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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Responsibility and blame
Message-ID: <1353@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 23:14:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1353
Posted: Sun Jul 28 23:14:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 01:16:51 EDT
References: <750@ihuxa.UUCP> <1637@hao.UUCP> <882@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <287@tove.UUCP>
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>>The idea that you yourself cause your emotions is quite obviously wrong,

> Did you ever hear the one about the mathematician who put a complicated
> theorem on the board, claiming it was obvious?  He then looked at it,
> left the room, and came back two hours later with forty five pages of
> proof saying "I was right, it is obvious!"  :-)
> 
> I don't consider the statement "you yourself cause your emotions" to be
> "quite obviously" wrong, and in fact I consider it "quite obviously" correct!
>  [BRUCE ISRAEL]

I take it you're a mathematician.  (That's one of my favorite jokes, by the
way.)

> After all, these emotions don't come from anywhere external to
> your physical being, so obviously they must stem from you internally.

Huh?  Where else do you get the way you react to your experiences if not
from your own life experiences, which are certainly external and certainly
beyond your control?  I know the school that claims "you are in control
of how you react to experiences and thus in control of emotions".  Only
people who have LEARNED that way of dealing with experiences deal with them
that way.  Yes, it is a very good and very rational way of dealing with
experiences (not pinning your preconceptions on them, not reacting in
preconceived ways, not being hurt when the world doesn't live up to your pre-
conceived expectations, etc.), but it is NOT a universal, it is a learned way
of dealing with emotions.  A very good way, perhaps, but not one that everyone
has learned.  Thus, not everybody has control of their emotions.

>>	One problem with taking it literally and believing it is that
>>then you may start blaming other people for their emotions, excessively.

> Well, if you are on a *blame* trip, yeah, but then again you can blame
> absolutely anyone for absolutely anything, without regard to rhyme or
> reason (i.e.  I have yet to see uses for blame, things that blame
> accomplishes that could not be better accomplished in a more
> constructive way, except for blame's major purpose of making the other
> person feel wrong and therefore making yourself superior).

Bravo!  Good for you!  Really, you're the first person I've ever come across
with this point of view that really seems to believe in the futility and
stupidity of blame.  Yet it would seem that most people who hold this view
of "responsibility for what happens to you" are just on such blame trips.
"*I* got through this.  Why didn't THEY????"

>>And so on.  Very beautiful writing, and a view which is stimulating and
>>can be comforting when you need it...but bleak as hell in the long run.

> Why is it bleak as hell?  Oh yeah, I know.  If you look at it through a
> blame framework then what it appears to be saying to you is "When
> things aren't going the way that you like them, there's no one but you
> to blame."
> I find it uplifting rather than bleak, because I look at it through a
> different set of filters, so that what it appears to be saying to me is
> that "You are responsible for these areas of your life, so you actually
> have more power of things than you think you do.  Therefore you can
> make things better than you thought possible.  Isn't that wonderful?"

Yet there are those who would belittle those who haven't had the opportunity
to learn this.
-- 
"Wait a minute.  '*WE*' decided???   *MY* best interests????"
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr