Comments on: Against introspection

By: chutney

chutney — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 20:01:39 +0000

That’s the trick, isn’t it? To keep from getting swept up by something new while you’re itching for a rebound. (And in Joe Esterhas’ case, not being a middle-aged adolescent might also help.)

By: Charly Z

Charly Z — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 18:47:59 +0000

All this talk about former fundamentalists changing their tune to that of other strict belief systems reminds me of Joe Eszterhas for some reason.

By: CP

CP — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 00:36:55 +0000

Hmm, interesting. I asked because I’d never thought of introspection in a negative way before. I have a better idea of what you’re talking about now. But maybe it does need a different label.

By: chutney

chutney — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 00:32:29 +0000

Good question. Hmmm…

I suppose there’s several flavors of introspection. But the one I’m talking about takes control of you, instead of you keeping control over it. It becomes all-consuming. It becomes the central axis of your life, everything else revolving around it.

Under this flavor of introspection, you must find out something new about yourself (that you can fix) all the time or you consider your life going nowhere. In the end, you’ll make stuff up about yourself just to keep getting your fix. When you get confused between the real you and the made up you, you’ve opened up a whole new area for introspection. So it’s a viscious circle.

I suppose this flavor of introspection deserves its own label, to set it apart from other, more healthy flavors. But for now, they’re all pretty much off limits to me.

By: CP

CP — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 23:58:29 +0000

Define introspection.

By: makingchutney.com » Back to irony

makingchutney.com » Back to irony — Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

[...] What I don’t mean to do is equate irony with introspection. I’ve explicitly argued against introspection here (understood in a post-fundamentalist context). You don’t have to [...]