITUM

I am NOT talking about condoning rape, murder, theft or child molestation - evil things which most every human being would consider, "wrong."

But I may be talking about speeding, or laboring on the Sabbath - concepts and ideas which have been implemented by the many, but which not every human on earth would consider evil, and may be open to interpretation.
ehowton: (Default)

Once I've formed an opinion about something, in an attempt to not live in a vacuum of self-importance, I always ask myself, "What if I'm wrong?" Then I argue with myself about both sides. Of course its better to have this actual conversation with someone who has a different opinion - I can't think of everything - but the problem, the real problem arises when the person I'm engaging *actually* believes that they are right, and I am wrong. At that point they will no longer accept my input to see how it fits into their world view, and I'm suddenly offered nothing usable because of it in return. Which is why I ceaselessly play this game only with myself. Ideally, the practice would make me more well-rounded.


You can't confine open-mindedness to particular subjects or scenarios. You either are, or you are not. Example: Someone willing to discuss the pros and cons of both political parties, but who refuses to entertain the possibility that Christ's divinity was fabricated. Or perhaps worse - someone willing to discuss Christ's divinity but unable to budge on party-politics. Across the board I find bright, smart, curious, people who can seemingly articulate two opposing points of view...until it comes down to something they simply refuse to change on. How exactly does that work?


So trapped I remain. Trapped by being open-minded about being open-minded. You cannot extol virtues of mine that you find conducive to your personal code of ethics without accepting the same ones which may run contrary to it. Its all or nothing. It has to be. Any other way and its impure. Fallible. Yet....where does one draw the line?


Without boundaries, anarchy. But if we're the ones who have defined society, why can't we control it? Its not that I don't care, I simply feel that sometimes I'm too passive, too malleable. Yet I suffer at my own hands. Its not enough to think it, you have to do it. Push the envelope with your person, feel its texture on your fingertips. Otherwise how would you truly know? Its absolutely essential to test and retest with each nuanced variable, for without is real chaos. Chaos and anarchy borne from both extremes. One lifetime with too many boundaries, and one with not enough. Wherein lies true balance?


Surely somewhere in the middle.


ehowton: (Default)

Prior to the IT crash my company herded groups of us new-hires to cabins in South Texas for a week at a time where they plied us with liquor and taught us how to interact with different types of people within the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) along with those hokey team-building exercises which people in my specific area of the MBTI entirely disdain; Ironic, really. Regardless, while I knew then what I was, I never gave it much thought because my own filters were firmly in place and helped me adjust the information to fit my worldview. Its a wonderfully flawed built-in self-preservation system of checks and balances we employ.

Its also very flawed. Flawed in that the ways in which we automatically preserve our safety/sanity is often by suppressing our natural instincts. And while this is very, very good news for those of us who interact with the majority of the population who's basic default is often carnal destruction, those of us who operate less linearly begin to behave in a manner contrary to our own very edifying nature.

Where laxists require a roadmap to ethical answers, I simply alter the way the question is asked to nullify its riposte - not because I'm immoral and not because I disregard the basis of your morality as fallaciously fallible - but because you refuse to question it. There is no room in my life for your blind-faith close-mindedness. At all. Ever. That being said, my mate's Type is neither identical to mine, nor the polar opposite - More a complementary parallel. So its not like-mindedness I'm in pursuit of, rather more like...anti-dumb. And there's a lot of dumb out there.

Which leads me to my next new assumption. As my MBTI is only one to two percent of the population, there is truly no such thing as a "jury of my peers." Interestingly enough, while I would want to be judged by those identical to my MBTI, my wife would not. Rather than consider one superior over the other, I am fascinated that she understands her Myers-Briggs Type Indicator so very well.

Throughout all of this, I've learned why I question so all that I do. I "apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from [my] own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing [me] from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake." And its very freeing. These days, while I sneer at morality for morality's sake (and often cause my poor wife to have to question her own motivations and level of comfort with new ideas), hers are the only ones I lend any credence to, for if I lose her in this discovery of self, I've lost the war. Thankfully, she's as bull-headed and open-minded as I am.

Nothing else matters.
For my type, anything is possible; everything is negotiable. Whatever the outer circumstances, I am ever perceiving inner pattern-forms and using real-world materials to operationalize them. Others may see what is and wonder why; I see what might be and say "Why not?!"

July 2025

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