It seems like a reasonable response to cry with grief over the suffering and murder of beings. ?
It’s reasonable to cry with grief over the suffering and murder of people, that you know or have some relationship with.
It most assuredly is not reasonable (or remotely mentally healthy) to cry with grief over the “suffering” and “murder” of turkeys.
It just seems like such a reasonable thing to be upset about! I’ve cried about the Holocaust, about factory farming, about civilizational inadequacy, about nuking Japan, etc.
If I encountered someone who cried over all of these things, I would strongly suspect that their “grief” is not genuine. If someone cries about the Holocaust (abstractly, I should note; not about having survived it, not in response to speaking with a family member about their experiences, but just… “the Holocaust”, as a thing), and then also cries about “civilizational inadequacy”, then the reasonable conclusion to draw is that this person’s tears are essentially meaningless, in any normal emotional sense. They’re a signal of something, but not of “grief” as it is ordinarily understood.
If someone cries about the Holocaust…, and then also cries about “civilizational inadequacy”, then the reasonable conclusion to draw is that this person’s tears are essentially meaningless
Be careful. You might be modeling other people as too similar to yourself. Just because you don’t experience grief in that way doesn’t mean everyone is like you.
My comments here don’t really have anything to do with how I experience grief, or how I think other people experience grief, etc.
Here’s the thing: “grief”, as a phenomenon (broadly speaking), is not just an “experience”. After all, the experience of grief, per se, is—what? The interplay of electrochemical signals in the nervous system, and other such physiological manifestations, yes? But suppose we deploy our old thought-experimental friends, the evil neuroscientists; and we have them re-wire a person’s brain so that these physiological manifestations—the elements of the “grief” experience—are triggered in him by all manner of mundane stimuli: eating a satisfying breakfast, seeing a purple truck in the street, listening to jazz, etc.
Would you say that our hapless victim is experience genuine grief, in such circumstances? This, of course, is a tricky question to answer; just what does “genuine” mean? How about this one: is his grief meaningful, in the same way that grief at the loss of a loved one is meaningful?
In fact, would we even call this person’s breakfast-induced weeping “grief”? Or would we say, perhaps: “he is exhibiting an anomalous response, physiologically / psychologically identical with grief, but unlinked to any of the usual cognitive / experiential antecedents of grief reactions” (or something along these lines)?
Perhaps another way to put the matter is: grief is, ordinarily, a signal (in part to others, in part to yourself). It is, to a certain extent, socially mediated (that is, the experience of grief is shaped by certain social expectations, cultural norms, etc.). Its significance lies, in large part, in the role that it plays in various interpersonal interactions. None of these things have much directly to do with individually idiosyncratic experiential qualities of grief.
Indeed, we can see this in action, right here in the OP! The post author did not just have an experience of a certain sort; he wrote about it, and he posted what he wrote on a public forum. What’s more, the post is not simply “the sharing of an experience”; it is clearly written with the aim of persuading the reader, of changing minds. This is not surprising; grief, like most emotions, exists for a reason (evolutionarily speaking).
So the question of how someone experiences grief is not terribly interesting, in this context. It is not as if I am accusing anyone of lying about the emotions they are having (or have had), after all. But one may actually have an emotion that is nonetheless devoid of any real meaning, by virtue of lacking the sort of connection to the world that ordinarily gives said emotion its significance.
It seems like the source of your disagreement is that you do not believe turkeys actually suffer (as you write “suffer” in scare quotes), while the OP clearly believes they do. I think this question needs to be settled first before we decide which emotional reactions are reasonable. (I myself have no idea what the answer is.)
Indeed, you characterize my view correctly; but I disagree that this is the source of the disagreement. I do not think the OP’s emotional reaction is reasonable in either case.
I think it’s useful for you to know that it’s pretty likely that many people on this website have been very upset about a lot of subjects on that list before. For one example, I think the explicit purpose of Mediations on Moloch is to give people an easy target for their frustrations about “civilizational inadequacy”.
I’m afraid that I have a deeply skeptical view of your characterization of the matter. On the other hand, I think that this comment thread is probably not the best place to hash that out.
That’s fine. If you decide this is important enough to you or worth it or whatever, you can feel free to message me or whatever. I think it’s probably not that important, but it’s up to you.
It’s reasonable to cry with grief over the suffering and murder of people, that you know or have some relationship with.
It most assuredly is not reasonable (or remotely mentally healthy) to cry with grief over the “suffering” and “murder” of turkeys.
If I encountered someone who cried over all of these things, I would strongly suspect that their “grief” is not genuine. If someone cries about the Holocaust (abstractly, I should note; not about having survived it, not in response to speaking with a family member about their experiences, but just… “the Holocaust”, as a thing), and then also cries about “civilizational inadequacy”, then the reasonable conclusion to draw is that this person’s tears are essentially meaningless, in any normal emotional sense. They’re a signal of something, but not of “grief” as it is ordinarily understood.
Be careful. You might be modeling other people as too similar to yourself. Just because you don’t experience grief in that way doesn’t mean everyone is like you.
My comments here don’t really have anything to do with how I experience grief, or how I think other people experience grief, etc.
Here’s the thing: “grief”, as a phenomenon (broadly speaking), is not just an “experience”. After all, the experience of grief, per se, is—what? The interplay of electrochemical signals in the nervous system, and other such physiological manifestations, yes? But suppose we deploy our old thought-experimental friends, the evil neuroscientists; and we have them re-wire a person’s brain so that these physiological manifestations—the elements of the “grief” experience—are triggered in him by all manner of mundane stimuli: eating a satisfying breakfast, seeing a purple truck in the street, listening to jazz, etc.
Would you say that our hapless victim is experience genuine grief, in such circumstances? This, of course, is a tricky question to answer; just what does “genuine” mean? How about this one: is his grief meaningful, in the same way that grief at the loss of a loved one is meaningful?
In fact, would we even call this person’s breakfast-induced weeping “grief”? Or would we say, perhaps: “he is exhibiting an anomalous response, physiologically / psychologically identical with grief, but unlinked to any of the usual cognitive / experiential antecedents of grief reactions” (or something along these lines)?
Perhaps another way to put the matter is: grief is, ordinarily, a signal (in part to others, in part to yourself). It is, to a certain extent, socially mediated (that is, the experience of grief is shaped by certain social expectations, cultural norms, etc.). Its significance lies, in large part, in the role that it plays in various interpersonal interactions. None of these things have much directly to do with individually idiosyncratic experiential qualities of grief.
Indeed, we can see this in action, right here in the OP! The post author did not just have an experience of a certain sort; he wrote about it, and he posted what he wrote on a public forum. What’s more, the post is not simply “the sharing of an experience”; it is clearly written with the aim of persuading the reader, of changing minds. This is not surprising; grief, like most emotions, exists for a reason (evolutionarily speaking).
So the question of how someone experiences grief is not terribly interesting, in this context. It is not as if I am accusing anyone of lying about the emotions they are having (or have had), after all. But one may actually have an emotion that is nonetheless devoid of any real meaning, by virtue of lacking the sort of connection to the world that ordinarily gives said emotion its significance.
It seems like the source of your disagreement is that you do not believe turkeys actually suffer (as you write “suffer” in scare quotes), while the OP clearly believes they do. I think this question needs to be settled first before we decide which emotional reactions are reasonable. (I myself have no idea what the answer is.)
Indeed, you characterize my view correctly; but I disagree that this is the source of the disagreement. I do not think the OP’s emotional reaction is reasonable in either case.
I think it’s useful for you to know that it’s pretty likely that many people on this website have been very upset about a lot of subjects on that list before. For one example, I think the explicit purpose of Mediations on Moloch is to give people an easy target for their frustrations about “civilizational inadequacy”.
I’m afraid that I have a deeply skeptical view of your characterization of the matter. On the other hand, I think that this comment thread is probably not the best place to hash that out.
That’s fine. If you decide this is important enough to you or worth it or whatever, you can feel free to message me or whatever. I think it’s probably not that important, but it’s up to you.