You probably already know how much I agree with every single word, but I'm glad you used your superpowers (for good and not evil) to code this reasonably and specifically.
I'm completely disillusioned re=people's explanations for their reactions to characters. What I mean is: I don't think people can or actually want to separate themselves from their emotions, because it's just another marker of self, this investment they (we?) have in some catalysts of themes (characters) which they want to see asserted.
Okay, dropping convoluted language: I think people react this badly and illogically to others not sharing their love/hate because they aren't thinking in terms of characters thus curious (or honest enough) to see the other side. Their love/hate is just Right, you know? Because their own issues projected on the characters ought to be right. So cue to all sort of false arguments and coping mechanisms to reassure yourself the other's explanation is faulty, no matter how much sincere or thought out.
I mean, it's the kind of mechanism I've seen recently used in re=Molly (although it's been done to just about every character, from Sirius to Snape to Draco to Harry to Hermione yadda yadda yadda). "Molly is a good person." "Her heart is in the right." "She's a good mother who loves her children and it's out of love that sometimes she makes mistakes." The problem is that these reasonings are not only so vague and general they don't actually say anything about the character ("he/she/it means well is such a manipulative travesty of a debate tactic, it could only applied to, you know, every character), but they came after more specific and especially not contradictory reasons were given. I agree that Molly makes mistakes out of love and means well etc. etc., but that's not what people were saying at all.
I think it's just too temptingly safe in some mindsets to ignore one's expressed issues because they're not your issues in favour of a general assumption that they're "not seeing your truth" (because they have a wrong moral/social platform, typically, like "not getting along with their mothers, or just being different which still seems so hard to accept). So in the end it's just like you said, the same old "I don't get it" non-argument, because if you don't get it, chances are, you're not trying to.
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Date: 2004-08-31 01:24 am (UTC)I'm completely disillusioned re=people's explanations for their reactions to characters. What I mean is: I don't think people can or actually want to separate themselves from their emotions, because it's just another marker of self, this investment they (we?) have in some catalysts of themes (characters) which they want to see asserted.
Okay, dropping convoluted language: I think people react this badly and illogically to others not sharing their love/hate because they aren't thinking in terms of characters thus curious (or honest enough) to see the other side. Their love/hate is just Right, you know? Because their own issues projected on the characters ought to be right. So cue to all sort of false arguments and coping mechanisms to reassure yourself the other's explanation is faulty, no matter how much sincere or thought out.
I mean, it's the kind of mechanism I've seen recently used in re=Molly (although it's been done to just about every character, from Sirius to Snape to Draco to Harry to Hermione yadda yadda yadda). "Molly is a good person." "Her heart is in the right." "She's a good mother who loves her children and it's out of love that sometimes she makes mistakes." The problem is that these reasonings are not only so vague and general they don't actually say anything about the character ("he/she/it means well is such a manipulative travesty of a debate tactic, it could only applied to, you know, every character), but they came after more specific and especially not contradictory reasons were given. I agree that Molly makes mistakes out of love and means well etc. etc., but that's not what people were saying at all.
I think it's just too temptingly safe in some mindsets to ignore one's expressed issues because they're not your issues in favour of a general assumption that they're "not seeing your truth" (because they have a wrong moral/social platform, typically, like "not getting along with their mothers, or just being different which still seems so hard to accept). So in the end it's just like you said, the same old "I don't get it" non-argument, because if you don't get it, chances are, you're not trying to.
... This just wanted to be convoluted clearly.