Lesser Magic & LIES

[DIASPORA-1963]

There's a bit of a leap of scale between "do you ever dare dress without the utmost intention" and dressing up for the occasional job interview or marriage ceremony.

I mean honestly getting dressed is an exercise in perception and shapeshifting for me literally every day but the way you're making this argument doesn't make me want to agree with you. You're coming across as bombastic and lecturing - perhaps this is also part of your mathemagical persona?

Oh, I'm sorry about that ... If only you could see and hear me ... (1) I'm autistic, so I don't come across well to begin; (2) I don't like modern literature, so my models are a bit antiquated, which means that my writing style might come across as a bit high-handed. I'm really a soft-spoken and gentle person. What I wrote should have had an air of suggestion to it, not lecture. I was offering it for consideration, not as a lesson.

[Juniperberry]

Oh, I'm sorry about that ... If only you could see and hear me ... (1) I'm autistic, so I don't come across well to begin; (2) I don't like modern literature, so my models are a bit antiquated, which means that my writing style might come across as a bit high-handed. I'm really a soft-spoken and gentle person. What I wrote should have had an air of suggestion to it, not lecture. I was offering it for consideration, not as a lesson.

 
You're, like, the ninetieth person to apologize to Jack and his crew for how you come across to them after their critical personal remarks. Don't take it personally.

[Faemon]

That is quite T.

This confuses me as to what we're discussing. You asserted that little white lies are magical. I asserted that little white lies are anti-magic. You assert that a lie is deliberate. I assert that lies are automatic. What fits to which T?

By "conventional sense", I meant the official line, that "one should not tell lies ever" - rather than the T - that one winds up telling lies strategically, all day, every day - & that hardly anyone will admit this, for fear of two things - (1) being thought a bad little boy or girl & (2) having Society fall to pieces.

No, we must all seem paragons of T telling b/c everyone wants to live in a World that he/she can trust

Then we're not really discussing the metaphysics of lying. While I'm aware now that you're autistic, I'm moved to request your assurance that this thread isn't just some social experiment to curry opposition, so that you can feel smug at the hypocrisy you imagine all your detractors to hold, or...? Do you need to vent about something specific that someone mean said to you, and thought you should make that instance universal? Something like that?

Because I'd usually only be opposed to people who seem paragons of T telling if they're not even trying (in harmful and abusive ways). Your arguments come off as opposed to people who seem paragons of honesty because we should be open about embracing the abusive power of Trust-hacking instead?

That's what it comes off as when you argue for how everyone lies (okay, Greg House) without consideration for the measure of it: There's a vast chasm of difference between this lie: "I'm fine!" which is, actually, fine. Versus this lie: "I'm dying of a terminal illness..." ...aaand you got catfished! Which I'm sure the liar considers a perfectly acceptable way to make a little extra pocket change, but that does actually make them a bad person and does generate mistrust in society. And we should remember that. It's not only pretentiousness that has people aiming for honesty. It's real effects.

What's the last lie you told? Mine was that my father is Indonesian. That one lie has shortened so many introductory conversations with people I meet, because it "explains" why I grew up there (actually, it was my mom's job), which explains why I'm not fluent in either language, and why I don't live there anymore (supposedly my mother and father are separated). What happens if I say that I didn't have a father is that people I've just met get very loudly curious in a way I can only guess comes from discomfort, and this generates a lot of discomfort because it's a lot of strangers crooning about oh this poor thing from a broken home, and then I get offended, and the conversation gets exhausting quickly. (I know this because I've been honest and thought hey it's no big deal it's the best policy, maybe exposure to real-life people from unconventional family structures will broaden these people's world a little bit. Nope! It's completely the wrong shape of a thought to fit the holes in most people's heads.) At least if I just met them and I give that lie, most people develop the conversation to something else well-suited to conversations that are far more true and less personal. If we bother to get to know each other better, then they get the truth. The lie I grew up believing was that I was a sperm bank baby, which became embarrassing when I wanted to research my technological origins. Maybe that lie saved me from Jon Snow's Bastard Complex, maybe it saved my mother some measure of heartbreak that she would otherwise have had just by having to explain me, but that I found it out on my own long after the age I ought to have known better definitely put a damper on the relationship.

So, I think it's an important distinction to make between a lie like, "I have a boyfriend in Canada!" (The implicit lie being "I am a heterosexual woman, therefore undeserving of the hostile social environment I would have if I were homosexual..." when the truth is that the liar is homosexual), and "I have a boyfriend in Canada!" (The implicit lie being "I am a romantically mature, sexually active woman worthy of prestige" when the truth is that the liar is cisgendered heterosexual and already has prestige.) Especially if, say, I counted on this liar's fictional boyfriend to help set me up somewhere I can study the grolar bears, which is a crossbreed of grizzly bear and polar bear that comes about because of global warming.

[DIASPORA-1963]

You're, like, the ninetieth person to apologize to Jack and his crew for how you come across to them after their critical personal remarks. Don't take it personally.

Ah, thank you. Some people are sensitive. I could be, if I allowed myself to be, but I understand that I am not normal, so my perceptions are skewed, which means that I always give others a wide berth. Another has practically to say "I am being nasty on purpose" to get a rise out of me.

My father was a Grouch of the lovable variety. I have, for that reason, always had a soft-spot for grouches of all sorts. Meet a grouch and, chances are, underneath, you have met a T nice person who has been wounded to the core, the grouchiness being no more than a callous that has formed over time. It is the apparently sweet ones that I keep an eye on. Some are T sweet - but many are poison.

[Jack]

You're, like, the ninetieth person to apologize to Jack and his crew for how you come across to them after their critical personal remarks. Don't take it personally.

 
My crew? I may be part of a plural system but I'm the only one who posts on the board, JB, you don't need to involve my headmates in this.

[Jack]

Oh, I'm sorry about that ... If only you could see and hear me ... (1) I'm autistic, so I don't come across well to begin; (2) I don't like modern literature, so my models are a bit antiquated, which means that my writing style might come across as a bit high-handed. I'm really a soft-spoken and gentle person. What I wrote should have had an air of suggestion to it, not lecture. I was offering it for consideration, not as a lesson.

 
Apologies are not necessary, I was wondering if that was something you intended to put across. An old-fashioned voice, along with a certain amount of bombast and dramatic, sweeping statements are very common in some ceremonial magic circles, so that is the impression I was getting from your manner of speaking.

So let me loop back to an earlier question I think got overlooked - what do you do with the idea that every move you make and every breath you take is a magical act? Where do you go from there? How does it inform your practice without making you paranoid as shit to make any move at all?

[Juniperberry]

My crew? I may be part of a plural system but I'm the only one who posts on the board, JB, you don't need to involve my headmates in this.

 
It just seems that way, Jack. You know how it is.

[DIASPORA-1963]

Apologies are not necessary, I was wondering if that was something you intended to put across. An old-fashioned voice, along with a certain amount of bombast and dramatic, sweeping statements are very common in some ceremonial magic circles, so that is the impression I was getting from your manner of speaking.

So let me loop back to an earlier question I think got overlooked - what do you do with the idea that every move you make and every breath you take is a magical act? Where do you go from there? How does it inform your practice without making you paranoid as shit to make any move at all?

 
Oh, no, I don't think that at all. Most acts are strictly autopilot. I'd not be a chain smoker, if that weren't the case. I can roll and smoke cigarettes and down cups of coffee until the ashtray is full and the coffee pot is empty w/o even realizing what I am doing.The whole of my attention has been on writing out a lesson plan or on trying yet another approach for one of my students who just doesn't get calculus. "Calculus isn't even math: it's a tool that mathematicians devised for scientists to use in their empirical work" - or some such - anything to get them to stop being afraid of the math b/c, I am convinced, that is why people do so badly w/math.

[Faemon]

what do you do with the idea that every move you make and every breath you take is a magical act? Where do you go from there? How does it inform your practice without making you paranoid as shit to make any move at all?

 
Combine that with the idea that it's not only you who's magical, but everybody doing everything all the time is magical and that's just the way the world has always been...could, possibly, be the makings of a pantheist?

[DIASPORA-1963]

This confuses me as to what we're discussing. You asserted that little white lies are magical. I asserted that little white lies are anti-magic. You assert that a lie is deliberate. I assert that lies are automatic. What fits to which T?



Then we're not really discussing the metaphysics of lying. While I'm aware now that you're autistic, I'm moved to request your assurance that this thread isn't just some social experiment to curry opposition, so that you can feel smug at the hypocrisy you imagine all your detractors to hold, or...? Do you need to vent about something specific that someone mean said to you, and thought you should make that instance universal? Something like that?

Because I'd usually only be opposed to people who seem paragons of T telling if they're not even trying (in harmful and abusive ways). Your arguments come off as opposed to people who seem paragons of honesty because we should be open about embracing the abusive power of Trust-hacking instead?

That's what it comes off as when you argue for how everyone lies (okay, Greg House) without consideration for the measure of it: There's a vast chasm of difference between this lie: "I'm fine!" which is, actually, fine. Versus this lie: "I'm dying of a terminal illness..." ...aaand you got catfished! Which I'm sure the liar considers a perfectly acceptable way to make a little extra pocket change, but that does actually make them a bad person and does generate mistrust in society. And we should remember that. It's not only pretentiousness that has people aiming for honesty. It's real effects.

What's the last lie you told? Mine was that my father is Indonesian. That one lie has shortened so many introductory conversations with people I meet, because it "explains" why I grew up there (actually, it was my mom's job), which explains why I'm not fluent in either language, and why I don't live there anymore (supposedly my mother and father are separated). What happens if I say that I didn't have a father is that people I've just met get very loudly curious in a way I can only guess comes from discomfort, and this generates a lot of discomfort because it's a lot of strangers crooning about oh this poor thing from a broken home, and then I get offended, and the conversation gets exhausting quickly. (I know this because I've been honest and thought hey it's no big deal it's the best policy, maybe exposure to real-life people from unconventional family structures will broaden these people's world a little bit. Nope! It's completely the wrong shape of a thought to fit the holes in most people's heads.) At least if I just met them and I give that lie, most people develop the conversation to something else well-suited to conversations that are far more true and less personal. If we bother to get to know each other better, then they get the truth. The lie I grew up believing was that I was a sperm bank baby, which became embarrassing when I wanted to research my technological origins. Maybe that lie saved me from Jon Snow's Bastard Complex, maybe it saved my mother some measure of heartbreak that she would otherwise have had just by having to explain me, but that I found it out on my own long after the age I ought to have known better definitely put a damper on the relationship.

So, I think it's an important distinction to make between a lie like, "I have a boyfriend in Canada!" (The implicit lie being "I am a heterosexual woman, therefore undeserving of the hostile social environment I would have if I were homosexual..." when the truth is that the liar is homosexual), and "I have a boyfriend in Canada!" (The implicit lie being "I am a romantically mature, sexually active woman worthy of prestige" when the truth is that the liar is cisgendered heterosexual and already has prestige.) Especially if, say, I counted on this liar's fictional boyfriend to help set me up somewhere I can study the grolar bears, which is a crossbreed of grizzly bear and polar bear that comes about because of global warming.

 
An interesting story. And a lot assumed guilt, I think - carrying a weight that wasn't yours to bear. Never justify yourself. You can explain, as I have done - but never try to justify ... I am a bit lost ... I got the unconventional family part, but the transition to sexuality was a bit rough - are you a lesbian? Doesn't matter, just trying to keep you clear from an example you might be giving.

What is "cisgendered"?

[Jack]

It just seems that way, Jack. You know how it is.

 
Maybe it's the headcold, JB, but I really don't know what you're getting at now.

[Jack]

What is "cisgendered"?

 
Having a gender identity that matches what you were assigned at birth based on your body. The opposite of transgendered.

[Jack]

Oh, no, I don't think that at all. Most acts are strictly autopilot. I'd not be a chain smoker, if that weren't the case. I can roll and smoke cigarettes and down cups of coffee until the ashtray is full and the coffee pot is empty w/o even realizing what I am doing.The whole of my attention has been on writing out a lesson plan or on trying yet another approach for one of my students who just doesn't get calculus. "Calculus isn't even math: it's a tool that mathematicians devised for scientists to use in their empirical work" - or some such - anything to get them to stop being afraid of the math b/c, I am convinced, that is why people do so badly w/math.

 
I think I'm not following you, then. Are you arguing that lying (and/or getting dressed) is inherently magical in a way that other acts are not necessarily? Or were you approaching from a perspective where lying was always an act requiring intention, as opposed to actions like drinking coffee? Or something else altogether?

[Sarah]

Did you ever put on a nice, new suit & tie for a job interview? It did not matter how uncomfortable you were, you wanted that job. Men put on tuxedos to get married. In England & other Commonwealth countries, men & women barristers put on wigs to appear in court. School masters used to wear mortar boards; in some old-fashioned schools some might still, I do not know. To be a mathematician, I made sure that I looked like one - ill-fitting sports jacket, shirt w/collar unbuttoned, ugly tie askew, trousers not pressed, shoes a bit scuffed, a pipe in my hand - bald, bearded, pocket-protector filled w/pens & pencils:  on campus, I was treated like a professor long before I had even graduated.

 
I don't think of any of that as magic though, rather social convention. When I got married both my partner and i wore a shirt and jeans.

[Juniperberry]

Maybe it's the headcold, JB, but I really don't know what you're getting at now.

 
Doesn't really matter, Jack. I didn't post what I did for you.  Get well soon.