An important word! I was reading a new book with plays translated from Hungarian i to English. Difficult Women it was called and teo of the plays described the Kafkaesque reality of thevwomen depicted and the abuse supported by the system. What made an impression is the language of Hungarian and how the translator must interpret situations as some words are not existing in Hungarian. Fascinating. Am sorry to hear about the health challenges you are facing with your wife.
Hi Zork; You say: I (WNT) aim for a discussion community, and you (ZTH) aim for a debate society. Let’s have a debate society right now. The subject is “What is the Purpose of this Post”. (You say it is to illustrate an untranslatable concept, which I question?)
To start, let's do an overview on assumed identity, and whether that is a legacy that controls you, or if there is a chance to modify it, (also through Substack).
We claim that there is a hidden part of life called the subconscious, for the most part inaccessible. That is mystifying. There are two major categories of human life.
✓The earliest is hunter/gatherer, or subsistence farmer with your own little farmstead, kindergarten, pigs, and as long as you don’t run out of vodka and lard, and at least the grass grows, you don't need neighbors, relations, agreements, nor even a language. You might have some "culture" but not that it is needed. You don’t talk much. Maybe you knew some similar people from Hungary?
✓The second is urban living, way more intense, where you are removed from your primal needs and must rely on organizing supply chains, have a job controlled by someone else, need all kinds of agreements and services to regulate things and keep the peace, water, power, gas, and look out for interruptions that would kill swaths of people. This second system is called “society”, and there are dozens of them in operation right now, and more from the past.
THIS SOCIETY IS NOT REALITY. It is a virtual reality which you inherited, and maybe agree with some of it. Now I am going to say that: all of your particular subconscious, resides in your particular virtual reality. At least so much of it, that it is the first place to look.
We are born, and we start building our identity from the building blocks of our virtual reality, filtered through people. Many of our experiences might have been shocking or even devastating, but they were "hard-won", so don't discard any of them. People talk of persisting "childhood trauma", but notice I have de-personalized all of it.
In your case; by the mid 1970's, you testify that 10 million people in Hungary (all of them), truly hated the Soviet Union. Did they hate communism, hate the Soviets or just hate all Russian people? (Frankly, I don't see Hungary as a hateful nation today, but I may be wrong?) I think that Russia's population at that time, within the USSR was 135 million.
It almost sounds like you are extrapolating that 135 million Russians truly hated communism, and all the rest were just a few “communist dupes”, which if so, it wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks. Both this, and libertarianism, are not going to be a place for us to collaborate. I hope to “bite my tongue” before I say any more on either of them.
___________________
The essence of “remembered occurrences” is that they were a conundrum. They had some pain attached to them. You might remember the good times too, but the bad ones stand out. They’re more important because of your decision; NEVER AGAIN. Hence the necessity for that part of your identification.
Now let’s back up again to consider our standards of making a judgement. Whenever we say something is “true”, that’s it. It can never be changed. We just said that this is a virtual truth, and only one part of our virtual conditioning. Perhaps there are many “mysteries” in our motivations. But let’s assume that we play some (maybe unknown) part in all of them. Therefore, are we complicit in our circumstances? (Either a statement or a question.) Again, there are two angles to it. Either I am a victim; or I have some empowerment over my life. I choose the latter as a broader thesis to move forward on.
So, if you are complicit, ultimately, you want what you now-have. How does it serve me? I am building this identity; how does it serve me? Every chance I have to let that identity go; I grasp at it even tighter. WHY?
Let’s look at what you have done. You have told 10 stories of conundrums in (your) life, that shouldn’t be this way by your standards of judgment. You say that you have dozens more. Conundrums are uncomfortable, and always illicit an emotional response. In this case I suggest it might start as a grievance, but be spun into hate.
I have no basis to say anything: is hate an important part of the Hungarian identity, or is it just you that “needs this”. I say, needs-this because of our comment above, that being complicit in creating something, (creating an identity), must mean that you want it that way. (It is the most powerful way to look at things.)
This is the end of the Debate society format. Another post is just to utilize this format to illustrate how we could make something happen.
Hey we’re off to a good start. Of course, the debate society is not designed to make life easy. It is to provoke enough introspection that maybe it is worth changing some definitions, like maybe 6 of the above, or me changing some of my proposed definitions.
(You already showed me links of long discussions on what is truth.) Here I tried to partially fit in with your specific debate society rules, in that this was less than 1,000 words.
I will add one other aspect as another post, but not as an answer here, and then our further exchange will continue in your next posts that address some issues.
As I said, that debate doesn’t happen on Substack without finding a person committed to investigating your content, I said that dialog is about differing opinions, (now I'll say different definitions), and that agreement is the end of debate.
Now let’s look at our differences. I grew up under “Anti-Communism”, the excesses of McCarthyism in the USA. My father was not in the war, but made artillery shells in a shop. My Uncles had shops that also made armaments. My father did not physically abuse me. Something about me started out very slowly and very nervous, with lack of confidence. He had a certain amount of patience with it.
Life unfolded from there. Health problems caused surgeries. Grade school was a disaster. I was uncoordinated, and no-good at sports. (clumsy, not spastic.) Let’s say, things were not according to my preferences. But these things nevertheless built my identity. One thing that I will say, is that when I left “home” everything changed quickly enough to notice the difference.
Our soldiers were dying in Vietnam and we were subject to the draft. Do you want to play those odds? In Ukraine there were 5 waves of assault last night on more than 5 fronts, and in each wave, 30% did not come back. They claim that 60,000 died in Vietnam, but dying from wounds in the hospital are not battlefield deaths, but hospital deaths. (It’s really millions of Vietnamese deaths, but that is not how we do statistics).
I OBJECTED WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT. (Puny of course.)
I see no differences in our stories. You have to talk to a McCarthyite to get any sympathy. I had the cub scouts and you had the young pioneers. I didn’t excel with the scouts but I did alright tying knots and stuff. Perhaps you hated the pioneers. Why? Who told you to hate them? It was just kids getting together. You lived in a certain way with, and without certain things. (I had no cashew nuts either.) We had no health care. I said I had surgeries, and my father paid dearly to save my life. Later you read that those western guys live without scarcity. What a good motive for regret. Take your past life and drag it through the mud.
Anyhow about my story, over the decades I found out how to overcome my limited identity, one step at a time. Sometimes it was just a pure snap decision, never to go back to that old way. Sometimes it was a relationship.
Let’s just jump to the present: What are my psychological and emotional imperatives where I just have to react, relate to "reality" and “show them a thing or two”? What are the early-on experiences that are an indelible part of my identity? What is my personality?
I HAVE NONE. I have a wide palette of colors as options, but I haven’t really “discarded” any of them as an angry act. I just let them go as completely irrelevant. Counterproductive, if they are mindlessly applied everywhere and every time, but still, they are all available, depending on my stated objectives, (which can change as I look into them).
Generally, I see relating as reflecting back the other person’s energy, or staying within their range. With soft-spoken people I would appear kind. With energetic people I might be more provocative. But there is no personal imperative that can sneak through. There isn’t one.
I would never tell 10 stories that are puzzling, not because WNT is sanitized. I can talk about anything. You say you have dozens more such stories, and controlling rage is getting to be hurtful. What’s the point?
An important word! I was reading a new book with plays translated from Hungarian i to English. Difficult Women it was called and teo of the plays described the Kafkaesque reality of thevwomen depicted and the abuse supported by the system. What made an impression is the language of Hungarian and how the translator must interpret situations as some words are not existing in Hungarian. Fascinating. Am sorry to hear about the health challenges you are facing with your wife.
Title?? (of the book)
Like with the beatings of my childhood, the worst is not the abuse, but the frustration of not being able to do anything about it.
Difficult Women translated by Szilvi Naray.
Hi Zork; You say: I (WNT) aim for a discussion community, and you (ZTH) aim for a debate society. Let’s have a debate society right now. The subject is “What is the Purpose of this Post”. (You say it is to illustrate an untranslatable concept, which I question?)
To start, let's do an overview on assumed identity, and whether that is a legacy that controls you, or if there is a chance to modify it, (also through Substack).
We claim that there is a hidden part of life called the subconscious, for the most part inaccessible. That is mystifying. There are two major categories of human life.
✓The earliest is hunter/gatherer, or subsistence farmer with your own little farmstead, kindergarten, pigs, and as long as you don’t run out of vodka and lard, and at least the grass grows, you don't need neighbors, relations, agreements, nor even a language. You might have some "culture" but not that it is needed. You don’t talk much. Maybe you knew some similar people from Hungary?
✓The second is urban living, way more intense, where you are removed from your primal needs and must rely on organizing supply chains, have a job controlled by someone else, need all kinds of agreements and services to regulate things and keep the peace, water, power, gas, and look out for interruptions that would kill swaths of people. This second system is called “society”, and there are dozens of them in operation right now, and more from the past.
THIS SOCIETY IS NOT REALITY. It is a virtual reality which you inherited, and maybe agree with some of it. Now I am going to say that: all of your particular subconscious, resides in your particular virtual reality. At least so much of it, that it is the first place to look.
We are born, and we start building our identity from the building blocks of our virtual reality, filtered through people. Many of our experiences might have been shocking or even devastating, but they were "hard-won", so don't discard any of them. People talk of persisting "childhood trauma", but notice I have de-personalized all of it.
In your case; by the mid 1970's, you testify that 10 million people in Hungary (all of them), truly hated the Soviet Union. Did they hate communism, hate the Soviets or just hate all Russian people? (Frankly, I don't see Hungary as a hateful nation today, but I may be wrong?) I think that Russia's population at that time, within the USSR was 135 million.
It almost sounds like you are extrapolating that 135 million Russians truly hated communism, and all the rest were just a few “communist dupes”, which if so, it wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks. Both this, and libertarianism, are not going to be a place for us to collaborate. I hope to “bite my tongue” before I say any more on either of them.
___________________
The essence of “remembered occurrences” is that they were a conundrum. They had some pain attached to them. You might remember the good times too, but the bad ones stand out. They’re more important because of your decision; NEVER AGAIN. Hence the necessity for that part of your identification.
Now let’s back up again to consider our standards of making a judgement. Whenever we say something is “true”, that’s it. It can never be changed. We just said that this is a virtual truth, and only one part of our virtual conditioning. Perhaps there are many “mysteries” in our motivations. But let’s assume that we play some (maybe unknown) part in all of them. Therefore, are we complicit in our circumstances? (Either a statement or a question.) Again, there are two angles to it. Either I am a victim; or I have some empowerment over my life. I choose the latter as a broader thesis to move forward on.
So, if you are complicit, ultimately, you want what you now-have. How does it serve me? I am building this identity; how does it serve me? Every chance I have to let that identity go; I grasp at it even tighter. WHY?
Let’s look at what you have done. You have told 10 stories of conundrums in (your) life, that shouldn’t be this way by your standards of judgment. You say that you have dozens more. Conundrums are uncomfortable, and always illicit an emotional response. In this case I suggest it might start as a grievance, but be spun into hate.
I have no basis to say anything: is hate an important part of the Hungarian identity, or is it just you that “needs this”. I say, needs-this because of our comment above, that being complicit in creating something, (creating an identity), must mean that you want it that way. (It is the most powerful way to look at things.)
This is the end of the Debate society format. Another post is just to utilize this format to illustrate how we could make something happen.
.
What are the points I have made that might be easy to jump over, but are essential?
✓First I have located all the "mysterious parts" to be within your lived-in culture.
✓I have claimed that all cultural stereotypes of behavior are artificial man-made creations.
✓I have said that our identity is built only of these building blocks, filtered through people.
✓I have said that we didn't agree to any of it, but others agreed, "for-us".
✓I said what is most remembered are the inconsistencies, and the pain they caused.
✓I said that these were "hard-won" so better not give up on them.
(Another way to look at it is "incomplete", so more work has to be done.)
✓I said we might as well take responsibility for everything in life (own-it all).
✓Whatever appears in our life is what we want. Not what we say we want.
.
Now I can ask: why do I want this? (Or we can deny all of the above.)
.
You are not making my life easy.... 🤦♂️
Too much to unpack. Luckily, my next few posts will address some of your points.
I am a pragmatic person with pragmatic assumptions.
I believe that how close you are to reality is a choice,
I believe that society is very real
I never saw myself as a victim, I see hardship as obstacles to overcome.
Frustration over being powerless is not victimhood
Hate and anger are VERY different things.
I have no hate in me. Not for a very long time.
I never hated the Russian, I absolutely adore Russian culture
As for my debate society idea, the essence of it is a clear proposition discussed within clearly defined rules, evaluated by independent observers
Hey we’re off to a good start. Of course, the debate society is not designed to make life easy. It is to provoke enough introspection that maybe it is worth changing some definitions, like maybe 6 of the above, or me changing some of my proposed definitions.
(You already showed me links of long discussions on what is truth.) Here I tried to partially fit in with your specific debate society rules, in that this was less than 1,000 words.
I will add one other aspect as another post, but not as an answer here, and then our further exchange will continue in your next posts that address some issues.
.
Thanks for the quick response below.
As I said, that debate doesn’t happen on Substack without finding a person committed to investigating your content, I said that dialog is about differing opinions, (now I'll say different definitions), and that agreement is the end of debate.
Now let’s look at our differences. I grew up under “Anti-Communism”, the excesses of McCarthyism in the USA. My father was not in the war, but made artillery shells in a shop. My Uncles had shops that also made armaments. My father did not physically abuse me. Something about me started out very slowly and very nervous, with lack of confidence. He had a certain amount of patience with it.
Life unfolded from there. Health problems caused surgeries. Grade school was a disaster. I was uncoordinated, and no-good at sports. (clumsy, not spastic.) Let’s say, things were not according to my preferences. But these things nevertheless built my identity. One thing that I will say, is that when I left “home” everything changed quickly enough to notice the difference.
Our soldiers were dying in Vietnam and we were subject to the draft. Do you want to play those odds? In Ukraine there were 5 waves of assault last night on more than 5 fronts, and in each wave, 30% did not come back. They claim that 60,000 died in Vietnam, but dying from wounds in the hospital are not battlefield deaths, but hospital deaths. (It’s really millions of Vietnamese deaths, but that is not how we do statistics).
I OBJECTED WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT. (Puny of course.)
I see no differences in our stories. You have to talk to a McCarthyite to get any sympathy. I had the cub scouts and you had the young pioneers. I didn’t excel with the scouts but I did alright tying knots and stuff. Perhaps you hated the pioneers. Why? Who told you to hate them? It was just kids getting together. You lived in a certain way with, and without certain things. (I had no cashew nuts either.) We had no health care. I said I had surgeries, and my father paid dearly to save my life. Later you read that those western guys live without scarcity. What a good motive for regret. Take your past life and drag it through the mud.
Anyhow about my story, over the decades I found out how to overcome my limited identity, one step at a time. Sometimes it was just a pure snap decision, never to go back to that old way. Sometimes it was a relationship.
Let’s just jump to the present: What are my psychological and emotional imperatives where I just have to react, relate to "reality" and “show them a thing or two”? What are the early-on experiences that are an indelible part of my identity? What is my personality?
I HAVE NONE. I have a wide palette of colors as options, but I haven’t really “discarded” any of them as an angry act. I just let them go as completely irrelevant. Counterproductive, if they are mindlessly applied everywhere and every time, but still, they are all available, depending on my stated objectives, (which can change as I look into them).
Generally, I see relating as reflecting back the other person’s energy, or staying within their range. With soft-spoken people I would appear kind. With energetic people I might be more provocative. But there is no personal imperative that can sneak through. There isn’t one.
I would never tell 10 stories that are puzzling, not because WNT is sanitized. I can talk about anything. You say you have dozens more such stories, and controlling rage is getting to be hurtful. What’s the point?
.
Would not the definition be the same as slavery?
enslavement would be a specific example, but the word has a more general meaning