"Oh man, what will these people think???"

[LHX]

In a 'free' society, there are unspoken ways of keeping people in line.

When you establish such things as pride, reputation, etc., you are able to control people out of fear of embarassment, criticism, being chastised, social isolation, mockery, etc.

Unfortunately, these things trap people, but they do so in a way that it is not easy to determine.

These things are, of course, things that differ for each individual, but it would be dumb to say that they are not re-enforced socially.

Anybody who went thru the school system learns to be embarassed and learns to feel ashamed, and becomes less likely to take chances out of fear of 'getting something wrong'.

How much do these imaginary fears prevent people from taking chances?

Is there any room for pride in a situation as bleak as the world we are living in now?

Does your pride stop you from taking chances?


I will add on later -

[Prince Rai]

I feel you on this one.
Freedom will always remain a concept in our nature.
We will always be trapped up in something... ie as LHX said, Pride, Fear.

Both Pride and Fear have positive and negative attributes..

Pride... 1)can be good if you have achieved something, others may look up to your pride and try to attain that.
2) may be bad if this pride takes over your mind and you become blinded to equality.

Fear... 1) is good as fear can protect you from unprecedented (spelling)dangers.
2) can be bad as it hinders you from taking steps due to overfear.


Productivity of a human is thus perhaps limited by those factor which we find hard to control. Controlling Fear is an art. Its a virus however to have fear.

[The Wizzard]

If we are working towards peace and equality, I don't think there is any room for pride. In Christianity on of the 7 deadly sins is superbia (or pride). and it is true like you said that it could be good if you acheive somthing. But, if you acheve somthing you should be humble:

[a wise person] acts without claiming the results as his; he achieves his merit and does not rest (arrogantly) in it: -- he does not wish to display his superiority. ~ The Tao Te Ching (77.4)

unnfortunitly fear is, as far as I can tell, a natural emotion. So i am stuck on that topic. Where we can calm pride fear is hard to calm, but if we harness fear and but it on the back for the good of good, yall get it, it's complicated.

[LHX]

fear may be a natural emotion

but the things that evoke fear are often (if not always) illusions

[The Wizzard]

^^Very True^^ But people are going to always be afraid of somthing, we just need to teach ourselves and than fear can eventually become less and less of a problem. But that is also the difference between fear and pride. people can become humble with small amounts of practice, where becoming fearless, which may not be essentially a good thing, takes much time a work.

[LHX]

fear is the main sorce of control theese days ranks right up there with money

what about guilt? i think the aspects of guilt fit well with this discussion

i think you are on to something

[The Wizzard]

now, when we get into guilt we have to talk about right & wrong and things like that. And to me (opinion) people should all be able to live happily and peacefully. now on the topic of guilt. Guilt is a controlling force in all our lives, yet if we were totally seperated from guilt we would be more prone to impose on others peaceful existance. Siddhartha discovered that loving everything equally is the only way to become tranquil with yourself. though guilt is a controller, it is a good controller because it helps you feel good about yourself and not do harm unto others where pride damages.

[Aqueous Moon]

I think people would take chances if they actually felt that it would be worth it.

This world makes you think that it just ain't worth it.

The opposition just looks too big and powerful....that's also an illusion though.

The opposition is very good at hiding it's wounds.

[JASPER]

Knowing we can't travel back in time and undo our mistakes
It's not easy to change the way people think about you
Fear is always a hyperbolic emotion, it's needs to be in order to make you move or not move (fight or flight)
Most of our fear factors are created in school, when other kids would give you the strange looks your parents used to give you when you did something that didn't settle with them well or when the teacher sets up rules and punishes those who break them. It reminds of when we were taught that trying out daddies hammer on the brand new stereo was no no.

Fear is a big factor in your life and influences almost all decisions made. Fear of failing, fear of getting hurt, fear of rejection etc.

Like I said, fear is a hyperbolic emotion that is stronger than all feelings and thoughts and will take away you willpower. Paranoia and passiveness can be a result of letting fear control your decisions. Fear the fear or fear for a dull life.

I don't like the way this topic is set up by the way, it's too general.

[LHX]

it is pretty general

my apologies

the issue i had in mind when i posted it up was to try and determine just how bad things need to get for people before they are willing to take chances that might be frowned upon socially

like when children grow up and make life decisions against what their parents would have wanted

or the folks that manage to avoid peer pressure and separate themselves from a group of people

social isolation seems to be something that a lot of people are afraid of - but how bad does society have to get before people stop being afraid of that social isolation?

[Damo_Suzuki]

I relate to this thread.

Many of the things that you are conditioned to see as worthy of embarrassment and are mocked for by other people are things that in actuality help you to achieve your potential. Examples: not drinking, challenging your own existence, working intently for your artistic goals are all seen as "sad".

Most of what society sees as worthy of praise, "cool" and so on is detrimental to personal development: the pursuit of uneeded consumer goods, having the latest phone, being lazy, not displaying any emotions and so on.

People are individuals, it really frustates me that they allow themselves to be pigeonholed and turned into robots through social conditioning and peer pressure.

Hence, fuck what "they" think - "they" said the world was flat.

All the great visionaries were social outcasts (initially) which tells you a lot about what social approval means. Jesus, Socrates, Sir Thomas More, Martin Luther-King, Gandhi, Plato etc etc

[the silencer]

this is a dope thread...

[the silencer]

the I Ching constantly refers to fear (among other qualities like doubt, despair, anger) as one of the "emotional inferiors" that clamor within one's mind. And all throughout the book, you are reminded to overcome your inferior qualities with your superior ones and not let fear CONTROL you.

I think it's important to acknowledge what your fears are and overcoming those fears is another step in the constant elevation of the mind and person. (Another step up "Jacob's Ladder" maybe...)

For me, speakin totally subjectively, sometimes when i'm in a class i sometimes find myself totally reluctant to speak up about something even if it's somethin i'm totally well-spoken in and passionate about. ONLY because it seems like i'm afraid of what my peers might think of me or how they might perceive me if i were to open up like that. i'm sort of battling within myself whether to get up and talk about it or just sit there and do nothing out of the fear of embarrassment, criticism, etc.

YET, if i'm with a group of my friends or a bunch of family members i have no trouble speakin up about somethin and going off on a whole "dissertation" kinda or monologue about something crazy that might cause THEM to look at me differently, but for some reason i don't give a fuck. I'd rather express the truth about certain topics to them instead of worry about what they'll think of ME for sayin that kinda shit.

I think it's just somethin that was ingrained into me throughout school when i was a little kid. Some teachers could be assholes man and i've had a few that just like tore me a new one in front of a whole class and i definitely think that had an impact on me. But thats the kinda shit one has to acknowledge and just say "fuck it" and not let past experiences (or past assholes) have control over your current actions.

PEACE

[Punch]

social isolation seems to be something that a lot of people are afraid of - but how bad does society have to get before people stop being afraid of that social isolation?

well look at Nazi Germany, All of those people were not sociopathic murderes. So what makes people do things that they wouldn't in any other circumstance?

I saw this great show on human bevhavior. They had this experiment where they would have a guy in a room alone filling out some paperwork. While he was doing this, they started leaking smoke under a door into his room. The goy got up and went to get help.
But when they put 3 people in there together, no one wanted to be the first to take any action, they just looked at each other, as if they were seeing if the situation was acceptable or not. They even went as far as having to wave the smoke away to see the paper they were filling out.

[The Wizzard]

social isolation seems to be something that a lot of people are afraid of - but how bad does society have to get before people stop being afraid of that social isolation?

Why does somthing need to get bad for social isolation? why can't a person just subject himself to isolation because what he see's leads him to that being the answer. because everything, no matter what it is, is judged in the eye of the beholder you cannot ask a general question about human kind like that, but what you can ask is how worse does society need to get before I (you) stop being afraid of Social Isolation.