#extrospection — Public Fediverse posts

This is related to cognitive dissonance. If you think you're rational because everything in your head makes sense to you, and someone comes along and says you're wrong, that's going to cause dissonance.

And if you're not very skilled with handling internal dissonance because you've never learned how (therapy, critical thinking skills, negotiation, communication skills, extrospection), then that might show up as combative arguing or even anger.

Especially if ego is challenged by the conflicting cognition.

One way to describe ego is, it's who you think you are.

So if I think I'm rational, and someone tells me I'm not, and I have never learned the skills to handle this feeling, then I might see it as a personal affront to the ego belief in "I am a rational person."

And that will amplify dissonance exponentially.

The more attached to the ego belief one is, the more powerful the dissonance reaction from having it challenged. The mind experiences it as a threat to existence itself.

#AbuseCulture #CriticalThinking #Extrospection

Everybody thinks themselves to be rational.

This is because everything in your head makes sense to you. If it makes sense to you, then it must be rational.

This itself is a rational conclusion.

However, making sense to yourself does not guarantee that:

1. Your assumptions align with reality.
2. Your needs and values align with other people's needs and values.
3. Your methodology is the best there is for arriving at rational conclusions.

A big divide these days comes from a difference in this one value or realization.

My values often align with those who have reached very different conclusions about how to apply our common values. The difference is this skipped step: Unpacking "I am reasonable because I make sense to myself" and realizing that isn't enough. Add the value "align with reality" to the toolkit.

Additionally, even if you yourself have already done this step, you can practice extrospection towards others with this in mind. Again: Everyone thinks they're reasonable because they make sense to themselves.

#AbuseCulture #CriticalThinking #Extrospection

I was just chatting with a friend and something fell out.

I'd like to propose the difference between liberal and leftist. Regarding schooling in the US, I said:

"I saw the rules being applied unfairly but thought it was one-offs or unintended failures of the system, not a trend or even the whole point. (It's the whole point.)"

That's the pipeline, with the step of "woke" in the middle.

A true conservative sees the issues and accepts them as collateral. A fascist celebrates them.

Liberal sees the issues, doesn't like them, and assumes they are one-offs or unintended failures that need patching, with some degree of acceptable collateral. (A self-declared conservative who doesn't realize the POV of their true conservative or fascist friends is probably more of a liberal in this sense.)

Woke is the process of realizing the cracks that people fall through are intentional. A dawning realization that the systems themselves are deeply flawed and the flaws are the point.

The more you realize they are by design, the further left you go. The closer to the root we get. It's here we realize the entire system needs an overhaul by people with better intentions.

The rest of the left spectrum is ordered by how much of the system you believe needs overhaul, what type of overhaul it needs, and the best means to get there.

#Extrospection #AbuseCulture

Sometimes when people say "X is a religion," like "science is a religion," what they really mean is "in-group." It's an in-group they feel excluded from.

#Extrospection

This is my ultimate, long-processing conclusion on the thread I wrote the other day about issues in the secular atheist community wrt the term "spirituality," and ultimately how Matt Dillahunty treated Britt Hartley. I reached this conclusion after extrospecting on both his and her POVs.

He approached her video with zero curiosity (in spite of his posturing otherwise), and with zero care or attempt to actually understand what she was saying. It shows in his methodology.

If he had, a man as smart as him would have understood her. Not necessarily AGREED with her. But he would have understood her.

Rationality is only as good as its empirical inputs. Rationality without extrospection is garbage.

https://defcon.social/@corbden/116898313009019827

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#CareCulture #AbuseCulture #decolonization #extrospection #solidarity

BTW, I just looked it up, and curiosity is cognate with both cure and care. Thanks, Latin!

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#CareCulture #AbuseCulture #decolonization #extrospection #solidarity

If you think it's hard to follow the reasoning of someone you can't understand or strongly disagree with, it really isn't. Everyone in our society has practiced this skill.

Have you ever read a novel filled with mythical beasts and magic? Have you ever seen a show where a bank robber or warlord is the protagonist? Have you ever seen a "science" fiction movie with a bunch of technobabble that you couldn't comprehend and felt like it was made up?

Yet you could still follow the logic and know why the hero has to use the magic sword to kill the dragon, root for the guy whose impact on the world is ultimately evil, and know why the nanotachyons need to be inserted into the hyperengine core.

We all have the skills to set aside our own grasp of reality or moral reasoning to live inside someone else's for a little while. And these experiences expand our ability to think and our appreciation of the world.

Extrospection is simply doing that for a real person, and accepting that their reality exists in the same sense yours does.

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#AbuseCulture #decolonization #extrospection #solidarity

All casual forms of bigotry boil down to one thing: being stuck in your own perspective.

Words only mean what you mean them to mean, experiences are limited to experiences like those you've had, intensity of pain is limited to whatever you've felt, emotional reactions only make sense if they're similar to reactions you've had.

Extrospection, aka perspective-taking, is the cure. Hold curiosity for those experiences outside of yourself.

This person disagrees with me. Why? Why would I be exclusively right while they're uniquely wrong? What am I missing? How can I understand what they're trying to communicate?

That's the key to anti-abuse culture, from interpersonal conflicts, to local decolonization, to fighting the spread of global fascism. You undo your own biases by extrospecting others. By thinking emphathetically. By asking sincere questions. By trying to understand why someone would believe a certain conclusion or action is reasonable.

Extrospection even helps against active bigotry and abuse, that is, when someone's values motivate them to actively cause harm. It doesn't mean you have to agree with someone after you've understood them, or that you have to side with their values. By understanding how their values differ, by understanding their thought process, you can better strategize to counter their actions in defense of those who deserve your empathy.

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#AbuseCulture #decolonization #extrospection #solidarity

I’ve been reading Žižek and Heidegger lately. Žižek labels himself a Communist (politics), Lacanian (method), and Heideggerian (ontology), so I asked Claude and ChatGPT how I fared.

https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/who-am-i?r=pvxh5&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=masto

#politics #philosphy #ontology #method #zizek #blog #video #podcast #substack #introspection #extrospection #Wittgenstein #pluralism #perspective #biography #rovelli #being #relata #relationships #philosopher

@corbden @YakyuNightOwl

Is #extrospection substantially different than reading the room, knowing what words to use, and applying them judiciously?

TL;DR: Curiosity about yourself and others can bridge gaps created by divisive political and religious rhetoric.

Kind of interesting, as Lorna Goldberg is one of the cult researchers I originally learned from and look up to. I eventually met her at an ICSA conference way back when, probably a couple of years before this, where I went to speak and because of my lack of academic background, felt like a total nobody outsider. So reading this is a bit meta for me, learning about her feelings of vulnerability and how she views the world is not too different from me.

My thoughts go to how trauma isolates us from each other. This is a facet of Abuse Culture that keeps us from cooperating and learning of each other so we can throw off the abusers in our lives, be they one-on-one or leaders of society. Curiosity is the cure for that, too.

This article is through the psychoanalytic lens, and leans a bit academic, but is readable and thought-provoking.

https://icsahome-my.sharepoint.com/personal/admin_icsahome_com/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fadmin_icsahome_com%2FDocuments%2FDropbox%2FProgramming%2FICSA%20TODAY%20ONLINE%2FClassics%2FWe%20Disagree%20-%20Let%27s%20Talk%20Goldberg%202019%2E10%2E1%2FWe%20Disagree%E2%80%94Let%E2%80%99s%20Talk%21%20Goldberg%2E%20v10%281%29%202019%2C%2010-15%2Epdf%20MAGAZINE%20VERSION%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fadmin_icsahome_com%2FDocuments%2FDropbox%2FProgramming%2FICSA%20TODAY%20ONLINE%2FClassics%2FWe%20Disagree%20-%20Let%27s%20Talk%20Goldberg%202019%2E10%2E1&ga=1

#ReligiousTrauma #extrospection #AbuseCulture #cult #ICSA

“The Socratic dialogues and the parables of Jesus show time and again: virtue is gained through a sustained examination of both ourselves and the world around us. Such a constant inspection of creation, when done well, exposes both our faults and the solutions to them.”

https://lawliberty.org/recovering-virtue-means-recovering-self-government/

#virtue #selfgovernment #introspection #extrospection