It strikes me, that there is a particular problem with the way that we speak to each other, and I wish to examine it. I think I know why this phenomenon happens, but is it useful?
My friend is fat, really fat, colossally fat, I simply cannot state how fat the fucker is in strong enough terms for you to understand how fat they are. I once met a man who’s nickname was salad, because it was supposed that he’d never eaten one, my friend is fatter than he was…. but, I could never name them in this piece because that would hurt their feelings, and I could never point out that they were fat because that would be insulting them. I could however say about them that they are a fantastic person with many admirable qualities and that they do a great job at work, and that they are a great parent, sibling, child, in their family circle of equally decent people, who likely all are fat too. Now why can I make a judgement that is subjective, my opinion (that this is a decent person), but I cannot make a statement that is a true measurable, demonstrable, obvious to all with eyes, fact?
There are rules, societal rules and real ones on what can be done. I cannot speed traffic up if it is going far too slow, but I can slow it down to whatever speed I wish to travel at, no matter how slow that happens to be. This makes some sense though, as it has a utility to set an upper limit to that which exceeds most people’s ability to navigate roads such as a speed restriction, and to allow persons who are not comfortable at the higher speeds to drive at the pace they feel most comfortable at (though I do believe if you cannot go 70mph on a motorway in a capable car, then you maybe should not be driving).
I cannot point out a person’s physical traits to them, even as a soft criticism, no matter how correct my assessment (really it’s an observation) of them may be. Now don’t misunderstand me, I have no wish to hurt feelings at all, that could never be my intention. But to let my friend know they will almost definitely face a risk of many serious health conditions in the near future if they do not put down the chicken nuggets and hit the quinoa, is not a badly meant comment. In fact it could be done out of love and concern, for them, for their children, for their partner.
Incidentally, no matter how good a woman’s moustache is, you maybe should not compliment her on it..
I could have stopped at the preacher in the high street on Saturday morning and pointed out to him that his faith is no more valid, in the absence of any evidence, than the ramblings of any of the inhabitants of the asylum. Those persons incarcerated in such institutions have no less conviction (faith) in what they believe to be true than the man with the invisible friend and a story book that is one of many. Conviction does not a truth make, yet there he is every Saturday morning trying to prove his to everyone that walks past. I suspect such conviction is necessary to bolster the feelings of the demonstrator more than the listener, for if the listener has the leanings toward faith, or the need for salvation through delusion, I would assume they could get there themselves.
I know people who think the footage of the moon landings was faked, they’re utterly convinced of it, folks that think Elvis didn’t touch his 14 year old live-in girlfriend until she was 18, and people who think Bill Gates has put nano drones in vaccines. What is clear is that we choose what we believe based on our prejudices, and we choose the battles we wish to fight based on our feelings. I find it difficult to say that this is not relativism (the idea that we create truths by believing, that truth has a relation to human perspective), and I think it’s harmful.
In a recent conversation I noticed that when a person who is weak in their argument feels like they are outmatched it seems a good strategy to inject their upset into the situation, this has the immediate effect of making the other interlocutor, the winning party, appear to be a bully to observers. As if this tactic would work??? Well you wouldn’t think so but it does, and it did, and I see it happening again and again these days. It used to be that an argument had it’s own merit, and that getting upset was a sign of a weak arguer, but now, in the generation of the snowflake (a derogatory term for an overly sensitive person) what you feel has a weight and a purpose that is, to many (the other snowflakes), of equal value within the argument as such things as facts and theories.
My girlfriend is short, she’s fine with that, I’m fine with that, but if she felt something about being short, and I mentioned that she is short, I might end up hurting her feelings and I would regret it, none of this is in dispute. No matter what way we could broach the subject, or mention that fact, or how she felt about being short, she would remain short. None of what we might say about her shortness would increase her height or decrease it. The point is that how we feel about measurable things is not the same as how we feel about arguable things, and it is an intellectual mistake to think it otherwise. The same applies to my fat friend, they will get no fatter by my silence or my voice on the subject because the scale doesn’t care how I or they feel.
Protecting the vulnerable is an important part of being a moral actor in life, but protecting a falsehood against scrutiny because the person immersed in the falsehood might have to face that criticism is foolish. I get the feeling more and more, while witnessing the lives of much younger people than I, that the protection of feelings because of the prominent phenomenon of modern young persons preferring the sympathy that comes with turning the dissatisfaction they have with themselves into a campaign to change the verbs others use to describe them, than solving their problems in any practical way. It is as if being able to be labelled with a condition, and I am not denigrating people with real problems, is an object of fashion now and it’s abnormal to be psychologically grounded and physically satisfied.
No amount of feeling can change a fact, and a fact has no will to offend since offense is decided upon and not an inherent part of observation or measure. The fact that you are overweight may make you self-conscious, and that is unfortunate and unpleasant for you, but that doesn’t mean you are not fat, it just means you would rather not have people mention it because you are not happy being fat. It’s not that you are happy being fat but just don’t like that fact being pointed out, because if you were happy then you wouldn’t be psychologically damaged by others knowing it, or pointing it out. You wish that others would see you as not fat, so you make them not say it with your upset, but you fool yourself if you think that they don’t think that you are fat, they’re just not saying it, you still know you are fat and you know they know you are fat. In truth the problem is that you want to be not fat but you won’t do anything about being fat, you loath being fat but you enjoy the power of upset more than you would value the effort of the gym or restraining your fork.
You could play the victim, as if your fat was a symptom of your oppression, then you could enjoy the false pleasure of being a hero or a martyr to that condition. Better to absorb the superior feeling of controlling others in what they can and cannot say, and to wallow in the support of the peer group of others that are also measurably imperfect, than to accept what you are, or do anything about it and work towards what you would like to be. This is the modern solution to our imperfections, don’t put any effort in, don’t learn to accept your deficiencies, don’t be happy knowing that people are differently configured… instead, control the narrative of the circumstances you are within, hound the HR department to shut down any form of conversation on any people centred subject, take to social media and find people just a insensible as you are and form a group that sees itself as normal and the fact driven speakers as abnormal, change the system and its evaluative processes so you can feel better about the mess that you are.
I’m a rationalist, my view is based on the happiness gained from accepting what I am, not dwelling on my shortcomings, I like to describe that as being “Base Happy” – for it is better to sit and appreciate the birds for a while, than to waste the time wishing I could fly.
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