Neurotypicals has too much emotion

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When I discuss politics with neurotypicals, I can't put forward my political and ethical theories, because the neurotypicals cannot abstract away from their personal feelings/emotions.

It's like they can't see the technical designs. No wonder why political discussions among NT's often results in anger and lots of emotions, when in reality, politics has absolutely nothing to do with emotions - politics = realpolitik and Machiavellism.

I like Machiavelli. He's my favorite political writer/author. "The Prince" is a masterpiece and I simply don't understand why people keep saying that Machiavellism is bad.

Suppose you would become a victim of someone else's Machiavellism, how would you feel about it?

Should one blame the messenger. Machiavelli was simply presenting political realism detached from moral probity.

ruveyn

False generalisation, I fear. I know plenty of emotion-damping NTs, ands some of the Wrong Planeteers are not exactly dispassionate. Other factors are at work.

Yeah, I often got into trouble for not being "tactful". Ideas should not be about personal attacks, but they are often taken as such. I still get those late night phone calls once in a while where people ask me "what did you mean by that?" They extract some personal attack and get emotional from a philosophical idea. So lame, but you gotta love them for being so sensitive. Still, it is annoying. I'm busy analyzing my own self, I ain't got time for your dumb ass at 10 at night. Wait that was rude. I take it back. Too late. I already said what I meant. Jeez!

Restating for emphasis.

I'd like to point out that emotions aren't inferior to thinking. Thoughts and feelings are both a kind of information. How you respond (or don't) to them is the important thing.

Perhaps what you mean, OP, is that many people seem to respond unwisely to their emotions too often, and with that, I would agree.

But, politics and emotions go hand in hand. Politics is about people and people won't be stripped of emotionality anytime soon (I hope). If you are going to work in the realms of politics, you are going to have to learn to deal with the dimension of emotions as much as the dimension of abstractions, or find someone who can do that for you.

Last edited by Moog on 21 Dec 2010, 4:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

And yet when Alinsky does the same thing you scream.

Alinsky was a serious advocate and a trouble maker. He actually organized groups.

ruveyn

So? Machiavelli wa an actual politician who put his principles into operation during his career and many sharp students of his have used The Prince when conducting real world politics.

LMAO it's so ironic that you're labelling NT's as too emotional yet you're using the all too common logical fallacy of generalizing. I've seen tons of emotional crap on these forums. I believe in less government, yet I get questioned about public roads and cops.

Machiavelli's -Prince- was an abstract study, not activity. If Ailinsky had done nothing but right theoritical tracts on activism I would not say boo. But he actually organized trouble. He was a hate America intellectual.

ruveyn

That's funny, as Rules for Radicals is supersaturated with praise of America's Founding Father's. But leaving aside your visceral, hissy-fit prone ultra-nationalism for a second, that still ignores the fact that Machiavelli was a politican who employed very cynical moves before being permanetly forced out of power.

In short, he was a player. However his writing was an abstract exercise. Two different, but related things.

I detest Ailinsky for the same reason I detest Howard Zinn. If they did not like the United States, then why didn't they leave?

I like the United States, which is to say the culture and the people. It is the government I cannot stand.

ruveyn

First, I find it really ironic that you like "the people of the United States" yet regularly bash "the proles" - who make up a large subset of "the people". Second, a given government cannot exist without a given demographic and cultural context. So, if you are to be consistent you must dislike elements of American culture, which puts you in the same boat as Zinn and Alinsky. Deciding which elements are detrimental and which are beneficial is thus the pertinent task at hand.

Why do you think these people hated the United States? Maybe they just hated a certain ideological/cultural segment of American society that has the gall to claim they alone represent "real America". Maybe they just hated the fact that this segment tries to shut down discussion of certain issues and sweep injustices under the rug in the name of misguided patriotism. I find that kind of intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt self-back-patting feel-goodism repugnant. I consider skepticism and cultural self-criticism to be healthy indicators of an open society and I consider them as true American values. The founding fathers were skeptical and critical concerning certain injustices of the elites of their time (namely the British Monarchy). You have to remember that right up to the American revolutionary war, the majority of colonists still proudly identified themselves as British, even as they detested the "powers that be" of the time.