(May 7, 2018 01:10 AM)confused2 Wrote: I was puzzled by SS's reference to self promotion until I remembered your POTUS is (by his own account) the fittest and best qualified president in the history of the United States. In the UK anyone over the age of five making such claims would be laughed out of court on the grounds of being an arrogant twat. My claim (elsewhere) to nascent expertise in the field of sociology failed as parody because that is exactly what you guys in the US would do.
Trump is a mild aberration in terms of his "winner" fixation being quite overt and sustained rather than strategically subdued.
He's tried to contend at times that his public narcissism is part facetious and part tactical (promotional theatrics, a business schtick, the showmanship of selling himself, etc), along with the mean-spirited ploys. But like so many verbal abusers it's a package of stylistic habits that have grown to control him more than he controls it, creating continual problems for him now that's he's switched to being an officeholder. His still relying on the unrelenting magic belief he had in business -- that "things usually work out for the best in the end" (good results outweighing the bad) -- to pull him out of trouble, is more applicable to autocrats like Kim Jong-un who literally do have a knife to every one of their domestic enemies' throats.
There are plenty of successful people in America who -- even if they privately think similarly to Trump -- cultivate a humbler and less controversial image (sometimes downright reclusive) to dodge those problems while simultaneously enhancing their game subterfuge. Trump's problem is that he actually has had failed ventures in the past; and thereby is heavily dependent on the exaggerated "star image" that he's created to pull him back to into the headlines and spotlight of being a promotional magnate which various projects desire to associate with. Others of his financial stratosphere, OTOH, don't need the desperation of such controversial publicity because they really are more knowledgeable and skilled with their undertakings.
Applicable Trump quotes
“Every successful person has a very large ego.” (Playboy, 1990)
"Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser — having a healthy ego, or high opinion of yourself, is a real positive in life!” (Facebook, 2013)
“If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)
“I do whine because I want to win, and I’m not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.” (CNN, 2015)
From Art of the Deal (1987):
"The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”
“good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.”
"I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.”
“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.”
"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."
"[W]hen people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is you'll make a bad situation worse, and I certainly don't recommend this approach to everyone. But my experience is that if you're fighting for something you believe in — even if it means alienating some people along the way — things usually work out for the best in the end."
“One of the keys to thinking big is total focus. I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis, which is a quality I’ve noticed in many highly successful entrepreneurs. They’re obsessive, they’re driven, they’re single-minded and sometimes they’re almost maniacal, but it’s all channeled into their work. Where other people are paralyzed by neurosis, the people I’m talking about are actually helped by it.”
(May 6, 2018 11:13 PM)Syne Wrote: And P.S.C. sounds like catty female talk. I've never heard a guy say it, nor do I know any equivalent phrase specifically referring to women.
A lot of your problems seem to be of your own making.
I’m pretty sure he’s a 63 year old male. I simply mimicked his behavior to a tee.
What a crappy, slow forum.
Don't know why you'd want to spread that phrase elsewhere. Maybe in the hopes of having your beliefs further reinforced? Just looks like smearing feces.
(May 7, 2018 08:25 PM)Syne Wrote: What a crappy, slow forum.
Don't know why you'd want to spread that phrase elsewhere. Maybe in the hopes of having your beliefs further reinforced? Just looks like smearing feces.
Well, it’s was kind of catchy and when you correct a C+ thinker something is bound to happen.
It’s described as the most heavily tabooed word of all English words, which is sort of ridiculous, isn’t it? How many times over the years do you think I’ve called you a dick? Use it enough and it loses what? Its power.
(May 7, 2018 03:55 PM)C C Wrote: Trump is a mild aberration in terms of his "winner" fixation being quite overt and sustained rather than strategically subdued.
God asks Bush: "What do you believe in?"
Bush answers: "I believe in the free market, and the strong American nation!"
"Very well", says God. "Come sit to my right."
Next, God asks Obama: "What do you believe in?"
Obama answers: "I believe in the power of democracy, and equal rights for all."
"Good", says God. "You shall sit to my left."
Finally, God asks Trump: "What do you believe in?"
Trump answers: "I believe you're sitting in my chair."
C CMay 8, 2018 04:43 PM (This post was last modified: May 8, 2018 04:45 PM by C C.)
(May 8, 2018 12:44 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(May 7, 2018 08:25 PM)Syne Wrote: What a crappy, slow forum. Don't know why you'd want to spread that phrase elsewhere. Maybe in the hopes of having your beliefs further reinforced? Just looks like smearing feces.
Well, it’s was kind of catchy and when you correct a C+ thinker something is bound to happen.
It’s described as the most heavily tabooed word of all English words, which is sort of ridiculous, isn’t it? How many times over the years do you think I’ve called you a dick? Use it enough and it loses what? Its power.
MERMAN: "The director said I looked sensational. He said I had the face of a 20-year-old, and the body and legs of a 30-year-old!"
BORGNINE: "Did he say anything about your old c--t?"
MERMAN: "No. He didn't mention you at all."
Which is to say, since those old days the "C-word" may have become more politically "sacred-taboo" in academic scholar circles due to the consequences of crossing lines with social justice sensitivities born from sexual discrimination and traditional vocal forms of disparagement and dehumanization accompanying it. Especially with regard to it becoming a hot-potato for males, with #MeToo probably giving that a revived jolt.
Some years back on *60 Minutes*, I remember David Bradley chortling about how much he loved the N-word (it was empowering to take over ownership of once oppressive language). And he loved all the "good stuff" that came along with it in terms of black humor. Blacks now had a monopoly on such because white people couldn't use that "good stuff" anymore without getting into trouble.
"Look, in every group, there are words that you use, there are inflections, there is knowledge about what a word means to you, or to me, or how I mean it when I say it that is not an insult. I think one of the things that offends white people about it is that they can't say it."--"Huckleberry Finn" and the N-word debate; Page-3
(May 7, 2018 03:55 PM)C C Wrote: Trump is a mild aberration in terms of his "winner" fixation being quite overt and sustained rather than strategically subdued.
God asks Bush: "What do you believe in?"
Bush answers: "I believe in the free market, and the strong American nation!"
"Very well", says God. "Come sit to my right."
Next, God asks Obama: "What do you believe in?"
Obama answers: "I believe in the power of democracy, and equal rights for all."
"Good", says God. "You shall sit to my left."
Finally, God asks Trump: "What do you believe in?"
Trump answers: "I believe you're sitting in my chair."
(May 7, 2018 08:25 PM)Syne Wrote: What a crappy, slow forum.
Don't know why you'd want to spread that phrase elsewhere. Maybe in the hopes of having your beliefs further reinforced? Just looks like smearing feces.
Well, it’s was kind of catchy and when you correct a C+ thinker something is bound to happen.
It’s described as the most heavily tabooed word of all English words, which is sort of ridiculous, isn’t it? How many times over the years do you think I’ve called you a dick? Use it enough and it loses what? Its power.
Yeah, your use of "dick" doesn't really class the place up.
If you're interested in sinking to the lowest common denominator, I'll leave that to you.
Seems to be apropos with secular values.
(May 8, 2018 06:56 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, your use of "dick" doesn't really class the place up.
If you're interested in sinking to the lowest common denominator, I'll leave that to you.
Seems to be apropos with secular values.
You being a dick doesn't really class the place up.
Yep, just keep reinforcing those barriers. Male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, and of course, your favorite, pious/atheist. You like to point out our difference rather than our similarities, don’t you?
(May 8, 2018 06:56 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, your use of "dick" doesn't really class the place up.
If you're interested in sinking to the lowest common denominator, I'll leave that to you.
Seems to be apropos with secular values.
You being a dick doesn't really class the place up.
Yep, just keep reinforcing those barriers. Male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, and of course, your favorite, pious/atheist. You like to point out our difference rather than our similarities, don’t you?
You don't seem to understand that there's a difference between a manner of posting that you just don't like and calling people names like you're in grade school. Adults can handle the former with some aplomb, but children favor the latter. And just like dealing with children, when they start the latter, no amount of reason will penetrate. It's a form of quelling cognitive dissonance.
It is scientific fact that males/females and homo/hetrosexuals are different, and trivial reality that theists and atheists differ. I like to deal in fact and reality, yes.
(May 8, 2018 08:25 PM)Syne Wrote: You don't seem to understand that there's a difference between a manner of posting that you just don't like and calling people names like you're in grade school. Adults can handle the former with some aplomb, but children favor the latter. And just like dealing with children, when they start the latter, no amount of reason will penetrate. It's a form of quelling cognitive dissonance.
It is scientific fact that males/females and homo/hetrosexuals are different, and trivial reality that theists and atheists differ. I like to deal in fact and reality, yes.
What you don't seem to understand is that we, as humans, spend the majority of our time deluding ourselves. That my dear is a fact and part of your so-called reality.
Those differences aren’t limitations. There is no God to establish such limitations, roles, or positions. They’re rules made up by groups, and not by the wisest, nor best qualified, but by the strongest.
Animals live within their limits of their lives as biologically given, within circumstances that are environmentally given. Humans, however, in their search for meaning, have always tried to transcend it, to control and alter their natural environment.
"The will to power is that quality of a living thing that leads it to grab hold of its environment, to take what nourishes it, as much as it can, to shoulder aside whoever is interested in the same thing, to trample whatever stands in its way, to grow, to become big and strong, and to multiply. The aim of the maggot is to make more maggots. The drive is blind, knows no internal limit, will continue until stopped.
[…]The rules that shape our lives defend the interests of the holders of power.
The guises of power are so various, so dissembled, that power ceases to be recognized as such. We would have it that human life is discontinuous with life in the tide pools, in the jungle, that mind or spirit, something far removed from power, has come to be the essence of human life. We delude ourselves. The holders of great power may be physically frail, gentle in manner, tender in sentiment, Christian by profession, may wear but a lion-cloth; but power is power, and its nature is to grab hold, to seize possession, to overwhelm. Whatever appears in human life that seems unrelated to power, or even—like love, like charity, like self-sacrifice—contrary to it, is if it endures, but another mask of power."
The Way We Areby Allen Wheelis
The way to live should issue from our nature, from what it is we believe ourselves most deeply to be. We tend to assume that we know what we are, that our nature is obvious, given to us by direct observation of others and ourselves; Just look around the world and look into your own heart and you know the human condition. It’s not so. What it is to be a human being is not clear at all, but deeply shrouded. Because, in the evolution from animal life to human life, along with the gain in knowledge and awareness, we have gained also the ability to deceive ourselves. We arrange not to know our nature, not to see what we are up to. Our self-deceptions are so dense, piled on so thick, like layers of paint on a canvas already painted, layer after layer, laid on from school and pulpit and lectern and TV and Internet, that is all but impossible to break through, to get a clear view of what we really are.
Behind our loudly profess values of freedom, justice, and equality lies a propensity to violence far stronger and far deeper that is known to any of us, even the most cynical. It is all but invincible, invades even the bedroom, corrupts what we call love. We indulge in vast hypocrisies, flagrant and subtle, to conceal from ourselves this destructiveness. We are in fact largely the opposite of what we think we are.
And as we deceive ourselves, we deceive also others. Self-awareness comes into being in the midst of struggles for power and is immediately put to use.
Morality is fear that has been transformed into conscience. The morality that is observed, as distinct from the morality that is but professed, measures the freedom that individuals have surrendered to the collective in return for security.
The will to power impels the rush of life; morality and fear constitute the barrier; the outcome in behavior is a compromise.
Our holiest fictions designate what is right and wrong. The way things are is the will to power of groups.
And so it comes about that the modern state is thought to be a moral state, even a Christian state, the source and defender of morality. The state does not intend itself to become moral; it requires morality of its subjects as the necessary basis of its own amoral power.
The unselfishness of individuals empowers the selfishness of the states. The selflessness of patriots becomes the arrogance of nations.
SyneMay 9, 2018 06:44 PM (This post was last modified: May 9, 2018 09:54 PM by Syne.)
(May 9, 2018 04:10 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(May 8, 2018 08:25 PM)Syne Wrote: You don't seem to understand that there's a difference between a manner of posting that you just don't like and calling people names like you're in grade school. Adults can handle the former with some aplomb, but children favor the latter. And just like dealing with children, when they start the latter, no amount of reason will penetrate. It's a form of quelling cognitive dissonance.
It is scientific fact that males/females and homo/hetrosexuals are different, and trivial reality that theists and atheists differ. I like to deal in fact and reality, yes.
What you don't seem to understand is that we, as humans, spend the majority of our time deluding ourselves. That my dear is a fact and part of your so-called reality.
And has nothing to do with the scientific facts...other than perhaps your feelings.
Quote:Those differences aren’t limitations. There is no God to establish such limitations, roles, or positions. They’re rules made up by groups, and not by the wisest, nor best qualified, but by the strongest.
Who said they were limitations? And it's nature, not god, that established such differences and roles. No one made up how different survival strategies would be distributed.
Quote:Animals live within their limits of their lives as biologically given, within circumstances that are environmentally given. Humans, however, in their search for meaning, have always tried to transcend it, to control and alter their natural environment.
That doesn't change fundamental differences and the subsequent psychology of necessary evolutionary strategies.
Quote:"The will to power is that quality of a living thing that leads it to grab hold of its environment, to take what nourishes it, as much as it can, to shoulder aside whoever is interested in the same thing, to trample whatever stands in its way, to grow, to become big and strong, and to multiply. The aim of the maggot is to make more maggots. The drive is blind, knows no internal limit, will continue until stopped.
[…]The rules that shape our lives defend the interests of the holders of power.
The guises of power are so various, so dissembled, that power ceases to be recognized as such. We would have it that human life is discontinuous with life in the tide pools, in the jungle, that mind or spirit, something far removed from power, has come to be the essence of human life. We delude ourselves. The holders of great power may be physically frail, gentle in manner, tender in sentiment, Christian by profession, may wear but a lion-cloth; but power is power, and its nature is to grab hold, to seize possession, to overwhelm. Whatever appears in human life that seems unrelated to power, or even—like love, like charity, like self-sacrifice—contrary to it, is if it endures, but another mask of power."
And the problem with postmodernists is that they, having denounced enlightenment values, go on to create their own, which only feed into their blind and selfish drives.
They see everything as a power struggle of tribal identity groups because they've abandoned their personal agency and responsibility. They fixate on power inequality as an excuse for their failures, even though power is not a zero sum game.
"Standing for “involuntarily celibate”, the term was originally invented 20 years ago by a woman known only as Alana, who coined the term as a name for an online support forum for singles, basically a lonely hearts club. “It feels like being the scientist who figured out nuclear fission and then discovers it’s being used as a weapon for war,” she says, describing the feeling of watching it mutate into a Reddit muster point for violent misogyny." [1]
May 7, 2018 03:55 PM
