Absurdity and Therapy

I've hunted and hunted for the exact quote, but I've lost my "The Myth of Sisyphus" book, so I'll just paraphrase Camus. (I mean, what's the point of being an existentialist philosopher if you don't have people misquoting and oversimplifying your points, really?) He notes that it isn't people that are absurd, or the world that is absurd, but our relationship to the world that is absurd.

I'm sure Camus had some deep reasons for thinking this (if he did!), but for me it comes down to this: Sometimes it just feels like a crazy fucking world, and sometimes I feel like a crazy fucking person, and sometimes those feelings are spot on.

On the other hand: I've been thinking about therapy and about how people are trying to be very supportive about it, but they are sort of shy to talk about it, are supporting me (I think) because they think they ought to, but it's sort of like telling people that you've finally stopped drinking when you're an alchoholic. They want to be supportive, but they don't quite know what to say. "Good job!" doesn't quite fit the bill, because wouldn't it have been better to not have been an alchoholic (or a person in need of therapy) in the first place? Sure, people in need of therapy may not be like alchoholics in important ways, but the feelings I've gotten from people make the analogy hold, for me, to a certain degree.

But the thing is this: This is a crazy world sometimes, and it would be sort of strange if some of us (?) didn't just freak out sometimes about it. For instance, I'm reading a book on Rwanda right now, and that stuff is just freaking crazy. In a way, of course, it's not--there is a good causal history leading up to the massacres of the 90's. If Belgium, France and others had behaved differently, if the Rwandans themselves had built a different culture, if lots of other things had gone differently, perhaps that massacre woudln't happen. But that massacres happen is also in some way just really, really strange, and should cause some important, strong reactions in people. Reading about terrible wrongs done in the name of [whatever] makes me anxious. It both helps me understand the world better and at the same time makes things just seem absurd. To be slightly trite: It's no freaking wonder that I get depressed and don't clean my house sometimes.

Point being, it would be crazy to not be crazy sometimes, given the person I am, and the world that I live in.

Clean
Which brings me to another, related, point. Made a good connection in therapy the other day--my therapist, upon hearing about my worries of becoming the shut-in-packrat that my uncle (who died a few years back) had become, and hearing about my fear of rejection by people in the world in general right now brought on (in part) by my feelings of rejection that I'm still feeling from The Breakup(tm), pointed out that maybe part of the reason I make my home pseudo-inhabitible at times, and maybe the reason I'm doing it more now, is that I want to push people away on some level.

Ding!Ding!Ding!We have a winner!

One reason I haven't bought a couch, for instance, is that I'm sorta poor--but another reason is that it isn't a priority because it's not a priority to get people to come over to my house; and that's not a priority, in part, because I'm afraid to invite people deeper into my life.

It's keen/obvious/in-my-blindspot little insights like that which will probably keep me going to therapy for as long as I can afford it.

Filed under:Philosophy and Therapy

Opinions and Arguments

For the relatively brief time that I was a student teacher and a teaching assistant, I began to recognize a recurring theme in discussions. It's possible that this theme came up more often because these classes were generally philosophy classes, but I also notice this trend in just discussing stuff with people in non-academic-only life.

The recurring theme is this: People have opinions. They 'have a right' to these opinions. You can discuss varying opinions with people, but at some point, because they have a right to the opinions, and you to yours, you have to either agree with them or 'agree to disagree'.

I think this view of things stems from good intentions. Among these intentions is this: To allow people to put forth opinions that may be unpopoular, or counterintuitive, or simply things we don't like. This allowance is closely linked, probably, to our surface feelings about the first amendment--as long as you're not yelling fire in a crowded moviehouse, you have a right to say what your opinion is, even if it is unpopular. Perhaps even especially if it's unpopular. Even if it is completely wrong. I want people to be able to put forward their opinions, even and espeically if I disagree with them prima facie, because I tend to think that figuring things out almost always requires other people's brains, as well as my own. There are matters of perspective, and blind spots, and all sorts of reasons why, in general, more opinions=good. The thing is that this generalization doesn't hold universally, for all opinions at all times. Some opinions are better than others, for various reasons that I hope to begin to explore.

So, this comes up in classes a lot, especially in critical thinking classes when you get people to start talking/debating/arguing issues that they feel strongly about. Discussing abortion rights in a class that isn't all pro-choice is sort of a 'classic' example--eventually the discussion hits a wall of sorts, and one side (or both) will say, "Well, that's your opinion. I have a different opinion." The thing is, while this statement is true on the face of it, the implication is often that 'this is where discussion must end'.

But It's Opinions All the Way Down
But of course, anything one says (if it's a declarative of some sort, at least) is an opinion. But that fact in itself doesn't mean that every opinion counts, or that every opinion carries as much weight as every other opinion. Absurd examples illustrate this pretty clearly--if somebody came up to you and told you that they were actually really you and you were, unfortunately, some sort of weird doppleganger, likely you would hold that, while this is their opinion, that they are wrong. Or perhaps an even more absurd example: Somebody comes up to you and tells you that they are invisible (when you can clearly see them). It's their opinion and they are welcome to it, but presumably these opinions, while not valueless (if you had all the time in the world and the inclination, you might actually persue their views to find out if they have any merit), probably aren't worth persuing.

Now some types of opinions are sort of self-justifiable, or at least seem so on the surface of things--opinions which relate to things that only the person uttering them has any real access to the justifications for. If I say "I hate onions," that is not only my opinion (if I'm telling the truth), but also, there are few ways that anybody could argue with me on that point. Somebody could conceivably point out that, well, I eat onions every day. In fact, I'm eating one right now. And every time they've seen me, they've seen me eating an onion. So when I say that "I hate onions," there seems to be a disconnect between what I'm saying and what I do. But aside from a case where there is obviously some sort of conflict between what I'm saying and what I'm doing, there are no other real bases from which somebody might argue with me about my opinion about what I like. In cases of what I like, I am pretty much the sole arbiter of truth.

Opinion and Truth Come Connected to Lotsa Stuff
But in most cases of opinion, no individual is the sole arbiter of truth. Who/what is the arbiter of truth may be a complex question, but all that I want to consider right now is the person who says, "Well, that's your opinion" as a way of blocking the road to further inquiry. That something is an opinion alone doesn't mean that it can't be contested...if that were the case, then almost no discussions would be worth the trouble.

Opinions are connected up with the rest of the world, and as such, one can endorse or question them to the degree that one thinks there is evidence that they are connected up in the world correctly. (There are more technical ways of describing this--the correspondence theory of truth, for instance--but I am trying to talk here in more sort of everyday language, attempting to get to the heart of how we think about opinions.) In short, my opinions can be wrong or right. Which is not to say that claiming that they are wrong or right doesn't have some possible/probably complications--if, for instance, you take Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions seriously in any way, then getting to truth may be more complex than some people want it to be. But that things can get messy isn't to say that we can't get to right and wrong at all, or that opinions are somehow sacred just because they are opinions or the like. Sure, I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe--but just because I believe it, or just because you believe it, doesn't mean that one of us (or both of us!) can't be wrong.

Our opinions do often have serious effects on the world--they certainly shape what we do in the world; but even espousing our opinion can have quite an effect on the world. Even acting on our opinions without explicitly stating them can have great effects--people watch what we do, and their actions may change according to what we do.

My main point is this: That sometimes when people say, "But that's just your opinion!" they are wanting you to give them more evidence for why you think what you say is true. Sometimes, however, they are using that to draw a line about what may be talked about, demarcating a space where all opinion is holy, and unassailable, and always true 'for you'. I don't really think that such a space exists.

Of course, things get very much more complex very quickly regarding this stuff. While I believe that some opinions should carry more weight than others, when discussing why I think this, it gets messy fast. Usually I think about context and evidence, but these two concepts are messy themselves. In the context of, say, an argument with a loved one about the relationship, it may be the case that how people are feeling is more important than the facts of how they came to feel that way. If I believe I'm sad because I'm not getting enough lovin', even if it would be clear to an outside observer that I'm getting LOTS of lovin', that fact doesn't matter as much (possibly) as how I'm feeling. Evidence is even more complex--because lots of different people have lots of different sorts of things they will count as evidence, and things they won't. Still, even if we have to discuss context and evidence in the midst of another sort of discussion, I think this is a valuable sort of thing to talk about--and infinitely more valuable (to me!) than cutting things short and saying "Well, that's just your opinion."


Filed under:General and Philosophy

Irony: Thinking Insessantly About Whether I Think Too Much

K asked me recently in a comment whether I sometimes wonder if I think to much.

Short Answer: Yep.

Long Answer:
And then, because of the inherent irony in asking the question, really--should I just answer off the cuff, like in a rorschach test, or should I think about my answer? Another possible irony: The answers to this question (to me) are so intricate and lengthy that even writing an answer to it is going to take some time.

Whenever I have something I want to think about that is sort of a huge subject, I try to find a 'hook' into it. A way of beginning to think about it. There are even so many hooks regarding this that it's hard to begin. I think, though, given my recent state(s) of mind and my interest in friendship and love at the moment, that my hook will be this:

You're not the first one to ask, k. ;)

That is to say, here is a general pattern that I sometimes see with friends and lovers who tend to not stay friends and lovers (or even acquaintences who go through the process relatively quickly):
1. Meet Jeff.
2. Find yourself intrigued by some of the conceptual connections he makes, the way he tries to consciously live his life, and the interesting conversations you can have with him.
3. Spend a period of time being interested in him for these reasons.
4. (Optional--mostly optioned by ex-lovers) Slowly start to realize that you think that he's full of shit.
5. Start to become annoyed by the fact that all that stuff you liked about him, it just keeps going, without much of a break.
6. Find yourself wanting him to shut up, turn all that stuff off for just a little while, for Christ's sake.
7. Recognize that he rarely does shut up/stop that stuff, and that you can't take it any longer.
8. Ask him "do you ever think you think too much?"
9. Burn that bridge.
10. Tell him (implicitly or explicitly, depending on how close you were) you still want to be friends 'someday', but that you need a break from him.
11. Burn that bridge and don't look back.

Some of the steps get mixed around, and some of my friends (and at least one lover) didn't go through all of the stages (erm, otherwise I wouldn't have any friends, right? I mean, I'm close to that, but not quite there), but I've had it happen enough times that when somebody asks me this question, I have to make a concerted effort to not get defensive.

On the other hand, if it's been asked of me that many times, seems to me that it's probably a perfectly appropriate question. Recently (months ago) there was some mutual attraction between me and a new-ish friend of mine. We hung out a few times, and there was definitely some chemistry and we had some great conversations. At one point I brought up something she had said, and was somewhat critical of it--to me, I was critical in the sense that I wondered if she knew/thought that what she had said was sort of cruel and, well, shallow in the way that I thought it might have been. Her initial response to me: "Don't drag me into your navel-gazing bullshit." A few days later, she apologized, told me that I had (unknowingly) pushed a button of hers, and that she didn't really think of me that way.

But here's the thing: I recognize that it's irritating, that it may sometimes be self-serving, that obsessing about concepts can even be harmful--and even mean, really. I recognize that it sometimes is navel-gazing, in the negative sense of the term. I try to not obsess. I try to not ask questions that really are a way of thrusting my opinion on the world. I try to read people's reactions to my questions such that I don't keep pressing when they are tired of the tack I'm taking. But I am not always successful in these attempts, so I do get people saying things like this to me:

"Just have a beer, Jeff, and shutup."
"What is this, a fucking therapy session?"
"You're just a difficult person to be friends with."

And I don't think that these questions and comments are completely inappropriate. Something I like in some of my friends is that they'll help break me out of little recursive fits of thinking I get into. On the other hand, there are only a handful of people who will/want to go the distance with me conceptually, and, as it turns out, these are pretty much my closest friends (this isn't true to a person, but it's generally true). In fact, some of my favorite people (my favorite prof from SFSU and Lex come to mind) have more intellectual stamina for conceptual analysis than I have, so I can understand that different people have different amounts of interest/patience in doing lots of conceptual analysis, because sometimes I get tired of it, too.

That all said, I think the implication that people sometimes make (not necessarily K, by the way) when they ask this is that thinking is mutually exclusive from doing. That there is a clear line between 'thinking about life' and 'living life'. I understand the impetus for this implication. Clearly there are times when it would be better for me to just have a beer, or have a good cry; times when it's good for me to just shut up. There are even times when I wish the little conceptual-analysis voices in my head would go bowling or something and give me some peace. At the same time, I think it's important to acknowledge that thinking is a kind of doing. And I don't just mean that in a surface-y definitional sense. I also mean it in this sense: Thinking about things almost always affects how one does things. This is one of the main reasons for doing some thinking...it may seem like navel-gazing for me to ask myself questions constantly, but if the answers make a difference in my life, then I think it's worth doing.

Another aspect of the whole thinking-as-doing-something thing is that I just enjoy thinking about stuff, by myself or with others. Not all the time, and not about everything, but often and with a fairly wide scope. It's just a visceral pleasure for me, a good deal of the time. And, if it's not hurting anybody else, that's a fairly good reason to keep doing it. I also value lots of other things that don't have much to do with conceptual analysis--biking, guitar, sex--and I recognize that a balance is desireable (and sometimes when people ask, "Do you think too much?" this balance is exactly what they are referring to); I just don't like to oppose 'thinking' with 'living life'. I see the former as a necessary, desirable part of the latter.

Filed under:
General, Philosophy and Therapy.