Living On The Fringe With Suzy Creemcheese

In case your Valley Girl decoder is a bit slow, here's the transcription:

Hello, teenage America,
My name is Suzy Creemcheese,
I'm Suzy Creemcheese because I've never worn fake eyelashes in my whole life
And I never made it on surfing set
And I never made it on beatnik set
And I couldn't cut the groupie set either
And, um...
Actually I really f****d up in Europe.
Now that I've done it all over and nobody else will accept me
I've come home to my Mothers

As a result of never having the experience of being part of a group (other than the group of people who don’t fit into groups, which doesn’t count) Suzy has the manner of those-who-never-belonged. This is recognised at an intuitive level by those-who-are-acceptable, so later in life she will not be invited to join any of the scenes ("there's always a scene, and it's always by invitation only") and so will have the feeling that real life is going on out there, and she will only ever be on the fringes of it.

Fringe is where the Suzies of the world end up. Rock 'n roll is one such fringe, and far more nerdy than most people realise. Being the bookish girl, the movie buff, the guy who spends his spare time on bus journeys and train trips, the street photographer... these are other fringes. Some of the people doing those things can do those things with others, and there are clubs and associations as well - sometimes guarded by gatekeepers that make the school in-crowd look welcoming. Fringe people can even be married - you know, that quiet couple who keep to themselves.

If belonging-to-a-group is not what Suzy can do well, or at all, it's silly if not counter-productive, to base her future on trying to do it. Since the best defence is good offence, what Suzy needs are activities that keep her busy, solvent, fit, healthy, entertained and informed, and provide her with reasons to have self-respect.

Living on the fringe means dealing with higher-than-normal chances of disappointment, bitterness, depression, isolation and substance abuse. It means adopting the public mask of a normally-socialised person, who somehow always has a prior commitment when anything social is offered, especially at work. Choose the wrong behaviours and one can qualify for the diagnosis of a Schizoid Personality style, and if it hurts and hinders, the Disorder.

Suzy has to figure out how to manage her life so she does not fall into self-pity, anger, emptiness, bitterness, low morale, delusional fantasies, drunken stupors, drug use, retail therapy, and binge-watching TV series, or, for that matter, going from one therapist to the next, and from one social setting and one activity to the next, looking for that elusive feeling of belonging.

Living on the fringe means developing a life-style that works with or without others. Reading, movies, swimming, running, learning to play a musical instrument, solo competitive sports, training in the gym, learning to cook and source ingredients, painting, horse-riding, attending concerts and plays, photography, developing software, tending the garden... all sorts of things. Some of these are difficult to do within a normal domestic relationship, and almost impossible with children. Get a taste for any of them, and partners will need to be chosen to fit in with the interest, rather than interests fitting in with the partner.

Copes, Adaptations and Being Your Own Hazard

A couple of posts ago, I said I would subject you to thoughts on category theory, rather than witter on about psychology any more. I have been reading and thinking about category theory, but the psychology stuff wouldn't quite leave me alone. So bear with me through the next batch of posts. There's a theme.

A cope is what I do because the world around me sucks. A adaptation is what I do because I suck.

A cope does not change the suck in the world, but it attempts to change my behaviour or attitude, so I don't mind, or am less affected by, the suck. It is inherently sub-optimal.

Using "mindfulness" to cope with the stresses at work, instead of finding a new employer.

Buying own-brand because prices have gone up and your salary hasn't, is a cope.

Reading on the commute is a cope. See? I'm not really wasting my time.

An adaptation is something I do to modify my behaviour or attitudes so I don't do something dumb, offensive, pointless and expensive, harmful, or illegal, that I seem to be more-than-normally liable to doing.

Abstinence and one-day-at-a-time is an adaptation.

Things we do to get round problems with our bodies are adaptations. I have a hiatus hernia so I take Lanzoprosole. Using a wheelchair if you don't have lower limb use. Or wearing glasses. Or people with Type 2 Diabetes who manage their diet and exercise to keep their sugars in bounds. S**t happens, and we need to adapt.

Changes we make to live in a different culture than the one we grew up in are adaptations.

Eating fresh food, not drinking too much, staying away from drugs, and not buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't care about... those are neither copes nor adaptations. It's sensible behaviour. Even if some people need to be reminded to do them.

Some people wind up managing what they do around one or more adaptations.

Recovering addicts or alcoholics. Or people with Autism or ADHD, who need to mask. Or people who watched the wrong video, found they had a kink they never previously knew about, and now have to live with the fact it's never going to be satisfied IRL. Or people who have to do certain exercises every day. Or people who need to play up-beat music on their way to work to manage their mood. Or people who are really awful judges of character, who need to be very careful about who to spend time with.

Having to keep up one or more adaptations, is similar to always needing to watch where you're going and who's around when you leave the house to go anywhere. (Realty check: paying attention when crossing a road is okay; needing to watch out for strange people lurking in shop doorways when walking home at night means you should change neighbourhoods.) Maybe we will see something that triggers us, or maybe we will stop keeping our digs clean and turning up to work on time.

The delightful thing about this, is that one is effectively on guard against a part of oneself. A little part of us is now the enemy. Nobody puts it like that, but it's one reason people who might benefit from a character adaptation resist it: they would rather stay flawed and whole.

John Mayer Explaining Why Tone Matters

 

Guitar makers sign guitar players, and PRS does it as well. Santana, Orianthi, a bunch of others, and this guy called John Mayer.

Yeah. I know. The newspapers get delivered late around here, and to be fair, his albums are mostly pop songs, which aren't my go-to. And he's dated Taylor Swift. (Wait. I think I may have dated Taylor Swift, let me check.)

What I didn't know was that he started out playing the blues, and his videos with BB King are a must-watch. He's shilling for PRS in this video, but don't be fooled - he's also playing some moments of serious guitar. 

And he's also articulate to a degree that many players aren't. There's a bit where he talks about how having the right tone makes playing a joy, so you go on playing. So true, and so hard to explain to non-guitarists. 

I have a PRS, the McCarty 594. Yes, the headstock does take a minute to get used to, as do the split humbuckers. But the light seven  pounds on my knee took exactly zero seconds to appreciate. 

The One With People Coming Out Of A Shadow Under A Bridge

Another street photography favourite, although the pros might have taken it more squarely. I like the way all the lines don't quite line up. And the red bit.

Hey. You Gov. Do a survey on why people liked Lockdowns will ya'?

Or is that one of those things that it's best not to look at too closely?

Five years after the Lockdowns started, and three years after they finished, with the predictably disastrous effects on everything from the mental health of young people to the length of NHS waiting lists, through the empty buildings hiding behind those faux-window murals, and prices being 25% higher than in 2019... you would think most people would have come round to the realisation that the Lockdowns were right up there with invading Russia and occupying Afghanistan in the Top Five Dumb F****ing Things A Government Can Do.

Now go read this summary of a You Gov survey

And weep.

I'm 71, so I have 10 years or so, especially given my early record of drinking and smoking, and the fact that triple-jabbing is not good for all sorts of health conditions (though I still think my body treating the second and third injections as infections and neutralised them). I am so glad I am not going to see what this country will turn into.

Because not only are we being governed by the most clueless bunch of people ever to sit in the Commons, not only are we being administered by a Civil Service with the stellar qualities of a black dwarf, we also have an electorate that... I have no idea. Why the hey did they like Lockdowns so much?

Or is there something about the Normies that, after all these years, I still don't understand?

Trust Experts, But Verify

I'm seeing more along the lines of whatever-happened-to-trusting-the-experts. Tells you about my rabbit-holes.

Do I believe the experts? I do when they're right. Wait. What? You want me to believe them when they're wrong?

(boom, tish! I'm here all week folks)

Actually, the experts are not expecting me to believe them.

Belief is an epistemic attitude towards a statement, inclining one to act as if the statement is true. One can also act as if something is true, without believing it to be so, perhaps because it was the best option one had. One might even decline to act at all, on the basis that "all we have is an expert's opinion". Or one might make a contingency plan on the assumption that what the expert said is wrong.

The experts want much, much more. They us to have faith in them. They want us not simply to accept what they say faut de mieux, they want us not making contingency plans, to go all in, and only do things that make sense if what they say is true. They do not want us to research the subject for ourselves, and they do not want public debate. They want our uncritical compliance. They, after all, are the experts. They know much more than I ever will.

Whether they do is not actually the issue.

One issue is that we likely have no idea whether they are "experts" - unless we know enough about the subject to make our own minds up about it anyway. It's not enough for them to recite credentials, because we may not know what those credentials are worth; it is not enough that a journalist refers to them as an "expert", because we have no idea how reliable a judge the journalist is (and a lot of general reasons about journalists to suppose they are not).

Another issue is that not only do we need reasons to disagree with the "experts", we also need reasons to agree. If we don't know enough to disagree, we don't know enough to agree, either.

And finally, there's the whole free-will and rationality thing. We can no more outsource that than we can have someone else breathe for us. Doesn't matter who says what, it's our decision to act on it or not. Anything else is a denial of our humanity.

The proper course is to avoid having an opinion, and to formulate plans that are either independent of what the experts say, or to have contingencies in either direction.

The only commitments we should make are to our family. After that, it's all contractual, transactional, and conditional. Beware of people and organisations who say that is a terrible attitude, because they are usually after something from you for free. (If you can afford it, please go right ahead with my blessing. But if you can't, you should save whatever the resource is.)

What experts have to offer in exchange for our compliance is their authority, that is, following their advice is a sufficient defence against later charges of malpractice, manslaughter, dangerous driving, or whatever else. If I acted on the (perhaps expensive) advice of my lawyer, tax accountant, or doctor, the Judge has to back off the sarcasm and the Jury has to cut me a break. If I follow the law, the Government promises not to prosecute me. That's the deal, and it is a deal.

Absent the ability to make that deal, they aren't an "expert". They are just someone who has read too many books about too few subjects.

One should respect experts as people, until they sell out their reputations for government grants, honours and influence, or until they are exposed as frauds. Respecting them as people does not mean blindly accepting their every pronouncement. Indeed, respecting them as experts means putting in the work to understand and appraise their advice.

The Philosophy of Psychology, or, Wrestling With A Pig

Attentive readers will have noticed that I've been playing catch-up again. Every now and then I get waylaid by something I can't resolve within the timetable of this blog. I've been looking for another longer-term project, with psychology or category theory as candidates. What? I'm a philosopher - I contain multi-disciplinary multitudes. Let's talk about psychology.

There is a perfectly reputable, if unexciting, study of the way the brain / mind works; how perception works and can occasionally mislead; and related subjects. Degrees in that subject tend to be B.Sc's and the studies don't make for best-selling pop-psych.

The psychology we are looking for is sometimes called moral psychology, the study of emotions, feelings, behaviour towards ourselves and others, thought-processes and other such stuff that can be discussed sensibly without knowing the difference between a ganglion and a neurone. Degrees in that subject tend to be B.A's.

Moral psychology used to be a stock-in-trade for any reputable Enlightenment philosopher, who would use it to make often mordant and worldly observations about their fellow man, society and economy, disguised as descriptions of emotions and personality traits. Sometimes this was to show that the vast array of human behaviour and emotion could be reduced to two or three basic traits, emotions or principles. David Hume did this in his Treatise of Human Nature;, as did Adam Smith in his Theory of the Moral Sentiments.

Moral psychology is for the philosophically-inclined. The way people ordinarily understand each other's behaviour and characters is called folk-psychology. It starts with identifying kinds of behaviours (counting the expression of emotions and thoughts as 'behaviour'), continues by grouping those behaviours into a "personal quality", and if those actions, emotions and thoughts are observed to be "done-once, done-often", ascribes a dispositional "personality trait", "character trait" or "quality" to the person. Folk-psychology is sometimes subtle, always contextual and culture-bound, and of course, independent of any theory of the container of those traits and qualities, be it mind, soul, spirit or something else.

Folk-psychology is always directed at action. Its aim is not "understanding all to forgive all", nor is it to understand motives or reasons. It is a grab-bag of concepts to describe us, and of tricks to influence, persuade, re-educate, convert, and indoctrinate us. The aim is to make us act, think or feel in a manner useful to someone else. It is also to identify people who might turn out to be odd, disruptive or obstructive, to the point that we would not choose them as colleagues, neighbours or friends - so we can avoid them before they become a nuisance. Folk-psychology is what we need to choose and develop alliances, friendships, social networks, sports teams, military units, political parties and so on, and it is what we need to avoid users, losers and abusers, wastrels, hopeless cases, traitors, freeloaders and so on.

Hegel was the last of the great systematisers of moral psychology, linking it with politics and law at one end, psychiatry in the middle, and folk-psychology at the other. After that, the philosophers stopped doing moral psychology, and instead specialised in sociology, economics, psychiatry, or "philosophy of mind". As a result, folk-psychology took over as the theoretical foundation of all psychology.

Today, the vast majority of what passes for "psychology" on the shelves of bookshops, in hospitals and therapy rooms, in novels, films and plays, and even in psychiatry and the DSM / ICD classifications, is variations on and justifications of folk-psychology, peppered with pseudo-technical terminology, salted with politics, seasoned with religion, law and morality, and poured like gravy over people and behaviour. The aims of academic psychology are now those of folk-psychology: producing conceptual tools for influencing the people we need to-do with, and identifying the people to avoid.

That is what the books are about; that is what the tests are used for; that is how it used by Governments, militaries, schools, and businesses. The "normies" use conventional psychiatry and psychotherapy to make an industry out of "treating" the fringe people; and recently in response, the fringe people have created mental health activism. Some even use it against themselves via a third-party when they go to psychotherapy.

In practice, psychiatrists have been suborned by the pharmaceutical industry, the insurers and State health services, and are pill-pushers: the patient gets fifteen minutes for free if the taxpayer is paying, or an hour or more for £800 or so for a private consultation. The result is still a pill. In the same way, psychotherapists "deliver" a short course of CBT-based treatment if the taxpayer is paying, while psychodynamic therapists will settle in for three days a week for forty-four weeks over three or four years at £150 or so an hour, with variations in between. These are features, not bugs.

A theory that gains a wide reception in the profession usually meets a number of conditions. It fits the prevailing mores of the largely white, middle-class, feminist-y, liberal-ish, and majority female, members of the profession. It can be used by businesses to gee-up their employees when times get hard and HR is cutting heads. It can be used to give the appearance that a vast military organisation cares about the morale of its troops, as it sends them into yet another asymmetric war where the enemy might be a twelve year-old boy with a bomb. It might describe a new symptom, disorder or condition that expands the market for psychotherapeutic services. It can be used by Governments to scare their populations into compliance with unjustified and disastrous public health policies.

These abuses are not failures of professional ethics, but actual professional success-stories.

This line of thought could be, and probably has been, expanded into a paperback polemic. Those can be fun to read, but writing them has always struck me as being like mud-wrestling with a pig: you both get muddy, and the pig enjoys it. I don't enjoy mud-wrestling.

So I'm going to have some fun discussing category theory (or something else) instead.