JUDGMENT BLOG
12/4/2005

     "I'm sorry," Alice unhesitatingly pronounces, 
     "but I don't consider the guy who did the 
     SpiderMan comics to be a serious author."
  		    --Last Days of Disco



             < ... text elided from public blog ... >



On a different note ...
Have you seen the movie Metropolitan? I really liked that movie ...
the two pseudo-sequels, Barcelona and Last Days of Disco are ok ...
and I just watched it again after reading this article about "The
World of Whit Stillman" ...

  http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_urbanities-a_great_conservative.html

I cant remember what I was googling for but I stumbled on this longish 
essay. It's only worth reading if these keywords score highly for you:
       Whit Stillman's movies
       Jane Austen
       changing mores
       judging judgmentalism
       condemning Eurotrash.

The article repeats one line from the movie which nicely states
something I was speaking of with a couple of you recently ...

  "When you're an egoist," [Charlie] remarks sarcastically, 
  "none of the harm you do is intentional." 

That's what I meant when I said the "occam's razor" explanation
of much lame behavior is "they dont care". Asking more penetrating
questions like "what were they thinking when they called me at 3am" 
or "how do i explain flakey behavior X ... was there a miscommunication?",
"what does this say about me/our relationship" is an exercise in futility.
Because there is no "there" there. Often there really is little more
to the explanation than "They are egoists". 

"Intention" as refuge for Scoundrels ...
It's interesting to explore this matter of "intention". While it
would be odd to say Apathetic Harm is worse than Intentional Harm,
possibly most of the offenses we face are a production of there being
no-care ... sort of a null set idea ... rather than insufficient care
[negligence] or negative care [willingness/intent to harm]. That's 
certainly what is going on in the banal and de minimus cases we dismiss
as "flakiness" but I think it is true in more signifcant matters as well.
Do most people cheat on their SOs to hurt them or "merely" because
they essentually only put weight on what they want rather than either
some commitment to principle [a personal "pacta sunt servanda" ... 
"promises should be kept], or on what the other party would want
[the other party is now of "measure zero"]. Anyway, this is a fact of
life. But it does mean, when the other party "appeals", you no longer
have to meet the burden of showing ill-intent to condemn: "i dont want
to associate with you, not because you have tried to hurt me, or
others, but you just have such low standards for what you have regard
for. In fact you seem to only have regard for yourself. You are an
egoist." The excuse "I didnt mean it" is reasonably met with "You 
should have done better". There is some scope to have "reciprocal
egoist norms" ... "it's ok, i dont need to show up/call ... those 
are my flaky friends" ... in fact, in this day and age, work and social
compromises are a necessity for most, but I think it's important to be
cognizant that a compromise is being made. 


Another pithy illustration of a related idea come from an other
Manhattanite work, Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods". In the song
"I Know Things Now", Little Red Riding Hood sings "Nice is different
than Good." There are a lot of pleasant people, but it can take a 
while before you can tell the nice-and-good person from the nice-but-
egoist person. 


I want to start collecting these "universal but phony excuse" phrases
that drive me crazy, like "I need to be true to myself." (I think
Reality TV is a good place to mine for these). The expression "it's
all good" also drives me crazy, but that may be more of an aesthetic 
reaction than a Kantian moral one.


I shall now finish my Coffee-Flavored Soy Beverage.

Ok tnx,


						--psb