Squashed

Apparently I’m a bit late on the bandwagon on this one. Don’t blame me. It sometimes takes a while for me to sort out the satirical from the genuinely misguided. From what I can tell, Bigcigars is serious with this list of reasons to be antisocial. Don’t get me wrong—there are some virtues to solitude and the contemplative life—but this list misses them. I fixed the list.

1. Genius is [not] antisocial

It’s a sad genius that doesn’t recognize the value of others. Your best shot at genius is to stand on the shoulder of giants. Genius is a collaborative endeavor.

2. Less drama?

Apparently if you interract with others only when forced to, your occasional interractions become stressful and terrifying things. On the other hand, if you can play well with others, perhaps you’ll adjust to the horror of not being alone in the world.

3. You don’t gain insight. You lose perspective.

One of the great things about having friends (or at least acquaintances) is that they can tell you when you’re crazy. If you live too long inside your own head, you end up disconnected from reality. If you spend too much time dwelling on trivialities, you might uncover something important, but you’re more likely to drive yourself to distraction and paranoia.

4. Relationships are worth effort

Generally if you don’t consider somebody or something worth the effort, it’s pretty easy to determine.

5. You can hear all sorts of great stuff if you’re a good listener

Talking to others ought not be stressful. In fact, a good conversation should communicate a whole lot more than a simple transcript would reveal. But this generally requires listening to what the other person has to say, which means (at least temporarily) getting over yourself. Listen with your full attention. If that means you haven’t figured out what to say next and there’s an awkward pause, that’s not the end of the world.

6. Low expectations tend to be fulfilled

Solipsism would certainly be more convenient—but spending time with others has its own rewards. We founded a country on the promise of the pursuit of happiness. I promise you, happiness is a real and achievable thing.

7. It takes more courage to care about others

As the original list pointed out, if you hate everybody, you’re not likely to care that much what they think of you. This does not mean you’re somehow a brave, thick-skinned person. Rather, it means you’ve retreated from companionship at the mere thought of rejection. It’s the emotional equivalent of “You can’t fire me, I quit!”

8. You miss out on a whole lot

It turns out that most people in the world are quite a bit like you. All the best stories and all the best memories come from friends.

9. Self-improvement is an alternative to self-deception

If you are just an antisocial moron, you could, feasibly, stop being antisocial. This doesn’t necessarily help you with being moronic—but it’s better to be a moron with friends than a lonely moron. A moron with friends can aspire to be a sidekick—and sidekicks hang out with awesome heroes who make life wonderful.

then it’s probably a good idea to isolate yourself so that you can tell yourself that you are, in fact a genius and that nobody recognizes what you are because they are all so stupid. Self-aggrandizing delusion needs isolation in order to reach it’s full annoying potential. It’s annoying to everybody else, but rewards the bearer with a tremendous sense of martyrdom which, in many cases, is the only reason they have to not commit suicide.

10. Loneliness is part of the human condition

No matter what you do, you’re likely to feel lonely once in a while. Perhaps you’re not connecting with others in the way you wanted to. Or perhaps you’re hoping others will fill some void they aren’t meant to fill. If you retreat from others, this loneliness might become more explicable—but it won’t go away. It’s better to confront it with others.

Alternatively, it’s possible that I mistaken a satirically intended post on the virtues of dying alone as a serious attempt to indict our gregarious society. That would be embarassing. But if you genuinely believe you’re better avoiding all social interaction because you’d rather be depressed alone than depressed with others, consider speaking to some variety of mental health professional—because that’s something to worry about. Think of it like Pascal’s wager. If happiness is an illusion and life is meaningless, the universe is sick a little bit of bother one way or another shouldn’t matter. But if it turns out that you’re sick, then any amount of effort to get things right is worth it.

Jeff Miller had some interesting thoughts on the virtues and vices of democracy.

I was thinking more about the Wal*Mart tragedy of last weekend and it reminded me a bit of the Kitty Genovese case—you know, the woman whose murder was famously ignored by thirty-eight witnesses:

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But in these instances, the actions of the crowd are not okay.

I can’t help but think that the romance of Democracy has something to do with this.  In school, we learn the virtue of Democracy … and it’s oversold.  Democracy isn’t that great … it’s just the best form of Government we have.  It’s the least rotten apple in a barrel of rotten apples.  But we teach Democracy as if it’s something pure and lovely and beautiful.  It’s none of those things.  Democracy is mob rule, and while mob rule is better than oligarchy or monarchy or theocracy, that’s like being the best player on the Detroit Lions.

While I agree that Democracy is the best form of government we have—I do not think that mob psychology is particularly controlling. Mob psychology tends toward the extremes, where as our democracy tends toward the center. First, I think our democracy is too big to have proper mob dynamics. Like an amoeba, if you get too many people in a mob, the mob tends to split. Its hard (or impossible) to have a three million person, self-sustaining frenzy. Secondly, our democracy is too slow to have mob dnyamics. By the time anybody gets to vote for representatives, we’ve had a few dozen news cycles and people have had a chance to cool off. Then the representatives have a while before they’re in power. Then they debate for a long time and it goes to the other half of congress. By the time anything gets done, procedure has shaven off some of the excesses.

In contrast, another form of government might be both smaller and faster. A planned economy might have a relatively smaller government that isn’t accountable to anybody that could get mobbish. Dictators are, as often as not, incredibly popular and will often try to please the mob’s latest whims in an effort to keep power.

In fact, a proper democracy should be antithetical to a mob rule. Mobs (for better or worse) tend to be fairly single-minded. Our democracy, on the other hand, has many voices and considers dissent, consensus, and compromise. There are many voices—and hopefully the end result integrates of a lot of disparate views and values. (Or to be technical, the integration of all these views and values +c, where c is corruption.) The mob, on the other hand, does not harness individual values. Instead, it claims to have speak with one voice and one purpose. Dissent is dangerous in the mob. (You’ll end up sleeping with the fishes.)

jeffmiller:

When our nation permitted slavery, it seemed like a moderate thing, I suspect.  When our nation denied women their rights, the Elizabeth Cady Stantons were the extremists.  Now, you might argue that those weren’t actual democracies, because African-Americans and Women were denied the right to vote, but how do you account for things like segregation, and Japanese interment, and torture, and wiretapping, and (I suspect) the denial of gay marriage, and maybe, even, our treatment of animals, or the fact that we eat them.

Jeff correctly points out that the majority often gets things wrong. And the fewer people who are able to vote, the worse it’s likely to be. But in these cases, Democracy did correctly identify the will of the majority (of voters). This doesn’t mean it’s right—just that the majority thinks it’s right. Or at least justified. And this does not seem like a bad system to me. At the very least, it has the possibility of changing things when people better understood how society should work.

Because right now, if Jeff Miller or I were able to set all the rules, one of us would be extremely unhappy. Jeff would eliminate the minimum wage. I would probably raise it. We need some way to determine who is right.

But Democracy is not just about compromise. It is also about distilling value and information. As Jeff correctly points out, the general consensus of thought has a pretty poo r track record. But does it have a better track record than individuals? Democracy will more likely arrive at a better overall solution than even a carefully selected individual. We’re not going to have a government that makes the right decision all the time. My claim is that Democracy is the best way to get better government. A consensus emerges and becomes policy. Most likely, it’s a good idea.

Many of the terrible things placed at the feet of Democracy predate Democracy. As Democracy became more Democratic, those things diminished. Can you look back and name a really bad policy we can attribute primarily to consensus