And I think one way to get
people up a level is through humor.
Particularly satire but just blustering will do.
[From Bill Powers (2007.08.21.1045 MDT)]
Rick Marken (2007.08.21.0900) –
I don’t recall humor as being one of the intrinsic error signals. When
you use humor, you amuse mainly those who are already on your side; the
ones you’re mocking or ridiculing treat it as an attack, and what they do
in return is not likely to be funny. The only people who will go up a
level when made fun of are those who like you already, and want to please
you, and thus try to overcome their fear or embarrassment and avoid doing
anything that moves you to humor. Hostile humor is simply hostile; you
may think it’s funny, but the victim doesn’t.
When you try to make someone else reorganize, the first thing you have to
do is cause error in that person. You can say, “I’m doing this for
your own good,” but the other person will not believe you. When
humor is used as a weapon, its entertainment value shrinks to zero for
the person it is being used against. It’s simply a way of causing
suffering. Certain other people, of course, enjoy seeing someone suffer,
particularly if they can tell themselves that the other person is bad and
deserves it. That’s the main rationalization that torturers and bullies
use, isn’t it? They keep telling us that those prisoners down in
Guantanamo are the worst of the worst terrorists, so dangerous they have
to be kept in chains and under physical restraint whenever they’re
outside their cages. They deserve any discomfort we want to give them,
right?
Torture does work: it makes people reorganize whether they want to or
not.Is that your plan?
We’ve been
assuming
that “pushing” leads only to “pushing back”. But when
the pushing
points out foolishness or error it can lead to reorganization, as it
did when you “pushed” me into seeing that my framing of the
problem
with psychological research in terms of IV-DV was wrong (after an
initial period of pushing back against your criticisms); and the
result was a reorganization of my thoughts that led to a much
improved
paper.
Did I do that by using humor to make you feel small and ridiculous for
having mistaken IV-DV for stimulus-response? Did I call you names for
being so wrong?
This is why I
think consistently “pushing” against selfish and
destructive ideas using facts and humor can lead to reorganization.
It can, but the error that is driving the reorganization is not the one
you hope it will be. It’s their error, not yours. The outcome of the
reorganization is likely to be a more effective way of counteracting your
desires, or getting rid of you. Reorganization by someone else does not
correct your errors; it corrects the errors that the other person is
experiencing. What you want to happen is irrelevant.
When you push against others to make them change, you forget that from
their standpoint, you are the one making the mistake and being selfish,
wanting everything your way. When you find the system concept point of
view, it no longer matters who is right or who did what. What matters is
what is wrong with the system and what can be changed to fix it, whether
the change occurs in someone else or in you. Since you are equipped to
make changes only in your own organization, that is where the most useful
reorganization will always occur. That’s true of everyone. The internal
reorganization processes in the White House cadre made the changes we
have seen happening. That’s the only possible place those changes could
have been made. We still don’t know exactly what the changes were – all
we see are the outward signs and overt actions. I think it would be a
good idea to try to find out.
Do you think
Bush liked seeing himself portrayed as
Alfred E. Neuman, or as a stupid monkey? Do you think he wasn’t
embarrassed
by seeing his own mangled language in print, or hearing it quoted on
comedy
shows?
I don’t know whether he cares or not but, fortunately, someone is
portraying him that way. That’s a wonderful
thing.
So what you’re saying is “I don’t know and I don’t care.” If he
suffers, good, he deserves to suffer. His suffering doesn’t
matter.
And that’s why
I
will continue to make fun of selfish and destructive ideas in this
forum. Most people who hold such ideas will push back – anyone who
holds such ideas is not going to be able to go up a level anyway –
but I think it’s important to keep making fun of these ideas, just
so
that we know that we can. Humor is like the miner’s canary;
once
those in power start trying to prevent it then you know fascism is,
indeed, in the air. But as long as I can say "Bush and his cronies
are
the biggest idiots, the most corrupt leaders and the ugliest, most
hypocritical, genocidal farts to ever have held office" without
the
secret police showing up, I’ll know things are still OK in the
USA.
So as long as things are OK for you, if I understand what you’re saying,
it doesn’t matter that they aren’t OK for Bush and the people who support
him. Is it OK if Bush and his supporters adopt the same principle with
respect to you and those who agree with you? Or do you say that you don’t
have to be fair, so he doesn’t have to be fair, either? I don’t see
exactly the principles that you’re offering here.
Best.
Bill P.