#small minded

[serenityquest]

[fkinavocado]

guys istg there's nothing out there. men are the fucking worst

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi. I hope you had/are having a great summer break. I (INTP) am hoping for some perspective about an issue. Recently, my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, became incredibly frustrated that I corrected her with an alleged “I know everything” attitude.

It’s an issue of concern because she revealed that I always do this. I guess this was the straw that broke it, especially given that what we were discussing was very trivial. (Maybe the frivolousness of the subject is precisely what made my correction seem more pedantic, unnecessary, arrogant.) She says that my attitude disregards her long life experience, and that if she were a stranger, she would think of me as a “snot-nosed brat who knows nothing about life” instead of as a “wise young person”, which is the viable alternative. She said that I am closed-minded and that I shoot everything down. (The problem of small-mindedness is what you addressed the only other time I wrote to you.)

I don’t know why I come off as arrogant. I’m sure that I’m not. I asked my mother what it was that made her think that, which she thought was a silly question because what she sensed was a general demeanor rather than specific behaviors. In the end we were only able to establish that my lack of eye contact was one of those factors. I can work on that, but surely that’s not determinant. What makes people think of others as arrogant? Should I stop correcting people? I don’t correct others in order to feel superior to them. I do it because I like to debate, in order to keep my thinking sharp, and because there is something painful about friends/family having false notions. I think it’s fair to say that my intention isn’t rooted in arrogant soils.

Granted, my suggestion of stopping correcting people is black-and-white, given that there is the grey option of changing the *way* I correct people. I’m just wondering if it’s an unhealthy habit in the first place. But given how prevalent a thought process it is (i.e. questioning people’s statements and finding faults), the process of getting rid of it may be akin to self-directed psychological violence. I mean, this is the same mode of being that makes me good at what I’m good at. (There’s also the option of keeping the thought process, but not correcting people aloud, but I don’t know what else there is to talk about other than analyzing ideas and their faults. Maybe I should analyze ideas for their strengths too, and express that side more than the faults.)

So anyway, let’s go with grey: So far I’ve tried thinking of an arrogant person that I know in order to understand my behavior, but I can’t think of anyone. Also, no matter how hard I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes in order to simulate an interaction with myself, it doesn’t really work, and I can’t see the arrogance, except if I were to just tell someone “that’s wrong” without any explanation. (I wonder if that’s what went wrong in the conversation with my mother.) Either way, this whole issue boils down to the fact that I’m not arrogant by any reasonable criteria that I found online, but that I come off as such. This was longer than intended. Thanks for your kindness and help.

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Here are some questions for you to reflect on. They are meant to increase awareness of your underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values. Answer honestly:

Do you care about your mom? Do you care about how she's faring, what she's experiencing, what she's thinking or feeling, what she needs and desires, what she hopes for or aspires to, etc?

If you care, how do you SHOW your care to her?

If you don't care, how does that affect your behavior toward her?

Do you believe that the mother-child relationship only goes one-way? (Is it the mom's job to do for you but you owe her nothing?)

You say you like to debate to sharpen your mind. Innocent enough. I like to roller skate to keep myself physically fit. In an ideal world, I would never take my skates off. Does my enthusiasm for roller skating mean that I slap my skates on anywhere, any time? No. Surely it is inappropriate to skate around a hospital or the supermarket. Not only could I seriously harm myself, I would also be exhibiting flagrant disregard for the safety and well-being of others.

What you like to do for yourself sometimes comes into conflict with other people. If you care about people and hope to have healthy and happy relationships with them, you have to take their needs and wants into consideration in every interaction. You have to abide by ethical rules and principles that allow your needs to be met without neglecting the needs of others or interfering with their ability to get their needs met. Without ethics, society wouldn't be able to function, because it would just be a free-for-all.

You mention small-mindedness. It is quite small-minded to walk around the world only thinking about what you need/want. In the best case scenario, you are completely oblivious to others, and they will perceive you as clueless or self-absorbed. In the worst case scenario, you only interact with people for your own personal gain, and that would make you an exploitative or even abusive person. Is that the kind of person you want to be?

Do you basically treat people as though their sole purpose on earth is to debate you and help you sharpen your mind - to serve you? Do you launch into debates with people without asking for consent or checking to see if they want to be corrected? If you do, they will call you arrogant, not because you've put yourself on a pedestal and call yourself superior like an evil cartoon character, but because you are communicating to them that your needs/wants are most important AND you don't give a damn about theirs.

Webster's definition of arrogance: "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people". You believe that you know better, otherwise, you wouldn't grant yourself the social authority to intrude on people's boundaries, invalidate their experience, and correct them uninvited. You believe that you are smarter, otherwise, you wouldn't automatically assume the dominant social role of corrector. You behave as though you are the more important member of the relationship because your main priority is YOUR need to feel better (about your skills or about what others believe) while overlooking the other person's needs. Seems like you fit the definition quite well.

Despite that, I wouldn't call you arrogant because I understand that small-mindedness is a difficult problem to overcome. I see the effort that you're putting in to understand it. I'm charitable because I'm not the one who was hurt by your behavior. When people feel hurt, they often have difficulty expressing it. Maybe it comes out clumsily or they aren't able to explain their hurt without hurting you in return. Expressing one's true feelings is to make oneself vulnerable. If someone doesn't trust you to understand and validate their feelings or, worse, they believe that you will attack them for their feelings, they will not be completely honest with you. Your mom is trying her best to give you the benefit of the doubt by saying "if you were a stranger...", but she doesn't feel comfortable enough with you to express her hurt fully and explicitly as it happens. Why? Because the very reason she is hurt in the first place is that you have shown very little regard for her feelings. Following from the previous post of yours, the root of the problem is that you have such a poor understanding of feelings to begin with that you view them as inconsequential in yourself and others (very immature Fe).

I believe you have no ill-intent. I have said before that the typical Ti dom never sets out to hurt people on purpose. Rather, they hurt people unintentionally because their perspective is too small: 1) they don't grasp that other people's needs may be very different from their own and thereby fail to consider them, 2) they don't know how to empathize with different perspectives and validate them, and/or 3) they don't understand that SHOWING love and care is necessary for people to justify continued investment in the relationship.

In other words, Ti doms tend to hurt people out of negligence or acts of omission. Some of them get frustrated at not being able to solve their relationship problems. They might try to convince themselves that doing nothing means that no harm can be done, so they adopt a passive stance in the relationship and perhaps even train themselves to keep their mouth shut (self-violence). They fail to understand that there's more than one way to cause hurt. Instead of learning better relationship skills, they check out mentally and emotionally. Being checked out only makes it worse because you hurt yourself and you keep hurting others by being even less attentive to their needs.

The foundation of meaningful relationships is showing care. In a healthy relationship, people trust you to care for their emotional needs and not violate their personal boundaries. If you only attend to your own needs/wants in social interaction, you are signalling that you don't really care about the other person. This problem with your mom shows that you give little to no consideration for emotional needs and personal boundaries. If you don't want friends, it's entirely your choice to be alone for the rest of your life, pretending that you never leave any footprints behind you. If you want friends, you'll have to put out more effort to be a better friend, by paying more attention to the consequences of your behavior.

Doing things that violate trust and boundaries, even if unintentional, causes hurt. When people feel hurt and don't feel safe to express the hurt, they are liable to say/do negative things. To have good emotional intelligence is to see past the surface of their negative words/behavior and grasp the underlying emotional needs that were unmet and/or the personal boundaries that were violated. Only then can you be a morally responsible member of a relationship, in terms of owning all the ways that you impact people, both positively and negatively.

Arrogant people don't care about the social impact they produce. As long as they get what they want and don't lose anything, the existence of others is of little importance to them. If your mom is important to you, then learn how to show it better by listening to her when she tells you about her needs/wants. You hyperfocus on the literal meaning of the word "arrogant" and whether it is true/false of you, as though proving it false means that there's nothing wrong. You need to listen to the people you have hurt, if you want to understand why your behavior is hurtful. Alternatively, you need to educate yourself about emotional needs, interpersonal boundaries, and what constitutes un/ethical behavior and why.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

small minded, you believe only what you have chosen to see, and choose too belittle others for it

If you can see a god, then you can show how this occurs. It also means that you cannot claim your god is invisible and undetectable. If your thing exists, then explain how we can confirm it. Keeping in mind we can detect air, gravitational force and even black holes without “seeing” them.

You seem completely angst-ridden and apoplectic about being asked how you can come to this knowledge. This is really suspicious. Why is this completely unacceptable to you? Is it because you know your thing isn’t true and you fear disconfirmation? Why is it absolutely inconceivable to you that you should provide a way to verify your claim? You know who deflects when asked for verification? Con men.

I will accept any idea that you can substantiate. Verifiably and unbiased. Literally anything. Show me how to detect a unicorn, in a way that confirms it exists and is a unicorn, and I will accept that unicorns exist.

On the other hand, you cannot detect a mistake in your beliefs - and very many are certain you are wrong - and are completely closed to any other possibility. This is called unfalsifiability, and it’s a good indicator that an idea is simply wrong. Things that are right are right because they’re not-wrong. You have no definition or criteria for ‘wrong” for your superstition. Therefore, you cannot claim to be right.

By definition, the small mind, the closed mind can ONLY be you.

You only choose to interpret it as “belittling” because you find it confronting to not have people massaging your delicate ego and treating your comforting lies as “true”. Truth doesn’t care about your precious little fee-feez. It goes on being true regardless.

Considering your entire little whine was simply a worthless ad hominem, with no valid points to offer, though.... here’s one just for you: go away, silly person, before you embarrass yourself further.

[howifeltabouthim]

We hate the ones who are spontaneously different, as if what they loved accused us of unhappiness.

Alice Notley, from Certain Magical Acts

[rickmctumbleface]

A narrow viewpoint ensures a small mind, because a broader mind can't fit through.

[ramielghandour]

What’s your state of mind?

[thefightwithinscorpionking]

You get so caught up in everything going your way. You don't realize how inconsiderate you can be when you don't get things when you want it and how you want it. It doesn't matter how it might make the other person feel. As long as you get what you want nothing else matters to you.