Moderation & Board Issues

[Norsemaiden]

Well that is a good skill to have and you're lucky to have the genes for it LRD. My Finnish genes give a different character.

"The Culture of Finland is inherently hard to define. However, there are some general characteristics often associated with Finnish society and every day culture. Finns are generally a reserved people, like other Nordic peoples in Norway or Sweden. Traditionally, Finns enjoy peace and nature, though the modern, urban lifestyle is popular with many.

A sense of melancholy and depression is sometimes associated with the Finns. People in Finland are reserved when meeting strangers and sometimes take a long time to become familiar with others but, as a result, relationships are deep and lasting. Alcohol is considered to be an effective method of lowering these inhibitions. Still, Finns tend to be less gregarious and inclined to small talk than most of their European peers." From Wikepedia

[infoterror]

9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and "oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized" to describe such people. [2]

26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

27. We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals [3] constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.

28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today's leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes [4] for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass" they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers "responsible." they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn't care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.

http://www.emf.net/~estephen/manifesto/unabe2.html

Socialization, like technology, must be used carefully -- and possibly, sparingly.

[Norsemaiden]

That was really something fascinating Infoterror. That article makes so many interesting and debatable points it should be in a thread of its own. It is not really relevant so much to what LRD was saying though, because he was talking more about being sociable than socialised. But it is a related matter and worth discussing.

[infoterror]

Originally Posted by Norsemaiden

It is not really relevant so much to what LRD was saying though, because he was talking more about being sociable than socialised. But it is a related matter and worth discussing.

Good point; its tangential relevance is that when one ignores truth in favor of a sociable response, one has become oversocialized.

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

Originally Posted by Norsemaiden

That was really something fascinating Infoterror. That article makes so many interesting and debatable points it should be in a thread of its own. It is not really relevant so much to what LRD was saying though, because he was talking more about being sociable than socialised. But it is a related matter and worth discussing.

i still think that my posts were valid though because the people that post in chat/pop culture forums really do consider themselves as being superior to what they might refer to as "bookworm" type people

[Horus]

Thats because pop culture told them so though.

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

Originally Posted by Ptah Khnemu

Thats because pop culture told them so though.

what???

[Horus]

It was a joke. I was trying to make fun of the whole "brainwashed youth of America" philosophy. But don't think too hard about it, or it'll make your head explode. (My jokes tend to have that effect on people.)

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

Originally Posted by Ptah Khnemu

It was a joke. I was trying to make fun of the whole "brainwashed youth of America" philosophy. But don't think too hard about it, or it'll make your head explode. (My jokes tend to have that effect on people.)

[Tongue_Ring]

Originally Posted by Norsemaiden

Well that is a good skill to have and you're lucky to have the genes for it LRD. My Finnish genes give a different character.

"The Culture of Finland is inherently hard to define. However, there are some general characteristics often associated with Finnish society and every day culture. Finns are generally a reserved people, like other Nordic peoples in Norway or Sweden. Traditionally, Finns enjoy peace and nature, though the modern, urban lifestyle is popular with many.

A sense of melancholy and depression is sometimes associated with the Finns. People in Finland are reserved when meeting strangers and sometimes take a long time to become familiar with others but, as a result, relationships are deep and lasting. Alcohol is considered to be an effective method of lowering these inhibitions. Still, Finns tend to be less gregarious and inclined to small talk than most of their European peers." From Wikepedia

so, being anti-social is genetic? interesting