Re: Porous Selves, Buffered Selves companions after very long periods
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 16 August, 2023 03:37PM
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Sawfish, probably the majority of modern Western
> people -- who have buffered selves -- would not
> use "buffered" to describe themselves because
> their beliefs preclude the existence of things
> from which they are buffered. They would say they
> are quite open to experience, open to and value
> new discoveries, etc. But the assumptions
> prevalent in their culture, which they accept as
> true, would rule out the agencies and meanings
> that porous cultures allow.
I suggest that this is why we're having troubles: we persist in using Taylor's terminology to describe types of "self" while those same "selves" do not recognize either term as used.
So let's not quibble about whether they'd call themselves buffered or enlightened, or...
Same for the porous selves. We--you and I and other participants--know what's meant by the terms, or rather in what circumstance to use them--so when I say that someone would self-label as buffered, this means they'd use whatever term they affix for the traits we're discussing as "buffered".
This could be "enlightened", "hip", "well-informed", "woke", etc. and these are as I understand the terms "buffered".
Also, we talk about porous/buffered selves and porous/buffered cultures. This is not good because without further definition it seems to disallow a porous self existing in a buffered culture. So we need further clarification on that point--can a culture be hybrid (roughly 50-50); can it be majority porous/buffered?
>
> Thus, if someone has an epiphanic experience
> (through falling in love, or through a religious
> experience, or through a drug, etc.), the
> mainstream takes it that these are (they must be)
> explicable in terms of what we already understand,
> about body chemistry, emotional and imaginative
> suggestibility, and so on.
I maintain that selves who'd self-label as "enlightened", or "worldly" (therefore buffered, as I understand it) might make an exception for legitimate deeply felt emotions. I think you're far too ready to see unadultered examples of either "self"--as you describe them they're little more than caricatures--and I'm beginning to wonder if Taylor's model is not too hopelessly and artificially constrained to actually make any sense in the real world--and by this I mean to either a porous or a buffered culture.
It is like he found a few identifiable traits/tendencies and is trying to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of sociology. I'm afraid that it's not going to be that simple.
> An overly simplistic
> way of putting the difference between the porous
> outlook and the buffered outlook is that the
> porous allows for miracle,
I am probably buffered, in Taylor's terminology, but here's a real, current story.
We have three cats. In Feb of 2021 one was diagnosed with feline lymphoma and we were advised to make preparations for as gentle a euthanasia as available and that this would be needed within weeks, and maybe 2 months at the most. As of this date he's still alive with no apparent ill effect; he was seen last spring by a different vet who confirmed the diagnosis and prognosis, recognized that the earlier prognosis had not come to pass, and had no explanation for it.
So is this a miracle? If it's not a miracle, note well that neither we, nor the vet, has made any attempt at explaining his good fortune in terms of materialistic science. So we just filed it away under "we just don't know".
According to my understanding there is no room in the buffered model for this kind of nonsense. So, are we (me, my wife, my daughter, and two vets) porous of buffered selves?
> while for the buffered,
> this category is not allowed, and is one that has
> done a tremendous amount of mischief in keeping
> people ignorant, and even under the thumbs of
> oppressors (priests and so on).
All right, when a buffered self sees behaviors/traits/social phenomena that make no sense to him, AND he sees no answers in science or rationality, how does he attempt to resolve this?
>
> Among our authors here at ED, Machen and Blackwood
> would allow for miracle ("miracle" if you prefer),
> and, so, with all their really important
> differences of belief, would have porous selves
> and identify with minority groups (not ethnic
> minorities, but cultural minorities), while, I
> take it, Lovecraft would definitely be (in
> Taylor's terms) a buffered self with a strong
> desire to influence other people to join him in
> this, hence his long letters. But Lovecraft would
> not accept Taylor's terminology.
I a beginning to see Taylor's terminology, and his assumptions, to be very, very inflexible.
> He would
> probably say there are people who agree with him,
> and then there are people who do not; those people
> are unscientific and either regrettably ignorant
> or deplorably dishonest with themselves.
If you want to suppose that the buffered self is like an educated person in a gothic novel, who, on seeing the pin-pricks in the neck, after hearing about vampires from an ethnologist, shakes his head and says "No, it couldn't be that, old man," sure. But in my life I've met very few people like that and have mostly encountered this type in contrived fiction.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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