Though I'd cheerfully quibble at length about what is *deserved*, and as time goes on I'm revealed to be innately more of a moral relativist than my judgemental black and white attitudes would have me believe, I'm starting to understand just how deep the psychosocial rifts actually are, worldwide.
It's a fascinating area to think on, and all too easy to wind people up with. Indeed, my major navel-gazing concern of late has been about
language ,not necessarily the policing of language that comes up (an old pal of mine that's a journalist and something of an academic re:feminism), has inadvertently touched upon a critical and pervasive idea:
Most of the quibbling and derailing (from "the left devouring itself", all the way through to trying to advance any grappling of topics pertaining to any form of -ism), comes from being upset by the words being used.
Whilst I'm sure many reading might see that "upset" and think of thin-skinned "that offends me!" peddlers,I think even that notion is a distraction. Or worse - a thought erminating cliche. The offense given isn't always inherently a problem, but I think we might all agree that it's an... inefficiency. Friction, in an almost mechanical way, that shows loss inherent to the system.
We ought to be able to communicate ideas plainly, to be able to tailor or speech or writing to be able to quickly and cleanly communicate information. But the unwitting personality differences, the time of day, the economic factors (it's difficult for anyone acutely suffering to empathise with more vague difficulties, for example), who's had lunch - the sheer scope of it all is utterly towering in a terrifying way.
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I digress. In essence, it's *extremely* easy to see why the aphorism "actions speak louder than words" is as bandied about as it is. Whilst the words are overwhelmingly powerful, It's exceedingly easy to misjudged them or fall off the cliff, or onto a knife-edge, and rile up (or worse: bore) whoever you're chatting to.
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I say all that as, as Therion's own interests speak plainly: we have absolutely terrible ways for even beginning to accurately and adequately describe psychological difficulties in anything better than fairly mild or sweeping generalisations. It's not to say they're inherently unreliable, but they're certainly very far from perfect.
Indeed, I have a vague notion about studying the prevalence of Jungian types but applied to modern theory.
(If memory servers well-known Myers-Briggs only goes on four dimensions, segregating people in a binary way into one or the other end of each spectrum. It's not a terrible job, but because of the effects of, say, hunger, or (non-clinical) anxiety, or stress, one might easily flip about across quite a wide range, the dynamics of which being told you fit one of Sixteen Types of Person doesn't actually provide a huge amount of explanatory power. Indeed, getting caught in that trap seems to be extremely easy. Cross reference: earlier in this thread, where I mentioned the Zimmerman thing years ago.)
That is: what the actual *clustering* of humanity is on the more reliable (but hardly unassailable) Big 5 Factor model of personality. How common do certain combinations occur, with work (e.g. CBT, self-help, rigid stereotypical beatings to "build character") how much can anyone deviate or ammend their own tendencies?
Of course, it would be easy if I could just sit down and study that with no interference or distraction, but it turns out I'm easily distracted.
Even from things that I want and/or enjoy!
