The Monkey's Fist

A brave professor once told me, "our neuroticisim makes our genius."  The constant defense-system that develops by over analyzing makes the genius quicker or cleverer... maybe.  But maybe it stresses out too.

Sometimes I think I am crazy.  I overthink a thought and it's implications and then the implications that follow that one, but not without attacking the foundations of this and that --whichthenimplies yadayadayaday ...   ad infinitum.    

I like to think the obsessive analysis (through the constant exercise) tore a space for my conceptual capacity, endowing my philosophical limits.  If so, isn't neuroticism a good thing?  Should I want it upon others?

Language is complicated insofar as one sentence means much more than just "what I mean it to say".      But in my personal life, it occasionally becomes exhausting to cover all my bases and study my expression from every angle so as to always be right and never questioned about any thing that I say.  Apparently it can tire my friends or loved ones.

This is just a personal blurb today...    My uncle says that there is value in directness.  It's what he learned living in New York.  There is a certain appeal to the brevity of a no-nonsense New Yorker.   But can a philosopher experiment with being blunt...?      

If the prioritization of the parent’s considerations and sensitivities for wellbeing of the child is rooted in his age and experience, I propose that “age and experience” are an illusion. Certainly a parent is physically older. The assumption that he has more knowledge of wellbeing, however, is a curiosity.  Intuitively, while an older person has literally lived longer and been present for more experiences, what knowledge and wisdom gained from those experiences is relative...  But relative to what, intelligence?  Take Michael Kearny, age 10, the youngest college graduate. I cannot guess how much wisdom Kearny has acquired at 10 years old, but his intelligence is unquestionable -- do I say he is wise and trust his judgment?

If I say there is no distinction between  wisdom and intelligence, I challenge myself to believe that at 10 year old is capable of knowing how to cope with the pangs of love and loss, aging, and the fear of death. He may be able to regurgitate clever information on how to handle financial matters he learned in college, but can he deal with the whippings of worldly deception –can he know how to manage a cutthroat business and handle employees?

If I say wisdom and intelligence are separate capacities of a person, I must remember that a measure of wisdom cannot be age.  Take a 30 year-old adult with Down’s syndrome. I am unknowledgeable about the capacities of a patient of Down’s, but I should not be contested that there are certain incapacities which hinder such an individual from living an ordinary life… from learning certain wisdoms.  Even if I am mistaken with the capacities of extraordinary Down’s patients, perhaps there are more palpable prospects in  middle aged men and women that for whatever reasons have grown up poor fools that nobody would call wise.

Intelligence and wisdom are certainly tied, though the strength of the binding is difficult to foresee, predict, and even acknowledge.

I might define wisdom as the capacity and skill of “stepping out to see the big picture”, “evaluating several facets of things”, “knowing multiple consequences of an action”, in order to make competent decisions. But even in the same situation, two persons may have different wisdom about the same thing. Take driving a car or handling an Alzheimer’s patient , for example.  I may feel confident moving a car, but how much can I compared to a racecar driver or law enforcement officer with special training!  As a product of my experiences with a senile grandmother, I have learned to deal or cope with her literal irrationality.  My experience with her may have leaked experiences which allow me patience when dealing with misunderstandings.  The point is that while I can claim certain wisdoms that give me patience, other persons are incapable of gauging me correctly (insofar as another person cannot replace or know my consciousness).  Herein lies the trouble.

The word affects interpersonal behavior in ways that I do not understand and so in my definition of respect and analysis of it, I wish to bring the word down from its shiny pedestal and steal some of its ominous glow.

My preoccupation is born where respect is violated. The statement, "you disrespected me," purports something, but what exactly does it mean? To have violated a law of respect implies there exists a standard or law by which respect operates -- but what is it?

Respect comes from the Latin respectus, "regard". Literally an "act of looking back at one,". Respicere: "look back at, regard, consider," from re- "back" +specere "look at".

Then perhaps respect means literally to "regard" another. Not in the sense as in seeing, but to consider, think about and be aware -- the way that we are when we consider in terms of making a decision.

I propose that respect is a matter of decisions and action (including intentional or unintentional inactivity -- after all, my doing nothing is an action in and of itself). These actions and decisions only matter with ''respect'' in terms of how the actions affect persons (even in the case of "respecting oneself", it has to do with actions that affect oneself). If respect has to do with regard and consderation, it follows that what I do according to my regard is what either fulfills respect or violates it.

Still, it is unclear what exactly I am regarding when I consider the other. Is it the other person's desire, wellbeing, authority? My mother always said "respect your lover's father" such that I associate respect to mean that under fear of a father's wrath, it is right to behave in whatever way pleases him. So respecting him means to be conscious of his desires and whims so that my actions align with them.

To define respect as a matter of regarding another's desires and aligning one's actions accordingly presents a problem. Remember that I am looking for a standard or essential quality of respect. If I disrespect a person by behaving contrary to his/her desires, what about when a person's desires violate my own -- am I not being disrespected if I respect the other? To avoid ambiguity, I can pose that my respecting the other violates my moral principles. Should I respect the other or keep to my own?

Mr. Clots sees it as optimum disrespect that his guest, Domo Akira, removes his shoes before walking about the house. Also, he will not join the rest of the family in prayer before the meal. The last straw is when he refuses to eat any of the meats Mrs. Clots arduously slaved to cook for their esteemed foreign guest. What exactly does it mean to be a vegetarian? How absurd!

Clearly, Mr. Clots does not understand or consider/regard his guest's desires and customs. Ironically, he is not respecting his guest, at least in the way that I have defined it. Still, is he not right that his customs and ideas of how things "should be" are violated? Domo Akira perhaps does not understand his host's customs and desires enough to regard them either. He indeed is disrespecting Mr. Clots. Ultimately, I am lead to the conclusion that this situation is not an issue of respect, rather one of miscommunication. But the miscommunication goes unnoticed (at least by Mr. Clots).

If we posit for a moment that respect has no essence, as I do believe, but rather it has to do with an individual's ideas of what constitutes respect, then respect is a fluid conception which has the potential of discriminating and causing harm unconsciously. What will Mr. Clots' behavior look like to Domo Akira? If Clots behaves angrily or indignantly, perhaps his guest will perceive this to be unfriendliness and lack of respect toward a guest!

My suggestion when it comes to respect is to treat the word as just that; a word. If I give the word no transcendent meaning, then I can more easily evaluate some situations for what they are. That is not to say that we should fail to respect others. On the contrary, with the knowledge that respect has everything to do with sensitive consideration, choose what actions you participat in according to your own respect and what you consider to be appropriate/convenient/right in the face of another's respect.