#idealist primary

[mysticalenthusiastvoid]

I'm going to sort my family from most recently dead to furthest.

Grandma - Badger Snake. I thought maybe she was a double Badger, but I think she modeled Badger sec because it was expected of her, but she was traditional and involved in her church community, so Badger primary. I say she was a Snake secondary due to her general mischeviousness, go with the flow attitude, and doing things like once tricking me into getting a flu shot by paying for two.

Mom - Double Bird or Bird Badger. Would do a deep dive on any subject she found interesting and once she decided that something was true, good luck changing her mind. She could possibly have been a Badger sec due to building communities wherever she went. Used to clash with her a fair amount, but she also could have been a burnt Lion primary.

Grandpa - This one is the hardest due to him being gone for so long, but he could be the double Badger out of the bunch. Also community oriented.

[mysticalenthusiastvoid]

"You forgot about us -"

"No -"

"You forgot your own flesh and blood, your family, and you moved on with your life."

"That's rich coming from you since you're the one who left me."

"I didn't mean to. I thought you were dead."

"I was twelve," Allana said. "I was a child with nothing but the clothes on my back. What would you have me do?"

"You could have told someone," Ilia said. "You could have gotten help."

"I did get help. I was found and taken in by good people who loved me."

"And why didn't you tell them where you were from?"

"I couldn't."

"You couldn't or you wouldn't?"

Allana stared at Ilia. "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"Father put a compulsion on me," Allana said.

"He did what?"

"He mind controlled me to not talk about the Shadows or anything related to them. He blocked the memory and tied it to my anxiety. The PTSD just solidified it."

"I'm sure Father did what he thought was best -"

"You're defending him for his shitty choice and yet you're criticizing me for the choices I've made?"

"You know that family means everything to us."

"Yes and I made a new one. I wasn't going to wait twenty four years for you."

[mysticalenthusiastvoid]

Is it a charred Idealist primary thing to feel guilty about not meeting certain moral standards about acting in a more Loyalist primary value system?

[wisteria-lodge]

As a Lion, have you ever been accused of being judgmental? I'm always being told to think the best of people, not to judge, always put the most charitable spin on things no matter what, etc. Example: If you see someone driving recklessly, don't react with anger but assume they are rushing due to an emergency. Obviously I don't want to be a jerk but it feels like I'm expected to brainwash myself.

I have absolutely been accused of being judgmental and holier-than-thou. I suspect most Idealists have.

And there are some categories of people I judge extremely harshly and probably always will. Teachers and parents who use their authority to bully children is a big one. I don't care what the context is, I will grind you into the fucking ground.

But here's a silly one. I used to be SUPER judgy of people who named their kids diminutives. Like if the kid was named "Kate" or "Rick" instead of "Katherine" or "Richard." But then I actually learned about names and realized that "Alison" and "Aiden" and "Nancy" and a million others were ALSO diminutives, and actually diminutives split off into their own independent names all the time, and it would be really silly for me to poo-poo some diminutives and not others, and actually the whole thing was me being elitist and gross. And now I don't judge people's names anymore.

In a lot of ways, this whole SHC project of mine is an exercise in not judging people. It's a lot harder to judge specific behavior/traits when you see the vulnerable, hurting human being on the other side. Because yeah, those platitudes like "you never know what someone else is going though" never did much for me either. Hypothetical knowledge isn't going to cut it. But it really does become much harder to judge the erratic driver, when you've had to calm down some terrified 16 year old who thought they were ready to drive on the freeway, and weren't.

(I actually use my students as a moral tool a lot. I even use it as a tool to stop judging myself - because the idea is what would I tell myself, if I were one of my students?)

[wisteria-lodge]

I was reading about lion vs bird and how the later would have some kind of explanation for why they believe what they believe, and my immediate reaction was but surely you DO have an explanation, sure maybe not the best but you DO! I hate spiders, they scare me, even though all life is worth it and killing is bad, I want to live in my house in peace./ People have different aspirations, ambitions and interpretations, but surely we can agree on core things, you must see this is important universally too!/ Someone's life that already exists are more important than someone's who don't yet, because suffering is bad, it breaks a person./ I will stick to family over greater good as there's no such relationship as we have and without them I do not belong. There's always a why, maybe crapy, wonky and not at all cold and logical, but there is. There's both emotion and why, and I probably just don't get it still, but there's always a why that makes sense to me, I always have to figure it out! That's just human, right?

It's about the order the two things come in. A Lion feels something, and the feeling *is true.* And then they have to circle back and figure out why that's the case. Some lions are good at explaining why they think things, or can come up with something good in the moment, but it's a second step. They feel first.

Birds feel, and the feeling is data, but it's not *true.* They need to work out their reasoning first, and then their reasoning is true.

An example. I have a Bird friend whose system doesn't have a problem with polyamory, but felt weird about it because of religious upbringing and all that jazz. So, they deliberately went about "getting my feelings in line" and changing the way they felt about it to match the existing system.

A Lion's feelings change in the background - or sometimes even change unwillingly, that's why it can often be so emotional and brutal when a Lion has a system change. I would expect a Lion to go around with comparatively unexamined thoughts on polyamory, until they maybe meet a polyamorous person, and get hit with the feeling this is fine, actually.

[wyrdnis]

Hey SHC community! When sorting a fictional character, how do you go about telling a passionate Bird primary from an intelligent, deliberate Lion primary? I'm talking about narratives that don't give you a lot of information about the character's decision making process.

I've noticed that I tend to think "Lion!" when I see a character passionately arguing or fighting for a certain idea or belief. But of course Birds can be passionate, too, right? Every primary can.

So how do you make the distinction, from our side of the TV screen?

[sevilemar]

I was wondering if I was an idealist or loyalist house. Loyalists can “pick up” morals from their people right? I was thinking about how, even with my people in my inter circle, I would have to come to my own conclusion on an issue- and it would feel pretty immoral to just take someone’s ideas because you like them. Another note, I would feel like total crap weather I abandoned my closest people or my greater cause. That’s what was tripping me up with idealist vs loyalist. :/ thanks! :)

It's not much to go on, but I get idealist vibes of this. In general, I find that I don't think much about morality in broader terms, and I've never had a cause I would consider mine. There was never any need, it's never been as important as the people around me. Generally speaking, that's more of an idealist thing to be concerned about. Maybe you are a lion with loyalist values, or a bird with a loyalist system. Only you can decide that, nonny.

[wisteria-lodge]

Hey there! I'm a little confused about the idealist versus loyalist aspect of primaries. I 100% think I'm a loyalist, probably more Snake than Badger, but something still doesn't feel right. It's mostly that one question in the quiz that goes "would you love someone less if you disagreed on something important". I've definitely felt that many times. I don't really give a damn for most things, but questions like queerphobia, racism, etc., that's a major deal breaker. In cases where it felt like they could easily change their minds and it was just about not knowing or an idea being very new to them, it felt a bit disappointing but it didn't affect my love for them, because I felt confident it wouldn't last. But in cases where the Bad Thing felt too engrained in them, I could definitely feel my love for them diminish, even in relationships that were important to me. I would feel bad about it because it feels wrong to let my love for someone go knowingly, but I wouldn't feel bad about it specifically in regards to the person, because those feelings would be gone already, if that makes any sense.

I think that's more an idealist thing, but that's really the only trait I relate to. Prioritizing ideals over individuals still feels incompatible with my worldview. I also have a history of disregarding principles when it comes to people I care about and not feeling bad about it one bit, which is one of the things that strongly pointed me towards Snake. Is this because the example in question is too extreme? Could it be because of a model? This question has been bothering me for a while, but I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. Anyway, I'd appreciate any bit of help you might give. 🙏🏼 Have a good day!

You sound like a Loyalist to me. Probably all that's happened is you've got caught up in using extreme examples. "Would I love my Person less if I realized they were Jack the Ripper." That kind of thing. The problem of using examples like that is ... if the behavior and the beliefs are bad enough that they're affecting other people, that's going to come back around and ping some other part of the Loyalist's system. A Badger primary who realizes the beliefs of one member of the community are hurting another member of the community? Ouch. Or a Snake who realizes that the beliefs of one of their People are hurting another one of their People (or even just hurting their own reputation or social standing?) I had an interesting conversation with a Snake primary, who said that if she realized a good friend of hers was homophobic, she wouldn't *cut them off* but she wouldn't want to be tagged in the same photos as them anymore. And if that person made a long homophobic video, or started donating to homophobic organizations... then continuing to associate with them is going to be way more trouble than it's worth. Sakes are practical, remember, and good at taking care of themselves. Like this bit right here is very loyalist:

In cases where it felt like they could easily change their minds and it was just about not knowing or an idea being very new to them, it felt a bit disappointing but it didn't affect my love for them, because I felt confident it wouldn't last.

Maybe it's cold, but the Idealist perspective (my perspective) is - I'm here if you want to talk, but. Figure yourself out, come back when you've changed your mind.