How do you philosophy, anyway?
Apr. 21st, 2013 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomlingWhy can I not stop CRUSHING ON THIS GUY FOREVER. (Link goes to the website of John Corvino, an American philosophy professor and gay rights advocate.)
Thinky thoughts below...
So it's at least 70% braincrush. I love the way he thinks and the way he puts together his arguments. He is also quite attractive physically, but whatever, that's not my preoccupation here. I'm preoccupied with the way he writes and talks about gay rights and same-sex marriage. He's not perfect, and he is coming from a very specific place on the queer spectrum, and there are other places to go (I hope? I haven't found them yet) for debate about, for example, gender issues. But that said, I personally find his particular take on the issues that he does debate to be refreshing.
(This may mean that I just don't read enough, I don't know.)
I mean, there is a part of me that is embarrassed to have this crush, because for fuck's sake, I'm... pretty much a woman? (I'm somewhat genderqueer and I'm in my 30s and just now starting to explore what that means to me, but I do still identify as a woman. Sort of.) And he's a gay man. And married. And lives in another country. And I am unlikely to ever even meet him.
And there is some part of me that thinks that a crush that can never be turned into a relationship is pointless, and that pointless crushes are inherently embarrassing.
But perhaps one advantage of having a crush on a philosopher is that I'm starting to question whether my assumptions are correct and whether my logic follows?
I'm... not a great logician. I'm a wannabe programmer, so I have a faint grasp of Boolean logic, and I know I need to keep plugging away with my maths studies and learning more about that. And I'd like to think that I'm reasonably intelligent and thus have some grasp of logic, though I'm not sure how true that premise is. Anyway, this paragraph is to disclaim that I know next to nothing about formal logic. I have never taken a philosophy class.
So uh, my first premise:
"I think that a crush that can never be turned into a relationship is pointless."
Hm. Is that really true?
This gets into deep and hard-to-answer questions almost immediately. What is a crush, and what's the point of a crush? I've had many pointless crushes in my life, so you'd think I'd know the answer to this. BUT NO. I'm struggling to define "a crush" to my own satisfaction. It's something like "intense admiration" + "maybe sexual attraction" = "crush", but that doesn't seem to get to the heart of what a crush really is.
I think for me, in a crush there is often some aspect of not only wanting to be with someone but in some senses wanting to be that person. They have some quality or qualities that I want.
In John Corvino, in particular, I can identify a few of the qualities that attract me. One is the dry-sarcastic humour which I always covet. Another is the wealth of knowledge (and a bunch of other desirable qualities) that come with having a PhD in a really interesting subject like philosophy. Yet another is the sense of detachment that I get from him; that he is passionate about the issues, that's clear (I can certainly see myself in that passion), but for the most part he is able to talk about them without getting too emotional or angry. His writing and his videos are clear and incisive and not overflowing with intense feeling. When writing about the issues I care about, I struggle with keeping my own emotions in check, so I covet this quality of detachment and value it very highly.
He's also apparently able-bodied (obviously I know nothing about the real state of his health, but he has no obvious disability, and I kind of covet good health for what are probably obvious reasons given my own health is quite poor). He's thin; my own weight is the source of quite a lot of my self-hatred. He's cismale; I've certainly wished to be a man on a fairly regular basis, though I don't identify as one.
...in sum, this particular crush has very little to do with sex. And I think that can be extended to a reasonably large percentage of the crushes I've had. But while I can draw conclusions from that about the nature of crushes-for-me, I'm pretty sure I can't extend that to crushes for everyone else. (If that's even what I'm trying to do. Am I? What am I trying to do here? Decide what the purpose of a crush is?)
There are probably lots of angles I could interrogate this from at this stage - cultural narratives about sexual feelings? Cultural narratives about crushes more generally? The value of sexual feelings on their own, whether or not they're acted upon? The value of admiration? - but I'm not sure what path to take or where any of this thinking might lead me.
Mostly what I'm thinking at the moment is "be right back, need a philosophy degree". I feel I have very little idea how to start thinking about these issues. I feel like I've been inspired to consider the moral value of how I feel about people (and what I do or don't do about that), but I have no idea how to start considering it. And these are big questions.
Perhaps the question of the value of crushes is of particular importance to me. I've only had one romantic relationship, so for the majority of my adolescent adult life, any sexual or romantic attachments I've had have been basically unrequited. (You could probably identify a number of reasons for this, from my not-conventionally-attractive appearance to my chronic social difficulties to my low self-esteem, but the truth remains.) If I'm honest with myself, I don't expect that to change. And here's where I run up against my own psychological demons, which make it really difficult for me to think about this with any kind of clarity; here's where I covet that quality of detachment, of being able to separate one's own painful experiences from the question at hand.
So the truth right now is that it feels impossible to separate the question I wanted to ask here ("Is it inherently embarrassing to have a pointless crush?") from my own painful experiences as a person who largely has crushes as opposed to satisfying romantic relationships. Because part of (a large part of?) the embarrassment I feel at having a pointless crush is closely related to my embarrassment at being unable to figure out romantic relationships.
That's a useful realisation, but it sails much closer to psychology (and my personal psychology, at that) than philosophy.
(I think I've just increased my respect for John Corvino exponentially - I don't see how the hell you debate issues of philosophy that are intimately related to your own life without getting tangled up in your own feet and falling down a lot. That seems like a feat of detachment that is far, far beyond me.)
It's probably a surprise to no one who's talked to me that I have real difficulty with accepting myself as I am. That's true with a lot of issues (my size, my health, my queerness, and especially my own psychology). Perhaps embarrassment at a random internet crush is just a part of that larger pattern, a failure to accept my own feelings.
I am kind of sick of being embarrassed at myself.
Thinky thoughts below...
So it's at least 70% braincrush. I love the way he thinks and the way he puts together his arguments. He is also quite attractive physically, but whatever, that's not my preoccupation here. I'm preoccupied with the way he writes and talks about gay rights and same-sex marriage. He's not perfect, and he is coming from a very specific place on the queer spectrum, and there are other places to go (I hope? I haven't found them yet) for debate about, for example, gender issues. But that said, I personally find his particular take on the issues that he does debate to be refreshing.
(This may mean that I just don't read enough, I don't know.)
I mean, there is a part of me that is embarrassed to have this crush, because for fuck's sake, I'm... pretty much a woman? (I'm somewhat genderqueer and I'm in my 30s and just now starting to explore what that means to me, but I do still identify as a woman. Sort of.) And he's a gay man. And married. And lives in another country. And I am unlikely to ever even meet him.
And there is some part of me that thinks that a crush that can never be turned into a relationship is pointless, and that pointless crushes are inherently embarrassing.
But perhaps one advantage of having a crush on a philosopher is that I'm starting to question whether my assumptions are correct and whether my logic follows?
I'm... not a great logician. I'm a wannabe programmer, so I have a faint grasp of Boolean logic, and I know I need to keep plugging away with my maths studies and learning more about that. And I'd like to think that I'm reasonably intelligent and thus have some grasp of logic, though I'm not sure how true that premise is. Anyway, this paragraph is to disclaim that I know next to nothing about formal logic. I have never taken a philosophy class.
So uh, my first premise:
"I think that a crush that can never be turned into a relationship is pointless."
Hm. Is that really true?
This gets into deep and hard-to-answer questions almost immediately. What is a crush, and what's the point of a crush? I've had many pointless crushes in my life, so you'd think I'd know the answer to this. BUT NO. I'm struggling to define "a crush" to my own satisfaction. It's something like "intense admiration" + "maybe sexual attraction" = "crush", but that doesn't seem to get to the heart of what a crush really is.
I think for me, in a crush there is often some aspect of not only wanting to be with someone but in some senses wanting to be that person. They have some quality or qualities that I want.
In John Corvino, in particular, I can identify a few of the qualities that attract me. One is the dry-sarcastic humour which I always covet. Another is the wealth of knowledge (and a bunch of other desirable qualities) that come with having a PhD in a really interesting subject like philosophy. Yet another is the sense of detachment that I get from him; that he is passionate about the issues, that's clear (I can certainly see myself in that passion), but for the most part he is able to talk about them without getting too emotional or angry. His writing and his videos are clear and incisive and not overflowing with intense feeling. When writing about the issues I care about, I struggle with keeping my own emotions in check, so I covet this quality of detachment and value it very highly.
He's also apparently able-bodied (obviously I know nothing about the real state of his health, but he has no obvious disability, and I kind of covet good health for what are probably obvious reasons given my own health is quite poor). He's thin; my own weight is the source of quite a lot of my self-hatred. He's cismale; I've certainly wished to be a man on a fairly regular basis, though I don't identify as one.
...in sum, this particular crush has very little to do with sex. And I think that can be extended to a reasonably large percentage of the crushes I've had. But while I can draw conclusions from that about the nature of crushes-for-me, I'm pretty sure I can't extend that to crushes for everyone else. (If that's even what I'm trying to do. Am I? What am I trying to do here? Decide what the purpose of a crush is?)
There are probably lots of angles I could interrogate this from at this stage - cultural narratives about sexual feelings? Cultural narratives about crushes more generally? The value of sexual feelings on their own, whether or not they're acted upon? The value of admiration? - but I'm not sure what path to take or where any of this thinking might lead me.
Mostly what I'm thinking at the moment is "be right back, need a philosophy degree". I feel I have very little idea how to start thinking about these issues. I feel like I've been inspired to consider the moral value of how I feel about people (and what I do or don't do about that), but I have no idea how to start considering it. And these are big questions.
Perhaps the question of the value of crushes is of particular importance to me. I've only had one romantic relationship, so for the majority of my adolescent adult life, any sexual or romantic attachments I've had have been basically unrequited. (You could probably identify a number of reasons for this, from my not-conventionally-attractive appearance to my chronic social difficulties to my low self-esteem, but the truth remains.) If I'm honest with myself, I don't expect that to change. And here's where I run up against my own psychological demons, which make it really difficult for me to think about this with any kind of clarity; here's where I covet that quality of detachment, of being able to separate one's own painful experiences from the question at hand.
So the truth right now is that it feels impossible to separate the question I wanted to ask here ("Is it inherently embarrassing to have a pointless crush?") from my own painful experiences as a person who largely has crushes as opposed to satisfying romantic relationships. Because part of (a large part of?) the embarrassment I feel at having a pointless crush is closely related to my embarrassment at being unable to figure out romantic relationships.
That's a useful realisation, but it sails much closer to psychology (and my personal psychology, at that) than philosophy.
(I think I've just increased my respect for John Corvino exponentially - I don't see how the hell you debate issues of philosophy that are intimately related to your own life without getting tangled up in your own feet and falling down a lot. That seems like a feat of detachment that is far, far beyond me.)
It's probably a surprise to no one who's talked to me that I have real difficulty with accepting myself as I am. That's true with a lot of issues (my size, my health, my queerness, and especially my own psychology). Perhaps embarrassment at a random internet crush is just a part of that larger pattern, a failure to accept my own feelings.
I am kind of sick of being embarrassed at myself.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 10:58 am (UTC)I think you're on to something when it comes to wanting to be like someone, especially when it comes to celebrity crushes. You wish you were as talented, or looked as good, or whatever. It's a bit of a tangled web - where does it cross over from just admiring someone to having a full-blown crush? (I mostly mean celeb crushes when I say crush, btw, I haven't had a crush on an actual guy I've met/known in years.)
It's probably also a way of injecting something extra into your day. Having a crush in high school was so much fun and exciting: will he talk to me today? Will he sit next to me in class? It adds a bit of fun to my day to get a bit tight-chested and doe-eyed at some guy whom I don't know and can really picture to be however I like, in my head. It beats out being bored at home, you know?
So I don't know if I would call it pointless to have a crush. I suppose it depends on what you consider worthwhile. The giddy feeling I get when there's a new trailer for a movie he's in and I have to hug a pillow to muffle my squee, that's worthwhile to me since it's one of the bright spots in my otherwise non-romantic life. It will never come to anything, so you might argue it's pointless, but I don't think you can ever be quite objective about it.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 12:00 am (UTC)More another time, maybe. ♥