The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[malloc]

It has become apparent to me over the years that anime fandom is heavily associated with the far right and especially the "alternative right". Given my general affiliation with the left, this has made me increasingly uncomfortable with watching anime. Yet my interest in the medium predates the alternative right by many years and it seems silly to drop something simply because it later became the banner of superlative evil.

[Travis B.]

It has become apparent to me over the years that anime fandom is heavily associated with the far right and especially the "alternative right". Given my general affiliation with the left, this has made me increasingly uncomfortable with watching anime. Yet my interest in the medium predates the alternative right by many years and it seems silly to drop something simply because it later became the banner of superlative evil.

I would say why drop one's interest in something just because someone else also happens to be interested in it who just happens to have objectionable views - if there is nothing inherently objectionable about the thing itself, why should it matter?

[Salmoneus]

EDDYTHREAD

[malloc]

Sorry if this crosses any lines, but this is an important issue and I have no where else to bring it up.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

It has become apparent to me over the years that anime fandom is heavily associated with the far right and especially the "alternative right". Given my general affiliation with the left, this has made me increasingly uncomfortable with watching anime. Yet my interest in the medium predates the alternative right by many years and it seems silly to drop something simply because it later became the banner of superlative evil.

Except for the odd "socioecological" (cohabitation of different soceities) issues, I am your classic leftwinger and I haven't lost my interest in anime.

There has been a lack of interesting anime though recently.

[Linguoboy]

Sorry if this crosses any lines, but this is an important issue and I have no where else to bring it up.

It does cross lines and you do. There is literally the whole of the Internet apart from this Board available to you for discussing this topic. Further posts will be deleted.

[Raholeun]

To be fair, there are tons of threads in this sub forum where ideas like "the alternative right is superlative evil" are expounded. How is this new idée fixe different from the others that are already present?

[dhok]

To be fair, there are tons of threads in this sub forum where ideas like "the alternative right is superlative evil" are expounded. How is this new idée fixe different from the others that are already present?

you must be new here

[Linguoboy]

For the benefit of (relative) newbies:

On account of a long history way too complicated to recapitulate in this thread, Eddy (a.k.a. malloc) is only allowed to post here under the condition that he avoid certain topics. This is one of those topics.

If you have further questions, please PM me or Zompist in order to avoid further derailing this thread.

[Salmoneus]

If the mods don't object, I'd just say for anyone unclear about why I objected and why the mods intervened: it's not that people are biased against his opinions, or that some opinions can't be expressed on this board. The topic isn't really the issue per se, except as a warning sign. It's that bringing up certain topics is an indication that an eddythread is at hand. You've seen those SF episodes where the heroes download an unsolvable paradox or mathematical conundrum into the brains of the evil robots, and as a result they all explode because the puzzle is like a virus that exploits a critical failing of their programming? Certain posts by malloc operate much like these logic bombs when inserted into internet forums.

So when long-time readers encounter a post of the format "I would like to [do unobjectionable thing] but cannot because [left-wing people will disapprove of me if I do]" or the like (not the only such format, but the most dangerous of them), we react like someone with PTSD on seeing an unexploded bomb lying in a playground...

[Nerulent]

Eddy (a.k.a. malloc)

Ah. I was aware of the history but not that malloc is actually Eddy - the response makes perfect sense with that extra bit of knowledge.

[MacAnDàil]

I have contradictory feelings about the choice of my doctorate thesis topic. For the moment, it is a comparison between the diglossia situation in Réunion and Scotland. The topic is validated by my professors and fits perfectly well into the laboratory's main themes; I just need to rewrite my project proposal in concertation with my professors within the next month. However, I have contradictory feelings about the idea, firstly because I am afraid of being too influenced by my ideology and not able to be objective about it because I really feel it's important to use local languages as much as possible and I feel the French school system is overly centralised. Secondly, I have mixed feelings also because I had some other ideas of topics that I didn't mention to my professors. These other ideas include looking at lexical creation in creole and creole influence on . On the other hand, diglossia is such a hot topic that it is likely to be the preferred topic by the professors. Furthermore, the current choice is evidently a topic that I am best suited of studying in any degree of depth, being as I am fluent in four relevant languages.

More generally, after speaking with a psychologist, I saw that I don't take my own ideas and feelings into account enough. An example was choosing French at university in the first place.

[Linguoboy]

Seems to me you'll still be able to collect a lot of information on creole influence and vocabulary creation while doing the work, at least enough for a another publication or two. And it's still a very interesting topic, even if it isn't the single most interesting one imaginable to you.

[MacAnDàil]

Indeed, I could collect information for publications on other topics within the next few years. I also hope to improve my language skills in the languages I am not yet fluent in but somewhat close, viz. Malagasy and Gaelic. Now that I think about it, my topic would be an opportunity for the latter, something I have been stalling on for years. I had initially thought about only including Scots because there are more similarities between the Scots and Creole contexts than between Creole and Gaelic. So that's a plus that I hadn't previously considered. As an aside, I would also like to learn more Comorian and other Bantu languages. I really feel I haven't travelled enough. I would like to travel to Madagascar and discover new places. It's other aspects of my life that I am putting into question as well in the end, not just my thesis project.

I suppose it's not so much a lack of interest as the somewhat related questions of my emotional relationship to French, the French education system and my own past decisions. I am confident enough in my own decision-making?

Related to this, my professor suggested using French regularly in my daily life to improve my French. It's for relatively little things, mind, like gender for a few words and preferred wording in a formal context but it could make a difference in the audition. I didn't say anything at the time, but I got annoyed at myself for even thinking of the idea of using French on a regular basis with creoles. Using French with bosses or professors is something I can do with and the same goes for speaking French with people who have not lived in Réunion for long, but speaking French on a regular basis with creoles in an informal context is something my body now refuses. In any case, to argue in favour of my emotional reaction, I think it is only formal standard French that is relevant so informal usage might be counterproductive in encouraging some usages that are only appropriate in informal French.

[doctor shark]

Apparently, my father's visiting North Carolina this week to drop his wife's grandson off and wanted to meet up with my brother. Brother's response was pretty much "hell no". While I fully appreciate the sentiment (and, to be honest, I would be very apprehensive about any meetings up with him after this last winter's events), I can't help but wonder if this is going to aggravate the situation with him: I haven't heard anything from my father, especially since he left to go to NC, so... yeah.

Also, it's getting pretty obvious that my brother won't have his passport renewed in time to attend my Ph.D. defense, which is a bit sad (seeing as how my mother also isn't in a good condition to travel), but at least I have a lot of friends here that have said they want to attend, so I won't be "alone". Still...

[KathTheDragon]

Good news: it's hot.
Bad news: it's really hot.

[Raphael]

Good news: it's hot.
Bad news: it's really hot.

Experiencing two heat waves with a few weeks of cool and wet weather in between is a nice way to drive home the truth that the grass is always greener on the other side.

[Raphael]

I've apparently become a good deal more confident than I used to be over the course of the last few years. This is a bit weird, because, if you look at how my life is going, and how it generally has gone so far, I don't really have all that much to be confident about. I guess what happened is simply that I have made my peace with my flaws, and with the things that have gone wrong in my life.

This does, however, create a bit of a weird conundrum for me. You see, for most of my life, I've had a pretty low opinion of overly confident people. (I don't think of myself as hating anyone, but there are a lot of people of whom I have a very low opinion.) I still tend to think that people with a lot of confidence are either too stupid to realize that they have flaws, weaknesses, and things they aren't good at, or too dishonest (either with themselves or with the world at large) to acknowledge it. I associate high confidence with rudeness, aggression, and a habit of humiliating other people. I think that very high confidence is often a defining trait of con artists (pun completely intended).

So, am I turning into something I can't stand?

[Salmoneus]

You are certainly, noticeably, a lot more... confident... here than you used to be.

Personally (sharing your innate antipathy toward the confident), I think it's helpful to break up the unhelpfully broad concept of 'confidence. It is of course important to distinguish confidence from overconfidence, justified from unjustified confidence. But more importantly, I think there's a distinction to be made between what we might call 'vanity' and 'assuredness'.

The vain person regards themselves as relatively wondrous: they rate themselves very highly compared to everybody and everything else, and they do so because they are, as it were, blinded by their own radiance (standing closer, as they do, to themselves than to anybody else, and easily mislead into thinking the closer light the brighter). They are in love with their image of themselves and their own superbness, and they engage in braggartry and self-promotion in order that others should share, and adore, that image. They are reluctant to do or think anything that might cause that image to be tarnished, in their own eyes or those of others - they are often fundamentally insecure, having placed their self-esteem in a reflection that has left them scared of disturbing the face of the water, lest in destroying their image they destroy themselves. Or else they're too plain stupid even to realise that this is a danger, in which case they are likely to come undone. They are competitive and jealous, because their wonderfulness is defined through superiority, and any challenge to superiority imperils their image. The vain person has a high opinion of themselves because they have not been given convincing evidence to the contrary - and generally they take steps to make sure they never encounter such evidence.

The self-assured person, on the other hand, has an absolute self-esteem: they value themselves not for their superiority to others, or even for their closeness to perfection, but for their adequacy in absolute terms - however flawed they may be, however better or worse than others, they are, they believe, sufficiently good to respect and love. They have a high opinion of themselves - or at least, high enough - because they have found reasons to like, admire, trust and rely upon themselves. This having been demonstrated, they are consequently less imperilled by new discoveries - evidence of their failings, or the superiority of others, does not take away the successes and virtues that they admire about themselves. And in discovering things to like about themselves, they can come to feel a solidarity with others who share the same virtues, and compassion for those who don't. Because they trust in themselves, they feel able to look at themselves with clear eyes - and because they regard themselves as sufficient as they are (which is not to say necessarily that they do not seek self-improvement), they are content to show others who they are with few deceptions or elisions.

There may be a place for a little vanity from time to time - just as the inspirational but fundamentally insubstantial motivational speaker may well be just the thing to push a team to excel in the second half of the final. But in the long term, in the main, just as the team does better with a technically aware and honest manager who discusses failings and successes clearly and openly, so too people are generally best served by being self-assured than by being vain.

[Raphael]

Thank you, Sal, that's a fairly useful distinction.

You are certainly, noticeably, a lot more... confident... here than you used to be.

You mean, here? I'm not at all sure about that. When it comes to the specific context of expressing opinions I feel strongly about, I think I've always been fairly confident, even during my otherwise very insecure teenage years, and even during my first period of posting on the ZBB (before the timeout).