(a good enough for government work explanation for) Why It's Called a "Theory of Self"

A theory of self arises, as its name might suggest, from an awareness of one's position in the world.

I'm not, of course, talking longitude and latitude here, otherwise sailors would be renowned for their empathy, rather than for rum and buggery, and car satnav devices would have replaced psychologists a long time ago (that is, if they actually haven't).

No, I'm of course talking about your psycho-social position.

when one is aware of yourself having specific a self, with a point of view, and bias and a history and bakcground and upbringing and life experience of one's own, one immediately sets oneself apart from the rest of the world, and gives rise to possibility of other POVs and baises and oh me oh my People Are Made Of History

At which point people become intersting, if only because of the epic task of digging through all their retcons to find out exactly how big their dad's cock was when they were a little kid.

Trouble is that this epic vista of the Other often causes people to forget where the damn thing came from. And belive you me, nothing is as silly as misplacing your roots.

Of course, clearly empathy and caring what other people feel isn't a bad thing, it does do one good to occasionally gaze into someone else's navel rather than your own, but to be so fascinated in the navels of others to the point where one forgets that one has a navel all of your own.

And belly button lint, if left unchecked, may prove dangerous when inadvertantly weilded by those who's belief in their understanding of others outstrips their understanding of themselves.

I tempted to leave it there in a contextless void, but I'm referring to Hugo's thing, that's been hit up quite expertly by Bfp and BA.

The problem with all of these things has been that people seem to not grasp the important of the self-context when it comes to understanding others.

Of course that problem is not that the heartless vikings are just assholes with a severe case of the "make that tiny little leap to see from my point of view for just one second before you dismiss me" failure. Their blindness is not a personal failure really even, because it's not a merely personal thing, unique and inexplicable that emerges ex nihilo again and again with no real connection between the people who suffer from such things.

People are taught to be ignorant of themselves, to have very specific blind spots, and very specific reactions to people threatening those blind spots.

Now I've never had a WSs class in my life, in no small part because they always sound stupid as hell to my way of thinking (sort of home ec but with much talk of the justness of the female orgasm, taught by women with assholes so tight its a wonder they don't fart diamonds really). The main trouble is of course that they tend to teach specific POVs' experience of oppression, so that hte student ends up having to first unlearn the idea that the POVs they've been taught to think as representative of oppression under patriarchy, and then learn what is representative for their own POV's. Adding a rather pointless extra step to the process of undertanding our own personal worlds and somewhat crippling us entirely when we are overwhelmed by one of those specific blind spots and are unable to allow ourselves to actually notice that our navel lint has just eaten our allies whole.

The trouble of course is that while we don't know what others are hearing us say when we speak unless we make that little leap to the Other's POV, we have no chance in hell of knowing hwat the hell we're even saying if we don't remember to actually listen to what the hell we're saying, in context, with all biases, frailties, flaws and trained in blind spots taken into account before and during what we say.

Because if we don't actually do stuff to stop us from being blinded by those trained in blindnesses, then there is no way in hell we won't be blinded by them. that is somewhat the point of buddha killing, if we do nothing to stop outselves being waylaid by the false buddha, if we do not frisk those buddhas without a trace of selfconciousness, then how do we know that any particular buddha is not false?

We don't is the answer, and people who trust themselves to not be fooled, and hence do not need to examine themselves, are the least trust worthy sort, for even they do not know their limits and failings, and take action in ignorance, and base their failings in good intentions

For is it not said: Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat that class next year, while those who aren't paying fucking attention to what they're doing right fucking now will probably end up losing a limb in an industrial accident or dying in a freak moose related accident of some kind, and are probably also Israel to some not insubstantial degree.

Probably not, but it should be. And isn't that what the true spirit of christmas is all about? Aside from the green phallic symbols and little dangling balls and O'rly making Godwin's Law cry and everything.