Average - normal, mediocre and moral

Do you suffer from FOBA: a fear of being average?

FOBA, sometimes FOBO (fear of being ordinary), seems to be pretty common (here, here, here and here). If you suffer from a fear of being average at least some of the time, then you probably are … um… average.   

When I read the word average in articles about FOBA, I see several other meanings lurking behind it.

To me, fear of being average appears to be a modern condition caused not by illness or injustice, but by sloppy word use. Sloppy enough to cover a fear of something else entirely.

In this post, I focus on average when it is used and misused to mean normal, and in part 2 I'm going to explore average used to mean boring. 

Post-truth (part 5) - from hmmm? to ah-ha!

This post builds on the ideas explored in the previous Post truth posts: part 1 - a false metaphor, part 2 - a metaphor that fits, part 3 - reviewing the project brief and part 4 - tell me a story. 

In part 4, I described how the walls of the metaphoric house of truth are constructed. The metaphoric walls represent our interwoven explanatory stories, shared and reinforced by lots of people throughout life. Our explanatory stories run constantly under our thinking, most often without our awareness. It's hard for us to pull out any single 'story', think critically about our understanding of the world, or notice if some stories have only a tenuous link to 'facts' about reality (the metaphorical floor). 

But we don't really want to anyway; why take a wrecking ball to the walls of our own house? We like living there!

In the last post, I suggested that our shared explanatory stories meet fundamental human needs in a way that facts cannot. Those needs include our need to understand 'cause and effect' so we can do things, out need to belong and share a sense of reality with others, and our need to feel safe. 

Here's an idea: truth is the status that we give to the explanatory stories that meet these human needs. 

'Whoa!?!' you say. 'Don't facts count for anything? Doesn't being right or accurate matter? Can I just call any random idea truth if it 'feels' good then?'

Very important questions. To begin to answer them, in this post I'm looking into the nature of our relationship to truth, how truth meets fundamental human needs.

I want to explore how truth makes us feel.

Free - a prepositional problem

We love feeling free.

Western national anthems often proclaim their people’s status as free: the USA as the ‘land of the free’; in Australia, ‘we are one and free’; and the Brits see their isle as the ‘home of the brave and free’.¹  

Those anthems celebrate being a people and a society² free from domination, oppression and tyranny, thanks to historical fights against tyrants or governments.

But, what does the word free mean to us in a purportedly free society? 

When I think about how we use the word free these days, I see images like going on a long drive, ideally in a sports car, with the wind tousling your hair.

I wonder, what exactly do we celebrate being free from now?

And I wonder, what happened to the prepositions that should go with that word. Free from what? Free of what? Free to do³ what? And... free in order to achieve what? 

What can those strangely absent prepositions tell us about the contemporary meaning of free? 

Post-truth (part 4) - tell me a story

Welcome to part 4 of the Post-truth series. Well done for staying the course! 

The aim of this series is to explore humanity's relationship to truth from a new perspective. I want to explore what's behind the numerous contests of truth through concepts including objectivity, subjectivity, relativity, the boundaries to what we can know, the place of untruth in all its guises, and the concept of post-truth. 

No rest in the construction of truth!

"Part 4?!" you might be thinking. Is truth really such a massive topic? Is truth really that complicated to write about? These questions remind me of the deep appeal of the journey metaphor for truth. It suggests that when we find it, truth will be simple and pure and absolute. We will KNOW. Then we can rest. 

But that's one of the many problems with the journey metaphor: truth just isn't simple and pure and absolute. 

My new house metaphor symbolises that truth is a complex and ongoing social construction process. It's tiring; there is no rest. 

At first, this might seem a much less appealing metaphor for truth. 

It might also feel like the ideas behind the house construction metaphor are not hanging together yet. That could be because my exploration is only about one-quarter of the way through!¹ 

However, if I can nail it (bad metaphor-related pun intended), I will explain soon how the better fit of the house construction metaphor for truth provides some big payoffs…

This post builds on the content explored in the previous Post truth posts: part 1 - a false metaphor, part 2 - a metaphor that fits, and part 3 - reviewing the project brief. 

We turn now to the exciting process of constructing truth. 

Habits - freeing or limiting?

At the beginning of the year, the usual articles about New Year's resolutions rolled out in the media. Yawn.

These were followed by the usual blither on making your resolution into a habit. Same, same.

I didn't make any resolutions. But I did think about habits.

A quote from William James (Habit, 1887)¹ prompted this exploration (my emphasis added): 

"We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are the subjects of express volitional deliberations." 

Really?! Habits are freeing 'our higher powers of the mind'? Can habits also be limiting? And William, how do we distinguish the 'useful actions' from those 'likely to be disadvantageous'? And are 'express volitional deliberations' so bad?

Post-truth (part 3) - reviewing the project brief

Truth is a massive topic and, as I said in part 1 of this series on post-truth, my writing comes after thousands (if not millions) of articles, comments, philosophical schools, books, memes, scientific debates, epistemological feuds, personal disagreements, psychological studies, ideological assertions and legal contests about truth. 

Click to enlarge

In part 1, I described how the dominant metaphor for truth – a journey to find truth – is a poor fit. Not just that, it creates problems for humanity’s relationship with truth. It stops us understanding what is happening with post-truth.

In part 2, I introduced a new metaphor - the construction of a house. I briefly outlined each of the components of the house: the ground (objective reality), the footings and foundations (our attempts to probe and understand reality), the floor (facts about reality as perceived and determined by humans), the walls (social consensus on truth) and the roof (psychological security of confidence in truth). 

I intended to follow this with a post explaining the metaphoric building processes (social agreement on truth) and the building code (social influences on these components and processes). Finally, I planned to get to a discussion about post-truth. 

I was aware I was skating rapidly over the details in the new metaphor and how I have selected from the extensive previous writing on truth. So quickly, I left too much out. Not surprisingly, it raised a few questions for readers.

This third post in the Post-truth series is a response to some of the questions. It seemed like a good time to go back to the metaphoric drawing board to revisit the project brief for the construction of truth. 

Burdened - writing the load off

This month marks two years of Wordly Explorations. A time for review. 

Last year pushed many of us to consider what we were filling our lives with and why. What are we doing with our precious finite time on earth? Are we relishing and honoring all that life offers? Are we exploring the vast richness of our physical, emotional, aesthetic and intellectual experiences? Are we honestly facing our challenges, and supporting others through theirs? Are we doing anything meaningful?

And for me: is writing a blog the right thing to be doing at this time in history? In what way does the blog contribute to the world? 

It was a weighty question and played on my mind over many months. 

With this in the background, I read Susan Sontag's 1966 Against Interpretation and Other Essays. I was struck with new ideas from these 60-year-old essays. I sorted out a few puzzles, found a new perspective on topics I struggle with, and cheered her underlying argument: how we use words can either open or close our eyes to the wonderful complexity of the world. 

In short, I experienced what I hoped my exploration of words and the world might provide for readers: maybe a new perspective, perhaps a pause to reflect on how we use words, and even occasionally, some new ideas.