![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptCame across this on the list, not from umadoshi, where I originally thought, possibly through marahmarie:
7 psychological superpowers few people have that you can use to set yourself apart. Which turn out to be less about superpowers and more about the virtues of restraint, so all the pieces of advice are framed as things you should stop doing, rather than things you might want to start or change.
The first one is "Hide Your Intelligence," because nobody likes a show-off or a know-it-all, and nobody likes being corrected. "Don't outshine the master," is the advice in a work situation, and let others take the spotlight in your social situations. Make everyone think you're not as smart as you actually are, and make sure everyone else's ego gets sufficiently stroked that they associate you with the feeling of feeling important.
So, make yourself less because you'll be struck by Tall Poppy Syndrome, or people will associate you as the person that makes them feel stupid or always corrects them when they're wrong. It sounds very much like the problem with someone being smart is everyone else. There are better and worse ways, ways that will be taken well or poorly, to give someone suggestions and corrections, and there are ways of being smart that are more and less productive to your own goals, but this advice is essentially telling someone not to use their abilities as a general rule, rather than suggesting that someone with intelligence has to learn the ways of using it well and productively. I can get behind "sometimes, you'll keep your mouth shut about correcting someone because you know that person will react negatively to any correction" and "sometimes, you'll keep your mouth shut because you don't know how to make the suggestion in a way they'll take and act on," but that more accurately describes the problem - it's not that being smart is a problem (which is a thing we tell young children, especially those perceived as girls), it's that there are a lot of ways that people will react negatively to someone being smart(er) around them.
The rest of the advice follows a certain amount of "now that we've told you that showing off your smarts is being a bad idea, here are other ways that you can be socially terrible that don't involve being brainy in public." Resisting* group think makes sense, because we produce filter bubbles and like to associate with people we perceive as friendly, but the advice itself is "make conscious decisions about which thinkers you're going to adopt, make sure that you have views that are composed of parts of contradictory philosophies, and then stay out of discussions and debates, because they don't change your life." Because the only person you're going to change is you, apparently, and it's not worth making an effort to engage with others. Because you shouldn't show off that you're smart, you also shouldn't show that you have any qualification to have a discussion with others about philosophies and ideas that you've chosen to adopt or reject.
Then there's "Stop caring what other people think about you," which on the face seems to flagrantly contradict "Hide your Intelligence," because hiding your intelligence is all about caring what other people think about you. The justification for this is that you, as a being, are a mote in a speck of dust in the cosmic eye, and nothing you do will have impact on anything, so you may as well live your life the way you want to live, because everyone else is equally infinitesimal in the cosmic eye, so you shouldn't let those specks dictate what you do. I don't think this was as thought through as well as it could have been, because sociopathy is not necessarily a thing that I would advocate as a virtue.
"Stop placing blame," we're told, because if the fault is with us, then it's on us to improve, and if the fault is with someone else, well, odds are against you that you'll be able to get the other person to change. That sounds determinedly fatalistic, and I don't think people liked it all that much when it was God's will that you were a peasant and shouldn't try to be anything else, and they certainly don't like it now when people say "ugh, why are you so concerned with how people and government treat you over your race/your gender/your sexuality/your [Z]. You should just ignore them and do your best." Except we prove time and time again that ignoring the bullies doesn't make them go away, and often causes escalation. The virtue of forgiving those who wrong you, most usually espoused by The Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton, is seen as an especially holy thing because there's real harm that people do to others, and placing blame where it belongs is one of the things that helps get things changed. (Or prosecuted.)
The first actually useful piece of advice is "Stop 'Waiting to Talk'", because it's all about active listening and letting others talk. It still gets a little twisted to further the idea above about not joining discussions and contradicts "Stop caring about what other people think about you" because doing this is all about letting other people think you are wonderful and a great friend and tell you everything you want to know about them because you listen all the time and rarely talk.
"Stop letting your desires pull you in every direction" would be much better named as "Do the things you enjoy doing, not the things you do for status or objects." Which is good work, if you can get it. There is research about how stuff generally leads to temporary happiness, but happiness is generally the product of intrinsic motivation and enjoying what you're doing, so the advice itself is pretty good, if not particularly well-named.
The last piece of advice is "Stop taking everything so seriously." Which is an easy thing to say if you're the kind of person who can shrug off things or don't get exposed to things that are much more harmful or deadly to people who aren't you. But the advice itself is "stop watching news, stop getting embroiled in social media, tend to your own life first, care about your friends and family, your career, and your finances, but don't worry, because you're still a cosmic speck and control is an illusion." Which is very much a Wealthy White Dude thing to say, because it's unlikely that you're going to be killed by a police officer who is racist or has internalized institutional racism in their procedures, and it's unlikely that you're going to be sexually assaulted (and possibly killed) by a man and the entire apparatus of society will turn its baleful eye on you and assume that you invited and consented to your own assault. Or that the government in charge is doing what it can, both subtly and overtly, to make you into a second-class citizen and take away from you to give to someone more like them.
There is something to say about focusing your attention so that you're not dissipating yourself over everything, but that also essentially requires believing there are others who are fighting on the front that you're not going to be focusing on. That can be difficult.
So, all of these things seem to hinge around two main ideas:
---
The actually useful parts of the previous piece might have been encapsulated in this piece, also possibly frommarahmarie: Kindness at the workplace makes for a better workplace. Which boils down to "be kind to your coworkers, even the ones where you have to fake it completely, and your work environment will be better and more productive." It contains much of the same ideas, like not placing blame (because you still have to work with them), doing active listening, supporting other people, and so on. And in less cosmic crisis-inducing words.
I'll admit, it's difficult to be kind to people who are very clearly showing themselves to lack the capacity in return, but in those things, there are such things as paychecks to try and take the sting out of it, or the terrible truth that you still have to work with these people. And sometimes you can manage to find a way to work with each other.
umadoshi, where I originally thought, possibly through marahmarie:7 psychological superpowers few people have that you can use to set yourself apart. Which turn out to be less about superpowers and more about the virtues of restraint, so all the pieces of advice are framed as things you should stop doing, rather than things you might want to start or change.
The first one is "Hide Your Intelligence," because nobody likes a show-off or a know-it-all, and nobody likes being corrected. "Don't outshine the master," is the advice in a work situation, and let others take the spotlight in your social situations. Make everyone think you're not as smart as you actually are, and make sure everyone else's ego gets sufficiently stroked that they associate you with the feeling of feeling important.
So, make yourself less because you'll be struck by Tall Poppy Syndrome, or people will associate you as the person that makes them feel stupid or always corrects them when they're wrong. It sounds very much like the problem with someone being smart is everyone else. There are better and worse ways, ways that will be taken well or poorly, to give someone suggestions and corrections, and there are ways of being smart that are more and less productive to your own goals, but this advice is essentially telling someone not to use their abilities as a general rule, rather than suggesting that someone with intelligence has to learn the ways of using it well and productively. I can get behind "sometimes, you'll keep your mouth shut about correcting someone because you know that person will react negatively to any correction" and "sometimes, you'll keep your mouth shut because you don't know how to make the suggestion in a way they'll take and act on," but that more accurately describes the problem - it's not that being smart is a problem (which is a thing we tell young children, especially those perceived as girls), it's that there are a lot of ways that people will react negatively to someone being smart(er) around them.
The rest of the advice follows a certain amount of "now that we've told you that showing off your smarts is being a bad idea, here are other ways that you can be socially terrible that don't involve being brainy in public." Resisting* group think makes sense, because we produce filter bubbles and like to associate with people we perceive as friendly, but the advice itself is "make conscious decisions about which thinkers you're going to adopt, make sure that you have views that are composed of parts of contradictory philosophies, and then stay out of discussions and debates, because they don't change your life." Because the only person you're going to change is you, apparently, and it's not worth making an effort to engage with others. Because you shouldn't show off that you're smart, you also shouldn't show that you have any qualification to have a discussion with others about philosophies and ideas that you've chosen to adopt or reject.
Then there's "Stop caring what other people think about you," which on the face seems to flagrantly contradict "Hide your Intelligence," because hiding your intelligence is all about caring what other people think about you. The justification for this is that you, as a being, are a mote in a speck of dust in the cosmic eye, and nothing you do will have impact on anything, so you may as well live your life the way you want to live, because everyone else is equally infinitesimal in the cosmic eye, so you shouldn't let those specks dictate what you do. I don't think this was as thought through as well as it could have been, because sociopathy is not necessarily a thing that I would advocate as a virtue.
"Stop placing blame," we're told, because if the fault is with us, then it's on us to improve, and if the fault is with someone else, well, odds are against you that you'll be able to get the other person to change. That sounds determinedly fatalistic, and I don't think people liked it all that much when it was God's will that you were a peasant and shouldn't try to be anything else, and they certainly don't like it now when people say "ugh, why are you so concerned with how people and government treat you over your race/your gender/your sexuality/your [Z]. You should just ignore them and do your best." Except we prove time and time again that ignoring the bullies doesn't make them go away, and often causes escalation. The virtue of forgiving those who wrong you, most usually espoused by The Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton, is seen as an especially holy thing because there's real harm that people do to others, and placing blame where it belongs is one of the things that helps get things changed. (Or prosecuted.)
The first actually useful piece of advice is "Stop 'Waiting to Talk'", because it's all about active listening and letting others talk. It still gets a little twisted to further the idea above about not joining discussions and contradicts "Stop caring about what other people think about you" because doing this is all about letting other people think you are wonderful and a great friend and tell you everything you want to know about them because you listen all the time and rarely talk.
"Stop letting your desires pull you in every direction" would be much better named as "Do the things you enjoy doing, not the things you do for status or objects." Which is good work, if you can get it. There is research about how stuff generally leads to temporary happiness, but happiness is generally the product of intrinsic motivation and enjoying what you're doing, so the advice itself is pretty good, if not particularly well-named.
The last piece of advice is "Stop taking everything so seriously." Which is an easy thing to say if you're the kind of person who can shrug off things or don't get exposed to things that are much more harmful or deadly to people who aren't you. But the advice itself is "stop watching news, stop getting embroiled in social media, tend to your own life first, care about your friends and family, your career, and your finances, but don't worry, because you're still a cosmic speck and control is an illusion." Which is very much a Wealthy White Dude thing to say, because it's unlikely that you're going to be killed by a police officer who is racist or has internalized institutional racism in their procedures, and it's unlikely that you're going to be sexually assaulted (and possibly killed) by a man and the entire apparatus of society will turn its baleful eye on you and assume that you invited and consented to your own assault. Or that the government in charge is doing what it can, both subtly and overtly, to make you into a second-class citizen and take away from you to give to someone more like them.
There is something to say about focusing your attention so that you're not dissipating yourself over everything, but that also essentially requires believing there are others who are fighting on the front that you're not going to be focusing on. That can be difficult.
So, all of these things seem to hinge around two main ideas:
- On a cosmic scale, you don't matter, so you don't need to be restrained or restricted by things like other people's opinions.
- Say and do as little as needed to interact with others, share no opinions about anything with them, and they will think of you as a genius and love you.
---
The actually useful parts of the previous piece might have been encapsulated in this piece, also possibly from
marahmarie: Kindness at the workplace makes for a better workplace. Which boils down to "be kind to your coworkers, even the ones where you have to fake it completely, and your work environment will be better and more productive." It contains much of the same ideas, like not placing blame (because you still have to work with them), doing active listening, supporting other people, and so on. And in less cosmic crisis-inducing words. I'll admit, it's difficult to be kind to people who are very clearly showing themselves to lack the capacity in return, but in those things, there are such things as paychecks to try and take the sting out of it, or the terrible truth that you still have to work with these people. And sometimes you can manage to find a way to work with each other.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 05:06 pm (UTC)Oh, what an awful first point :(
Sadly I think I could have written something a lot more positive on the same theme. Like, most people have interesting things to say, but with some people those things don't come out as naturally, and giving them space, or asking about the things they seem to be knowledgeable about, is good, and it is quite a lot like the author described of letting other people shine, and it's a common for people not to do that enough, especially if they're thinking of themselves as more intelligent than everyone else.
But I don't think that's just "shut up and let other people do anything", better to actively help people, but also talk about interesting things yourself. (Both sides took me a long time, it took a long time for me to start trusting myself that I could tell when a question about someone else or something I knew about might be interesting to anyone else.)
Ideally without thinking much about who's most intelligent.
that makes them feel stupid or always corrects them when they're wrong
Oh gosh, I have complicated feelings about this. Society has too much "people who are high status should never be made to feel stupid and people who are low status should always be made to feel stupid, regardless of who's right".
And on the one hand, I find it not to care about what's right. "Oh," says Fred, "did you know that 'Quiz' is the oldest word in the world?" Here is Fred telling an anecdote about linguistics! Doesn't that mean he's interested in linguistics? Wouldn't he be interested to know that, whatever he's about to say, it definitely doesn't mean THAT? Isn't he *curious*? If you just accept Fred's earnest but mistaken pronouncement, will it look odd if you don't correct Karen who later tells a completely contradictory anecdote?
But for many people, they know it will probably never matter, so correcting people is just making a fuss over nothing.
On the other hand, I know it can often be (deliberately or inadvertently) a game of one-up-man-ship. I don't want to make people feel BAD by correcting them. Especially I don't want to interrupt what they're saying, if the potential correction is mostly irrelevant. There's a whole lot of existing status politics which gets played out here with "who corrects who".
Come to think of it, it might be similar to "who's stronger than who"? I suspect, if you actually need to pick things up, you need the strongest person available to do it, but maybe There Is An Expectation that you don't SAY that the young woman is stronger than the middle-aged male boss, even if she is?
Oh gosh, I'm not sure what I've talked my way into now.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 06:17 pm (UTC)There totally is an expectation, at least in the States, that the actually strongest junior woman doesn't volunteer herself, because it would be "emasculating" to the men to be proven less strong than the woman, and that the middle-aged male boss gets a go at it, and then the men get to jump in and help so that he doesn't look weak. Because the woman isn't there to be strong or competent, she's there to be pretty.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 07:26 pm (UTC)"Stop waiting to talk" is where I stopped reading, because yeah, active listening is good. Telling people blanketly to never have their own opinions and only parrot back what people said and make the speaker feel good about talking is weird.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 02:27 pm (UTC)that link'sboth links are from me, thoughEdit: just read through comments, so yeah, I guess that solves that. :/
Edit2: just noticed both links were from me, not just the first one.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 02:43 pm (UTC)Oh, what an awful first point :(
This is one of my superpowers, so I have to address it; from a cynical standpoint, it really can pay to play like you don't know what you know (and to drop assumptions, which can be even more off-base at times). You get more truth out of people this way and if you're willing to tamp down "But I *know* that, already" impulses you can actually learn more than by approaching people from a more clearly level playing field, intellectually. Outside of that, though, I agree with the rest of what you said on this, as you make some valuable points, too.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 03:09 pm (UTC)At best one can feel their way through certain discussions given what the other person knows, and sometimes given the other person's reactions to one having more knowledge than they do this can fail spectacularly despite intentions, at which point that really isn't their fault as the other person is just not handling their own lack of knowledge or lack of correct details too well. I think the part about not correcting people tries (clumsily/incompletely, perhaps) to address that, but I can see where playing like you don't know what you know can have some overlap, as well.
because hiding your intelligence is all about caring what other people think about you.
I couldn't care less what people think of me, for the record; hiding intelligence in my case is more about getting what I want, and what I want is for people to show themselves for who they really are, and I'm not always going to get that with people who assume I'm operating on the same level as them, so why let them make that assumption. This is more of a case by case thing, anyhow: obviously I wouldn't approach all people as though I'm less smart than them, and sometimes it pays to just shut someone down with a clean sweep of "I know more on this than you and here's what that is so just stop".
Hiding intelligence can also have purely tactical advantages in not letting adversaries be able to guess what your next move is, since you clearly don't seem capable of having a next move, so there's that. But I'm big on playing with surprise elements and sort of busting up people's expectations, so that's more familiar ground to me than it might be to a lot of people. It might make me a bit unusual.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 03:39 pm (UTC)I do have experience living with a sociopath (who I've confirmed has got to be one by reading a lot online about that sort of personality) so can tell you they seem to care plenty what people think - superficial charm is the highest proof of that I think any of them have (literally, think of Ted Bundy. There's no true sociopath who's operating too far from that plane no matter if they have any dead bodies to show for it (yet) or not, and I don't mean to scare anyone, but it's a truly shocking sort of personality to live around, as you don't see who they are until things break down, usually after lots of time has gone by in which you've tried to excuse or explain away their behavior in every possible fashion but still come up short).
That said, I can see how say, CEOs or lawyers (two groups well-known for their tendency to have sociopathic traits) are seen as not caring what people think of them because they're so unapologetically driven (unfortunately, the Head Orange shares these tendencies, as well).
For me not caring involves a) knowing who I am so b) based off that, being at peace with myself, as much as I can. I don't always get there, I have my moments where I can hate myself almost without end over all kinds of things I really do feel bad or regretful about, but overall if I know I'm trying each moment to come at people fairly and not trying to do them any wrong, I don't see why I should care what people think, beyond that.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-01 04:46 pm (UTC)We're probably reading the article differently, but I'm seeing grand universal truths being declared there that want to produce an existence mostly devoid of the things that grease the social gears enough to get people working with each other, and looks down its nose at people who invest time and effort in those relationships past the point where they can gain advantage from it. I don't see much, if anything, there that reads as genuine empathy for others, so it reads sociopathic. Your mileage may vary, and so forth.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-02 12:24 am (UTC)That said, I'm sorry I even linked to it because your reaction makes me feel like it makes me look like a bad person, and because we do have a lot of history on DW I sort of do care what you think, if that makes any sense. :/
no subject
Date: 2018-12-02 12:57 am (UTC)I think we're allowed to link to things we find interesting, and we're allowed to see them differently. And then we learn a bit more about the people doing the writing and the commenting, and we change and grow. Maybe sometimes things shatter, instead, but that's not usually predictable.
I linked to it, despite finding it less than this for my own tastes, because I wanted people to read and comment in it. So if someone else did the same, and they found it fabulous and life-changing, then we've learned something about each other. The spot you linked it from didn't have extensive commentary on why you thought it was great, just that you felt you had a few of them, so it didn't read as an endorsement, just as "oh, that's interesting."
As the fandom olds say, we're allowed to like things others (or we) find problematic, so long as we do so having thought about those things if someone else (or we) raises those questions. I'm much more likely to be annoyed at a person who doesn't want to think about it than I am someone who has and has come to a different conclusion than I have. (On most topics, anyway.)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-02 01:07 am (UTC)I care about people individually. I care how they feel around me and what their outcomes are based on how we've interacted. But I can do that and also hold the thought that ultimately we're all, as the Kansas song goes, dust in the wind. That's a thought that not just I but tons of philosophers and similar deep thinkers (I'm not claiming to be either!) have struggled or still struggle with.
I see a person who wants to attract the best kind of energy to them as being either a bit on the warmer side than I am (so yeah, I'm admitting I might fail at that a certain level, though my intentions are good) or else being able to balance wanting to care about people with realizing we're all just dust in the wind with something like a sense of grace and a bit of humor.
But no one ever said it was easy, and almost everyone screws it up at some point.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-02 01:11 am (UTC)*nods furiously*
Yeah, that's about where I was at with it, just something I stumbled across that I more or less saw a bit of myself in and wondered what others would see of themselves, here and there. I never thought it was made out of Olympian-weight gold advice or anything.