LHX - short circuits - part 22 - a messy situation

[P3nT4gR4m]

My thinking is that it expresses a dichotomy that doesn't exist.

We are all both Neophiles and Neophobes.

Some try to push the balance towards one direction or another, but no one is completely one or the other.  Or if they are, they don't live very long.


To bring back another old idea, we are all Greyface, to some extent.  We have to recognize our own personal neophobia without rationalizing it, just as we have to see the bars of our prison.

Interesting. I'm willing to give this some consideration - pls state your case?

[LMNO]

I thought I just did.


Neophelia/Neophobia can be compared to the theory of the "First Circuit" in RAW/Leary 8 Stages of Conciousness routine.


No one is completely neophilic, no one is completely neophbic.

There must be just as much balance in this as in Order/Disorder.

Look to yourself for moments and habits that are neophobic.  You'll find them, if you're not lying to yourself.

[Cramulus]

--answering your question to LMNO myself--

Nobody IS anything. It's not any given person fits neatly into binary categories like
0: neophobe
1: neophile

It's more of a continuum. I tend to like new donut flavors, but I tend to dislike new seafood. (I hate the sea and everything in it - except for pirates and treasure. oh, and tentacles of course). I'm definitely more neophilic on the weekends than I am on Monday at 11 AM.

This sort of thinking, that we're all basically Greyfaced, is helpful because it drives home Grant Morrison's idea that initiation never ends. One can't just discover the bars of the prison and then rest on his or her laurels. One must constantly jailbreak from cell to cell.

I realize that in my youth I was somewhat grayfaced about my interpretation of Discordia. That was back in the Fnord23 days. I would have stabbed anyone that told me to stop obsessing over those played-out old memes. My exposure to this commutiny helped me escape from that, but I'm trying not to let myself get too complacent and comfortable with this version of Discordia either.

[Cain]

It goes without saying that viewing someone as being "is" something is very essentialist thinking.  So and so has the essence of [insert something here], instead of "so and so is acting in a [insert something here]" way.  Now the latter, to me, is a far healthier way of thinking.

[LHX]

strange this topic came back up


its been almost a year since i put that down

and i dont think i ever intended for it to be published - i think it was more a early reaction to the response i was getting offline to the early attempts at PD06 writing


i hope the reluctancy came across in the initial post because it was a reluctant observation

similar to the joint i posted today and yesterday


these observations are not made with enthusiasm
but
they need to be acknowledged (for me at least)


anybody who has noticed a trend in the shit i have posted over the last years can see that i have been working on trying to reconcile why it is exactly that people have such a hard time communicating


and if we want to reduce this to terms such as neophobe and neophile - i would say that LMNO is on point
but
overall there is a tendency to neophobia and neophilism

also - just to compound things and acknowledge another dimension to this assessment:

just because somebody is a neophile doesnt mean they know what to do with new information

i have seen a lot of neophiles get overwhelmed (especially young people)
(neophobia is not the answer to that problem)


maybe the new word is neo-utility

neo-function


not being afraid of new shit - and knowing what to do when you get it



anyway - as for the original post - i still carry the same hunch

there are some people (usually older people) who get to the point that they are literally (physically) no longer able to become open minded

the mechanism in their brain has hardened and eroded and they have become a different species of animal/robot


how else can you define a old North American who still thinks that russia is going to invade the country
or people who have otherwise made up their mind before the issue for consideration has even appeared?

[LMNO]

Side note:  Prof Cram, the Morrison quote originally came from Crowley and/or the Masons.

[Cramulus]

just because somebody is a neophile doesnt mean they know what to do with new information

Very well said.

how else can you define a old North American who still thinks that russia is going to invade the country
or people who have otherwise made up their mind before the issue for consideration has even appeared?

Anybody see Jon Stewart last night? He was talking to Senator John McCain
(this guy:  :pow: - he's running for the republican primary)

McCain was fighting an uphill battle. Stewart's audience is very firmly anti-war. They even booed McCain when he said "the troops know this is a good cause. If you ask them what they want to do, they'll tell you they want to stay until it's finished properly." (my friends in the military feel that way too. Pretty rude to boo him there if you ask me)

McCain's major point was that we have a new general now, and a different plan, and that we should give it a chance. Generally, the American people are dissatisfied with the war, and we should try to finish it, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss every idea that doesn't involve leaving. Without derailing this into politics (which certainly isn't my point), I'd accuse much of the current young American left of this sort of neophobia. They've bought into Jon Stewart's cynical vibe and they won't hear anything else. Doesn't matter if Bush suddenly gained the ability to shit platinum bricks and singlehandedly restore the economy - they're going to hate him at every turn.

So yeah, I hear you LHX. Since this passage is in the BIP pamphlet, I wanted to direct this dissatisfaction in a way which, on some scale, helps people out.

[Jenne]

This thread and those like it are why I'm here.  Awesome stuff, LHX, and the stuff you laid down the other day and today as well.

Neophobia is reactionaryism.  Total and complete.  If you can harness that, you can get a message across and reach others much faster, and you will get them to stick around here more.  But you probably sacrifice, as someone who's a btdt, a certain amount of personal integrity in gritting those teeth in order to carry this out.

Neophobes also rely a lot upon the self-discovery factor.  Let someone figure it out for himself, they think, and thus begins the "but you should already know this" diatribe that ensues.  Which fosters hostility from the outset.

Arrogance is an enemy to someone who wants to not only bear an important message but also have that message heard, internalized and finally believed/acceptec.