In a similar vein (and not to open this fucking discussion again): people who think they know me better than I do. Specifically, dancing. I don’t. I can’t. I’ve tried a zillion times. People have tried to teach me a zillion times. They’ve all failed. I just can’t. But every new person who comes along and hears me say this, immediately discounts the view of the person who knows this better than everyone in the universe and inserts their own view, which obviously is that I can. I ask why I’ve failed all the previous times. The question is ignored. Why does someone who has never met me think they know this better than I, who am me?
The worst one was when I was in Russia. A girl asked me why I didn’t dance.
“I don’t like it”, I said. Easier than to go into the whole “musical retardedness” thing.
“You should try it.”
“I’m 27. Do you really think I’ve never danced in my life?”
“You’ve never tried it in Russia.”
Well, she had me there.
Also, emotional attachment to music, including the compulsion to put down music you don’t like and the people who like that music. Sure, I think most of Britney-style pop and virtually all of rap/hiphop/whatever is total crap. But I don’t feel the need to inform everybody of this at every opportunity, nor do I claim that my subjective opinions hold any form of objective validity. If someone likes rap, big deal. If someone doesn’t like music that I like, big deal. But no, this has to be made into an issue, because… I don’t even know.
Connectedly, dressing a certain way because you listen to a certain kind of music. This may possibly be the most baffling nondamaging mainstream human behaviour I know of. Clothes and music have no connection. None. Changing your dress style because you start listening to a certain kind of music is completely pathetic. Either it’s a remarkable coincidence that a huge number of people who like heavy metal also like black clothes and leather and studs and piercings and shit, or they’re all wankers.
I thought of another one: I did not understand this as a child, nor as a teenager, nor have my many years of adult life given me any shred of comprehension of it. How can anyone be bothered or upset or offended by merely hearing a word? I refer to the concept of “profanity”. How can hearing someone say, “It’s fucking cold outside!” offend someone? I just don’t get it. The “bad word” in that sentence isn’t about you, it’s not insulting you, it’s not calling you a bad person, it has nothing to do with you whatsoever in any way. How on God’s green Earth can hearing it offend you?
Similarly, I do not in any way grasp why Janet Jackson (accidentally or on purpose) exposing her breast on TV offended people. What the hell harm did it do? What bad thing did it cause? How was anyone, of any age, hurt by that? What was the problem? I just don’t get it. I don’t even understand how it could possibly bother anyone that Britney showed her “naughty bits” in public. I truly don’t understand how Jodi, in post #8, can say that such is “inherently” improper or immoral. Why is it improper? I can see that societies have generally defined it as such, but I really don’t get why, and when you say that it’s inherently improper, you’ve just totally lost me. Because, again, how can it harm you, or society, or the children, or anything? So you see a woman’s vagina, so what? Seeing her navel isn’t a problem, why does seeing something a bit lower become one?
That is, the act of dressing up in and of itself does nothing for me. Certainly I would feel better going to a job interview in a suit than in my PJs, but I don’t wear a suit just for shits and giggles.
Interesting concepts,do you have a "fun"toilet,"fun"boot brushes?
If you have a problem with your power supply do you rewire your own house?
How about if you have appendecitis,do you take out your own appendix?
I’ll never understand how people can support the use of torture, particularly those who claim to be Christians. “We have to torture people so our country will be safe from terrorists” is just weakness and cruelty masquerading as patriotism. If George Washington could refuse to mistreat British troops while facing a genuine existential threat, the United States can refrain from torturing people. Spare me the ticking time bomb scenario-if there’s a bomb set to go off in a short amount of time and your only recourse is a single person who could clam up or lie to you, you’re already screwed.
There are different types of picky eaters. There are the ones who try foods and don’t like them because of flavor, texture, or something else- those are the ones you’re describing. Then there are the ones who won’t try any unfamiliar foods. Those are quite different.
I’m one of the picky eaters that you describe- a lot of food textures make me want to gag. But I’m generally willing to try new dishes, as long as they don’t have anything in them that I know I don’t like. My parents are picky eaters as well, but they’re a totally different type- they don’t want to try new types of foods. When we go out to eat together, we have to try to find a restaurant that will serve food that they are familiar with- they won’t try any new cuisines, even if a dish they’ve never tried doesn’t have anything in it that they know they don’t like.
Picky eaters like me (though not ones like my parents) will try lots of things once, too. We won’t necessarily try them again if we know from previous experience that we don’t like them, though. I’m sure there’s some food you’ve tried and didn’t like, and you probably wouldn’t eat it again, either. There’s lots of different kinds of food in the world, so why eat things you know you don’t like?
I think a lot of this has to deal with what is called “the false sanction of Eros,” that is anything done while being in love or, even better, for the sake of love, is natural and morally acceptable.
It’s a term from an essay by Sheldon Vanauken, entitled “The (False) Sanction of Eros.” I’ll summarize with some quotes:
“Yet Diana at my house and John at the club had both urged that goodness and rightness with evident sincerity. And they were decent people, not at allt he short who understand only barnyard relations. They wanted me to understand that they wouldn’t have done it–broken their vows and brought pain to their spouses and children–if something (they didn’t ask what) were not telling them it was meet and right to do so. They were, in fact, invoking a higher law: the feeling of goodness and rightness. A feeling so powerful that it swept away-swept away in an instant, according to John–whatever guilt they would otherwise have felt at being committment-breakers and whatever uneasiness they felt about the children. And it was something they didn’t expect-a feeling that surprised them.”
"The pronouncement of Eros that this love is so good and so right that all betrayls are justified is simply a lie, as is his specious promise that this new will go on forever. Indeed, Eros may descend upon John or Diana yet again, and again, with the same pronouncement and the same promise. And they will again believe it: “This time it’s for keeps.”
"But almost no one-neither clergymen nor novelists-really understands this deadly Sanction of Eros: the overwhelming feeling that this particular love, unlike all others, is right and good and blessed. Young lovers of course feel it, which is why parental opposition to their offspring’s choice is rarely successful. ANd the married man or woman who falls in love with another feels that same Sanction, invariably forgetting that it is exactly what he once felt for his spouse, invariably feeling that this new love is “the real thing at last.” And so, because of the Sanction, the seeming blessing from on high, he becomes ruthlessly determined on divorce and re-marriage. The Sanction ‘proves’ to him that he is right to break his vows.
Ah, Autolycus. This needs its own thread. I’ve quite a bit of homework to catch up on, but if and when you find yourself in the mood, I would like to have a dialogue about this.
No connection? Really? Then how come there’s such a strong correlation between certain genres and certain clothing styles? Obviously it does hold some connection for those listeners. It’s not the music that “makes” them wear those clothes; that particular style is part of a subculture which the music is also part of.
Bolding added. That’s one of the key points for me–not only does committing torture erode the humanity of the person committing it, the officer ordering it, and the government permitting it, it also gives the person on the business end of it a motive to make something up. If that “something” is what the torturers wanted to hear in the first place, that’s even worse.
Allow me to apologise for my misguided compatriots on Prince Edward Island. I assure you, not all us faroe islanders are like that
(out of curiosity, why did you choose faroese? I have seriosly never heard anyone use us in an example before)
As for mindsets I don’t get: how the hell do other women stand to smear gunk on their faces and wear high heals every day? For a special occasion, I can sorta get, but I will never understand why some girls cannot leave the house without makup. That stuff is foul.
Not really. I listen to many genres of music and I do not dress up for each kind. I don’t listen to country and feel compelled to wear boots, a cowboy hat and coveralls, nor does listening to emo make me feel like wearing drab and colorless clothing or makeup.
I think it is simply a subculture thing. So unless you think it is silly for a different reason, I would agree with the other poster.
And there are connections between music and clothing in dance.
Do you mean you don’t get how anyone can moved by music or are you referring specifically to the antipathy towards music someone doesn’t like that you mentioned afterward?
Clothes are for looking good, being comfortable, and keeping you warm. Dressing a certain way because you listen to a certain kind of music or belong to a certain subculture is silly.
Obviously I understand being moved by music. I’m talking about emotional attachment to it, so that it is somehow threatening or offensive to you when someone doesn’t like the music you like, or (heaven forbid) likes a kind of music you don’t.
What if, as a member of the emo subculture, your concept of “looking good” means looking like an emo kid? What if you’re more “comfortable” when you’re dressed like that, because other members of that subculture see you and understand that you’re one of them? Consider, on the other side of the spectrum, the example of dreadlocks. They foster a sense of belonging among people who hold a certain set of values, like peace and community. I suspect that the people who wear dreadlocks (among whom I count a few close friends) feel more “comfortable” when they can be instantly recognized as among that group, which is why they wear that style in the first place.
I doubt it’ll help as an explanation but as someone who is really into music at the moment and is sometimes irrationally bothered when someone doesn’t like my favorite song or musician, all I can think to say is that it just means that much to you that you want others to acknowledge the Truth of it or at least admit that it’s got a catchy beat that you can dance to. Or not, in our cases.
I almost always feel that way about people whose opinions matter to me, though.
