Yet another BIP metaphor: Ruts and Slopes.

[Golden Applesauce]

It's been a while since people have been arguing over over-fine points in metaphor, so I thought I'd give the beehive a little kick.  Also just in case any of my ideas are original, I wanted to share them.

Extending the 'paths' metaphor, ruts are paths that are traveled very frequently.  They are easier to follow, because one can move along a rut on cruise control.  Being stuck in a rut is the equivalent to being stuck in a BIP/GSP/Endless Battlefield Composed Entirely of Shrapnel.  I find it more convient to speak of people being in multiple ruts at a time, where one rut might represent their attitudes regarding one subject, which groups or archetypes they think of themselves another, cognitive style being a third, etc.  Ruts represent memes as well; saying someone has caught the gender meme is equivalent to saying they're stuck in the gender rut.

Ruts represent to lowest energy, most stable state of 'selfness.'  Energy is required for a person to bump himself out of a rut; likewise person who has gotten out of a rut will spontaneously fall back into one if he does not continuously exert effort.

Major ruts are those formed by social pressures, so pervasive they are nearly invisible until a great social movement comes along and re-landscapes the collective psyche.  The customs of wearing clothes almost all the time would be a large rut.  This is one of the better examples of ruts, I think, because in purely physical terms, the condition of wearing clothes is not favored.  There is higher entropy in being undressed (more ways for my clothes to lay around my room than be on me) and it takes time and effort to get dressed in the morning.  And yet, it would take greater willpower for me to attend classes in the nude.

Smaller ruts are formed by groups or influential figures.  The hip-hop scene produced a surprisingly strong 'gangsta' rut in the US and worldwide, for example.  Adam Smith largely created the first the modern rut of economic thinking with Wealth of Nations.

Ruts of all kinds can be altered.  Protest and awareness groups seek to change ruts or at least make people aware of that a particular rut exists.  (For example, trying to fight homophobia is a protest, and trying to get people to realized that heterosexuality is not the only sexuality would be awareness.)  Encountering a new rut, or having ones' rut shaped by an outside force, is the equivalent of shrapnel.

The prime characteristic of a rut is that the concept behind it is embraced subconsciously.  If asked why they do something in a particular way, people who have fallen into that rut will typically by confused - how else would they do it?  This can be seen in the English-speaker baffled at how other languages don't go subject-noun-object, the little boy who doesn't can't fathom why girls' hair should be longer than boys' hair, but wouldn't be caught dead in a pigtail.  It is the missionairy who cannot see how people can solve their crushing existential crises without faith in God, it is the Discordian who sees cabbages going about their mundane, greyfaced lives and being happy without the appropriate level of nonsense.  Things are done because they've always been done that way.

Slopes are what pull one into ruts, and what make getting out of them completely so difficult.  Being on a slope does not determine your behaviour as completely as being in a rut, but it does exert a downhill force towards the rut that affects your actions.  Having been a starving musician once might pull one away from the rut of considering music piracy normal, even though the person in question no longer considers himself a member of the music community - he's out of the rut but still on the slope.  Conversing, a person who has never pirated material and doesn't think of himself as the kind of person who would do so might be drawn into the 'music piracy is normal' rut simply by interacting with people in that rut.  Ruts then correspond to Scars (if you get one the slope by stepping out of a rut) or Shrapnel (if you encounter a slope by being exposed to the corresponding rut.)

Slopes can be subtle, entrapping people who think that they have completely gotten away from the rut.  I particularly remember that the approach to morality in one webcomic (I believe it was Casey and Andy) was very conservative Christian - and later found out that the author was strongly atheist.  He'd gotten partially out of the Christian mindset, but still thought of Good and Evil in Christian terms.

Ruts are not inherently negative.  The purpose of BIP-Discordianism, as I see it, is to make people more aware of the ruts they're in and help apply the wisdom of "Well, then stop." to ruts that they don't want to be in.  In this context, a prison break is stepping out of a rut that the person doesn't like onto the slope (or further uphill on the slope.)  I think this offers a little insight into the "Can one really break out of the BIP?" argument - one might be out of the rut, but will inevitably still be on the slope.  The slope is steeper close to the rut, and by moving further away from the rut the influence of the slope on one's life is less, but never quite zero.

--

It's far past my bedtime, so I've probably left out some important points.  Will add/clarify/spellcheck tomorrow.

[Golden Applesauce]

[rong]

is there a way to work peaks into this metaphor - i.e. can you be a the top of two slopes leading to diametrically opposed ruts? 

would it be fair to say that discordianism is the only religion that acknowledges it is a rut?

also, cuz i live in deer country: the other rut

[Verbal Mike]

I approve of this thread.
I was about to say the opposite, but actually Peaks are a good idea. When I started going Atheist, I still had a moral world-view more or less compatible with that of the theists. But when I came to the conclusion that morality cannot be absolute without a supreme being, I fell off the Peak and started sloping down into the Atheist rut, hard.
Oddly enough the thing that dragged me out of that rut was becoming a social person, which is something I find difficult to fit into this model because it's actually just restoring basic human behavior that I had suppressed. At any rate, starting to become a fun person is what made me care about Atheism less, and finding Goddess is what put me on the Discordian slope.
So perhaps some things have the effect of anti-gravity, of causing one to come out of a rut even without a competing rut pulling one in.

[rong]

what about picks and shovels?

[LMNO]

I like the metaphor, GA.  The physicality of it appeals to me.


So; how to get out of a rut, how to climb a slope?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Interesting. So then some questions for further pondering:

"ruts are paths that are traveled very frequently"

Are paths that are not frequently traveled more shallow ruts? Are they more easy to extract yourself from? Is it the frequency of traveling or the impact of what came before, or a combination of both that create the depth of the rut?

If we consider some random cult, it may be a path less traveled, but it seems to suck the individual in more strongly (in some cases) than a rut that's been traveled by millions of people. After all, even if they're in a rut, I bet there are fewer Catholics that would be willing to put on purple tennis shoes, cut off their balls and take poison so they can ride a comet. Yet, surely the Catholic path is more traveled than the "Do" path.

Perhaps some ruts expose a muddy, sticky or quicksand kind of bottom, based on the sort of territory that they are cutting into?

[Verbal Mike]

I think what matters is not how many others have walked down the path, but how often you've done so yourself. A rut is harder to leave the longer you stay in it.

[Golden Applesauce]

The more common a rut is, the wider it would be.  So if you just fell from the sky, you'd be more likely to land in a wide rut than a narrow one, just like you're more likely to be born into a family/culture/circle of friends that follow a common belief (wear clothes every day, Hinduism) than a fringe one (the world is ruled by shapechanging reptiles.)

I'd use the shallow/deep axis to describe how entrapping ruts are.  So a brainwashed cultist would be in a very narrow, very deep rut.  The various cognitive biases would be both wide and deep - everybody starts out with them, and its very hard to train yourself to not have them (or to correct for them.)  Being in the habit of wearing jeans as your casual clothes is relatively wide in some regions of the world, but not very deep, because switching to khakis, shorts, or a mixture doesn't take all that much effort.

I think what matters is not how many others have walked down the path, but how often you've done so yourself. A rut is harder to leave the longer you stay in it.

I agree that that is (mostly) true for getting out of ruts.  But for falling into ruts, wider is much easier.  It's a lot easier for me to fall into a mindset that is common in my infosphere (say, TFY,S!) than one that isn't (say, animism.)  It's a lot harder to take the path less followed, because there are fewer guidebooks.

Oddly enough the thing that dragged me out of that rut was becoming a social person, which is something I find difficult to fit into this model because it's actually just restoring basic human behavior that I had suppressed. At any rate, starting to become a fun person is what made me care about Atheism less, and finding Goddess is what put me on the Discordian slope.

Basic human behaviours are ruts as well.  Ruts are default ways of thinking and behaving, what you do without really thinking about it.  So being social is a rut, as is being antisocial, as is introversion or extroversion. 

So; how to get out of a rut, how to climb a slope?

When you reach a fork in the road, stop and think.  Consider going left, consider going right, and make a decision.  (As opposed to just letting your wagon wheels follow whichever way the rut in the road goes.)  (And if your rut is 'thinking to much', ask yourself if another ten minutes of weighing pro and cons is worth the slight improvement in your final decision.)

Of course that only works if you're aware of the forks in the road; it's easy to become blindered to alternate routes when you've been following one path for so long.  The two ways I can think of to become more aware of the ruts you are in (and alternate ruts that might be better) are to continuously monitor yourself - ask yourself why did I think that, why did I do that, why did I do that in the way that I did? and to talk to other people (and read their books) - they might have noticed and identified a different path where you only thought one was possible.

[Requia ☣]

I approve of this thread.
I was about to say the opposite, but actually Peaks are a good idea. When I started going Atheist, I still had a moral world-view more or less compatible with that of the theists. But when I came to the conclusion that morality cannot be absolute without a supreme being, I fell off the Peak and started sloping down into the Atheist rut, hard.
Oddly enough the thing that dragged me out of that rut was becoming a social person, which is something I find difficult to fit into this model because it's actually just restoring basic human behavior that I had suppressed. At any rate, starting to become a fun person is what made me care about Atheism less, and finding Goddess is what put me on the Discordian slope.
So perhaps some things have the effect of anti-gravity, of causing one to come out of a rut even without a competing rut pulling one in.

I still don't understand the idea that a supreme being changes the nature of ethics.  Not unless you buy into might makes right anyway.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So it seems that we might discuss multiple types of ruts, so I thought I'd take a stab at labeling some of the ruts:

1. Big Ruts made by lots of people: "The earth is flat." "This bread turns into flesh in your mouth."
2. Narrow Ruts made by few people: "Drink this Kool-Aid." "There's a spaceship behind the comet, I swear."
3. Ruts you have made yourself. "23pinealfnord" "I'm an Iconoclast!!!"

and these ruts come in a at least four flavors (with a quick example for each)::
A. Ruts that are easy to fall into, but hard to get out of. (Religion, Politics?)
B. Ruts that are easy to fall into and easy to get out of. (Fads?)
C. Ruts that are hard to fall into, but easy to get out of. (counterculture/subcultures?)
D. Ruts that are hard to fall into and hard to get out of. (Cults?)

It seems that a number 1 rut would rarely exhibit type D traits, while a number 3 rut might display type A traits far more often than we'd like to admit

Thoughts?

Thoughts?

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I'd say there's also emotional/attitudinal ruts, eg the rebellious teen or the resigned worker bee.  It's a whole complex of ruts, or rather typical reactions to situations.

[Verbal Mike]

I still don't understand the idea that a supreme being changes the nature of ethics.  Not unless you buy into might makes right anyway.

Well when you build your ethical world-view with a supreme being in mind, you might turn him into a supreme arbitrator - a source of right and wrong. Since this is the kind of idea I grew up with, I essentially took it for granted that there is an external, absolute and profound Good to strive towards. When I got into Atheism I had to reconfigure my ethical world-view to match my newfound materialism.

[Golden Applesauce]

Thinking a little more on the idea of peaks.  If ruts represent where you go on autopilot when you aren't really paying attention, then peaks are regions where a person has no default approach.  It's the autistic kid at his first big party - he has to make every social decision consciously, rather than following the ruts that everyone else knows.  A peak is either where your previous experiences have left you completely uprepared, or where you've gotten so far away from the relevant ruts that you just don't know what to do anymore.  (Say after you've rejected your old moral yardstick and before finding a  new one.  You have to analyze every the morality of every behaviour completely from scratch.)

Peaks are the least stable configuration, partially because it takes a paralyzing amount of thought to decide anything, and because once you start to make decisions, you carve your own rut out of precedence.

So it seems that we might discuss multiple types of ruts, so I thought I'd take a stab at labeling some of the ruts:

1. Big Ruts made by lots of people: "The earth is flat." "This bread turns into flesh in your mouth."
2. Narrow Ruts made by few people: "Drink this Kool-Aid." "There's a spaceship behind the comet, I swear."
3. Ruts you have made yourself. "23pinealfnord" "I'm an Iconoclast!!!"

and these ruts come in a at least four flavors (with a quick example for each)::
A. Ruts that are easy to fall into, but hard to get out of. (Religion, Politics?)
B. Ruts that are easy to fall into and easy to get out of. (Fads?)
C. Ruts that are hard to fall into, but easy to get out of. (counterculture/subcultures?)
D. Ruts that are hard to fall into and hard to get out of. (Cults?)

It seems that a number 1 rut would rarely exhibit type D traits, while a number 3 rut might display type A traits far more often than we'd like to admit

Thoughts?

Thoughts?

I'd say there's also emotional/attitudinal ruts, eg the rebellious teen or the resigned worker bee.  It's a whole complex of ruts, or rather typical reactions to situations.

Extending Ratatosk's descriptions, I'd recognize the following main types of ruts:

-Worldviews.
-Self-image
-Attitudes/Personalities
-Cognitive style (how you think, probably should also include cognitive biases)
-Beliefs
-Values
-Habits
-Prejudices (in the strictest sense of 'judgments made ahead of time')
-Addictions

[Reginald Ret]

would it be possible to put yourself in a rut that motivates you to seek out peaks?