As I prepare to launch a philosophy project over two years in the making, to share a philosophy well over a decade in the making, I find myself with a few pertinent questions that need answering. One of these explains why I would post what follows here in this thread at a place like the Compendium, where I usually do not share many details of my personal affairs and efforts.
I’ve been around the Compendium since the start. I’m User ID No. 3. I’ve seen every era of the Compendium, people come and go, conversations bloom like flowers in the summer, and much else besides. This place has been a backdrop in my life for nearly eight years.
I could very easily talk about all the good the Compendium has done for me. I’ve made meaningful friendships with some folks—several of which continue today. There are new people like Syna whom I would like to get to know better. And, not least, I’m actually in a romantic friendship with someone whom I originally met through the Compendium. (And if you know who she is I’d appreciate you not share it here, since she values her privacy.) Even with people whom I did not befriend, I have had illuminating and enriching discussions, as they have shared with me not only their opinions but their perspective. Such generosity is invaluable in my quest to learn more about this eccentric species to which I happen to belong. It is not just a quest of discovery, but of self-discovery too.
I could also talk about the good I have done for the Compendium, helping to get the series analysis ball rolling in the beginning—not as a charity but because I loved discussing it—or helping various individuals to understand their own selves better, and to better comprehend the world we live in.
But I wouldn’t. The people who ought to know, already know.
Instead I care to dwell on a question raised by the
negative encounters I’ve had here. Not so much with the mooks, who are forgettable, but with the people who have some substance to them. You know...the interesting folks. The folks who, even if we can’t be friends, have something meaningful to contribute. That rabble—past and present—has disliked me for a deliciously wide variety of reasons. I’ve been the recipient of some very colorful barbs, the latest of which is tushantin’s judgment that a 13-year-old orphan is “better” than I am. It may very well be true, and either way it made me smile. Some people are at their artistic best when they’re engaged in throwing tomatoes. Daniel Krispin called me many things over the years, but my favorite was “rhetorician.” Coming from him, that was beautiful. I remember the time Ramsus went on his shortlived spree of using foul and angry language to tell off anyone at the forums who rubbed him wrong. He gave me such a shellacking in such a short space! And let’s not forget ZeaLitY, previously a good friend, who later on was ready to ban me from the Compendium because if I so much as looked in his direction he took it personally. Hopefully his urge to do so has passed, else I may not be able to reply to whatever comments follow this!
These sorts of experiences are not as unpleasant as they might seem, because the people on the other end are interesting people, and they had their reasons to think I’m full of horse hokum. I’ve enjoyed my discussions with the lot of them, and I respect each of them. It’s also worth pointing out that I
give them their reasons to be pissed off at me. Each of them shares in common the fact that if I would have just shut up and behaved myself and I would be genteelly adored, or at least tacitly ignored.
That’s where the philosophy project comes in, and my pertinent question. It’s a question to myself, but I surely won’t complain if others have interest enough to chime in. The question is: How should I interact with people like that?
A philosophy with integrity must apply to everyone. The philosophy I have been building is not for me to impose. It is for people to choose for themselves because they identify with it. At the very least, it is for people to dismantle and add piecemeal to their own views—chagrining as that thought is to me, and as disrespectful as it is to a philosophy built to encompass everything. This philosophy, ideally I would share it with everyone capable of comprehending it directly. That rules out mooks and the stupid, but my remaining target audience is still very large. And I don’t get along with all of these people.
Part of that is me, myself—my own personal style. I am assertive, forceful, and quick to dismiss those who don’t ooze their human potential. I can turn that off when I need to, and
be a good Josh. I usually prefer not. Strangers deserve courtesy and friends have earned respect, but mere acquaintances are in between, and it’s not really appropriate to mollycoddle them. Even when I do, it feels like a loss.
Yet there is a structural problem, too, which transcends my own part in this. My philosophy prescribes many changes for the world. People don’t like change. They react defensively to the prospect of it. But it’s worse than that: The real world is a very brutal place, and most people who are not the victims of that brutality have lulled themselves into a sense of complacency. When confronted with the “claim” that the world is still a brutal place...they think of such a notion as an exaggeration. They don’t understand how it could be.
I posted in Google+ recently about the Tea Party, and I got a reply from a stranger who basically agreed with what I had said, but didn’t like the tone. She thought it was too reminiscent of the political theater that poisons our democratic climate. Why? Because she didn’t understand how the Tea Party could be that bad. Oh, that’s not what she said. But that’s what she meant, even if she didn’t realize it. If I say “the Tea Party is fascist,” there are two possibilities. Either it’s true, which would be extraordinary, or I’m just exaggerating to shock people, which would be much more likely. Except...I know which possibility is actually correct in this case. She didn’t.
There are many people who are amenable to my philosophy because it’s a good philosophy with a lot of self-evident truth to it, right off the bat. But then there’s stuff which requires people to actually change their frame of mind, and all of a sudden it becomes a bridge too far. And then there’s me, the presenter, who doesn’t do a good job of diplomatic relations in the first place. I’ve got an audience in waiting but I don’t know how to best give them the hard truths without repulsing them. I’m still working on that.
And then there’s the other side of the coin. For better or worse, the kind of person I am is one who has little patience for fools. I expect people to aspire to their best, to rise up and pursue their potential. When that doesn’t happen, I lose interest. One important reason I’m not on better terms with some folk around here is that I don’t want to be. There’s not enough “in it” for me. I shouldn’t have to be, and can’t be, everything to everyone, and if a good philosophy has room for me as surely as it does for everyone else, then it’s fair for me to not want to spend much of my time on the people who aren’t willing to do more to better themselves.
What I want to figure out is a way to proceed to resolve these concerns without compromising my philosophy and without compromising myself. Currently I don’t have a coherent answer. It would be dishonest of me to put on a nice, buttery face for everybody. I respect people who honor their human heritage. For others I have hope, but I am clearly not the best person to encourage them along. And of course I still suffer from the usual package of cultural and temperamental biases and blind spots—fewer than most people, but enough yet that it warrants consideration.
Any thoughts?