Rationality
What are some things you've noticed about rational people (types), any observable traits, any anecdotes related from your life etc. (?) I'm having a hard time seeing it as something rigid (think alpha rationals) which is how it usually comes across when described by various people on the forum.
i think of it as being a mismatch between what you're doing and if everyone acted the way you're acting whether or not it would be tenable. in essence rationals seek out at least in principle global solutions to global problems and local solutions to local problems [1]. irrationals tend to be all over the place, where they will advocate methods and behavior that make no sense in light of their purpose and the nature of the issue whether it be global or local. its because their purpose isn't subordinated to judgement rather their world is radically contingent upon shifting perceptions that make stable judgements across time impossible. rather they tend to adopt and throw stuff out on the fly. any structure to their thinking tends to come in the form of contradictions upon which going either left or right at any given time can be justified, this goes back to the mismatch between global and local whereby collapsing the two one can find a believable justification for any course of action at any given time if one only ignores the base distinction, which is precisely what irrationals do because local and global are rational categories
what this feels like is generally I feel like my life is on track and then occasionally something unexpected comes in and fucks it up and I have to work on stuff until its back to normal. its usually some person who doesn't understand just how stupid they're being at that moment for whatever reason. theyre the type of person from my point of view who makes things hard for everyone probably, i just happened to be in their path on that day
for the irrational the unexpected is normal, and they're most comfortable just navigating the vicissitudes of fate, whereas what fucks things up is when it gets too structured. they may take up a cause because it strikes them and get really pissed when someone uses rationality to expose why its stupid--it was the excitement itself that justified the endeavor, not the rationality or its fitness in time, thus to attack it for its irrationality is to directly attack a good thing in their mind because as far as they're concerned there is no real grand project, there's only a series of equally meaningful (or less) mini projects. since the mini projects are the point to extinguish even just one is bad because they don't see them as subject to a superordinate scheme of priorities but the end unto themselves... IEE are a good example of this because of how they sort of expect everyone to be just as subject to their whims as they are hence one can never be sure where someone is coming from hence one must always extend to the other the benefit of the doubt. right and wrong become radically subjective, the law should more or less strive not to enforce a uniform standard but rather try and understand the way in which all human action is justifiable from some point of view... the trick is just to find it and evil evaporates [2] the problem is it doesn't solve the problem of negative results or social harm, rather it simply relegates the negative to another ephemeral perception
[1] a lot of humor is founded on excess rationality or irrationality because it appears as rank hypocrisy bordering on insanity to the other side... its usually founded on some kind of weird mismatch between problem and solution
[2] the flipside is they can find any sort of bias at the root of any action they don't like, so if "finding the good" is just a matter of shifting perspective, justifications for opposition to anything are just a matter of "finding the evil"-- all sorts of isms: sexism, racism, classism, or the phobias--they're big on equating fear with all forms of wrong action
the more I think about what makes pupinia so funny is that she satirizes irrationality
Last edited by Bertrand; 10-17-2017 at 07:09 AM.
The irrational functions are just perceiving. Nothing more.
The rational functions do something more, there is a narrowing of the information.
The decisive thing is not the reality of the object, but the reality of the subjective factor, i.e. the primordial images, which in their totality represent a psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing the present contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but in a certain sense sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness might see them.
(Jung on Si)
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