The previous post on acceptability talked about some reasons why things become unacceptable over time and raised a point regarding the width of the “boundary of acceptability”. In this follow up I want to discuss a bit more the grey areas surrounding acceptability – from a number of viewpoints including cultural and personal.
Cognition
Selective Memory?
In History Is What We Make It I wrote about the vagaries of our memories – how we remember some things, forget others and make up yet more!! Yesterday I was given a rather clear example of just how ‘strange’ our memory can be when it comes to selecting a particular event to forget!!
The Tingle Factor Redux
Radio 3 is – on its breakfast show – focusing on building a playlist based on the theme “the Tingle Factor”. Some time ago I wrote a post on that subject and it was always likely that I would return to it. Sitting here listening to the opening of Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony was all I needed to trigger that return!
On Changing What Is Considered Acceptable
It is interesting to see how our understanding of what is “acceptable” changes through time. Things change in both directions – some things that are “acceptable” become “unacceptable” whilst other things go from “unacceptable” to “acceptable”.
A Paradox of Ignorance
We all – inevitably – view the world through a series of prejudices and biases. This is not a criticism, merely a fact. Just yesterday I clipped an article to OneNote which listed “58 Cognitive Biases That Screw Up Everything We Do“!! In addition to these inbuilt mistake inducing biases we also have our own personal list of “things we know” that colour every move we make.
Who Ties The String?
One of the recurring themes of my posts here (the most recent is Someone Is Pulling The Strings Again) is my thoughts on the applicability of the “Red Thread of Fate” – East Asian folklore that is specifically about the way in which we are “bound” to our soulmate, but which I see as a useful metaphor for the way in which we are “connected” to each other in a multitude of ways (perhaps there out to be more colours to denote the ‘nature’ of the connection! We could then have a rainbow world – in whatever dimension that thread resides!!!)
Thoughts On A Meme
I have to admit that I ‘collect’ what the online world has taken to calling “memes”. Now I have been collecting them since before they were called that (I think) – certainly before it was part of popular usage – when they were ‘merely’ aphorisms. (and yes – I do realise that in the accepted sense “memes” are more than ‘just’ “aphorisms”)
A Pointless Habit
Why do you continue to do something when you are convinced that it is no longer worthwhile?
Every now and again – perhaps more often than we might care to admit – we develop – well lets call them habits – that persist long after the justification for them has lapsed or, even worse, the habit has become damaging in one way or another. I’m not talking here about anything that is necessarily pernicious or threatening or even “wrong” – simply no longer worthwhile.
On Morality
When it comes to “right” or “wrong” it seems that, increasingly, there is a continuum from one extreme to the other and little agreement as to where in that long line any particular thing resides. Even the most heinous of acts can – from some perspectives – have some aspect of ‘good’ about them. Equally – something done with the best of intentions can be portrayed as evil – if the ‘wrong’ slant is put on it.
A Partial Summary
Although the entries in this blog are sporadic and are not following any particular pattern there are a few themes that run through them and which recur in different posts. I’m just thinking that it might be as well to provide a bit of a summary and a few links to enable easier browsing between related posts.