In Eating Animals, Jonathan Froer mentions hidden camera footage of slaughterhouses. They are the videos that we’ve seen and were sickened by or maybe made a conscious effort not to see. The ones with abuses and disgusting conditions and an appalling lack of humanity. In both choices, there is this tacit admission that something is wrong with what is happening and our role in it. And a process that backs people into that kind of corner is troubling.
This is a theme in philosophy and real self-awareness as well. To look at that things that make us disassociate. That prompt us to rationalize. Or more banally to not probe something uncomfortable.
It calls to mind a line in Meditations about never regarding a thing as doing you good if it makes you lose your sense of shame or, “desire to keep things behind closed doors.”
Better: a Spartan anecdote from Plutarch about King Hippocratidas when a youth and his lover met him accidentally in a crowd. The two had turned their faces away and he said “You ought to keep the company of the sort of people who won’t cause you to change color when observed”
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I am held in awe by your profundity. Please update more!!
Agree, keep it up
I am currently reading “Faking It” and this post reminds me of that book. Excellent post and book.
Are you saying that when you’re backed into a corner, not sure what to do, you should take the action that won’t make you ashamed if people knew about it?
You have a cigarette featured in your webpage header. Keeping in mind nicotine’s dangerous side effects on your health and the industry’s infiltration of our capitalist economy, do you feel you’re “banally…not prob[ing] something uncomfortable”? Are you also turning a blind eye to the fact that “there is this tacit admission that something is wrong with what is happening and our role in it”?
Just wondering. You might not even be a smoker.
Uhh, no I’m saying you opt out of being backed into the corner by doing the right thing.
And no, I don’t smoke and that’s not me in the photo.
Dammit, I’ve been reading your blog for some time now and ALL this time, I thought it was your mug in the header! My entire idea how I imagined you to be is kind of shattered at the moment..
I’m with matt – Absolutely love reading your thoughts on business and life. Such great insights and you always draw from the most inspirational sources. Please update more often! You should really blog for a living if you already don’t. We can all benefit from it.
I’m glad Ryan has chosen not to “blog for a living,” but I think he has his own reasons for choosing to do other work instead. Anyway, I’m glad to have come across his page a few years back, and it’s been one of the few that I’ve continued to follow regularly since it’s been up. Whether or not his thoughts always resonate with me, his commitment to honest reflection and his attempts to communicate his thoughts has always inspired me.
“You ought to keep the company of the sort of people who won’t cause you to change color when observed”
I like this. One thing I have noticed, though, is that occasionally it is not necessarily the company I need to change but rather myself.
Case in point, last year there was a guy at school, a friend of a friend, who is just about the nerdiest/dorkiest looking guy I have ever seen in my life. He exuded dorkiness, to the extent that I was even embarrassed to be seen in public associating with him.
Then I realized, how fucking insecure am I that I am afraid to be seen with a guy I don’t even know just because of his damn appearance?
When I finally got over my own insecurity, I actually realized he is a pretty cool guy. While we aren’t exactly best friends (we don’t have too much in common), when I was finally able to get over my own petty issues, I managed to meet an interesting person I wouldn’t have otherwise had the pleasure of meeting.
The problem is, why would you turn red when observed? Why would you be embarrased? That is the problem. There is an Argentine contemporary philosopher (Alejandro Rozitchner, blogs in Spanish at http://www.100volando.net) that talks about “doing things without the feeling of being observed” (free translation). Why would you be embarrased? I think that is the issue. If you are embarrased, is because you have a mistaken approach to the whole thing. You may not be doing what you should be doing. I tend to think that we should be doing what we want to be doing (I like the idea of being guided by our wants, which will determine the “shoulds”). You SHOULD be doing what you WANT to be doing. If you are authentic, and true to yourself, if you learn to express your person(ality) from the inside to the outside, and learn to be responsible for your life, rather than being guided by outside sources, then the feeling of turning color or being embarrased should subside. I think. Thanks
Ramiro