This is a branch from @Nausamedu 's magic word thread, but that one is in slow mode and this branch deals with no controversial subjects.
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There is a psychological phenomenon known as rationalization, whereby an emotional notion is given a rational veneer.
Many of us believe that when we get emotional, it is because idiots are being emotional about our perfectly rational notions. Often, however, we were already emotional, and rationalized later.
Rationalization differs from reason mainly in being irrationally selective. It makes a seemingly rational structure by obviating anything, no matter how relevant, that might contradict the notion.
Can you describe what it feels like to think more thoughts compared to what it feels like to thinking fewer thoughts? Is either state something that you like? Do you prefer one over the other? Does it depend on the nature of the thoughts which state you prefer? What about the nature of the thoughts makes them something you prefer?
Rationalization is what a lawyer does (and we all have an inner one) to justify or cast doubt on a certain conclusion/claim/assented opinion/belief/feeling/judgment about a situation. Then there is the fact of the matter which the evidence being reasoned about, and the judgment being defended/opposed with those reasons, may or may not capture.
Rationalization, the way a “good” internal lawyer can sometimes do, is an ego defense mechanism that shields a person from dissonance when their inconsistent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors actually have some underlying consistency that actually does not mitigate them, because they are still very much responsible for the inconsistency between the “underlying consistency” (even a crime of passion happens for a reason/judgment… just not a good one) and the law … either civil law, or what is right/good, or both. Rationalization tries to look like good reason, but it is using reason as camouflage. You can say that people do it for survival, but some do it for funsies—they’ve already deadened themselves to dissonance and actually get something positive and rewarding out of fooling people. But it’s like mud pies in the slum (to partially steal from CS Lewis) compared to true joy/recreation.
Some people actually reach the point where they see that (they have insight) and it becomes painful to have fun that way. Before that, they have anosagnosia/blindness—the ego defense mechanism is serving its purpose (numbing the dissonance of insight). So for some, it is done unconsciously for ego survival, for others they are somewhat aware they have numbed themselves and have “fun” with it, but they are not yet aware there are higher levels of fun that makes the lower levels painful. And we can all be that same person at various times.
I think this is perfectly fine.
Its not optimal, its not the best or the preferred outcome given that what everyone should be reaching is objectivity, but rationalization means that you are finding arguments for your emotions.
It is a perfect first step because its the entry level for the free market of ideas where you can articulate your opinions in a logical and rational manner and have it clash with other views.
And even if you didnt want to address your own biases and contradictory notions, other people will do it for you regardless of whether or not you are interested in it.
Ideally thats how society grows through discourse.
It’d be something like this.
Now this is most certainly a hyperbole, but absolutely not in its entirety.
As you slowly descend in terms of general intelligence, you will not find this colorized urban myth of “everyone is the exact same, they just might be a little slower than the more intelligent ones”.
No. You will be often met with partial or even complete inabilities to process certain information.
Between 80 and 70 IQ points you get things like critical thinking, the understanding of abstract concepts, formulating conclusions from multiple data points removed.
Between 70 and 50 you get academic functions such as reading, risk assessment, social nuance and other features removed.
Etc.
Unless you went through brain damage by accident or disease you will never know what its like to “think less thoughts”. And when you do, its described as losing functions and skills. You become incapable of doing things on a mental level. You feel you are sluggish, slower, words click less often, you never reach conclusions which should have been obvious to you in past times, etc.
Partially correct, but this would also presuppose that you are only bothering to think logically and rationally, because something feels off. That sounds a bit twisted to me.
Racing thoughts that you can’t slow down is described as mania, which is a dysfunction. When you regain function, you can definitely tell the difference between mania and thinking less thoughts… and it is a good one.
No. Its not autism spectrum, ADHD, anxiety or PTSD. Thats when you experience being overwhelmed by your own brain and in a non-constructive manner on top of it.
What you feel afterwards is just relief and a return to normalcy, like getting out of water instead of drowning in it.
Its entirely different from losing skills and functions while your brain is completely normal otherwise.
You wouldnt compare “racing thoughts” to i.e. alzheimers or dementia.
Its somewhat ambiguous but it sounds a bit like you are setting up separate brackets for “good and bad” logic, based on what its used for i.e. ego defense, and thats not really a function of logic.
Its… confusing being true with being valid.
Rationalization has to adhere to valid logic, otherwise its not rational.
Saying that rationalization is just a method for ego defense, makes very light of the concept of logic, as if it was that simple to rationalize i.e. a crime of passion.
No its not?
You can feel justified about it, and try to rationalize said sense of justification, but under every normal and ordinary circumstance you will by definition fail to do so because you are trying to press a round peg through a square hole.
Especially when its an internal process and you directly know that you fucked up. It aint gonna be rationality or rationalization that protects your ego.
If it was that simple then people could talk themselves out of any emotional turmoil.
In most individual instances, oh well. If the reasons we came up were pretty good and we didn’t murder anyone (or other gross moral violations) ah, not so important. But in general, One side effect of rationalizing and then thinking that one reached the conclusion via reason, is that people think they are rational. That their positions are reason based. Not intuitive. Not emotional. Not taste. So, there’s widespread confusion about how we actually function. And then if an argument doesn’t go well, we have to not notice that. Not just because we might be wrong about the specific issue, but because we might begin to notice where all our positions really come from.
Is there a specific reason for the passive aggressive, mind reading, implication posts?
Care to take your own suggestion and articulate it?
Can you elaborate a bit more?
Because just with Ichthus there seems to be this implication of… virtual, wannabe, copycat, pretend, etc rationality that is just posing as logical and rational, but is in fact not.
And i have a bit of a hard time pinning that down considering that the output on that is either valid or not.
If its valid, then it is rational and logical.
If its invalid, then its not rational or logical to begin with. You can call it a bad attempt at an excuse or whatever, but its not valid.
I have a bit of a hard time expressing the idea, but it sounds like trying to introduce two versions of the definition of logic, based on nothing more than i guess moral commentary? Like how the person in question is using logic to justify their actions. Well and? Their reasoning is either valid or not, so…?
It’s like you emotionally are attatched to an idea of a purple sky. So you say “purple is a light ray on the color spectrum,” perfectly rational. And I point up at the sky and say “but it’s blue.” And you say “you’re just a hater, I made a perfectly rational argument. Yes, I am emotional and worked up now, but only because of your animalistic pointing at the sky while ignoring all rationality, such as I do up here on this tall horse of mine.”
So, while having a rational veneer, it is irrational, because it obviates the very relevant fact that the sky is blue and you can measure that.
There are rational arguments against this, but I will restrain myself in this case. And rationalization has more to do with ego defense than phenomenological language.
Rationalization is not rationality or reason. Or perhaps better put, not necessarily. It must appear to the person rationalizing as if it is. They must think they have a rational justification in their rationalization, but this need not be the case. You may already know this but I want to just make sure we’re all on the same page. It is justification we make (of some kind, perhaps well done, perhaps not) after we have already formed our position on something or after we did something. It must seem rational and logical to the person rationalizing. It must also seem like an acceptable set of reasons. It can be posing as reason or actually be reason. We don’t like immigrants, say. We want less. This is a gut feeling, the origin of which we don’t necessarily even know. We are aware of the debate out there, the different positions. NOW we form a justification. High rates of immigration lead to X and Y. X and Y are bad. Is that why we formed the position? Who knows? The pro-immigration person has a gut reaction. Immigration is good. Now they look around and find justification. It’s good because it leads to Z and A.
The process gets forgotten. They had gut reactions based on perhaps direct intuitions of pros and cons, perhaps racism and guilt. Perhaps…could be anything. That is all left behind. It becomes as if they arrived at their position via reason. (or they did something due to X. they have an affair. they later justify this to themselves and maybe later to a spouse as due to the spouse’s neglect. ) That makes sense to them. It might be true. It might be that they did it for other reasons, reasons they don’t want to look at. That’s rationalization).
I am not saying that people’s rationalizations are necessarily bad or irrational. They may end up with a very good case. But it’s not how they got to that position. And rationalization need not be neatly logical. It just has to seem to that person that it is good reasoning.
We can see the results, I think, in part by what happens when one finds out or almost does that one’s reasoning is poor. Nothing changes. Our position does not change. Because one did not come to that position via reasoning. One came to it via gut feelings or for reasons that are less appealing than the surface ones.
First off, it is about chronology. The reasoning, good bad mediocre whatever, comes after the position or act. It may or may not have anything to do with why the person has the position or did what they did. Secondly, it is most likely not the reason the person holds the belief or did what they did.
One point I was making was that even if the reasoning is good, there is still a problem, because it is important to know why we believe things also. It is important to know how we actually arrive at positions and actions, even if our rationalizations are excellent. If I have been flirting with someone both sexually and romantically online because I feel threatened by my wife’s beauty, all the incredibly well thought out and reasoned justifications based on what she was like with my family at Christmas and the long business trips she takes and so on, are a smokescreen. They may well be issues the couple should work on. It might all be things that could drive many a man to do what I did, but it’s not why I did what I did. And that matters. And maybe much of my rationalization is bs. Perhaps she was great with my family but I focus on one moment she missed my mom’s question. And so on.
Same with politics. If I think X should be the policy, it matters what my real motivations and reasons are, even if I present an incredible case, after the fact, for my position. Yes, good reasoning is good reasoning (though rationalization only needs to be good enough for me to believe it’s good reasoning, which might be terrible reasoning), but we are still, even in that case, missing important information. Certainly the person himself is missing information about himself. But in general if the case being made isn’t actually why people have that position, then it matters. And it could even be that the gut reaction is a better reason that the rationalized one. But there might be fear that it is not. In any case, if it is the real reason, it matters if we know that and can face that (as individuals with the belief or act). If our reasoning is actually not the reason we believe X or did X, then it’s a problem if we all move forward believing the rationalization is the reason I believe or did X.
Yes. What you just said here is a chef’s kiss perfect example of what my issue is.
Because you see, its invalid.
Purple being an area on the color spectrum is not a logical argument for the sky not being blue.
There is a logical disconnect right away.
So since the logic is not valid, its not rational. Its irrational.
Its not rationalization, its a feeble attempt at trying to justify an emotion, and it also reacts with emotion because it has no arguments, saying “you are just a hater”.
Is it not instantly obvious to you at first glace that no part of your example is rational or rationalization? As you said, clear as day the misshapen arguments are being made from a position of emotion rather than one of rationality.
Precisely.
Well, now that we agree on the premise but mean something completely different by it, maybe i am confused about the definition of what rationalization means. Im gonna check.
Alright…
Okay.
Found the issue.
This is the first time in my life i had heard the term “rationalization” used for expressing the idea that something is not rational, and is just trying to pose as rational.
Apparently this word is used in my language to mean the polar opposite of what is being proposed here.
Well thats… a great way to translate concepts i guess, that they mean the polar opposite after they have been translated…
Alright. I guess now i understand why this entire thread felt completely off to me.
Anyone can “rationalise” anything, but to themself only. What is actually ‘rational’ is only ‘that’ which is ‘rational’ to everyone, and thus can be ‘rationalised’ by everyone. The same phenomenon occurs with “justification”. Anyone can “justify” absolutely anything, but only to themself. Only what is ‘just’ to everyone can be truly ‘justified’. What is ‘justified’ is what is Right to everyone.
Which is what occurs with what is true as well. Anyone can say what is “true”, but if what they say is ‘not true’ to everyone, then ‘it’ is just a personal “truth”, which is more or less just a thought, opinion, view, assumption, or belief, obviously all of which can be false or incorrect instead.
Only what is ‘true and right’ to everyone is what is actually irrefutably ‘true and right’, in Life.
It is through agreement that what is actually and irrefutably True, Right, Rational, and Just, in Life, can be found, justified, and rationalised properly, accurately, and correctly.
By the way, if anyone is thinking about “argumentum ad populum” or similar, then you obviously did not read the actual words I just put forward.
