Strategic Naïvete for Me, Getting Called Out For Thee
I’ve talked a fair amount about people who purposefully espouse (and often genuinely believe in) somewhat naïve perspectives, in order to maintain pro-sociality, stay sane, and generally get the very real advantage of being considered a kind, sincere, good sort of person. I want to point out that the main way this works is by having the opportunity to be naïve about lots of things one will never get called out for, while inventing a series of personal rules for the situations in one’s own life that would seemingly break the naïvete. It should be no great surprise that many rich/pretty/etc. people feel that their advantage is easily achievable by others. This notion of privilege is tired and over-worn in today’s discourse, but still obviously present in day to day conversation. Past that, however, is the fact that people with optimistic world views held-up by their own lucky situation are often aware of the dark edges of their optimism, they simply choose to explain it very locally. Where poor people are well aware of the fact that they must “dress for the occasion” to avoid those who would suspect that they need to be thrown out, even if they were invited, rich people think “well I would just never dress like that to an event like this”. In other words, those who are subject to a rule that breaks their naïvete sublimate these rules as matters of culture. In fact, that’s all culture is, and it’s no wonder: following rules together is what a holiday, sports, etc. are.