Does anyone want to talk about the Driver-Schuler exchange on modesty? I'm pretty convinced that the Driver "modesty as ignorance" view is untenable, but it's sort of an interesting debate.
I'll want to talk about it as soon as you point me at some articles.
I can send you the PDFs if you'd like, Ben. Think of me as your very own JSTOR. Or you could (gasp) use the database.
This computer isn't configured for proxy access.
Especially for a post that includes NSFW images, this is the most boring comment thread, ever.
Insisting on humility is a core aspect of human sociality, especially in acephalous societies. Consider Lee's discussion of the !Kung bushmen's practice of "insulting the meat" (ATM), where a successful kill made by a hunter is ridiculed by everyone in the group (call that a in order to prevent anyone starting to think they are teh alpha hunter.
Being self-satisfied is bad independently of the lack of modesty bundled with it.
4: You can't log in via your school library?
I could if I set up proxy access to the school's servers. That would take nearly five full minutes, though.
Anybody who proclaims "I am a wild child" isn't. Such multilayered self-consciousness demands millenia of careful domestication.
I love you all over again, Flabs.
I conclude that the philosophers are terrified by this woman's sexuality.
Self-satisfaction is a clear sign one isn't thinking hard enough.
I find the videos annoying in most aspects and I really dislike self-satisfaction in anyone other than me, so.
I mean, the maybe two minutes I bothered to watch.
I conclude that the philosophers are terrified by this woman's sexuality.
For providing some reasons that might explain your annoyance?
Let the man cockblock himself, Gonerill.
Ben: If I set up a proxy through U of C, can I use JSTOR?
Haven't clicked on anything but the homepage (everything else being NSFW and all), but I can't see any reason this woman shouldn't be self-satisfied. She seems to be doing well at the things she wants to do and to be enjoying life.
I am wary of the claim, "We held each other and looked into each other's eyes and really saw each other." How is she defining "to see" here? Maybe I'm slightly hyperopic, but I have to take a few steps back to "really see" stuff.
I was totally about to quote that same line as AWB.
six and seven, if one considers sociology philosophy, perhaps.
20: the instructions on the library system's site, or wherever they live, will work only if you also have a UofC account, I'm pretty sure. They'll make you log in or something.
6 is sociology, 7 is a bare assertion. My condemnation stands.
They held each other as beings is how they saw each other. Maybe your hyperbebic, AWB.
20: Yes. But you don't need to "set up a proxy." Just go to the library site and click on a journal or a datebase and you'll be prompted to type in your username and password. It doesn't take any more time than logging in to check email.
s/b "you're", even I know that.
If you can hold a being, how is it possible to hold someone without holding their being?
Also, Mom, where do babies come from?
Actually, the good folks at the UofC have set up a little program called "Proxy It!" Just go to the computer page (whatever it is called) and drag it to the bookmarks bar on Firefox. Then you just hit the button.
"We held each other and looked into each other's eyes and really saw each other."
Where is this from?
She shouldn't be self-satisfied because being self-satisfied is extremely annoying and, as Sifu says, tends to be a sign that one is exercising one's memory extremely selectively.
Self-satisfaction isn't just being satisfied in what one has done oneself or in accomplishing one's goals or whatnot. Even people who haven't done that can be self-satisfied, and people who have that other sort of satisfaction (call it "satisfaction in one's self") aren't necessarily self-satisfied.
Gay Lumberjack, sorta. Might not be a direct quote. Was too confused and annoyed to review for actual statement, but all that's in there.
The rules are simple. If you are not modest you have to be interesting and strong. Charming villains are good examples -- I've been watching a lot of Buffy so Spike comes to mind, who would be entertaining even without the character arcs.
Most of her problem is that she's talking about her life on screen instead of living it on screen. It's interesting to watch her do things; cf the NSFW link (she really is transfixing in the movie, which has plenty of sex to watch). It might be interesting to watch her annoy other people with how hot she is.
I really, really liked Shortbus. Mitchell set out to make an American movie that imported the European vocabulary of filmed sex that Breillat et al had begun to work with, and succeeded to the letter -- it really is a sweet, redemptive romcom that gets to be explicitly about sex.
If you can hold a being, how is it possible to hold someone without holding their being?
Never should have abandoned the Heidegger reading group.
Also, Mom, where do babies come from?
You start by holding his human beingstalk in your fertile veldt. Then he plants a bean and a watermelon grows in your stomach. When it is ready for harvest, your belly explodes as punishment, you dirty slut.
27, 30: but for those to work you still need a UofC account. I don't know if Adam does, or if CTS has a deal with them, or what.
Besides, if one were genuinely satisfied with one's self, would one feel quite so compelled to prove it to the world?
Even a charming immodest villain might not be self-satisfied. Self-satisfaction is a distinct failing. Look for an article by me in Ethics in 2012 about this.
And immodesty is different from self-satisfaction. The heroes have dragons yet to slay. The self-satisfied have slain dogs, and want you to check it out.
w-lfs-n pwnage comes with a future-cite.
The heroes have dragons yet to slay. The self-satisfied have slain dogs, and want you to check it out.
This is a great formulation, though.
You have yet to explain why self-satisfaction is bad, Ben.
Besides, if one were genuinely satisfied with one's self, would one feel quite so compelled to prove it to the world?
41 is very good, if bordering on improper use of analogy.
You have yet to explain why self-satisfaction is bad, Ben.
Ethics, 2012. This moral psychology stuff is complicated, you know.
38: Ah, yes. I was assuming CTS did. For some reason, I thought all the theological schools dotting HP did.
40: I agree with this. Charming villains -- charming anybodies -- also seem to have healthy doses of self-hatred (I find this a positive quality, and altogether different from modesty).
Hot girls often overrate the quality of their conversation, because they're used to people hanging on their every word.
46: You have yet to explain why self-satisfaction is bad
Because it only openly addresses half the equation:
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." - Gore Vidal
Hot girls people often overrate the quality of their conversation
Don't knock self-satisfaction. It's satisfaction with someone I love.
Self-satisfaction is bad because it suggests that the self is neither to be improved nor to be in relationship with others.
In the meantime I rely on our folk intuitions that the self-satisfied are obnoxious pricks.
Funny you should mention Shanti Carson. As a result of her role in Shortbus, she's the first extra (or - in the case of Shortbus - "sextra") I've ever watched credits for or looked up...
Charming villains -- charming anybodies -- also seem to have healthy doses of self-hatred
Charmers hate themselves because charm is a kind of interactional trick, and so they hate the people who fall for it, too, even as they take advantage of them. Beautiful people, on the other hand, tend to be more complacently self-satisfied about their beauty and its effects on others, perhaps because we tend to strongly associate the beautiful with the good.
53: Yes, that's a better statement.
Self-satisfaction is bad because it suggests that the self is neither to be improved nor to be in relationship with others.
Does it? Carson seems to be both having relationships and seeking out adventures, presumably (maybe) to improve herself or at least to learn something. Maybe we want to say that she's not self-satisfied...
I really, really liked Shortbus.
Me too. Also, it let me know that a ten-years-unheard-from-by-anybody college friend was still alive.
The self-satisfied are analogous to the holders of a true belief that has the status of a dead dogma in the first part of Mill's On Liberty—I would say in what fashion except analogies are banned.
51: This is a fact. I have a friend who is shockingly hott (think Angelina Jolie). She's as sweet as can be, but has truly deranged notions about how the world works based on how the world has worked for her. (Thuggish ticket scalpers will refund your money for the bum tickets they sold you if you go back and ask them after you weren't let in! It's true!)
If you stretch that "meantime" into the duration of your career, you too can be an analytic philosopher, Ben.
Not sure how to map this onto Shanti (not going to devote enough of my life to her to figure it out), but when I think of people I personally know whom I'd characterize as self-satisfied, a trait common to all of them is their attribution of every positive thing in their lives to their own doing. It's as though they don't think luck or chance applies to them.
I don't think she comes across as a particularly happy person. That was my problem with Shortbus too, there was lots of unacknowledged complexity in the sexual-energy-as-the-path-to-freedom theme.
She's pretty hot, but not movie-star or top-model hot. I think her sexual radiance in Shortbus had a lot to do with her chemistry with her co-star, who was her off-screen lover.
I think the first time I heard about Shortbus was yesterday, when I read not-bald lurker Chris express dissatisfaction with it.
If you stretch that "meantime" into the duration of your career, you too can be an analytic philosopher, Ben.
And if I babble hermetically, I can be a continental.
Does it? Carson seems to be both having relationships and seeking out adventures, presumably (maybe) to improve herself or at least to learn something.
Both of these things could be for the attention.
Can I shamelessly self-promote, too? I posted the growing film over at my place. For a limited-time screening! View it now!
And gentlemen in England now abedJesus, I thought she was a bit naff, but, wow...
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That piled on Shanti Carson on Unfogged.
she's kind of annoying (I'm sorry, Ms. Carson!), because her chronicle is approximately 98% about her self-satisfaction with her own fabulousness. Of course, she is fabulous--hot and fearless--and I do wonder why we're so insistent that people demonstrate humility.
Hey, when you figure out the answer to this, the world will be a much, much better place. As you know, part of why I refuse to be humble about my own incredible hotness and fabulosity is because I think the fake humility insistence is bullshit.
This is, of course, distinct from *actual* humility about things one really is bad at or can't do. But about the only place you see women being able to brag on their hotness is like if they're drunk off their asses and being filmed by some skeezy porn asshole like the GGW franchise. You can admit you're hot if you let yourself be humiliated for it, I guess. Guys can brag about their physical prowess but only (1) if they're gearing up for a game--and then it's about being "part of the team"--(2) as a joke.
how the world works based on how the world has worked for her
I got a peek inside that world while I was dating the hot but crazy blonde. People would just give her shit for free simply because she asked. It was pretty amazing to see it in action.
Also, ogged, points off for merely making explicit what was already contained in my use of the term "folk intuitions".
72: That might also be the crazy. If you ask for something unreasonable and don't look like you understand that you're unreasonable, people will give it to you, for fear that you might do something weird.
Obviously this whole issue is extra fraught for women, but most of us respond unfavorably to men who brag about their stupendous hotness, too, I think.
60: I anticipated that very objection!
First, I mostly think it's about the medium -- person diarizing into a camera. She might come off better if it wasn't so first-persony.
Second, the content is not exactly what I'm getting at. To me, her adventuring comes off as kind of touristic: I took myself to that place to make it reveal what I knew about it to me, and let me enjoy what I already know about myself within it. Sure, there's a little bit of conflict -- will the gay lumberjack want more Shanti? but mostly, it's a question of whether he'll appreciate the marvel that is Shanti or whether she'll have to move on to the next.
She can't stop pawing herself while she's telling the story. This is a clue to something.
This thread hasn't improved much since comment 6. I was going to threaten to argue that Shanti isn't really hot, just to rile up B., et al., but I see that 66 beat me to it.
I would actually say that she strikes me as real-life hot. Seeing top-model hot types IRL is a little weird, IME. But I've (relatively) often seen Shanti-hot types, and it's stunning. Probably because so much of the hotness is, in fact, radiating from within. The same face with a zoned-out expression and body with officebot slack* wouldn't be nearly so striking.
I've been told by people who met the Clintons in the 90s that they were both hot in person - obviously coming more from within than anything on the surface.
* Not slack-muscled, the slack carriage of the spiritually defeated.
Is this the thread where one asks what Ogged thought of Into Great Silence? It seems appropriate for some reason.
if one were genuinely satisfied with one's self, would one feel quite so compelled to prove it to the world?
This is also true, and is one reason why the very clever will actually be charmed by the vain person's modesty and willingness to entertain by playing the fool.
Anyway, being self-satisfied or vain or bragging is just fine, as long as it's fact-based and not without a sense of humor.
That was a quotation from The Waste Land, by the way. I'm very erudite.
I refuse to be humble about my own incredible hotness and fabulosity
But you are an immodest villain, not a self-satisfied hotbot.
Shanti, shanti, shanti.
The scientific name for gorilla is gorilla gorilla gorilla. According to the obscure fact book in our bathroom.
I take back the first part of 78, actually. It's picked up like hell.
75, 72: The chick who is my friend is not at all crazy, and (and this is my own prejudice, I guess) far, far nicer than I would expect someone that hot to be. She just isn't a bitch at all -- and I know from bitches. But people really just do things for her and give her things -- and I swear she doesn't "work it" at all; she's really naive -- and so she has, reasonably, come to the conclusion that the world works this way. That anyone, returning home from the airport via cab, has the cabbie insist on bringing your suitcases up 5 flights of stairs.
I have a full-blown U of C account, unmediated by CTS.
84: I think my reaction to Ms. Carson ("I dream big, play big, and laugh loud"? Seriously?) can be deduced from the fact that my favorite scene in IGS is the one where the monks go sledding.
Also, there's the fact that she's saying utterly banal things and seems to expect that they'll be interesting to a general public:
"What I really miss about being in a relationship is that physical intimacy."
If my friend is telling me that, I care about it because she's expressing her current state of mind. If some random stranger (even a hot one!) is telling me that, I'm like, well no shit.
I have to admit that because my connection isn't the swiftest, I'm not going to watch the videos.
89: Did you find "proxy it"? It's very useful, especially when doing Google searches and finding JSTOR articles that you would otherwise in order to read have to go back and find via the database rather than just clicking the button.
Also, related to 66, she didn't strike me as particularly self-satisfied either. Insecure but knew she was hott.
Of course, the girly, seductive energy of beautiful young women is simultaneously a truly valuable thing and a fabulous gift of nature, and also easily packaged and commodified in ways that seem to upset people. Including the possessors. It's a fine line to walk.
so much of the hotness is, in fact, radiating from within
This is right, and is much more hot than the other kind.
Heebie's movie is awesome. It's worth watching the slow one to see her try to escape from her chair.
91: Blume nails it. You can talk this way to people who love you and have reason to believe you and will be happy for you.
91: That's what I was thinking of in 51.
91: you're utterly missing the point. She's just seducing the viewer. Watching an attractive woman say "physical intimacy", especially combined with a coy little giggle, is in itself pleasurable.
Of course, this might be less obvious to a heterosexual woman.
especially combined with a coy little giggle
I haven't watched the video, but this sure sounds kind of noxious.
I like the slow one best! It's really just so great, and so amazing to keep it up for all those years. Heebie's parents clearly have admirable persistence. 1971-era Heebiemama also had fantastic quantities of quality hair!
Aw, Heebie, don't be falsely modest. I'm sure your coy little giggle is perfectly appropriate for your movie.
Nightgown is a better movie than the gay lumbo, as it has the elements of a joke, which I will spoil for you now.
The first two-thirds of the story are told in seductive close-up: she stays to the end of a party so the host will take her to bed. He offers her a nightgown, which she accepts. At this point, she stands up nude before the camera and walks away sultrily, with appropriate music.
She then reappears in a long, conservative nightgown with no music and harsh lighting, and explains that he gave it to her, went directly to sleep, and she kept the nightgown and never figured out why he had it in the first place.
Shanti thwarted: getting there.
I'm so immodest that I didn't even correct 95. (It's not me struggling out of the chair.)
98: This was the basis of a feud I had on my old blog with Rac/hel Kram/er Bus/sel from the VV. I couldn't figure out what the point of anything she wrote was. She wasn't being educational (in that she didn't seem to care about communicating anything sexually useful to the reader) and she wasn't titillating, as far as I could tell. It was mostly a diary of romantic interpretations of casual sex, much like Carson's videos. I said something about it on my blog, which she found, and wrote about on her blog, which led to all her rabid male fans writing rape-fantasies about teaching me a lesson I'll never forget on their blogs.
What I learned is that dudes find stuff like that pretty attractive.
104: it's not? I mean, there's two boys and a baby in the doorframe. Who is it?
"Tipping the chair over" may be more precise here. Were we talking about different scenes?
Watching an attractive woman say "physical intimacy", especially combined with a coy little giggle, is in itself pleasurable. Of course, this might be less obvious to a heterosexual woman.
It's not that it's less obvious to another woman, so much as it seems like a cheesily transparent ploy. It's kind of like asking the big strong man to help you with the mean old lid on the pickle jar, or expressing faux-surprise that your shirt went transparent in the rain.
I was trying to think of a way to say 107 without saying "I do too get it!
ProxyIt! works for me now. My life has changed.
Thanks, oudemia.
106: Oh, yeah. I thought you meant when the oldest helps the middle out of the high chair, before my time.
65 is right.
It's a common 'libertarian' trait, too. Also, see 'being really smart isn't admirable, in and of itself' [many comment threads, passim].
105: That's an unfair generalization of men. Most of us keep our rape fantasies to ourselves.
This was the basis of a feud I had on my old blog with Rac/hel Kram/er Bus/sel from the VV. I couldn't figure out what the point of anything she wrote was. She wasn't being educational (in that she didn't seem to care about communicating anything sexually useful to the reader) and she wasn't titillating, as far as I could tell
oh well done! Thank christ somebody else thought that about the unbeleeeevably overrated K-B. I used to read that column aghast, thinking "good God, this is Charles Pooter cut up with an anal sex instructional manual".
I got thirty seconds in before being annoyed with that twangy guitar music. There is pretty much a linear tradeoff between bust measurement and the crapness of music one's prepared to put up with.
I don't appreciate most of you hijacking this proxy-server thread.
and bphd's blogpost has convinced me to never ever look at a picture of a pretty woman again. And which of you is "Bear""
There is pretty much a linear tradeoff between bust measurement and the crapness of music one's prepared to put up with.
I knew a girl who listened to Ceca.
in ten yrs she 'll be old or dead
so why it's bad to celebrate herself now
Shanti is hot and deservingly
114: It should be said that although my comments were unfortunate in their various effects (RKB's feelings quite hurt, RKB's followers wildly angry, etc.), RKB was, in further communications, quite thoughtful and conciliatory. From her, I got the sense that she wasn't consciously trying to do the thing in 107.
115: That post is by M. LeBlanc.
I think people object to immodesty because your positive qualities are so rarely deserved. I'm sure 71 is entirely a tissue of lies, but even if it's true hotness and fabulousity are generally thrust upon one rather than acheived. Boasting doesn't bother me, though, because I am Enlightened.
in ten yrs she 'll be old or dead, so why it's bad to celebrate herself now. Shanti is hot and deservingly
Whoa, hang on there. That strikes me as a very tragic prediction that someone would have a shelf-life of ten years. But that's the whole damn problem, that she is celebrating nothing more interesting than youth and beauty.
What's so wrong with celebrating youth and beauty? I wish I'd known enough to celebrate such things before I got all old and haggard.
There is pretty much a linear tradeoff between bust measurement and the crapness of music one's prepared to put up with.
Ogged, does this hold true of BPL?
What's so wrong with celebrating youth and beauty? I wish I'd known enough to celebrate such things before I got all old and haggard.
Di, you're what, 35? And you consider yourself old and haggard? What about when you're 50? There's way too much non-youthful non-beauty amazing stuff out there to get hung up on the youthful beauty crap.
But that's the whole damn problem, that she is celebrating nothing more interesting than youth and beauty.
That's it. She's welcome to celebrate it, and others to celebrate it with her, but the whole thing is interesting only in a very limited space. It may be her apparent blindness to this fact that's annoying.
I just get the feeling that Carson is selling herself more than celebrating herself here, and that (to her credit) she's not particularly happy about that either.
107-108: sure, but transparent still works. I mean, it could be perfectly fun and flirtatious to play coy with your real boyfriend or husband about a pickle jar or a wet t-shirt. What makes the same ploys work with strangers is that they simulate the transparent childishness of real affection in relationships, which is what people are thirsty for.
105: yeah, exactly. Great post. I thought there was that flirtatious, exhibitionist quality to some of this "woman sex columnist" fad of a few years ago. BTW, sorry about the drunken call on New Years, I had every expectation we'd be there and then things completely switched around (but in a fine way, I had a great NYE). I'm in NYC a lot, buy you a drink sometime.
There is pretty much a linear tradeoff between bust measurement and the crapness of music one's prepared to put up with.
Tragically, dsquared has enormous manboobs and a love for lite jazz.
before I got all old and haggard
God damn it, Di, the curtain hasn't even opened on the second act yet. I'll hear none of it!
the curtain hasn't even opened on the second act yet.
When's interregnum?
When's interregnum?
Ben really has to pee but doesn't want to miss anything.
There's way too much non-youthful non-beauty amazing stuff out there to get hung up on the youthful beauty crap.
I think truly celebrating youth and beauty is fantastic. That is deservedly one of the central themes of art. Youth and beauty are inherently elitist, cruel, finite, limited, and undemocratic -- only a few have it, and then only for a while. But none of those things should stop us from celebrating them.
The problem to me is the distinction between true celebration, which has a certain kind of innocence and sincerity to it, and commodification or selling, which is distancing and alienating.
"Shortbus" was to me a more genuine celebration of sexuality, beauty, and youth. But it was still a pretty flawed, shallow, and limited movie because it didn't recognize the inherent limitations of the celebration of beauty and sexuality as a way of life.
131: second thursday in august, except on leap years.
When's interregnum?
Doesn't someone have to kill the king first?
71: You seem to be talking about faux humility that girls are conditioned to have, where they downplay their looks or talents. I agree that's annoying but that doesn't strike me as genuine humility at all. Humility seems to combine recognizing the value of beauty or intelligence or whatever with recognizing that one isn't really in a position to take sole credit for that. Faux humility seems to start by downplaying the value of it while retaining all the credit.
Humility seems to combine recognizing the value of beauty or intelligence or whatever with recognizing that one isn't really in a position to take sole credit for that. Faux humility seems to start by downplaying the value of it while retaining all the credit.
See, now this is the sort of elegantly symmetrical and incisive distinction that analytical philosophers are supposed to be all about.
128: The thing is, it could be a good thing to read women's experiences of sex, but all those narratives are very easily caught up in (a) validating patriarchal assumptions about women's experiences ("we really saw each other!!" etc.) or (b) pleasing male readers/viewers by advertising the sexual self as insecure and therefore attainable (as in RKB) or as otherwise wildly desirable. And because these are both so insidious, it is difficult to take any women's descriptions of sex as if they aren't succumbing to (a) and/or (b), which, to some degree, it's possible that they are, even unintentionally. At some point, the whole thing of women enjoying sex and talking about it threatens to dissolve into radfemism, and there is no way to talk about female desire and sexual agency without being pretty easily read as shittily self-congratulatory and, eventually, self-destructive.
And yes, call me if you're in NYC!
136: great comment. I think I'm going to add that to my personal stock of perceptive observations. I'll send you royalties when I use it though.
Faux humility seems to start by downplaying the value of it while retaining all the credit.
Dammit, I've worked hard to earn the right to be humble. Although I would like to than all the little people who have helped me improve my humility along the way. I would be somebody without them.
it's possible that they are, even unintentionally
I read myself and say, like, duh. We're all fallen creatures in a fallen world, etc.
136: No, I'm really not. I'm talking about the kind of humility that people have internalized *so strongly* that they truly think they're not good looking. The kind of humility we all had in high school--look back at pictures of yourself and see if you don't go, "jesus, I had no idea how beauiful I was"--and that too many of us don't grow out of even after we're through adolescence. It's so fucked up.
I still haven't outgrown, and I agree it's fucked up, but I ain't budging an inch on my high school pictures. They were pretty bad.
126, 130: Oh, I was just being hyperbolic. I am certainly older now than I was when I was younger than I am now... My point is just that youth had alot to offer -- energy, innocence, joints that didn't forecast rain -- and the fact that it is so fleeting is all the more reason to celebrate it while you can.
And yeah, I am haggard today. But that will go away once I stop being so damned hungover and I can get back to celebrating my ravishing good looks.
I am certainly older now than I was when I was younger than I am now.
*chinstroke*
get back to celebrating my ravishing good looks
This made me laugh.
Those of us who are not depressed are self-satisfied. Studies have been done showing that depressed people are much more accurate in rating their attractiveness than healthy people, who believe that they are more attractive than they actually are, and that people like them more than they actually do. I don't have a cite. My shrink told me.
depressed people are much more accurate in rating their attractiveness than healthy people, who believe that they are more attractive than they actually are
Something just seems wrong in defining the people with delusional impressions of their own attractiveness as the "healthy" ones.
139: I also sometimes wonder if there's something fundamentally false and incoherent about a narrative that makes sexuality about a quest for agency and individuality through discovery of ones capacity for pleasure, instead of about a search for connection with others. It always seemed to me is though that was the narrative line in all the "Sex and The City" type writing about sexuality. You encapsulate that well in 105 when you talk about "romantic interpretations of casual sex". The romance is the discovery of one's own independence through sexual adventure, it's a romance with one's self. But I think sex is a little too much about *need* for that. Pop culture has a hard time with neediness.
I've heard that, too, mcmc, but from a junior faculty, not a shrink. To see yourself as you really are is to become bummed.
Some earlier comments about exceptional beauty reminded me of a model I knew ages ago. She had a sort of ethereal beauty combined with a slightly broken/heroin chic look to her that would spin heads everywhere we went. And through modeling, people gave her amazing clothes, which didn't hurt, either.
Anyway, she once commented on all that like this, to best of my memory:
I hate it. It's like everyone I meet is instantly love with me, but it can't be with me, so it pisses me off. Sometimes I do ridiculous things just to see if people will put up with it. And they always do. Everybody wants me, but they don't really --- just what I can do for them.
Besides the self-absorbed part of all that, I could see what she meant. She was really quite a mess. But even though she saw that, she totally had the unrealistic world view that others mentioned here. And she relied on it.
The thing is, it's a perfectly reasonable world view for them. The world really does work like that, for them. Just not for everyone.
I've wondered if this is sort of what it's like to try and understand, say, life in my city if my skin was a different colour. Obviously my picture of the place is coloured by a million daily interactions etc. that are changes by others perception of me. I can't get rid of this any more than this girl can stop being gorgeous, and I can't effectively control for it in my model of the world.
145: Ah, but you were so much older then,
you're younger than that now.
To see yourself as you really are is to become bummed.
It's all a matter of perspective. I'm constantly being happily surprised that I'm not as ugly as I thought I was.
I've been trying to figure out what I don't like about self-satisfaction, and am thinking that it has to do with where one puts her attention. Like, Anand is really good at math. Really good. But he is not interested in appreciating his skills at math. He is interested in doing more math. Being self-satisfied means your interest got lodged in the wrong/boring part, even if it is also accurate. No one wants to hear faux-humility from Anand about math, 'cause that would be dumb. But he doesn't want to spend any time talking about his fiiiine math skillz, because they are self-evident and also time away from neato topics. (I defy your analogy ban!)
I am quite happy for beautiful people everyone to know they are beautiful. But if they think that is interesting for any extended length of time, I know that we aren't paying attention to the same things in the world.
By the way, the actual answer to Oggers' question is that this probably is one of the few things that does go back to the proverbial veldt. The difference between ordinary happiness and "self-satisfaction" in the pejorative sense is most likely that in the second case one's perceiving an implicit status-challenge - as in, some little one of Steven Pinker-da-Thinka's "modules" which is designed to pick up the signal "I think I'm better than you" (similar to the well-known hypothesised cheater-detector and also an important piece of communication for social animals to pick up) is giving its signal. I don't think that the resultant irrational envy is necessarily a particularly laudable emotion, but it's a bodily function, liking needing to go to the toilet, so we'd probably better learn to live with it (and also, not to set it off in others on purpose, which is the real moral basis of valuing humility).
The thing is, it's a perfectly reasonable world view for them. The world really does work like that, for them. Just not for everyone.
I'm conventionally pretty and when I was making weight for tkd, I could tell my weight to the half-pound by how weird men got around me. A fifty pound weight swing works fine to cure someone of the notion that it is how the world universally works or some response to one's personal goodness.
Something just seems wrong in defining the people with delusional impressions of their own attractiveness as the "healthy" ones.
No, it's the thin candy shell that keeps us from being crushed by the world's indifference.
The kind of humility we all had in high school--look back at pictures of yourself and see if you don't go, "jesus, I had no idea how beauiful I was"
This may be different for men.
I recently went back and looked at pictures of myself from High School. I looked twelve.
Those of us who are not depressed are self-satisfied.
Some of us are both. I think the connection is that depression is a natural consequence of a world that's bigger than the social part of our brains really is prepared to handle.
This has been your dose of EvPsych for the day.
155: But there's nothing *wrong* with saying, "fuck yes I'm good at X, and I happen to really enjoy that fact."
further to 156, note that the evidence that this is about body language and nonverbal communication is that it is perfectly possible to communicate self-satisfaction by showing evidence of a lack of ability or a flaw; one can certainly imagine a situation in which Megan's friend said "I am good at maths" without being self-satisfied, then I said "I am absolutely terrible at maths, ugly and slightly effeminate to boot", in a terribly self-satisfied manner.
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Aging sucks, and I am not even old, just that the warranty on my body seems to have expired.
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157 is very perceptive. For me, it's the difference between wearing makeup (everyone is nice) and not (I get asked if I'm hungover.)
I recently went back and looked at pictures of myself from High School. I looked twelve.
Exactly. And I bet you were freaking adorable. Hence teh patriarchy is bad for children, and I will always support PK's desire to paint his nails, have long hair, and love small cute things.
A fifty pound weight swing works fine to cure someone of the notion that it is how the world universally works or some response to one's personal goodness.
Denied. My adult weight has been 160 at the highest and 117 at the lowest, and I've gotten plenty of attention at both extremes.
by the way, since this is the self-satisfuckingfaction thread, I would like to point out that I've jogged 40km in the last three days - new years' resolutions, like a mother.
Steven Pinker pretty much defines the loathsmeness of the wrongly self-satisfied, which presumably is why dsquared mentioned him.
But there's nothing *wrong* with saying, "fuck yes I'm good at X, and I happen to really enjoy that fact."
Nope. Not at all. If it comes up. If he spent a lot of time dwelling on the topic and wanted to be sure that people knew that, and also wanted people to assign some special worth to him because of that, I'd wonder at his priorities.
"...that depressed people are much more accurate in rating their attractiveness than healthy people,"
See, see! I'm twice as humble as you will ever be, and it isn't even my fault. Not that you care, or anything.
I thought of answering w-lfs-n's "Shanti" with Lawrence singing on the box cars:"So pretty and witty & wise" but decided such an obscure reference would just show my plebe roots.
Watched this satire on supermodels a week or s ago. I liked it, thought it was funny & insightful & sad, but I like everything.
166: Really? I'd see that as kind of charming. I mean, if you can take for granted your talent, that's lovely and all, but there's a lot to be said for people who are frankly surprised and elated at being talented. I think in a way it speaks really well of one's actual humility to be both pleased by, and want credit for, being really good at something.
168: all the really good actors I know have exactly that quality.
168: Megan's talking about how much of a focus of one's life one's practical perfection in every single way becomes. A "fuck yeah, I rock math" now and then is fun, but I think it would grate quickly if it was out of proportion.
I've jogged 40km in the last three days
Behind on the car payments?
But there's nothing *wrong* with saying, "fuck yes I'm good at X, and I happen to really enjoy that fact."
I love this too, "A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even ... without any hope of doing it well."
157: Sure; I've noticed that about peoples reactions to me depend on both how conventionally/carefully I'm dressing and how fit I happen to be at the time (which has varied wildly).
With this girl though, it was like she lived in a different world. We were downtown once in late fall and under dressed (or gone fashionable but too light, perhaps). We were talking and shivering ... an older guy in a nice suit stops and chats for a moment, asks if she is cold, says "wait here, 5 minutes" and runs off. I thought he was going to bring us coffee or something. 15 minutes later he shows up and hands her a nice, brand new coat and just walks off, not accepting her attempt to refuse it. This sort of thing happened all the time. It was like most people who met her either wanted to marry her or adopt her.
But there's nothing *wrong* with saying, "fuck yes I'm good at X, and I happen to really enjoy that fact."
Sure, if it naturally comes up in conversation or whatever. If you engineer it into conversations often or I\if saying this is what people know about you though, it's at best boring.
Well, obviously people who are only interested in themselves are tiresome. But I thought we were talking about immodesty or self-satisfaction in and of themselves, rather than about narcissism generally.
all the really good actors I know have exactly that quality.
In a charming way?
175: I haven't figured out actors at all w/r/t self-presentation. Except perhaps to understand why they were denied Christian burials.
173: Man, imagine all the good she could do for the homeless with that talent! It could be a second job.
(But really, that sort of thing happening every day wouldn't be that great.)
Aren't really good actors charming by definition?
When I am 154 lbs, men walk off curbs because they are staring so hard, walk up to me, tug at my clothing and stand with their mouths open, clerks wave up to the front of the line and give me free stuff. Bus drivers stop the bus midblock to ask if they can take me anywhere. People constantly shout for me, wave me over to tell me I am so pretty, can I just please talk to them a while.
At 200 lbs, I am invisible.
I have no respect for either.
174: Ok, but I thought some of the distinction was being made on a different line. One that recognized that honestly both the help of others and some blind good fortune has a fair bit to do with anyones success. Pretending that it's all about you is immodest in a way that is annoying.
I've certainly never met anyone who was really first rate at anything who didn't also realize they owed some of it to other people, and some of it to good fortune. Most of them (and all of the best of them) realized this, unsurprisingly.
175, 178: yes. Or consider people like comedians whose talent can't exist without demanding attention.
179: see, it's the "I have no respect for either" in that post that comes across as perhaps a little self-satisfied, not any of the rest of it.
Aren't really good actors charming by definition?
Not necessarily in person. Many perfectly good professional actors I have known are completely insufferable. (Many also are not.)
Clearly the trick is to be more "genuinely balanced between humbler-than-thou and smugly self-satisfied" than thou.
Or at least to act as if.
177: Yeah, we joked about that a bit. On the other hand, both of us had been there, so it wasn't just ha-ha funny. Six months after that she was strung out and nearly on the street too. Sad girl.
Bob mcmanus,
have you got a fruit basket yet?
i got one and now i am afraid to write anything
coz there will be mistakes and/or i'll sound stupid etc
see i'm humbler than you :)
and modest, so that it's kinda challenging to find a thread here not challenging my modesty
180: Agreed. Important to distinguish between its being "all about you" in the sense that you, yourself, are damn happy to be this person at this time in this body vs. the sense that you yourself are the origin of all good things.
I didn't know how else to sum it up. Both ends of that are dumb, and getting both while being the same person disqualifies the reaction as being anything that is really about me.
(My two usual judgments on things are respect/disrespect and impressed/unimpressed, which I guess are pretty similar. So that was the close reach for me.)
The kind of humility we all had in high school--look back at pictures of yourself and see if you don't go, "jesus, I had no idea how beautiful I was"
Guffaw. I believe I've posted pictures of me in high school.
172:better.
Being humble about your awesomeness is like getting & being rich without greed. "But you see, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. I am but a mere custodian of the Hilton fortune."
The only ways to be humble are a) asocially,to be and have nothing, or b) socially, to be totally obedient & submissive
186: Indeed, and when you've spent a significant amount of time with truly narcissistic types, it can be awfully hard to remember that it's perfectly okay to be really happy with the person you are at this time and in this body and the opportunity to celebrate that, fuck, yeah, I'm a pretty damn terrific person is liberating. Exactly where the line lies between healthy self-confidence and narcissistic self-absorption, though, is difficult to articulate.
Those of us who are not depressed are self-satisfied. Studies have been done showing that depressed people are much more accurate in rating their attractiveness than healthy people, who believe that they are more attractive than they actually are, and that people like them more than they actually do. I don't have a cite. My shrink told me.
"Doc, sometimes I just think I'm ugly and nobody likes me."
"Well, my work here is done."
I actually think there's a kind of vanity and arrogance in wanting people to react to "the real you." I mean, who *ever* does that? We always react to our friends according, in part, to what they look like, how they treat us, the mood we ourselves are in. I know what you mean, Megan, but I dunno--I mean, if attention is enjoyable (which it is, when it's not obnoxious or scary or intrusive), then it's enjoyable, right? Regardless of whether it's "real"?
b) is not in my nature
i'm a)
but it's a hard path :( coz i like fun
191: One of my bottom line detectors for that difference is, does the person in question actively lie about things? (Whether consciously or no.) When you get stories about oh what happened in X situation was this, and then the other people who were around give you a completely different take on the event, then you should be worried and start backing away.
I've jogged 40km in the last three days
Holy shit, that's like... 50 miles or something.
195: Unless all your friends tend to be on psychotropics. Of course, then you have different problems, most likely.
196: Only insofar as 50 miles is like 30 miles.
Only insofar as 50 miles is like 30 miles.
50 miles is a lot more like 30 miles than it is like, e.g., a pineapple.
30 miles is still completely amazing. You should totally be bragging on it, Heebie.
198: And 50 mile is like 30 miles in the sense that both represent distances that some of us are exceedingly unlikely to run in the span of three days.
True. Running 40 pineapples is, at best, confusing.
And rarely occurs outside the Running of the Pineapples in Pamplona.
If dsquared keeps it up he'll be finished with the marathon any day now.
More like 26 (although since my actual unit is the circumference of Regent's Park, it's more like 24 since I tended to rather spot myself a couple of short cuts on the longer days).
Consider the message which a lot of people take away from American foreign policy and French cultural export promotion:
"You care what I think about you, but I do not care what you think about me; this shows that I am superior to you in a hierarchy that you have accepted"
It's also what's annoying about telling black people how articulate they are, about telling fat chicks how much you dig fat chicks, and about nearly all of these awkward situations where we want to tell people they've Done Something Bad but can't quite explain what that thing is.
You can walk 35 miles in a day over rough terrain, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
One hopes there's still a volunteer left to hand him one of those shiny blankets.
Oh, wait, it's D2 who ran 30 miles in 3 days? D2, I thought *you* prided yourself on sitting on your ass being a lazy bastard. I'm disappointed. And yet intrigued.
30 miles is still completely amazing. You should totally be bragging on it, Heebie.
I haven't run any miles or pineapples yet this year.
What about kilometers? Have you run any of them?
There's nothing wrong, as has already been said, about believing one is good at something [or one is pretty hot, or whatever]. It's perfectly possible to think that way and not be a tool about it.
It's just that often that sort of belief does go along with toolishness.
So I come home, go into the living room, and my wife and her gf are watching Shortbus -- it's late in the film and they just say "you'll have to watch the whole thing, it's too hard to explain". I sit and watch for a moment, then the movie skips, freezes, and finally the DVD player goes back to its boot screen showing the message: "The disc is dirty".
And how.
and finally the DVD player goes back to its boot screen showing the message: "The disc is dirty".
And then, even though I never thought this would happen to me, ...
213: IIRC, they improvised most of it. Not sure if that includes the sex scenes.
It's just that often that sort of belief does go along with toolishness.
That's the problem with strong correlates.
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That nutty Scottish "ba'" game we were talking about the other day sounds remarkably like Spartan Mad Ball, a game played once a year at St. John's in Annapolis, which manages to send a couple of students to Anne Arundel Co. Hospital -- if not Shock Trauma in Baltimore -- each time.
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And then, even though I never thought this would happen to me, ...
they started to talk about the Driver-Schuler exchange on modesty.
And then, even though I never thought this would happen to me, ...
they started to talk about the Driver-Schuler exchange on modesty.
And then, even though I never thought this would happen to me
...my wife said "oh, can you do that thing you're so good at?" so I took the DVD out of the player, washed it carefully, and put it back in so they could finish their movie. Pretty hot, huh?
It's also what's annoying about telling black people how articulate they are, about telling fat chicks how much you dig fat chicks, and about nearly all of these awkward situations where we want to tell people they've Done Something Bad but can't quite explain what that thing is.
Perceptive.
What about kilometers? Have you run any of them?
The pointy kind that grows on pineapple trees?
220: so I took the DVD out of the player, ...
[deletia]
... washed it carefully, and put it back in so they could finish their movie. Pretty hot, huh?
"You care what I think about you, but I do not care what you think about me; this shows that I am superior to you in a hierarchy that you have accepted"
Really interesting gloss.
more than some of us are exceedingly unlikely to run in the span of three days
It's more than some of us desire to run over the span of the rest of our lives.
dsquared has told us before of the familial trait that confers the ability to be a fat lump but nevertheless puff round an unfeasibly long run.
Probably evolved on the Welsh veldt.
it's actually spurred by the familial trait of dying really young, which has been much in evidence this winter. I am now the oldest male on my father's side to the family (and thus presumably succeed to the baronial estates, after a short but bloody feud against some second cousins or something) and thus, it has become Do Something About The Fitness Thing time.
this is another reason why a man might boast about his jogging achievement, btw; it might be part of a plan to shoot his mouth off so comprehensively that when the pain and boredom sets in, the embarrassment of having to admit that one gave up becomes the spur to continue as it is more painful than the actual pain. just sayin
Well, this is somewhat related in terms of saying I'm good at something- I'm being torn by an offer at a new job and a counteroffer at my current place. This situation involves two things I hate- self-promotion and making a very significant essentially irreversible decision.
Total benefits + salary equal since counteroffer essentially matches new offer (current job = a couple K higher due to higher health insurance costs at new place)
Current place- More interesting technology but higher risk, much larger potential long-term payoff (partially vested options plus they threw me another load in the counteroffer), more precisely matches my qualifications- I'm respected for what I know here.
New place- non-profit instead of EEEEVIL corporation, more management responsibility = better for career advancement, more job security.
Not that I expect sage advice without details*, I just thought I'd complain- I realize having two good options is a nice situation to be in, I just hate making decisions.
*Except for Heebie and Jammies, whom I gave details between dinner and the party, they need to decide my future.
Oh, and new place probably has much less time for reading blogs.
227: Huh. Under that theory, I should be mentioning that I plan to be fluent in Spanish by this time next year. And also that yo tengo un boligrapho azul.
might be part of a plan to shoot his mouth off so comprehensively that when the pain and boredom sets in, the embarrassment of having to admit that one gave up becomes the spur to continue as it is more painful than the actual pain. just sayin
Yeah, been there. Have currently promised Mrs nattarGcM that I'll lose 10 kilos by the start of March. With the intention that her ridicule if I fail will be a spur to actually manage it.
192: Oh, why do you hate me, Roth? There must be something wrong with you.
232: That's awfully fast, isn't it?
So, SP, it's evil corporation vs. non-profit; blog-time vs. weaning from blog. This boils down, then, to whether you are willing to sell your soul for Unfogged.
And how much will Unfogged pay for my soul?
We'll waive the membership fees for this year.
Sorry about the people dying, dsquared. I promise to laugh only a little if you die of a heart attack while jogging.
New place- non-profit
Just make very, very sure that it's a sane non-profit. For too many non-profits are seriously disfunctional.
Beyond that, I would ask, when you say that the current job matches your qualifications, does the new job (a) match your skills or (b) include skills that you want to learn? If so, that would seem like a positive for the new job, as much as for the current job.
re: 236
Not really. It's about 2lbs a week [give or take a bit]. Which, from past experience, is realistic for me without any kind of draconian diet. In the past I've found I lose at least 3lbs a week for the first month or so.
It does mean sticking to a sensibly managed diet and exercise for the whole 9 weeks, though. I won't be deeply annoyed if I miss it. I just want to be in the ballpark.
232: That's awfully fast, isn't it?
Well, it's not widely known that ttaM weighs 300 kilos, and travels around Britain in a personalized freight car.
might be part of a plan to shoot his mouth off so comprehensively that when the pain and boredom sets in, the embarrassment of having to admit that one gave up becomes the spur to continue as it is more painful than the actual pain. just sayin
Thesis: Almost nobody ever achieves any significant personal change unless it's a) fun b) relieves misery (which might as well be (a) ) or c) uses the above approach.
Eh, I've never actually intentionally lost weight -- I had a vague impression that much faster than a pound a week was somewhere in between unlikely and a bad idea, but I have no idea what that's based on.
re: 244
That's a secret. [Ok, it's more like 100kgs and it's a 10 year old Volkswagen, but the principle is the same]
241- Well, I suppose I'm not outing myself too much more if I say that this is the nonprofit. A little egotistical, with a lot of former industry people, but generally seems sound.
As for new skills- my main concern is the management thing- I don't have much experience in that, and it's something I want/need to learn. However, if it turns out I suck this is a bad position in which to find out because they're giving me a lot of responsibility with the power to screw up a lot of other people. I have this paranoia that I'm the Peter principle in action.
You see my problem with self-promotion.
re: 246
Yeah, conventional wisdom is that between 1 and 2lbs a week is about the maximum sustainable loss. However, from anecdotal evidence [friends, girlfriends, self] it tends, even without drastic measures, to start off a bit quicker than that and then tail off.
I don't have much experience in that, and it's something I want/need to learn.
Take the job. That was easy.
235: Oh, why do you hate me, Roth? There must be something wrong with you.
mcmc, if you'd just get off your meds, you'd know that you richly deserve my hatred.
251: I'm way too normal to believe that.
I dunno, SP. "Human gene count tumbles again?" "ALTERING THE FINGERPRINT OF CANCER?" Sounds like some sort of scam.
SP, if you take this job and cancer isn't cured, we'll know who to blame.
252: Your shrink and I disagree. I guess there's nothing we can do about your overweening self-satisfaction.
Hey, related to the cartoon that B linked at her place: didn't Wiener once link to a heart-breaking cartoon about Bert and Ernie and Jim Henson's death?
if it turns out I suck this is a bad position in which to find out because they're giving me a lot of responsibility with the power to screw up a lot of other people. I have this paranoia that I'm the Peter principle in action.
Hey, if you get a promotion and it turns out that you suck in your new job, it could still take a good year for your superiors to formally ascertain that, by which time you will have had ample opportunity to comment on unfogged, and you walk away with a severance package. Err, not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything.
254: Also, if he fails to take the job and cancer isn't cured.
No pressure, SP.
SP, how well do you know Dr L/ander? Seeking out someone who used to work for him but doesn't anymore might be worthwhile.
SP, if you take this job and cancer isn't cured you make a virus that kills damn near all of us and turns the rest of us into hyperaggressive zombies, we'll know who to blame.
Take the job SP. They could use your easy access to hockey sticks next time there's a brawl with Whitehead.
232: With the intention that her ridicule if I fail will be a spur to actually manage it.
In the same vein I have tried:
1) Adamantly overriding my wife and buying the dress pants for the future event a size too small.
2) Assuming that being reduced to a humiliated mass of quivering, panting jello on the racquetball court twice a week will be adequate motivation.
Some results: 1) Just imagine. 2) Torn ACL.
But delusion hope springs eternal. 10 kilos by March sounds like a worthy goal, so I will take it on as well. What's that, about 6 pounds, right?
didn't Wiener once link to a heart-breaking cartoon about Bert and Ernie and Jim Henson's death?
It's the top post at his old blog right now.
He's not losing kilometers, JP. 13.2 pounds.
Back to the Shanti Carson video for a second: nobody seems to have remarked specifically the amazing pimp slap-worthiness of the line "Hawaii was really intense... I sort of needed a vacation from my vacation," which is the point where I stopped watching. And put a brick through the monitor.
re: 261
22 lbs, but then, you knew that.
10 kilos? Why that's little more than one and a half stone!
You know, way back in the thread there were a couple of stories about women who were so beautiful that people stopped them on the street to tell them how pretty they were, bought them expensive stuff pretty much at random, etc. It has just occurred to me that I'm more confused by the people doing the stopping/buying than anything else. That is, this is framed as behavior distinct from basic sexual harassment--we here at Unfogged pretty much usually agree that sexual harassment is at least as much about power and being an asshole as it is about the extraordinary attractiveness of the woman being hassled. (Right? Right?)
So here we are with a different narrative, that in some cases beauty is so compelling as to, er, compel behavior that borders on harassment but isn't hostile. What about that?
And who does it? How does it work that you are so stunned by a stranger's beauty that you will do pretty much anything for even the briefest and most trivial contact with them? That's so weird.
And I say this as one who has to be very careful to keep from being the creepy customer because she is so gobsmacked by a particular barista. (A lovely girl, age- and affectional-preference- appropriate, but far punker than I was at my most punk rock, and hence out of my league socially.) That is, I'm familiar with being a bit smitten.
I sort of needed a vacation from my vacation
I too cringe at things like this, but I wonder if disdain for hackneyed phrases is needlessly elitist.
And put a brick through the monitor.
Sounds like somebody needs a vacation from his vacation.
268: Who would have thunk? Google does units
Clearly the commentariat's homework for tonight should be SI to Imperial conversion factors.
I wonder if disdain for hackneyed phrases is needlessly elitist
Is there such a thing as being needfully elitist? (Honest question, I think, unless I'm missing something terribly obvious.)
Yeah, google does all sorts of conversions; currency, too.
When the peasants wipe snot on their shirts, and I beat them for it, that's needfully elitist.
258- I had a 30 minute meeting with him as part of my interview, and it turns out he lives down the street from me and we went trick-or-treating at his house. But I wouldn't be working directly under him, the position's not quite that high. My potential boss comes recommended from a former coworker. (Former coworker used to work with potential boss, then worked with me, now works with potential boss again, was the person who told them to chase me.)
259- Actually more likely in my grad school work, but it didn't happen- that would have made a great paper.
275: Also, explaining to people why they're stupid.
270: Well, it wasn't my monitor.
It's not the hackneyed nature of the phrase so much as the way it evokes "mindless jerk who'll be among the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
273: Is there such a thing as being needfully elitist?
Sure, insofar as having any kind of social, aesthetic, political etc. standards is unavoidable and necessarily going to result in the existence of people better and worse at conforming to the standard.
Indeed, Google does all conversions- it will convert 40 rods per hogsead into miles per gallon (although they may have specially included that because they're nerds who watch the Simpsons.)
267: In the case of the girl I was talking about, I don't think it was simple beauty. I think it was the combination of exceptional beauty and a sense of fragility and brokenness. People wanted to save her from the world, or something.
At least that's the only context I could make sense of it. Because exactly like you said, it's pretty weird. She'd regularly get the more standard sort of sexual harrassment, but maybe amped up a bit from most experience due to mostly rich/powerful, mostly men propositioning her by social signaling (let's go for dinner tonight --- in Paris) because they wanted arm candy.
Having only watched the Gay Lumberjack one, I must say this woman is exceedingly annoying.
Ms. Carson, please stop playing with your dress as if you are three years old and have to pee you just discovered the fabulous feel of cotton you are about to shrug it off and have sex with the cameraman. k? thnx
Google has included a lot of things because they're nerds.
The special header image for NYE was in honor not just of the new year, but also the 25th anniversary of tcp/ip.
279: Well it does furlongs/fortnight too, so probably not just Simpsons references. (firkins per fortnight as well, so it handles the FFF system of units admirably)
Plus, the line about how if she goes to the gay bar that "someone will make an exception" for her. The height of self-satisfaction is "I can make him switch teams. Watch." Gah. So annoying.
Plus, have we never heard of bisexuality? Just because he'll do you doesn't mean you've brought him back from the scrotum-filled abyss of homosexuality.
"And who does it? How does it work that you are so stunned by a stranger's beauty that you will do pretty much anything for even the briefest and most trivial contact with them? That's so weird."
Comparable perhaps to the times you meet someone so morally good you would follow them to the desert, that is, very very rare. But it happens. It is a kind of charisma, way beyond mere beauty or attraction.
Maybe three times in my life I've had to resist the compulsion to throw myself at someone's feet. As someone who considers himself impervious to charm I found it is interesting to lose control.
How does it work that you are so stunned by a stranger's beauty that you will do pretty much anything for even the briefest and most trivial contact with them?
I'm theorizing here, because I haven't run into this behavior in person (not only have I never been that pretty, I don't think I know anyone that pretty), it's some sort of brokenly intensified version of the chivalrous behavior pattern that leads men to hold doors for attractive women. "Oh, look, a woman. I indicate that I have noticed that this woman is female by doing her a small service without asking for anything concrete in return, viz., holding a door open for her. OMG, look at that woman over there!?!!!11!ONE! Um, what do I do to indicate that I've really intensely noticed that she's female and attractive? I suppose I should do her a larger service, like buying her an unsolicited coat."
having any kind of social, aesthetic, political etc. standards is unavoidable and necessarily going to result in the existence of people better and worse at conforming to the standard
Certainly; this moves beyond simply conforming to standards and becomes elitist when? When the standards in question are elitist ones? I mean, it's surely not the case that any and all cringing at those who conform poorly constitutes elitism.
(I should apologize, I'm doing several things at once and shouldn't comment with only half my attention.)
232: I think we might have the makings of a bet here.
285: wow, that is pretty inane.
I used to know a (very pretty) guy who would occasionally sleep with girls who played this game (He's only gay because he hasn't had great sex yet) every once in a while just so afterward he could tell them it was worth a shot, he guessed, but not as good as he'd hoped.
Have we got an overweight Irishman to round the bet out a bit?
scrotum-filled abyss of homosexuality.
That ought to be *someones* rollover text. Just saying.
291: We have a fat Englishman, anyway.
I have been known to agree to do things (and actually do them) when asked by a pretty girl or one in whom I'm interested which I would not have done on my own accord or if asked by someone else pretty much just as often as such requests are made, and probably have done plenty of foolish things for similar reasons—but not, I think, for strangers.
this moves beyond simply conforming to standards and becomes elitist when?
Roughly:
a) When it's being viewed by those who don't conform to the standard;
b) When the standard in question is itself pectacularly unnecessarry, over-specialized or otherwise depraved;
c) When it's being done by latte-drinking liberals.
Way back in the day, a friend and I were at a restaurant and noticed the most beautiful woman either of us had ever seen (sitting with her husband and kid). We all left around the same time and we decided to just follow them. It sounds insanely creepy but she was that beautiful and sometimes you leave rational calculation behind.
re: 289
I might be up for that [with reservations since the target is quite hard]
267: For me (and mine only lasted a few weeks twice a year as I got close to middleweight. Even a few pounds more and it eased up.) there was no buying expensive stuff. We were on a college campus. But people who could easily do small stuff (like not ring up most of my items) did it.
Who? An unpredictable subset of men, which I guess maps to people who like my physical type. I didn't really see patterns, although homeless men and black men were more vocal about it.
What it felt like is that they all needed attention and that attention from a pretty person was a more concentrated hit. It didn't feel like sexual harassment (which frequency doesn't vary with my weight) but more innocent and needy. So they just wanted me to engage, smile, look at them, listen. Contra Bitch, who seems very comfortable with it, I felt like I was getting consumed by their need for attention. The demand was infinite, but I just wanted to walk to class.
(Actually, walking with the baby nephews is a very interesting variant on this. The people who just want to gaze on beauty watch them. The people who want it to be adult female beauty check my face. I'm not at that weight though, so their gaze doesn't get stuck.)
I wonder if disdain for hackneyed phrases is needlessly elitist.
Setting aside the fascinating discussion of the social value of elitism, I've been struck over the last few years by a couple things related to this:
A surprising number of people really seem to talk almost exclusively in hackneyed phrases. This comes in two flavors - old chestnuts and pop culture- but either way it seems to betray an actual lack of thought, as when the phrases are misused (not misspoken, but actually used to mean what they do not).
My toddler daughter picks up a surprising number of advanced-for-her-age phrases/cliches.
People from certain subcultures (parts of working class NYC, middle class African-American) use a lot of cliches, but very effectively.
My takeaway from that is that this is perfectly natural human behavior, but that it's arrested in our broader culture, which has become more passive and thus doesn't cultivate thoughtful speech. The more-effective subcultures I've seen seem to have retained the kind of verbal interactions that were the norm before mass-media, whether through more intense social interaction or a still-strong rhetorical tradition. On the more-educated levels, you see a hint of this in the way that educated Brits seem smart to educated Americans - they're still (I'm given to understand) doing the kind of debate/public speaking stuff in school that we've abandoned.
Point being, we all use our cliches, the smarter of us use more varied or more advanced ones, those of us who have the right environment deploy them more aptly, but there's nothing inherently ignorant about cliche-utterance.
287:LB has it pretty well. I don't think it is very sexual, and I would be surprised if women & gays are unaffected by the preternaturally beautiful. It is like the "Archaic Bust of Apollo"...ya gotta do something.
"Professor Richard Wiseman says that a charismatic person has three attributes[4]:
they feel emotions themselves quite strongly;
they induce them in others;
and they are impervious to the influences of other charismatic people. " ...wiki, on charisma.
Like I said, I have only encountered a half dozen people who can walk into a crowded room of strangers, smile, and make everybody excited & happy. I presume Ghandi was one. RFK in 68.
We all left around the same time and we decided to just follow them. It sounds insanely creepy but she was that beautiful and sometimes you leave rational calculation behind.
I will occasionally change direction on the sidewalk in thrall to a particularly striking woman. Relating to Megan's notion that attention from a pretty woman is like a hit of a drug, I'd say that there are times when seeing a gorgeous woman is visceral (not sexual per se) - even a glance in a passing car will stick with me for awhile, and trailing behind for a block or two can last for an hour. Probably marginal behavior, but hey, on the veldt....
My toddler daughter is insanely vivacious and engaging, so I get to witness this phenomenon from alongside, but I, of course, am utterly invisible (I've never noticed the alleged phenomenon of men getting "credit" for solo parenting in public, but that may be my own cluelessness).
...and I do wonder why we're so insistent that people demonstrate humility...
300 comments and not one instance of the word "jealous." OK, I'm jealous. Unlike y'all of course!
I for one am shocked that someone with that much conspicuous ink would be a self proclaimed badass.
That's funny; it seems as if it would be exactly what one would expect.
300:Like I said, the movie Stardom seemed pretty good on this. The supermodel protagonist was just one among many pretty women, but as one of the more perceptive commenters said, she had the advantage(?) of a "lack of a moral center". IOW, a sociopath. It made her inexplicably more attractive.
See 300 3rd characteristic "...impervious etc" Course, I think Ghandi was a sociopath.
And yeah, JRoth talking about children seems on-topic to me, in that the innocence and narcissism (with awareness & perception?) is among what interests and attracts socialized adults, often in a pre-conscious way.
Ms. Carson, please stop playing with your dress as if you are three years old and have to pee you just discovered the fabulous feel of cotton you are about to shrug it off and have sex with the cameraman. k? thnx
I've been in a small room with Barack Obama and a medium-sized one with Clinton, and Clinton had vastly more charisma. Hardly fair, but still.
302:Of course, I get all my schtick from Wiki, which talks about humility being a subset of temperance, and the inappropriate expression of desires; "false humility" being just another inappropriate expression of the craving for praise or adulation. That is a social virtue, and the balance of celebrating one's gifts & talents while accepting that they are dependent & contingent is just more socialization in our anti-ascetic age.
Humility as an anti-social virtue, a personal virtue, might look like how the Buddhists define humility, in terms of worthlessness & lowliness.
98% about her self-satisfaction with her own fabulousness weed
40 km in three days? That's like eating a pineapple every 2.75 hours, 26.2 times in a row.
294: b) When the standard in question is itself pectacularly unnecessarry, over-specialized or otherwise depraved
Well, yes: I suppose my interest in the question had to do with the fact that since the term "elitism" carries a negative connotation, (most? all?) instances of it are necessarily unnecessary. No matter.
Re: men who inspire acts of kindness from strangers, or near strangers, the only one I've known, a grad school friend, was attractive, yes, but not breathtakingly so. Rather, he was charming beyond belief: that is, nobody found his charm cloying, or false. It was fascinating: he listened, smiled, was completely engaged with anyone he spoke with. Remembered your name and everything you'd spoken of in the past.
The result was that people offered him spare tickets to events, or asked him to a dinner party after having met him only once, or contacted him to see if he might need the extra bookshelf they had no use for. Amazing: I concluded that it was because they just wanted to do something for him. I've never seen anything like it.
But this is not quite akin to acts of kindness for a simply beautiful woman.
SP--Before you linked, I was going to ask you if the new job was at the place we'd talked about at Charlie's. I hope you'll still be able to make it to meetups and that you and arthegall won't have to duke it out, even if you can't read blogs.
I've wondered about this business of having people, primarily men, do nice things. I'm cute, and I still look quite young, so I must have looked really young when I was finishing college. I remember being in New York for some sort of job interview and having a hotel person (busboy?) offer to get me a cab. I didn't have spare money to tip him with, so I felt bad. I felt like I was sort of abusing him. He did ask what I was in town for, so I figure that I looked like a clueless tourist with my bag and all.
My father told me that he was probably just being protective of a youngish girl. I try not to take advantage of this, but if I'm alone in a strange city, it's awfully nice to have people look out for you a bit. I just sort of wonder when that will cease to be an option. I usually try very hard to hide that sort of vulnerability in public--particularly in a city--because I have this irrational fear that if people realize that I'm a tourist or just not from there that I'll get mugged.
312: I'm in nothing like the league of my friend mentioned above (Foreign men get her visas so that she can go work in their country and jobs when she doesn't speak the language! It is awesome!), but my favorite story of trading on cute girldom was the time I emerged from the State St. subway in Chicago into pouring rain. I cursed. Immediately an umbrella appeared above my head. "Where's your office?" said the handsome older man who was no doubt all of 32. The guy walked me to my lobby, wished me a good day, and off he went. No cheezy come ons or number requests. I still find this pretty classy.
I still find this pretty classy.
I too am a sucker for this sort of shit.
I'm in the middle of the thread - just want to implore everyone to see Heebie's video while it's still up. Thank you.
I'm cute, and I still look quite young
Absolutely. I just wanted to agree with this comment about BG.
I am now the oldest male on my father's side to the family
Jesus Chris, D^2, aren't you about 30 or something? Take care of yourself.
We have a fat Englishman, anyway.
I can lose 30 pounds in 9 weeks easily. I just can't keep it off without living like a penitent monk.
On topic, I think Megan@155 has it right. I'm quite sure BG is cute and young looking if she says so. But she only says so because it illustrates a broader point, so she isn't being obnoxious about it.
I happen to work with an eyewateringly beautiful woman. Seriously, if-I-posted-a-picture-here-it-would-lead-to-an-obnoxious-500-comment-thread- and-who's-Jessica-Alba-anyway hot. She must be aware that she's a danger to traffic when she walks down the street. BUT. She could make a lot more money than she does by trading on it, and cause resentment among her male colleagues. She could get the blokes to do everything and put her feet up, causing resentment among her female colleagues. But since she simply gets on with quietly doing a good job and being a good team member, everybody's fond of her and nobody much notices how she looks any more. How much better is that?
All of you Pinker haters are just jealous of his place as the charter member of Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists.
Cntrl F tells me this hasn't been discussed in comments---is she part South Asian, or were her parents hippies? Her website isn't illuminating.
You mean because of her name? I'm guessing hippie parents.
Probably her parents were hippies. That was the case with the only person I've met named Shanti (who is a guy, and is also known to another occasional Unfogged commenter).
