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>People increasingly expect to be able to react completely instinctively to stimuli This is a good framing, and one that fits a cluster of related behaviors an

>People increasingly expect to be able to react completely instinctively to stimuli This is a good framing, and one that fits a cluster of related behaviors and emerging cultural norms I've witnessed. One of these is hardly original: the tendency to speak about what one "feels" versus what one "thinks". We should be careful, because "I feel" is often used as a synonym of "I think", but I am increasingly under the impression that American culture has become more accepting of unarticulated, unreasoned, stream-of-consciousness thought. But this is now ratcheting up a notch. Not only is this kind of impulsive speech acceptable in the workplace (no big deal, in and of itself), there is now an emerging social norm such that we may no longer expect more. That, I think, is detrimental.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
> I am increasingly under the impression that American culture has become more accepting of unarticulated, unreasoned, stream-of-consciousness thought. Politicians speaking about grave matters will spout absolute gibberish with a straight face, and nobody calls them out or asks them to explain what they mean. I think it is because the individual words and phrases used, and the intonation they are spoken with convey the right feelings and emotions. What seems to matter is that they are feeling appropriately happy, sad, angry, about something. After that, people don't care too much or maybe don't even realize that what is being said does not actually mean anything or provide them with any real information. It's bizarre, but it must work. Lots of politicians do it on all sides of politics, I'm not talking about the thing where they say a lot of words without answering a difficult question, and it's not just occasional mis-speaking or conversation taken out of context, because they do this in their speeches too.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

> I am increasingly under the impression that American culture has become more accepting of unarticulated, unreasoned, stream-of-consciousness thought. Politicians speaking about grave matters will spout absolute gibberish with a straight face, and nobody calls them out or asks them to explain what they mean. I think it is because the individual words and phrases used, and the intonation they are spoken with convey the right feelings and emotions. What seems to matter is that they are feeling appropriately happy, sad, angry, about something. After that, people don't care too much or maybe don't even realize that what is being said does not actually mean anything or provide them with any real information. It's bizarre, but it must work. Lots of politicians do it on all sides of politics, I'm not talking about the thing where they say a lot of words without answering a difficult question, and it's not just occasional mis-speaking or conversation taken out of context, because they do this in their speeches too.