Sour grapes

or

Why we tend to despise what we cannot get



The Fox and the Grapes

A famished fox crept into a vineyard where ripe, luscious grapes were draped high upon arbors in a most tempting display. In his effort to win a juicy prize, the fox jumped and sprang many times but failed in all his attempts. When he finally had to admit defeat, he retreated and muttered to himself, "Well, what does it matter anyway? The grapes are sour!"

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.


From: Aesop's Fables. Penguin Popular Classics, 1996.


We don't always get what we want, neither can we always get what we want.
How do we respond to this? Often with resentment, resignation, frustration. Not rarely with despise.
Why?

If we are rational -- and we do like to consider ourselves rational -- then it ought to be clear what we can get and what we cannot get, and feelings of resentment and despise should be redundant. Yet we have these feelings.
Does this mean that we have acted irrationally in wishing for something we couldn't get?


And what is more: How often do we camouflage something as sour grapes, so that striving for it seems worthless?

That costly dress, that thin body, that fancy language, that demanding theory, that difficult degree, all those things we wish for -- how often do we camouflage them into sour grapes, so that we find ourselves justified to say, "Well, what does it matter anyway? That dress is for those who try to make up for their lack of class; those who have nothing else strive for a thin body; speaking that fancy language isn't of any use; that theory is for nerds only; and that degree -- my job is good enough!"
We lower our wishes and our expectations when they demand some more effort than we are used to give.



Where is the trick? Why wish for something, and then, upon seeing that it is hard to get, give it up and despise it?

RosaMagika

And what is more: How often do we camouflage something as sour grapes, so that striving for it seems worthless?Interesting question, but one that is dependant on the question:
Why do we want the things we want, in the first place, and why?
We all know why the fox wants the grapes, but why dowe want the dress, the diploma, the car, the theory?

That costly dress, that thin body, that fancy language, that demanding theory, that difficult degree, all those things we wish for -- how often do we camouflage them into sour grapes, so that we find ourselves justified to say, "Well, what does it matter anyway? That dress is for those who try to make up for their lack of class; those who have nothing else strive for a thin body; speaking that fancy language isn't of any use; that theory is for nerds only; and that degree -- my job is good enough!"
We lower our wishes and our expectations when they demand some more effort than we are used to give.Do we really want that “expensive dress”, that “fancy language”, that “difficult degree” or is that want imposed upon us by external forces?

It’s very reasonable to assume that when one cannot climb a height that was hoped for, that this height will be defamed and degraded so as to minimize our inadequacy and the ramifications of our unsuccessful attempts at it.

The starting supposition is that we all want those grapes and that, therefore, all that cannot get to them are either losers or denying themselves the attempt because of previous failure or a fear of failure.
Aesop’s fable rests on the fact that the fox wants the grapes but cannot get them. It is then used against those who really don’t want the grapes to explain why they don’t, since it is ‘normal’ to want them.

The conjecture is here made that, because all foxes love grapes, that all humans, similarly, like the social ‘grapes’ you mentioned and therefore all that call these grapes sour are unsuccessful foxes or foxes insecure about their abilities to reach the grapes.
The fallacy here rests on the assumption that all humans are slaves to their instincts and so share the same desires and needs, as all foxes do.

Here is a good example of how peer pressures and social pressures come to bear on anyone denying or remaining indifferent to social norms.

Where is the trick? Why wish for something, and then, upon seeing that it is hard to get, give it up and despise it?But sometimes we despise something even if we never try to get it and, because of it, we never try to get it.
:rolleyes:

Of course the reverse strategy can be used.
We can assume that if the fox does reach the grapes that, even if they are sour, she will claim that they are as sweet as honey, to explain her effort wasted and to entice all the foxes to pay the same price, as she did, for grapes that are not worth it.

What about the case in which we dream and hope for something that ends up being less than what was imagined?
Will the owner of the dress, the one that earns a diploma, that constructs a theory, that acquires a job position ever admit that the effort was not worth the prize to the ones that look up to him/her in admiration, because of it?

It’s easy to find fault in the one that remains indifferent or fails.
We can explain his/her opposition as the product of inadequacy and failure, so as to maintain our interests in the very things he/she despises.
But how many of us have considered that the success stories weren’t as miraculous or beneficial as he presume they are or as wonderful as they are hyped-up to be?

Does money, for example, really lead to contentment or is the propagation of the myth what maintains its relevance?
Do all those that speak contrary to popular belief, speak thusly because of personal failure and inadequacy?

Do all of mans beliefs stem from personal interests or do personal interests, sometimes, stem from beliefs?
In, other words, does a man’s lot in life determine his/her opinions or do ones opinions determine his/her lot in life?
;)

RosaMagika:
Where is the trick? Why wish for something, and then, upon seeing that it is hard to get, give it up and despise it?

Another issue is - why wish for something, struggle for it, then despise it once acquiring it?

Both attitudes are because one distorts the pleasure-value of the thing one wants. It is a form of intellectual laziness - the person who buys the expensive dress, then quickly tires of it is in the same position as the person who decides, on further reflection, that the dress is for vapid people. Both are deciding that the dress is more important than wanting the dress.

If one admitted - that yes, the dress is very nice but I don't want to eat Ramen for a month to afford it so I will not buy it - then the problem would disappear.

Most consumer objects are designed to give pleasure in the wanting more than pleasure in the having. I have a very nice pair of boots that I wear only once or twice a year because they are impractical in design and in social use (I don't often visit 'fancy' places)
My pleasure was in purchasing them more than it is in using them.

Avoiding the feeling of "sour grapes" just requires admitting that one is lazy or that the desired object is not a priority.





"The conjecture is here made that, because all foxes love grapes, that all humans, similarly, like the social ‘grapes’ you mentioned and therefore all that call these grapes sour are unsuccessful foxes or foxes insecure about their abilities to reach the grapes.
The fallacy here rests on the assumption that all humans are slaves to their instincts and so share the same desires and needs, as all foxes do. "

The fallacy is yours, not hers. RosaMagika does not question why we want what we want, but points to why we disparage what we do want. Giving examples does not mean she is restricted in her argument to only those examples.
Further - get over yourself.

It's a coping mechanism. The hungry fox sees tasty grapes, but cannot reach them. Rather than long after the grapes, he simply constructs a fallacy to believe in, rather deal directly with reality. Once he believes the grapes are sour, they really are sour, and he doesn't have to waste any more time on them.

Xev
Further - get over yourself.
Are those...sour grapes.

No. I also masturbate in front of a mirror, then tell myself how great I am as I cuddle with myself.

It's a coping mechanism. The hungry fox sees tasty grapes, but cannot reach them. Rather than long after the grapes, he simply constructs a fallacy to believe in, rather deal directly with reality. Once he believes the grapes are sour, they really are sour, and he doesn't have to waste any more time on them.

Exactly, it is simply taking the sting out of failure to achieve a goal. It is probably healthy to do so, rather than endlessly dwell on how something you want may be permanently out of your reach.

Do I comfort myself on viewing unattainable attractive women by mentally speculating that they are probably vapid? Sure I do. It just helps you get through this meaningless journey we call life.

In consideration of continious research & better understangings still going on--does it indicate things which are/could not yet be checked/understood with perfection or absoluteness & future posiibilities always exists till then? Still if someone contradict 'something existing in mass & well distributing public since long' is not alike 'Grape are sour' as said by the incapable fox?:D

It's a coping mechanism. The hungry fox sees tasty grapes, but cannot reach them. Rather than long after the grapes, he simply constructs a fallacy to believe in, rather deal directly with reality. Once he believes the grapes are sour, they really are sour, and he doesn't have to waste any more time on them.
Exactly, it is simply taking the sting out of failure to achieve a goal. It is probably healthy to do so, rather than endlessly dwell on how something you want may be permanently out of your reach.
But what is the rationale? A coping mechanism is so-called because it helps. Why do we need that mental twist of the knife to help us come to terms with not having something?

Because the real problem we're trying to cope with is "wanting". Wanting something is only justified by getting it. The desire is the prophecy, the acquiring is its fulfilment.

And if we can't satisfy our desires, we have to justify them some other way. If we can't have knowledge, we feel we have to explain why. If the grapes are sour, we wouldn't *want* them. They don't have to be sour, of course, any "reasonable" explanation will do. Wanderer's post is an excellent example:
The conjecture is here made that, because all foxes love grapes, that all humans, similarly, like the social ‘grapes’ you mentioned and therefore all that call these grapes sour are unsuccessful foxes or foxes insecure about their abilities to reach the grapes.
The fallacy here rests on the assumption that all humans are slaves to their instincts and so share the same desires and needs, as all foxes do.

Here is a good example of how peer pressures and social pressures come to bear on anyone denying or remaining indifferent to social norms.
Really? Is that why the chicken crossed the road? Because of peer pressure ;). If there was no pressure, would we want nothing? Xev was able to see past that. She takes the Buddhist view: let go of your desire, and you won't have to waste time agonizing about them. This is true in her example, where desires are for pleasure-value alone.

But what about more complex desires, like food, or scientific advancement? Or truth? That's where the discussion becomes very interesting. Then the rationale is exactly the opposite: the grapes are sweet (even though we never get to savour them) therefore we are justified in seeking them. We do this with abstracts things like morality, peace, even love. The process of seeking them is their justification - and our success with them is not really based on any objective evidence, only on an experience... akin to pleasure? Have we come full circle?

I could take the argument through another iteration, but would like to hear some comments first.

Jenyar
Really? Is that why the chicken crossed the road? Because of peer pressure . If there was no pressure, would we want nothing? Xev was able to see past that. She takes the Buddhist view: let go of your desire, and you won't have to waste time agonizing about them. This is true in her example, where desires are for pleasure-value alone.My comments were directed specifically to the examples mentioned by RosaMagica of clothing, diplomas, and jobs.
But in response to your question: Yes, if there were no pressures, we would want nothing.

Even curiosity and the desire to explore is a manifestation of the need to understand, what we do not, and to gain power, where we have none. So there is pressure here, as well.

Need is the imposition of desire on the mind.

Since we can’t imagine a consciousness with no need, because existence by definition is need, we can’t imagine a mind totally oblivious to it.

We might even say that the existence of the mind is a consequence of need and a method of alleviating it.

Are you part of the XEV fan club, as well?
I’m starting a web-page, want to join? ;)

But what about more complex desires, like food, or scientific advancement? Or truth? That's where the discussion becomes very interesting.For me they are the consequence of the same forces.
There is nothing complex about the desire for food or for scientific advancement.

Then the rationale is exactly the opposite: the grapes are sweet (even though we never get to savour them) therefore we are justified in seeking them.How can you ‘know’ something without ‘knowing’ it?

The sweetness, you describe here, is assumed and imagined. It’s an idealization of a hypothetical attainment.


We do this with abstracts things like morality, peace, even love. The process of seeking them is their justification - and our success with them is not really based on any objective evidence, only on an experience... akin to pleasure? Have we come full circle?And what is pleasure, if not the momentary alleviation of need?
That is why none of these abstract idealizations of concepts, never become completely fulfilling or eternally lasting. They are based on a myth that ensures a certain behavior that is in the interest of a greater whole.

What about the opposite of the Aesopian drama, which I try to explain in my original post?
We all know about failure leading to the human reaction of degrading what is unachievable, but what about the reaction of unsatisfied success?

We assume the grapes are sweet, for the sake of the allegory, and that the foxes pronouncement of sourness is incorrect.
But what if the fox is right all along?
What if the grapes are really sour and failure, is here, a lucky break for the fox?

Or what if the fox was successful and found the grapes to be sour, would he admit it or pretend sweetness to justify energy expenditure and to ensure that other foxes jump for them or envy him for attaining them?

Here is my rewriting of the tale from a different perspective.

The Fox and the Grapes

A famished fox crept into a vineyard where grapes were draped high upon arbors in a most tempting display; the fox's hunger making them appear luscious and ripe. In his effort to win a juicy prize, the fox jumped and sprang many times but failed in most of his attempts, until finally in a final desperate lunge, and risking both life and limb he managed to grasp his desired prize.
When he impatiently tore into their skin, he found them to be full of bugs and to be sour and distasteful, having hung on the vine and in the sun for far too long- owing to the fact that they were far too high and unreachable by most foxes.
But the foxes hunger made him ignore the taste and when he finally had his fill and became more aware of the grapes real taste, he realized the other foxes were anxiously and hungrily eyeing him with a look of envy on their needy faces.
One of them, in the hope that he would be pitied and offered a morsel, stepped up closer and asked:
“Are the grapes sweet? From the way you gulped them down they look like they are very tasty.”
The fox swallowed his last mouthful, trying to keep the look of satisfaction on his face.
“They were as sweet as honey” he said as he walked away, “But you must be strong and limber, like myself, to earn their sweetness.”
But before he disappeared beyond sight, he turned to look back where he saw the other foxes enviously following his departure and preparing to leap for whatever grapes remained on the vine.
He smiled to himself and said:
“Damn those grapes were sweet even if they were sourto begin with.”


It is easy to love and praise what you can get. :bugeye:

The end.


From Wanderer's unpublished Tales of a Cynic. :cool:

I love the way this is going.
***


Interesting question, but one that is dependant on the question:
Why do we want the things we want, in the first place, and why?
We all know why the fox wants the grapes, but why dowe want the dress, the diploma, the car, the theory?
Do we really want that “expensive dress”, that “fancy language”, that “difficult degree” or is that want imposed upon us by external forces?

The fact is that we are living in this world, and the world is the way it is. Neither of us fell from the Moon. This world presents certain options, and the reason *why* we are after them is secondary: the point is that we do are after them.

According to the Theory of expectation and value, an individual's motivation to get or achieve something consists of two main forces:

1. the individual's expectation about the set goal,
2. the value that the goal represents to the individual.

Motivation is the product of these two forces: if one of them is null, there will be no motivation for achieving this goal.

The questions to ask are:
1. If I try real hard, can I succed?
2. If I succeed, will the outcome be useful and rewarding for me?

The theory seems rather simpple -- and the Sour Grapes Syndrome [so called by me] becomes even more perplexingly apparent in its light. People strive for something, but only with a very hazy idea of the effort it takes to get it, and with an also hazy idea of the goal's usefulness and reward.

It is this haziness that I am interested in: we sometimes flat out fool ourselves into wishing for things, without actually investigating what it takes to get them, and without investigating about its usefulness and reward. How irrational!

And, to make it even more sad, we tend to blame all sorts of other reasons, esp. society (a favourite scapegoat) -- while the source of our discontent was simple irrationality, but all along we deemed ourselves so rational and reasonable.


The starting supposition is that we all want those grapes and that, therefore, all that cannot get to them are either losers or denying themselves the attempt because of previous failure or a fear of failure.
Aesop’s fable rests on the fact that the fox wants the grapes but cannot get them. It is then used against those who really don’t want the grapes to explain why they don’t, since it is ‘normal’ to want them.

The conjecture is here made that, because all foxes love grapes, that all humans, similarly, like the social ‘grapes’ you mentioned and therefore all that call these grapes sour are unsuccessful foxes or foxes insecure about their abilities to reach the grapes.
The fallacy here rests on the assumption that all humans are slaves to their instincts and so share the same desires and needs, as all foxes do.

Here is a good example of how peer pressures and social pressures come to bear on anyone denying or remaining indifferent to social norms.

No. You've read something into the fable that isn't there.


But sometimes we despise something even if we never try to get it and, because of it, we never try to get it.

But how strong are those emotions? Do you have *profound and intense* feelings of indifference for someone or something? I should think not; it seems counterintuitive to put much emotional intensitiy into something you don't care about.


We can assume that if the fox does reach the grapes that, even if they are sour, she will claim that they are as sweet as honey, to explain her effort wasted and to entice all the foxes to pay the same price, as she did, for grapes that are not worth it.

Modern marketing.


What about the case in which we dream and hope for something that ends up being less than what was imagined?

I suggest you listen to the song "Only time" by Enya.


Do all those that speak contrary to popular belief, speak thusly because of personal failure and inadequacy?

No. But I can imagine very well how you came to this line of thought.


Do all of mans beliefs stem from personal interests or do personal interests, sometimes, stem from beliefs?
In, other words, does a man’s lot in life determine his/her opinions or do ones opinions determine his/her lot in life?

One with the other, always in tandem, always mutually conditioning eachother.


***
Another issue is - why wish for something, struggle for it, then despise it once acquiring it?

Both attitudes are because one distorts the pleasure-value of the thing one wants. It is a form of intellectual laziness - the person who buys the expensive dress, then quickly tires of it is in the same position as the person who decides, on further reflection, that the dress is for vapid people. Both are deciding that the dress is more important than wanting the dress.

This would be the Golden Cage Syndrome: it is important to *have* a certain thing -- how one got to it, how one tends to it, what one does with it is completely secondary. (Like some Freudian fixation.)


If one admitted - that yes, the dress is very nice but I don't want to eat Ramen for a month to afford it so I will not buy it - then the problem would disappear. [/quote]

Exactly. The miracles of calm rationality. But people, even though vehemently declaring how rational and reasonable they are, act on immense irrationality.


Avoiding the feeling of "sour grapes" just requires admitting that one is lazy or that the desired object is not a priority.

Yes. Things are amazingly simple from here.

***

In consideration of continious research & better understangings still going on--does it indicate things which are/could not yet be checked/understood with perfection or absoluteness & future posiibilities always exists till then? Still if someone contradict 'something existing in mass & well distributing public since long' is not alike 'Grape are sour' as said by the incapable fox?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this. Clarify, please.


***

Roman, Repo Man,

Are you talking about a COPING mechanism or a DEFENSE mechanism?


***

But what is the rationale? A coping mechanism is so-called because it helps. Why do we need that mental twist of the knife to help us come to terms with not having something?

Because we weren't rational?


Because the real problem we're trying to cope with is "wanting".

A language intermezzo: In English, the verb "to want" is very interesting, it has two groups of meaning: one is around 'having desire, need something', and the other around 'to lack, not have enough'. -- You desire what you lack -- you *want* what you *want*.


Wanting something is only justified by getting it. The desire is the prophecy, the acquiring is its fulfilment.

Exactly. However, this is an ex post perspective -- which tends to be very harming for a person's internal stability.

This same perspective says, "If you won't become a world class pianist, then there is no point in you taking up piano classes in the first place." Such thinking is *the* sure killer for any wish or motive that may just so, for whatever reason, arise in a person.

No, the justification must be there ex ante, in advance.


And if we can't satisfy our desires, we have to justify them some other way.

A grey, moot, and thoroughly hazy area.


She takes the Buddhist view: let go of your desire, and you won't have to waste time agonizing about them.

The way I understand that Buddhist position is that having wrong wishes is what makes us unhappy.


But what about more complex desires, like food, or scientific advancement? Or truth? That's where the discussion becomes very interesting. Then the rationale is exactly the opposite: the grapes are sweet (even though we never get to savour them) therefore we are justified in seeking them.

Indeeed.
Even every last relativist enjoys seeking knowledge, because it is so sweet!

But how do we know it is sweet?! Where did we get this idea that it is sweet?!

This desire seems so innate that many have taken it for granted, and forgotten about it.


We do this with abstracts things like morality, peace, even love. The process of seeking them is their justification

Yes, how counter-rational, isn't it?


- and our success with them is not really based on any objective evidence, only on an experience... akin to pleasure?

... as if it were an innate desire we must satisfy.


Have we come full circle?

Well, that would mean that we "love for love's sake", "strive for peace for peace's sake" etc. -- but this seems odd.
And to call upon "social stability" and "progress" as the ultimate reason for why we strive for what we strive for -- is rather dry and abstract. Who would die in the name of social stability?!

Edit to reply to Rosa:
This would be the Golden Cage Syndrome: it is important to *have* a certain thing -- how one got to it, how one tends to it, what one does with it is completely secondary. (Like some Freudian fixation.)

Like a pool or a lawn or a trophy-partner.
A lawn is the perfect example. What purpose does a lawn serve?
According to the late sociologist Thorstien Veblen, the lawn evolved out of the manor. Rich landowners would have lots of land on which cows grazed.
Eventually, some landowners flaunted their wealth by getting rid of the cows and proving that they could maintain the expanse of useful grass for no reason at all.

The lawn is desireable because it serves no practical purpose.
(Veblen called the process "conspicious waste")

Neither of us fell from the Moon.

Actually, Wanderer comes from Sirius. ;)

Jenyar:
Because the real problem we're trying to cope with is "wanting". Wanting something is only justified by getting it.

Can you not take pleasure in wanting something and not getting it?

And if we can't satisfy our desires, we have to justify them some other way. If we can't have knowledge, we feel we have to explain why. If the grapes are sour, we wouldn't *want* them. They don't have to be sour, of course, any "reasonable" explanation will do.

Correct.
I wouldn't call my attitude "Buddhist" - the Buddhists were interested in negating the desire for pleasure, where I favor a solution that refines the parameters of pleasure.

We do this with abstracts things like morality, peace, even love. The process of seeking them is their justification - and our success with them is not really based on any objective evidence, only on an experience... akin to pleasure? Have we come full circle?

Pleasure is pleasure, the release of chemicals that act upon the brain in a way the brain percieves as "good". Or to be more abstract - pleasure is our perception of something "good".
Often it is the struggle to attain the "good" that gives more pleasure than the actual attainment.
If I hike up a small mountain, the summit will feel incredibly better than it would if I had taken a sport utility vehicle and driven up. Why is that? The view is the same. But I've cheated myself of the attainment process.

Wanderer:
My comments were directed specifically to the examples mentioned by RosaMagica of clothing, diplomas, and jobs.

She also mentioned complex mental work for theoretical value alone. Your attempt to stereotype her examples as being socially-imposed needs fails.

Further, your dichotomy between social and natural needs is arbitrary. Humans are social animals by nature, thus what is social cannot be unnatural. Whether something naturally occuring can be unnatural is another matter.

Can you not take pleasure in wanting something and not getting it?

No, not anymore. I used to, but then I got bored of it.

***

Yes, if there were no pressures, we would want nothing.

If there were no pressures: could we even be?

Xev
She also mentioned complex mental work for theoretical value alone. Your attempt to stereotype her examples as being socially-imposed needs fails. Are you her lawyer now?
Can she not speak for herself?

Further, your dichotomy between social and natural needs is arbitrary. Humans are social animals by nature, thus what is social cannot be unnatural. Whether something naturally occuring can be unnatural is another matter.The concept of sour and sweet is also arbitrary.
One mans sour is another’s sweet.

But there is a dichotomy here.
We can say that food, drink, air, companionship are caused by physical necessities.
But there are desires that come to us through social constructs and through social necessity.

I refer to natural as that which exists independent of individual experiences.
My need for food pre-exists my own existence and it is shared by all living organisms.
My need for clothing exists only after I’ve been indoctrinated within an external system and it is not shared by all living organisms.
One desire cannot be ignored the other can, because my existence does not depend on it.

RosaMagika
The fact is that we are living in this world, and the world is the way it is. Neither of us fell from the Moon. This world presents certain options, and the reason *why* we are after them is secondary: the point is that we do are after them.I disagree.
I think the question of *Why?* is central in what we are talking about.
I think we’ll find that many of the things we believe we want have been imposed upon our psyche and they do not gurgle up from within.

According to the Theory of expectation and value, an individual's motivation to get or achieve something consists of two main forces:

1. the individual's expectation about the set goal,
2. the value that the goal represents to the individual.
1-Expectations are based on imaginations and third party accounts. Imagination and the ability to empathise become crucial here, since their accuracy can enable you to learn through second-hand experiences.
2-Values are, most often, dependant on popular opinions.

Motivation is the product of these two forces: if one of them is null, there will be no motivation for achieving this goal.

The questions to ask are:
1. If I try real hard, can I succed?
2. If I succeed, will the outcome be useful and rewarding for me?
1- Success is reliant on individual characteristics and on a willingness to sacrifice.
2- This is always determined once the sacrifice has been made and success has been achieved.

If the sacrifices and the investments were great, then the natural reaction would be to tell yourself and others that it was worth it, even if you fear it wasn’t.
Just as it is a natural reaction to call grapes sour if they lie beyond your reach.

Of course you can deduce the value of something by how others react to it, through observation. This can save you the trouble of working towards ends that will not satisfy you.

The theory seems rather simpple -- and the Sour Grapes Syndrome [so called by me] becomes even more perplexingly apparent in its light. People strive for something, but only with a very hazy idea of the effort it takes to get it, and with an also hazy idea of the goal's usefulness and reward.

It is this haziness that I am interested in: we sometimes flat out fool ourselves into wishing for things, without actually investigating what it takes to get them, and without investigating about its usefulness and reward. How irrational! I couldn’t agree more.
But I think the allegory presented by Aesop mentions the reaction of the failure but neglects to take into consideration the reaction of disappointment with success.
I believe this is because every social system is dependant upon the ceaseless striving and reaching for grapes, whether sweet or sour.
This is why it is a common practice to inspire everyone with the belief that they are capable of anything, if they persist and insist.
Which is bullshit. There are limits to individual capabilities.

And, to make it even more sad, we tend to blame all sorts of other reasons, esp. society (a favourite scapegoat) -- while the source of our discontent was simple irrationality, but all along we deemed ourselves so rational and reasonable.That was the point I was trying to make.
Most of the things we believe we desire or deserve or hope for, are usually the result of imitation and peer pressure.

But how strong are those emotions? Do you have *profound and intense* feelings of indifference for someone or something? I should think not; it seems counterintuitive to put much emotional intensitiy into something you don't care about.What if you are forced to care about it by external factors?
You can be indifferent to something or someone but still be forced to consider them, because of ulterior motives and forced necessities.
I am indifferent to my boss as a person, for example, but I am forced to care about him because through him I maintain my physical well-being.
This external imposition can result in resentment because it becomes a need that is forced upon you and it is not your own.

One with the other, always in tandem, always mutually conditioning eachother.Not for everyone.
Most garner opinions through personal interests and not personal interests through opinions.
Was Diogenes a cynic because he couldn’t make it in the Athenian society or was he so because of what he believed?

Exactly. The miracles of calm rationality. But people, even though vehemently declaring how rational and reasonable they are, act on immense irrationality.The question, again, is why?

Rosa:
No, not anymore. I used to, but then I got bored of it.

But it's possible, if not common.

Wanderer:
Are you her lawyer now?
Can she not speak for herself?

Quit acting like a little boy trying to gain the attention of his crush by pulling on her braids. Even if your behaviour did not annoy me as a member, as a moderator I'm bound to chastise you for derailing the thread in the insipid attempt to get into RosaMagika's cyber-panties.

No offense Rosa.

But there is a dichotomy here.
We can say that food, drink, air, companionship are caused by physical necessities.
But there are desires that come to us through social constructs and through social necessity.

Society is natural, dipshit. Impressing people is a natural desire for a social animal.

Xev
Quit acting like a little boy trying to gain the attention of his crush by pulling on her braids. Even if your behaviour did not annoy me as a member, as a moderator I'm bound to chastise you for derailing the thread in the insipid attempt to get into RosaMagika's cyber-panties. She’s wearing panties?!!!!!!! :eek:

Society is natural, dipshit. Impressing people is a natural desire for a social animal.
Hey, stop using my nickname in public.

Society is natural?
No shit Sherlock. :bugeye:

You can’t see in what way I use the terms ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.
Oh, well.

Wanderer:
She’s wearing panties?!!!!!!!

Quit being facetious, it's not half so charming as you think.
Nor is your ceasless and cloying attempt to gain attention by playing the role of precocious child.

"I'm Wanderer! I don't like girls! Society enslaves my virtuous natural instincts! Look at me look at me look at me!"

You've brought into this discussion a completely irrelevent issue. RosaMagika corrected you. I corrected you. Jenyar corrected you. And yet you persist in dragging your pastiche of Schopenhaur and Roussau around like a retriever with a dead duck that it is particularly proud of.

You can’t see in what way I use the terms ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.
Oh, well.

I wasn't objecting to your use of terms (did you use those terms?)
Your assertion is that:

"We can say that food, drink, air, companionship are caused by physical necessities.
But there are desires that come to us through social constructs and through social necessity. "

Social necessity is natural necessity in a social organism. I don't see how this could be anything but obvious.
But then, you're not making a point so much as trying to get attention.

Don't be too hard on Wanderer. Keep what is good and useful and discard what you can't use - or don't wish to.
Exactly. However, this is an ex post perspective -- which tends to be very harming for a person's internal stability.

This same perspective says, "If you won't become a world class pianist, then there is no point in you taking up piano classes in the first place." Such thinking is *the* sure killer for any wish or motive that may just so, for whatever reason, arise in a person.

No, the justification must be there ex ante, in advance.
:) Good example. How hard should we peer into the hazyness, and how daunting should it be? Are you saying that our faith should be greater than our expectation (and doubt)? Faith first, justification later?

Wanderer had a valid point: "the sweetness... is assumed and imagined. It’s an idealization of a hypothetical attainment". But one word that caught my attention:idealization. Surely we don't arbitrarily invent ideals? The presence of an ideal suggest a look forward, not backward, or even stagnant. That sounds very similar to the process I described. It is counter-rational, but is it really a negative irrationality, to be dismissed like pink elephants and purple spotted squids?

Can you not take pleasure in wanting something and not getting it?
Sure, when we take pleasure in the process. But after a while we dismiss the pleasure as a real motive for doing it, because that's when it gets boring. Why did the fox give up? When the pleasure of expectation was outweighed by the reality of failure. It's a psychological point, influenced by a lot of factors, which is where Wanderers argument might come into play.

But if we are convinced by the process that the grapes are not sour (maybe jumping up and down against the vines shook one or two loose), then our expectation may be fed just enough to keep it interesting. Or to keep us on the right path.

Of course, waiting for some encouragement or confirmation is a matter on its own. Maybe the slot machines at a casino can make a good case study. Are all those people playing the slots in Vegas really wasting their time, even though everybody knows the grapes are sweet beyond anyone's wildest dreams? I think the process has to have some merit beyond its own, beyond even any pleasure we could squeeze out of it.

I think we're touching on something here. The effort of a policeman fighting crime is different than the perseverance shown by a bum playing the lotto with the last of his money. Not because the need is more "socially justifiable", the sacrifice (giving up of pleasure) is more worthy of success, or because of some statistical odds favouring one or the other. The bum is actually more justified to to what he does than the policeman, if reward is a consideration.

But apart from the implications of what their success would mean to us - in other words, if we have to look at them objectively, on their own merit - the difference has something to do with an ideal. A greater good, one includes the other. In this case, social necessity takes preference over personal neccessity, but it takes more sacrifice to achieve - it has less reward, and less justification. There is no place for sour grapes in policework, and not because everybody says so - because society depends on it.

It's also different than your example of reacing the summit, because there's even less pleasure involved either way. It's a life or death motivation that transcends any consideration of pleasure.

If for some reason the futility of the exercise doesn't take the wind out of the fox, mustn't we take a closer look at the grapes? Sure they're unreachable, but is that their only property? We might say the "sweet aura" of the grapes extend past their taste in the mouth, and it's more than an imagined pleasure - more than "an idealization of a hypothetical attainment". If the ideal is real - unattainable, untasteable, ultimately unknowable - but still real, the process of seeking it will transcend basic motives like attainment or pleasure.

But for that, we must have reason to believe that the sweetness of the grapes isn't limited to the effects of certain chemicals on the tongues. That's the grapes can satisfy your hunger whether they're sweet or not. Whether you succeed, or die trying. And if "we can't have such a reason" is an answer, then we have to justify why we're seeking it some other way - because we do seek it; there's no denying that. Even Buddhists do.

Jenyar:
But if we are convinced by the process that the grapes are not sour (maybe jumping up and down against the vines shook one or two loose), then our expectation may be fed just enough to keep it interesting. Or to keep us on the right path.

I believe it's called "intermittent reinforcement"
It appears to be the most effective reinforcement technique. Rats learn to navigate a maze faster if they are only sometimes rewarded with food, than if they are always rewarded with food.

There is no place for sour grapes in policework, and not because everybody says so - because society depends on it.

No, I do not agree with this argument. I doubt police work is done with the good of society in mind - perhaps that is why some policemen join the force, but when it comes down to police work they do it, basically, because it is what they do. Psychologically there is not much difference between the policeman who fights crime because that is his job, and the drug dealer who sells drugs because that is his job.
Abstract considerations such as "the good of society" rarely motivate people on a day to day, concrete basis.

Working with a political campaign once I noticed that the newest volunteers would be more focused on the campaign qua their beliefs - on break they would talk about politics or feminism - and the volunteers who had been there longer would spend break talking to each other about their boyfriends or new fashion styles. They'd absorbed the meaning of their work and then saw it as work.
All of these people were motivated by the same thing - a desire to sustain the rights of women, no pay was involved - but very quickly came to see their job as a series of tasks to be fulfilled and not as a constant idealistic exercise.

I refer to natural as that which exists independent of individual experiences.

Hm, does something exist for us independent of individual experiences?

And you haven't answered my previous question:

"If there were no pressures: could we even be?"


My need for clothing exists only after I’ve been indoctrinated within an external system and it is not shared by all living organisms.

Indeed, cats do usually not wear boas. You're being silly.


I disagree.
I think the question of *Why?* is central in what we are talking about.
I think we’ll find that many of the things we believe we want have been imposed upon our psyche and they do not gurgle up from within.

*Imposed*? Someone held a gun to your head and a knife to your throat, threatening to kill you if you don't accept the social norm of wearing clothing?
Most social norms weren't *imposed* on us; they were presented as the more feasible options, or "simply came along", without us being aware of them.


1- Success is reliant on individual characteristics and on a willingness to sacrifice.
2- This is always determined once the sacrifice has been made and success has been achieved.

You are looking at it ex post; see one of my previous posts about ex post thinking.


If the sacrifices and the investments were great, then the natural reaction would be to tell yourself and others that it was worth it, even if you fear it wasn’t.
Just as it is a natural reaction to call grapes sour if they lie beyond your reach.

The basic postulate of cognitive theories (and Theory of Attribution is one of them) is that people do not respond to external events or pysical states directly, but in regards to their interpretation of these events or states.

The Theory of Attribution says that there are two main patterns of how people attribute reasons for their succes or failure:

1. People to who the main driving force is the wish to succeed. They attribute success to internal personal factors, esp. to their own abilities, effort; they attribute failure to changeable, incontrollable external factors. If they see that failure came due to their fault of not putting enough effort in the task, they do not seek external justifications for their failure. These people soon overcome failure, raise their expectations much sooner, get themselves to work.

2. People to who the main driving force is the fear of failure. These people attribute their success to external, changeable factors (luck, easy task); they attribute failure esp. to their own inabilities. Even if they they succeed a number of times, this does not convince them to be happy with their success, and they don't raise their aspirations. This is the state of learned helplessness.


The arguments you are presenting are those a type 2 person would make. It is self-sabotaging behaviour, the prime example of the Sour Grapes Syndrome.


But I think the allegory presented by Aesop mentions the reaction of the failure but neglects to take into consideration the reaction of disappointment with success.

Aesop was thinking as a type 1 person.


I believe this is because every social system is dependant upon the ceaseless striving and reaching for grapes, whether sweet or sour.
This is why it is a common practice to inspire everyone with the belief that they are capable of anything, if they persist and insist.

No. It is about promoting type 1 kind of thinking.


Which is bullshit. There are limits to individual capabilities.

Of course there are limits to individual capabilites. But with this very statement you have implied one very important thing (in light of what you've said before): your implication is that there is an *absolute* hierarchy of values and things worth striving for. A ladder to climb up on. A ladder that *must* be climbed if you wish to be valued by society.

From here, some people who have failed to climb up this ladder, tend to say: "Ah, society is bad. It imposes all sorts of stupid and worthless goals on the individual, and stifles him."
Sour grapes!
If those goals were *really* stupid and worthless to that said individual, would he feel stifled by them?!


That was the point I was trying to make.
Most of the things we believe we desire or deserve or hope for, are usually the result of imitation and peer pressure.

Ahem. What other choice do we have? Divine inspiration?


What if you are forced to care about it by external factors?
You can be indifferent to something or someone but still be forced to consider them, because of ulterior motives and forced necessities.
I am indifferent to my boss as a person, for example, but I am forced to care about him because through him I maintain my physical well-being.
This external imposition can result in resentment because it becomes a need that is forced upon you and it is not your own.

Then you are not being professional.


The question, again, is why?

Instinct. But it seems that you have dismissed this option.
Eventually, unless you believe in a God, you do not really have an answer to that why.

***

No offense Rosa.

No offense taken. I think it's rather laughable what he's doing. ;)

***


Good example. How hard should we peer into the hazyness, and how daunting should it be? Are you saying that our faith should be greater than our expectation (and doubt)?

Can you really distinguish between faith and expectation?


Faith first, justification later?

This answered with a yes is the essence of bluffing. Poker.


Wanderer had a valid point: "the sweetness... is assumed and imagined. It’s an idealization of a hypothetical attainment". But one word that caught my attention:idealization. Surely we don't arbitrarily invent ideals? The presence of an ideal suggest a look forward, not backward, or even stagnant. That sounds very similar to the process I described. It is counter-rational, but is it really a negative irrationality, to be dismissed like pink elephants and purple spotted squids?

(Well, I'll gracefully back out [yes, an oxymoron] with Plato's ideas ...)

Otherwise, we could consider these ideals as relevant social cognitive constructs.


I think we're touching on something here. The effort of a policeman fighting crime is different than the perseverance shown by a bum playing the lotto with the last of his money. Not because the need is more "socially justifiable", the sacrifice (giving up of pleasure) is more worthy of success, or because of some statistical odds favouring one or the other. The bum is actually more justified to to what he does than the policeman, if reward is a consideration.

I don't think this is a good comparison. The policeman is doing his work in the realm of an *institution*, and thereby his personal interests are secondary. Maybe you should take a "Walker, The Texas Ranger", or (what was that head hunter on a bike, Lorenzo Lamas?), rather than a simple policeman.


In this case, social necessity takes preference over personal neccessity, but it takes more sacrifice to achieve - it has less reward, and less justification. There is no place for sour grapes in policework, and not because everybody says so - because society depends on it.

That's the problem with insitutionalized strivings.


It's also different than your example of reacing the summit, because there's even less pleasure involved either way. It's a life or death motivation that transcends any consideration of pleasure.

I didn't want to address this before, as I thought it would lead the thread astray, but now that you mention it again:
I love going mountainhiking. Reaching the summit is nothing special to me, the summit is just one step on the way. But what is my motivation for going mountainhiking? A life or death motivation? Nah. Pleasure -- yes, a pleasure in the hiking, in the rush in the head; it's strange: once I have 1500 meters or so under my feet (the tallest mountain in my country is 2863 m, a part of the Alps), I become a different person. It feels good. (Ah, maybe it is just the thin air, hot sun and exhaustion.)


If for some reason the futility of the exercise doesn't take the wind out of the fox, mustn't we take a closer look at the grapes? Sure they're unreachable, but is that their only property? We might say the "sweet aura" of the grapes extend past their taste in the mouth, and it's more than an imagined pleasure - more than "an idealization of a hypothetical attainment". If the ideal is real - unattainable, untasteable, ultimately unknowable - but still real, the process of seeking it will transcend basic motives like attainment or pleasure.

But for that, we must have reason to believe that the sweetness of the grapes isn't limited to the effects of certain chemicals on the tongues. That's the grapes can satisfy your hunger whether they're sweet or not. Whether you succeed, or die trying. And if "we can't have such a reason" is an answer, then we have to justify why we're seeking it some other way - because we do seek it; there's no denying that. Even Buddhists do.

Plato? Help?

No, I do not agree with this argument. I doubt police work is done with the good of society in mind - perhaps that is why some policemen join the force, but when it comes down to police work they do it, basically, because it is what they do. Psychologically there is not much difference between the policeman who fights crime because that is his job, and the drug dealer who sells drugs because that is his job.
Abstract considerations such as "the good of society" rarely motivate people on a day to day, concrete basis.
Alright, but further down the line: why was the job of "policeman" created? Was it for the same reason the job description of "drug dealer" developed? The motivation doesn't have to be explicit. More often than not it's taken for granted. People become desensitized, take things for granted, and don't think what they're doing. That's when we need to reconsider the motives. We use words like revival, renewal, repentance, revolution. Re-assess your direction, and decide where you're going, especially if the decision was made for you and you just never asked why.

Working with a political campaign once I noticed that the newest volunteers would be more focused on the campaign qua their beliefs - on break they would talk about politics or feminism - and the volunteers who had been there longer would spend break talking to each other about their boyfriends or new fashion styles. They'd absorbed the meaning of their work and then saw it as work.
All of these people were motivated by the same thing - a desire to sustain the rights of women, no pay was involved - but very quickly came to see their job as a series of tasks to be fulfilled and not as a constant idealistic exercise.
In other words, the motive became boring ;). It's natural. Even with the greatest intentions and visions, people revert back to there immediate needs and interests. Then it becomes a matter of aligning them to the greater cause, so that they won't sabotage the effort. It's an interesting phenomenon that individuals sometimes act in diametric opposition to an ideal, yet as a whole they can still move forward with that ideal. But that's only possible if self-sabotage doesn't take place. Most companies use the grapevine to great effect, even though by definition it undermines the (neccessary) official structures. Politics is another example.

What was my point...? Oh yes. Desensitzation takes place, but it's not necessarily a negative thing in relation to the whole. It permits people to care for themselves, deal with immediate threats and intricacies, while still taking part in a greater enterprise. We always revert back to being human in a microcosm, but the issue here is whether it causes you to lose sight of the macrocosm, whether it enforces the greater ideal, or works against it. I think what I'm saying is: The exercise doesn't need to be idealistic for it to be an idealistic exercise.

Can you really distinguish between faith and expectation?
Hm. I think so, yes. Expectation envisions a result, faith describes the source and execution of that vision. In a sense, faith is the action that proceeds from believing in a result or ideal, whether we expect to reach it ourselves or not. Whether we expect to *know* the result, and regardless whether we doubt that we will, we peer through the haziness in faith that that it's there.

Glimpses of it will do for intermittent reinforcement, even though someone else might see the same glimpses and have no faith to reinforce.

This answered with a yes is the essence of bluffing. Poker.
It is also the bluff we play every day. We assume the world around us is real, and act accordingly. As Jubatus would say: we simply share an illusion and call it reality.

(Well, I'll gracefully back out [yes, an oxymoron] with Plato's ideas ...)
Otherwise, we could consider these ideals as relevant social cognitive constructs.
And that they are! But what makes them relevant? As I said, they don't seem to be arbitrary.

I don't think this is a good comparison. The policeman is doing his work in the realm of an *institution*, and thereby his personal interests are secondary. Maybe you should take a "Walker, The Texas Ranger", or (what was that head hunter on a bike, Lorenzo Lamas?), rather than a simple policeman.
Let the hero emerge from the backdrop of his circumstances - from an evil society in reaction to an evil socity? We can't but institutionalize something that bears on the collective, for if it didn't bear on the collective it would have remained individual. Or am I guilty of post ex thinking? :)

We like heros because they are individualized institutions. They're "a law unto themselves", "justice incarnate" and "revenge justified". They represent the individual and the ideal, but without the contradiction.

That's the problem with insitutionalized strivings.
That's the "problem" with not being alone in the world. Any ideal, once expressed, takes form. And we delight at picking at that form until it resembles reality again, and from those ashes another phoenix must arise again. We break down what we built, as if we built for the wrong reasons and wish to correct it - as if we've become more rational, sane and civilized in the meantime. On and on. I want to know whether you think we do it mindlessly or with purpose?

I didn't want to address this before, as I thought it would lead the thread astray, but now that you mention it again:
I love going mountainhiking. Reaching the summit is nothing special to me, the summit is just one step on the way. But what is my motivation for going mountainhiking? A life or death motivation? Nah. Pleasure -- yes, a pleasure in the hiking, in the rush in the head; it's strange: once I have 1500 meters or so under my feet (the tallest mountain in my country is 2863 m, a part of the Alps), I become a different person. It feels good. (Ah, maybe it is just the thin air, hot sun and exhaustion.)
All those things combine into an experience, and we find experiences pleasurable because it pulls at our lives. It pulls at life, but it's all the more exhilirating because it includes everything life consists of, even death. When you're caught by an avalanche, or threatened by mist, is it still fun? And yet, that's what a professional climber expects to face. Have you seen Touched by the void?

Even fun can become institutionalized by a profession. Somehow, pleasure doesn't justify itself. Maybe that's part of the the pleasure. It's fun as long as it's an escape from reality and responsibility life forces on us. When fun turn into survival, that's when the grapes turn sour. [b]But before that happens[/i], we're exactly where we want to be, and getting what we want from life!

Why the discrepancy? Is it really fantasy versus reality? I don't think so. Do Androids dream of electric sheep?
Plato? Help?
Haven't we progressed at all since Plato? Aren't we his sweet sour grapes ;). A society ruled by thinkers.

Jenyar:
More often than not it's taken for granted. People become desensitized, take things for granted, and don't think what they're doing. That's when we need to reconsider the motives. We use words like revival, renewal, repentance, revolution. Re-assess your direction, and decide where you're going, especially if the decision was made for you and you just never asked why.

Yes, that I agree with.
The job "policeman" and job "drug dealer" were created because they answered a need.

But the idealist does not become bored so much as she becomes practical. It is not often possible to do a job while keeping a constant idealistic focus on the end results. Suppose a doctor chooses that profession because they want to aid people who are injured. The doctor cannot, and ought not, focus on that idealistic end. There are too many x-rays to order, patients to see, too much paperwork to fill out.

So the doctor focuses on the task at hand (as well they should!) and becomes idealistic about their work only rarely.

Which leads us back to:

"Re-assess your direction, and decide where you're going, especially if the decision was made for you and you just never asked why."

To avoid being trapped by routine, one must periodically assess why you are in that routine - and if you have no convincing reason, to break out of it.

To avoid being trapped by routine, one must periodically assess why you are in that routine - and if you have no convincing reason, to break out of it.
But what about a convincing ideal?

After 10 years as a surgeon in a state hospital, where the conditions can be less than good, or as an educator, where children don't appreciate what you're doing, will practical considerations be motivation enough? The sour grapes syndrome is a very realistic and rational option in such an honest enquiry. What makes people rationally persevere in professions where pleasure is not the main motivational (never mind rational) force?

We see evidence all around us that selflessness can indeed survive the selfish enquiry of "what's in it for me?". But why? Delusion? Fantasy? Ignorance? In the end, what convinces?

And that they are! But what makes them relevant? As I said, they don't seem to be arbitrary.

It could be that they are innate to life. And we just aren't really used to view them that way.

To give an example from liguistics: Traditionally, syntax was regarded as something really complex and something that one must learn from other humans; a something that is "foreign to nature". Newer theories suggest that syntax is something like innate to the human brain, and that syntactic thinking came before syntactic language.

Maybe something similar is happening to the world of ideas and values: maybe the crux is that we are used to view them as something "culture specific", "relative", "arbitrary" etc. -- and just maybe they aren't that way ...


Or am I guilty of post ex thinking?

Heh, you are. ;)
"Ex post", not "post ex".


We like heros because they are individualized institutions.

But my, is it cold if one is treated as if one were an institution!!


That's the "problem" with not being alone in the world. Any ideal, once expressed, takes form. And we delight at picking at that form until it resembles reality again, and from those ashes another phoenix must arise again. We break down what we built, as if we built for the wrong reasons and wish to correct it - as if we've become more rational, sane and civilized in the meantime. On and on. I want to know whether you think we do it mindlessly or with purpose?

Depends on how far you wish to stretch the term "purpose".

I say that "purpose" would be when we do something and our motives are clear and analyzable to us ex ante.

However, some like to judge things strictly ex post; and from that perspective, you can come up with clear and analyzable motives for just about anything. (Even though such thinking is eventually like "Tommy, why did you hit Robbie? -- Because he hit me first!")

Thus, I would say that we re-conceptualize because this is innate and necessary, while the actual purpose of re-conceptualization may be very well hidden to us. Maybe even that that purpose is simply autopoiesis, a constant strive for balance.


All those things combine into an experience, and we find experiences pleasurable because it pulls at our lives. It pulls at life, but it's all the more exhilirating because it includes everything life consists of, even death. When you're caught by an avalanche, or threatened by mist, is it still fun? And yet, that's what a professional climber expects to face.

The fun one has at home watching a funny movie and the fun one has moutainhiking are barely comparable. When in the mountains, one is "in one's element", eventually prepared for storms and avalanches, and slips. To describe the experience up there as "fun" seems trivial.

Anyway, the point is that there are expereinces that "simple earthly terms" don't do them justice.


Have you seen Touched by the void?

No, I don't think I have.


Even fun can become institutionalized by a profession. Somehow, pleasure doesn't justify itself. Maybe that's part of the the pleasure. It's fun as long as it's an escape from reality and responsibility life forces on us. When fun turn into survival, that's when the grapes turn sour.

Maybe this is why moutainhiking is a bit of a cheat: It is dangerous and everything -- but you know that you can still call for help and someone will sooner or later come to rescue you. Well, unless you fall into the stony abyss ...


[b]But before that happens, we're exactly where we want to be, and getting what we want from life!

But that sounds kind of like cheating, doesn't it? As if disappointment is what eventually and inevitably follows. The morning after.


Why the discrepancy? Is it really fantasy versus reality? I don't think so.

I think it is more like "unrealistic, but "rational" interpetation of reality" vs. "reality".


Do Androids dream of electric sheep?

You know what? I began to read this, but I was bored by it.


Haven't we progressed at all since Plato? Aren't we his sweet sour grapes .

Progressed? Maybe the problem is that people think that if time progresses, that the mind also progresses. Maybe it is all about re-conceptualizations, and not about progress at all.


A society ruled by thinkers.

Yah, and *what* thinkers! :bugeye:

But what about a convincing ideal?

After 10 years as a surgeon in a state hospital, where the conditions can be less than good, or as an educator, where children don't appreciate what you're doing, will practical considerations be motivation enough? The sour grapes syndrome is a very realistic and rational option in such an honest enquiry. What makes people rationally persevere in professions where pleasure is not the main motivational (never mind rational) force?

1. MONEY. One needs to make a living.
2. IDEALISM. But this is mostly only in films.


We see evidence all around us that selflessness can indeed survive the selfish enquiry of "what's in it for me?". But why? Delusion? Fantasy? Ignorance? In the end, what convinces?

One:
Let's not forget that there are psychological explanations of why someone persists in an otherwise (seemingly) hopeless situation -- like compensating for the lack of love in personal life, the feeling that one has to prove oneself, stemming from being rejected as a child etc. etc. Although this is slippery ground, I bet we could classify many of those who persist in those bad situations, actively trying to fix them without use of violence, as having one of those "psyhological self-worth issues". What they are really trying to fix is their own personality, and they do by helping others. And indeed, someone else's burdens are always easier to carry than one's own.


Two:
Next we have the institute of hierarchy. There are hierarchical relations between people, and those ranking higher (in one way or another: wealth, birth, knowledge, ...) are trying to influence those below to act in a manner beneficient to them.
Those of higher wealth have the interest to keep those below, below still.
Those of higher knowledge have the interest to educate those below.

However, as those fields of interest intermingle within one socio-economic class, the relations aren't all that simple and linear. Those of high wealth and high knowledge mostly try to keep those of less wealth and less knowledge below. Those of average wealth and high knowledge may have some interest to positively influence those with less wealth and less knowledge.


Three:
Fanatics and calculated tricksters.

Fanatics act on their delusions.

Calculated tricksters act on their ability to get others to do something they normally wouldn't do, and those become richer themselves, while the followers remain empty-handed.

Both fanatics and calculated tricksters often look extremely selfless, and act in dismal circumstances.


Four:
It is simply counterintuitive for a human to be indeed selfless. To simply go around and "do good". Being overtly cooperative is unnatural and self-harming.


Five:
I suppose there can be exceptions to the above 4, but I can't find any right now.

Jenyar:
But what about a convincing ideal?

What about it?

After 10 years as a surgeon in a state hospital, where the conditions can be less than good, or as an educator, where children don't appreciate what you're doing, will practical considerations be motivation enough? The sour grapes syndrome is a very realistic and rational option in such an honest enquiry. What makes people rationally persevere in professions where pleasure is not the main motivational (never mind rational) force?

Why do you assume that pleasure does not motivate them?

In school I had many teachers who worked long hours for low pay. They did this because they were stupid, domineering people.

They did not have the brains or excellence to make it in an intellectually demanding field, and they took much pleasure in bullying and forming the minds of those entrusted to them.

You cannot judge pleasure just in terms of monetary and sexual rewards. A weakling's self-worth is immeasurably enhanced by the educational field. An onanist of virtue will find more gratification in "helping others" than he will in monetary gain.

But pleasure is always the motivation. Or more precisely - the need to create themselves as something, and to look upon that something with satisfaction.

We see evidence all around us that selflessness can indeed survive the selfish enquiry of "what's in it for me?".

No we don't. You're simply taking a narrow view of gain.

All right. So we can't discount the possibility that the fox was stupid, being payed, or promised sex if he brought home some sweet grapes. I think Xev's word is perhaps more fitting than 'pleasure': satisfaction. We can experience satisfaction without being satisfied, and that can be enough. That seems like a paradox - isn't "experiencing satisfaction" and "being satisfied" the same thing?

Maybe semantically, but isn't "satisfaction" an ideal?

There is a curious bird called the Arabian Babbler, which has the habit of maintaining dominance, over its fellow Babblers, by giving gifts of luscious larva to its subordinates.
Now this may seem like a counterproductive strategy, given the rules of survival, yet it is reminiscent of philanthropic pursuits practiced by the rich and famous in our own human society.
This Babbler, like many of the wealthy, finds a sense of well-being and control over proving its worth through gifts and it would never accept one in return for it would symbolise dependence.
Sometimes, even when something is lost or given away, there is a satisfaction gained.
There is no such thing as altruism only varying strategies of egotism or shared interests.

But what does this have to do with ‘sour grapes’?

Jenyar:
All right. So we can't discount the possibility that the fox was stupid, being payed, or promised sex if he brought home some sweet grapes. I think Xev's word is perhaps more fitting than 'pleasure': satisfaction. We can experience satisfaction without being satisfied, and that can be enough. That seems like a paradox - isn't "experiencing satisfaction" and "being satisfied" the same thing?

Semantically, yeah.
They do have a different sense. To experience satisfaction - that would mean that your desires are all sated, but as we know that doesn't last. To be satisfied would mean that they are permanently sated, to be satisfied is to desire no more.