Logical psychology: Recovering from the terrified arrogance of mainstream hysterias
Have you ever noticed that a sequence of words was intriguing to you? Maybe they were moderately unfamiliar (as in notably different what you would expect).
Sometimes we may notice that most of our interactions and conversations seem very predictable (even boring). We form expectations based on noticing consistent patterns. We develop a set of expectations and then presume that life is going to continue to operate according to whatever patterns that we have learned to expect. However, we may not even be aware of our presumptions.
If you can drive a car, then you can imagine approaching a busy intersection with a red traffic light. Imagine that you are heading north. As you get close to the intersection and slow down, you notice that there is very heavy traffic flowing across the 4-way intersection (from the right and left along the lanes going east and west).
As you are almost to the intersection, you were already expecting the light to change from red to green soon and finally it does. If there are no vehicles ahead of you in your lane, then you can expect to safely enter the intersection since the light is green, right?
You expect the flow of cross-traffic to stop, right? However, do you presume that it has stopped just because you are facing a green light? Or, do you look to check before you proceed in to the intersection?
Did I mention that as you approached the intersection, you heard a bunch of loud sirens and saw flashing lights? The heavy flow of traffic so far has included two huge firetrucks and four police cars, plus now that you look you can see an ambulance coming. It does not look like the driver is planning to stop even though the traffic light in their direction is apparently red.
Again, the traffic light right ahead of you is clearly green. You expected it to turn green and it did. You may have expected the flow of cross-traffic to stop by the time you saw the green traffic signal.
However, you can see the ambulance speeding toward the intersection from the east (from your right). You can also see that the ambulance has crossed over now out of the normal east-bound lanes in to an empty west-bound lane (the lane you would be in if you turned right).
So, since your traffic light is green, you can expect it to be safe to go ahead and turn right in to the lane with the speeding ambulance, right?
You can safely presume that whatever you expect is always what will happen, right? Even though you see the ambulance, you could go ahead and turn now with plans to later use the excuse that you had expected that lane to be empty, right? After all, what could be safer than turning now when not only do you clearly have a green light, but there is also an ambulance nearby in case of any unexpected collisions?
In you case you did not notice, I was demonstrating the difference between expectations and presumptions. Having an expectation does not require making a presumption. You can expect the traffic intersection to be empty and safe, but still know that it is just an expectation, so you actually verify your expectation. You could make the presumption that your expectation is accurate without checking, but you could also check the actual traffic.
In both cases you have an expectation. In one case you could make a presumption and act on it without verifying it.
With presumptions, you may not even know that you have an expectation. You may just presume that the current situation is bascially identical to all previous situations and so you take action presumptively. That can be a source of problems.
For instance, you could get in to a head-on collision with a speeding ambulance and then suffer serious injuries or even instant death. Or, you could barely avoid a collision, get embarrassed, and then yell at the stupid driver for doing something that you did not expect (driving in to the intersection in disregard of the traffic light).
That other driver violated not just your expectation but also your presumption. They revealed your lack of attentiveness to the actual flow of traffic.
You may tell the story for weeks of the stupid punk driving the ambulance without regard for the red traffic light plus going in the wrong direction and surprising you. You do not like surprises.
You tell the story over and over to the other inmates in the county jail. Eveentually, you go to court and tell the story again to explain why you were justified in doing what you did.
When the prosecutor refers to your behavior as a crime, you could be offended and yell threats of violence. You could demand that the bailiff arrest the prosecutor for what you call their “presumptuous and rude display of insanity, contempt, mental illness, and total ignorance of right and wrong.”
As you finally get to tell your story, you anticipate the sympathy of the judge and the jury and even the prosecutor. All of these errors are going to be corrected once you tell people what really happened.
They just do not understand yet how you were doing the right thing and the idiot driving the ambulance is the one who deserves to be in jail. You are just going to tell them and straighten out this whole little misunderstanding of theirs.
Your only friend in jail even said that you should expect an apology letter and probably a few thousands dollars to be awarded to you for the emotional distress that this injustice to you has caused. All of the other inmates laughed when you told your story, which is obviously evidence that they are intellectually inferior to you. Who wants to be friends with people as dumb as them, right?
You think of your one friend who agreed with all of your presumptions and of course you consider their agreement to be a sign of intelligence. Why? Because finally someone undertsands you.
What do I mean by “understands you?” I mean that they acted in conformity to your expectations and preferences.
So, I began by saying “have you ever noticed that a sequence of words was intriguing to you?” By now, you may be wondering what I meant by “terrified arrogance.” Or, perhaps it is already quite clear.
When someone has naive expectations and presumes that reality will always conform to their expectations, then that can lead to an exposure of the naive expectations as being naive expectations. When the expectations are revealed as only expectations, then people can feel confusion, terror and panic.
They can be worried that others will recognize that their expectations were actually just expectations, not reliable principles for how life actually goes. They can be scared of criticism and punishment. They can be scared of being recognized as confused or scared. They may shout that “I am not scared!”
So, in a terrified hysteria, they can condemn whatever event violated their expectations. They can arrogantly threaten those who do not operate according to their expectations (like the ambulance driver, the prosecutor, and all those stupid, law-breaking inmates who laughed at your story of how the people who made the traffic light victimized you).
Don’t these people realize that you were sincere in your expectations? You did not drive in to the intersection by accident. You drove in to the intersection on purpose because the light was clearly green!
You did the right thing. Other people were wrong. You were right. You are still right. The other people are still wrong.
If there is a condemnation made of some past event because of terror, could that be arrogance? If there is an acceptance of a past event as surprising and even frightening or confusing (because it exceeded your expectations), then that would be respect and humility rather than arrogance and contempt, right?
If there is a condemnation made of some specific indivudal or group because of terror, could that also be arrogance? If there is an acceptance of their past action (or inaction) as surprising and even frightening or confusing (because it exceeded your expectations), then that would still be respect and humility rather than arrogance and contempt, right?
Now, perhaps you are sufficiently clear about what I meant by terrified arrogance. Note that I am not asserting that there is any other kind of arrogance except for terrified arrogance.
Arrogance is a pattern of behavior to hide a lack of confidence. There is a background of private terror that someone’s lack of confidence will be recognized, so arrogant boasting is emphasized socially. The perceived threat presented by possible skeptics and critics can be targeted for ridicule and abuse. Others can be repulsed or pushed away by the harshness, aggression, bullying, and coercion of the arrogance.
Those who dared to display skepticism in regard to your sacred expectations and idolatries can be systematically targeted for defamation and sabotage. Your resentment of them is deemed by you to be justified, certainly not a sign of insecurity. Don’t be insulting!
You are not jealous of them. That is silly.
You are not over-reacting. That is hysterical.
You are not upset. You are just standing up for what is right. It is also quite pathetic that so many other people are so complacent and naive, unlike you.
Now, so far we have been using an example about driving in to an intersection and nearly colliding (or actually colliding) with a speeding ambulance. That was an example that I just made up for educational purposes.
Next, we’ll talk about a few actual cases in which I have been arrogant. Let’s also talk about mainstream hysterias, how they form, and how they relax.
Let’s see if we can even produce a fully recovery from any terrified arrogance that I might still have… because I certainly would not want to imply that someone as mature as you could still have naything left to you learn ever. That would be simply hysterical, right?
However, there may be times of desperation when a display of confidence is relevant to gather a group and launch a new initiative. In other words, there are times when seeking the wisdom of someone with the authority of experience is a priority and times of emergency when experimenting even ignorantly is essential.
Further, the child may learn that displaying arrogance is essential to conforming to the standards of a fascist institution or a fascist society. One pretends that institutional conformity is the highest form of authority, when in fact that is not actually authority at all, but only an arrogant conformity.
What is the social and evolutionary value of fascist institutions? They promote arrogance by training people to be arrogantly confident by adhering to the official ideologies of the institutions, then they punish those naive enough to take their personal arrogance to an extreme by attempting to protest or correct the fascist institutions for their 
power of language blog: partnering with reality by JR Fibonacci 