Practical Nihilism: Stop Believing You're "A Good Person".
29 October 2017 [link youtube]
Conflicts often escalate because people feel that their own sense of themselves as "a good person" is being impugned by the problem at hand. With this defensive feeling in mind, we then have a culturally-inculcated tendency to demand, "Who do you think you are? Don't you know who I think I am?" —although this is never so directly stated. The tractable then becomes intractable, as the disputing parties struggle to apportion blame and cast aspersions on one-another, though this behavior can never give either side the reassurance they're seeking: it's a struggle for the moral high ground in which both sides feel denigrated. In praxis, this sense of our own "ethical identity" shouldn't be involved in the dispute/resolution at all, and it can be removed by one side simply claiming the low ground: parting with the pretense that they are "a good person". And yes, BTW, this is a video that explains my rhetorical device of insisting that "I'm not a nice guy", and, also, that I'm "a terrible person" (in various practical, problem-solving contexts!).
Youtube Automatic Transcription
rhetoric really gets a bad name in the
21st century people tend to think either we're dealing with real philosophy or just a problem of rhetoric as if rhetoric means fake philosophy either we're dealing with real politics real political differences or just a problem of rhetoric as if rhetoric means fake politics rhetoric is a category of the human experience that involves real problems with real solutions in this video we could say it's about a problem of practical philosophy but it's a rhetorical solution that's been really useful to me in my adult life I have this habit of responding to accusations allegations and arguments from my fellow middle-aged people by telling them look I'm a terrible person I'm not going to debate with you whether or not I'm a good person but I'm doing the best I can and I need your help why is this rhetorical device so significant you know it started off in my life when I was living in Laos when I was living in Laos and maybe before that when I was living in Thailand some other parts of Asia and I would meet and interact with and cooperate with other Europeans often British and I'd have to say to them again and again look I'm not a nice guy now why did I say that why was I giving them that warning it wasn't that I was doing anything despicable with my time I was going to the library going to the archives spending time in museums studying stone inscriptions at that time I was applying to do humanitarian work I wasn't really doing any humanitarian work yet I was applying for jobs for other kinds too just to pay the rent but a lot of these other white people mostly British sometimes Australian they really did have a profound assumption about what being a nice guy meant being a nice guy meant inviting another chap another white male to come and watch football at the bar to come and watch the game inviting another white guy to play billiards and has spent quite a lot of time drinking alcohol and playing billiards and watching sports that was really the rhythm of life for them that was an unexamined assumption about what it meant to be a good man especially in middle age you know and what I was saying to them was look I don't live by those rules at all I wasn't living a life like that and I was doing things that would seem abrupt to them you know like after work it was like nope now I gotta ride my bicycle to the gym nope now I got a cut and run to get to the archives before they close nope I'm studying two or three different languages at the same time nope I'm running around with my resume and applying for minute errand work I had all these ambitions that animated me in life and it didn't mean I sneered at these other white Westerners who were there most of them were talking about expats not talking about people on vacation people who live there people who had jobs but it was really saying to them don't hold me to this standard you hold yourself to don't be disappointed in me when it turns out I'm not a nice guy you invite me to a birthday party and that birthday party is gonna involve drinking alcohol smoking cigarettes playing billiards watching the game this is kind of its kind of stuff and I don't show up you know thank you say thank you for the invitation and I won't show up because I'm not a nice guy right again doesn't mean I was about to backstab anyone was didn't mean I was a ruthless competitor I wasn't a you know wasn't trying to trample on them to get ahead but it was actually really important to my day-to-day existence there that I got that point across and then with all due humility whatever kind of limited friendship whatever kind of relation between colleagues I could have with these other foreigners living in Laos would then have to start on that basis okay so he's not a nice guy he's not one of us he doesn't play by those rules and I promise you at that time in VN Chen the capital city of Laos there really was a demi-monde of white foreigners some in the humanitarian industry some in the for-profit industry and you know the lifeblood of that community was absolutely going to those birthday parties going to those sports bars those social events that was what their community was built on you know and I chose to be an outsider I chose to let them know that's not what I'm here for those not the rules I play ball and you know I'm not gonna make the kind of moral compromises you guys make which is another long story and you know maybe from their perspective I'm an immoral person or a terrible person that's okay where do we go from here now I've been in a lot of very tense situations gets other middle-aged people identify as a middle-aged person sometimes you know few years old than me it's an eyes around the same age and I find that very often in these conflicts there's a really deep level on which they assume that what's being disputed here is not the practical problem at hand but is a question of impugning their own sense of themselves as a good person a lot of us a lot of us live our lives as if the question we have to ask is who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am as if this question of how we define ourselves as good people is being raised again and again in the context of conflicts that really aren't about who we are and whether or not we're good people on any deep level at all you know I remember one conflict especially with a professor but this is true of I think many interactions professors have had many interactions field had were my superiors in some kind of hierarchical situation one in particular were you know I came in and talked to this professor because I was really concerned we were skipping one chapter of the textbook this was a Chinese language textbook as I look when are we going to cover this vocabulary how are we going to learn this for the final exam and someone this is this is really a problem on a practical level skipping this this Chapman textbook and that professor reacted is was insulting her or impugning her or saying you're a terrible professor you're a terrible person you're incompetent as if really the meaning of this is you're a bad person and it's not the meaning of it is the problem at hand is skipping this chapter the textbook and that's what I want to address and she did respond both defensively and offensively by attacking me and insulting me and saying I was a bad person and saying I was a bad student that is an understatement she got really aggravated and she said really rude she said really rude things that a professor should should never say to a student by the way but I didn't get angry back and I didn't defend myself if I get defensive and I got stuck in then we're both in this trap where it's all about who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am and it becomes about ego versus ego and again what's really being disputed is how do I think of myself as a good person and project this image this concept of myself as a good person to other people and get them to recognize they get them to affirm it back to me and in that dispute I said to her straight up I said you're right I'm a terrible person and I'm a terrible student but I need your help I came here today I'm in your office now because I'm asking for your help yeah you're right now I'm a bad student good I accept that I'm not gonna debate with you within an embezzler I'm a bad person I'm a terrible person I'm not here to debate that with you do you think that only good people need your help do you think that only good students need your help I'm asking for you to do the right thing I'm asking for your help and if other people can respond to that positively it then puts us on a very different footing it's like no no I'm not trying to get the moral high ground here and I don't want you and me to get into a contest over who's on that moral high ground I'll gladly accept the the moral low ground I'll be the bad guy no problem but I'm here as a bad guy who's doing the best I can I'm not saying I'm good I'm completely accepting your accusations and allegations that I'm bad but I'm doing the best I can and I need your help I remember at the end of that meeting with that particular professor she saw my Chinese handwriting and she was blown away because of course I was I was probably the best student in that class by far even like when my handwriting was exponentially better than a Chinese but uh I think she quite liked the idea that I was a terrible student and then you know just literally I was packing up my my books to leave her office demeaning she said that is your handwriting she really gasped she was amazed at how good my Chinese every once I said yes that's my handwriting writing rapidly taking notes in class writing Chinese you know it wasn't calligraphic it wasn't slow and careful it was really rapid and it was compared to her other students it was already at that stage really good so strange tense difficult situation probably the single most extreme situation in which I used this rhetorical method because it is about rhetoric and we're not really talking about here whether or not we should aspire to be good people was actually at an airport in Taiwan got up the airport counter a little bit too late and this guy again he got into this really defensive mode he got really angry he was trembling and he was really kind of insulting and denouncing me at the at the check-in counter and you know fundamentally his point was this was all my fault I should have been in a different place 20 minutes earlier than it was I should have known to line up in the right place 20 minutes earlier than when I got there and when I got there I should have skipped to the front of the queue I shouldn't have just politely lined up which is what i did i just stood there silently in line waiting to get to the front which was the wrong move apparently at this airport how they organized these things and you know he was blaming everything on me in attacking me and so on and i think he fully expected probably on the basis of his past experience for the customers he thought i was going to come back at the same way like he felt like the situation we were in meant that i was questioning his professionalism or his that he is a good person or that he's good at his job and that i was gonna come back at him by blaming him and saying no you know you did something wrong you closed the kiosk when you shouldn't have and the sign was wrong and how could I have figured it out like he thought it was gonna get into a back and forth this way and I remember he was even specifying if I had read the fine print on my ticket which was in Chinese of course like I should have been able to figure this out was okay but he's really blaming me and so on and I didn't come back at him by saying no it's your fault or no you did something wrong no you're about your job I know you're a bad person what I said back in that situation was you're right I'm a terrible person you have no idea I've done bad things in my life I've made bad decisions but I'm asking you for help I'm not gonna debate with you whose fault this is I'm not going to be with you whether or not a good person I'm a terrible person you don't know the half you don't know what I'm capable of I need your help you know can you calm down can you stop insulting me can you stop telling me of a bad person I know that I need your help and it was really interesting cuz again he was trembling with Rhett he was he was really worked up and he stopped and he turned to the computer and he started he started helping me he started you know looking at my case and processing my ticket and this kind of stuff and just after a few seconds you know he stopped and he looked at me and he said and it was really emotional for him was a really interesting moment he said that he was a terrible person too and that I had no idea you know what the things he'd done in his life and you know we just stood there and looked at each other one terrible person to another and he looked back in on the keyboard and got back to work helping me a lot of the time in an unstated and indirect way these conflicts escalate because we're not disputing the problem that is there to be solved we're not disputing in the case of the professor this issue with the textbook and the vocabulary list and how are we going to cope if we skip this chapter or at the airport we're not disputing okay what's the problem there was confusion but we still have more than an hour before the plane leaves can we check you in we're disputing that we're display we're disputing whose fault it is and then that gets much worse because it's no longer about fault so rapidly we slide into this trap we're not even discussing whose fault it is we're discussing who am i who are you who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am people feel that their own sense of moral identity their own sense of themselves as a good person their own sense themselves is a good professional their own sense of themselves being good at their job is being called into question is being impune just by the fact that you're standing there asking for help just by the fact that you were trying to cooperate with them or collaborate with them it doesn't always work but if you can you can try to deflate the anger hostility and conflict of the situation by saying look I'll be the bad guy I'll take all the blame it's all my fault I don't want to debate that if you want to think I'm a bad person good okay I know it I agree with you 100% and now I need you to set that aside solve this problem I need your help
21st century people tend to think either we're dealing with real philosophy or just a problem of rhetoric as if rhetoric means fake philosophy either we're dealing with real politics real political differences or just a problem of rhetoric as if rhetoric means fake politics rhetoric is a category of the human experience that involves real problems with real solutions in this video we could say it's about a problem of practical philosophy but it's a rhetorical solution that's been really useful to me in my adult life I have this habit of responding to accusations allegations and arguments from my fellow middle-aged people by telling them look I'm a terrible person I'm not going to debate with you whether or not I'm a good person but I'm doing the best I can and I need your help why is this rhetorical device so significant you know it started off in my life when I was living in Laos when I was living in Laos and maybe before that when I was living in Thailand some other parts of Asia and I would meet and interact with and cooperate with other Europeans often British and I'd have to say to them again and again look I'm not a nice guy now why did I say that why was I giving them that warning it wasn't that I was doing anything despicable with my time I was going to the library going to the archives spending time in museums studying stone inscriptions at that time I was applying to do humanitarian work I wasn't really doing any humanitarian work yet I was applying for jobs for other kinds too just to pay the rent but a lot of these other white people mostly British sometimes Australian they really did have a profound assumption about what being a nice guy meant being a nice guy meant inviting another chap another white male to come and watch football at the bar to come and watch the game inviting another white guy to play billiards and has spent quite a lot of time drinking alcohol and playing billiards and watching sports that was really the rhythm of life for them that was an unexamined assumption about what it meant to be a good man especially in middle age you know and what I was saying to them was look I don't live by those rules at all I wasn't living a life like that and I was doing things that would seem abrupt to them you know like after work it was like nope now I gotta ride my bicycle to the gym nope now I got a cut and run to get to the archives before they close nope I'm studying two or three different languages at the same time nope I'm running around with my resume and applying for minute errand work I had all these ambitions that animated me in life and it didn't mean I sneered at these other white Westerners who were there most of them were talking about expats not talking about people on vacation people who live there people who had jobs but it was really saying to them don't hold me to this standard you hold yourself to don't be disappointed in me when it turns out I'm not a nice guy you invite me to a birthday party and that birthday party is gonna involve drinking alcohol smoking cigarettes playing billiards watching the game this is kind of its kind of stuff and I don't show up you know thank you say thank you for the invitation and I won't show up because I'm not a nice guy right again doesn't mean I was about to backstab anyone was didn't mean I was a ruthless competitor I wasn't a you know wasn't trying to trample on them to get ahead but it was actually really important to my day-to-day existence there that I got that point across and then with all due humility whatever kind of limited friendship whatever kind of relation between colleagues I could have with these other foreigners living in Laos would then have to start on that basis okay so he's not a nice guy he's not one of us he doesn't play by those rules and I promise you at that time in VN Chen the capital city of Laos there really was a demi-monde of white foreigners some in the humanitarian industry some in the for-profit industry and you know the lifeblood of that community was absolutely going to those birthday parties going to those sports bars those social events that was what their community was built on you know and I chose to be an outsider I chose to let them know that's not what I'm here for those not the rules I play ball and you know I'm not gonna make the kind of moral compromises you guys make which is another long story and you know maybe from their perspective I'm an immoral person or a terrible person that's okay where do we go from here now I've been in a lot of very tense situations gets other middle-aged people identify as a middle-aged person sometimes you know few years old than me it's an eyes around the same age and I find that very often in these conflicts there's a really deep level on which they assume that what's being disputed here is not the practical problem at hand but is a question of impugning their own sense of themselves as a good person a lot of us a lot of us live our lives as if the question we have to ask is who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am as if this question of how we define ourselves as good people is being raised again and again in the context of conflicts that really aren't about who we are and whether or not we're good people on any deep level at all you know I remember one conflict especially with a professor but this is true of I think many interactions professors have had many interactions field had were my superiors in some kind of hierarchical situation one in particular were you know I came in and talked to this professor because I was really concerned we were skipping one chapter of the textbook this was a Chinese language textbook as I look when are we going to cover this vocabulary how are we going to learn this for the final exam and someone this is this is really a problem on a practical level skipping this this Chapman textbook and that professor reacted is was insulting her or impugning her or saying you're a terrible professor you're a terrible person you're incompetent as if really the meaning of this is you're a bad person and it's not the meaning of it is the problem at hand is skipping this chapter the textbook and that's what I want to address and she did respond both defensively and offensively by attacking me and insulting me and saying I was a bad person and saying I was a bad student that is an understatement she got really aggravated and she said really rude she said really rude things that a professor should should never say to a student by the way but I didn't get angry back and I didn't defend myself if I get defensive and I got stuck in then we're both in this trap where it's all about who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am and it becomes about ego versus ego and again what's really being disputed is how do I think of myself as a good person and project this image this concept of myself as a good person to other people and get them to recognize they get them to affirm it back to me and in that dispute I said to her straight up I said you're right I'm a terrible person and I'm a terrible student but I need your help I came here today I'm in your office now because I'm asking for your help yeah you're right now I'm a bad student good I accept that I'm not gonna debate with you within an embezzler I'm a bad person I'm a terrible person I'm not here to debate that with you do you think that only good people need your help do you think that only good students need your help I'm asking for you to do the right thing I'm asking for your help and if other people can respond to that positively it then puts us on a very different footing it's like no no I'm not trying to get the moral high ground here and I don't want you and me to get into a contest over who's on that moral high ground I'll gladly accept the the moral low ground I'll be the bad guy no problem but I'm here as a bad guy who's doing the best I can I'm not saying I'm good I'm completely accepting your accusations and allegations that I'm bad but I'm doing the best I can and I need your help I remember at the end of that meeting with that particular professor she saw my Chinese handwriting and she was blown away because of course I was I was probably the best student in that class by far even like when my handwriting was exponentially better than a Chinese but uh I think she quite liked the idea that I was a terrible student and then you know just literally I was packing up my my books to leave her office demeaning she said that is your handwriting she really gasped she was amazed at how good my Chinese every once I said yes that's my handwriting writing rapidly taking notes in class writing Chinese you know it wasn't calligraphic it wasn't slow and careful it was really rapid and it was compared to her other students it was already at that stage really good so strange tense difficult situation probably the single most extreme situation in which I used this rhetorical method because it is about rhetoric and we're not really talking about here whether or not we should aspire to be good people was actually at an airport in Taiwan got up the airport counter a little bit too late and this guy again he got into this really defensive mode he got really angry he was trembling and he was really kind of insulting and denouncing me at the at the check-in counter and you know fundamentally his point was this was all my fault I should have been in a different place 20 minutes earlier than it was I should have known to line up in the right place 20 minutes earlier than when I got there and when I got there I should have skipped to the front of the queue I shouldn't have just politely lined up which is what i did i just stood there silently in line waiting to get to the front which was the wrong move apparently at this airport how they organized these things and you know he was blaming everything on me in attacking me and so on and i think he fully expected probably on the basis of his past experience for the customers he thought i was going to come back at the same way like he felt like the situation we were in meant that i was questioning his professionalism or his that he is a good person or that he's good at his job and that i was gonna come back at him by blaming him and saying no you know you did something wrong you closed the kiosk when you shouldn't have and the sign was wrong and how could I have figured it out like he thought it was gonna get into a back and forth this way and I remember he was even specifying if I had read the fine print on my ticket which was in Chinese of course like I should have been able to figure this out was okay but he's really blaming me and so on and I didn't come back at him by saying no it's your fault or no you did something wrong no you're about your job I know you're a bad person what I said back in that situation was you're right I'm a terrible person you have no idea I've done bad things in my life I've made bad decisions but I'm asking you for help I'm not gonna debate with you whose fault this is I'm not going to be with you whether or not a good person I'm a terrible person you don't know the half you don't know what I'm capable of I need your help you know can you calm down can you stop insulting me can you stop telling me of a bad person I know that I need your help and it was really interesting cuz again he was trembling with Rhett he was he was really worked up and he stopped and he turned to the computer and he started he started helping me he started you know looking at my case and processing my ticket and this kind of stuff and just after a few seconds you know he stopped and he looked at me and he said and it was really emotional for him was a really interesting moment he said that he was a terrible person too and that I had no idea you know what the things he'd done in his life and you know we just stood there and looked at each other one terrible person to another and he looked back in on the keyboard and got back to work helping me a lot of the time in an unstated and indirect way these conflicts escalate because we're not disputing the problem that is there to be solved we're not disputing in the case of the professor this issue with the textbook and the vocabulary list and how are we going to cope if we skip this chapter or at the airport we're not disputing okay what's the problem there was confusion but we still have more than an hour before the plane leaves can we check you in we're disputing that we're display we're disputing whose fault it is and then that gets much worse because it's no longer about fault so rapidly we slide into this trap we're not even discussing whose fault it is we're discussing who am i who are you who do you think you are don't you know who I think I am people feel that their own sense of moral identity their own sense of themselves as a good person their own sense themselves is a good professional their own sense of themselves being good at their job is being called into question is being impune just by the fact that you're standing there asking for help just by the fact that you were trying to cooperate with them or collaborate with them it doesn't always work but if you can you can try to deflate the anger hostility and conflict of the situation by saying look I'll be the bad guy I'll take all the blame it's all my fault I don't want to debate that if you want to think I'm a bad person good okay I know it I agree with you 100% and now I need you to set that aside solve this problem I need your help