"The Formation and Persistence of Social Identity"

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

@Felix

Also, I don’t see any clear indication that it was a spoof.

If you go back further in the post history it’s more apparent that he is joking. From Jonny’s other responses:

@JonnyPitt

Personally, it’s not my business how others live as long as they aren’t promoting violence. Who is and who isn’t promoting violence does seem up for debate. Are hormones a violence towards children? Maybe/maybe not. The data seems to be leaning towards not, at the moment. But like I said, I support a wait and see approach.

@JonnyPitt

We live in such a clown world that churches who rape children still have 100’s of millions of people giving them money and no one protesting their actual ongoing indoctrination of children. All the while drag queens have armed militias following them around.

In this post he is incredulous that “drag queens have armed militias following them around”

Overall his angle seemed to be “The drag shows / queens don’t seem so bad” (especially as compared to sexual abuses of children as seen in the catholic church for example). After Alexander posted a few video examples, he was more in agreement that those examples were inappropriate, though still expressing skepticism that most performances were like that.

@JonnyPitt

i get it. It’s all very serious stuff.

This quote clearly delineates his overall joking tone. I wouldn’t see it the same way, though I see that he is trying to match the ‘nothing is ultimately serious’ angle of Richard:

RICHARD: It is the very fact of physical death – everybody alive today on this planet will eventually be dead – which ensures happiness and harmlessness … if everything alive today were to all-of-a-sudden endure forever then everything would matter in the long-term (everything would be of enduring importance (in this ultimate sense) and, therefore, life would be a serious business.

This is something which has been discussed on this forum in 2024, with Richard ultimately responding:

Richard replies to Rick's "Burnt Toast" Posts

Part 1/3 Therefore a mortal or transitory shape or form, comprised of immortal or perpetual stuff, can indeed ‘know that which is immortal’, or, as I have said before, as this flesh and blood body only (which means sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And if you gaze deeply into the inky darkness betwixt the stars you will be standing naked before infinitude. Th…

In short, the un-seriousness is due to the ultimate mortality of you, me, and everybody, the actual/material nature of the universe, and the liking / amusement is of an ultimate nature and more despite the depravity of humanity, rather than ‘including.’

Or, as @claudiu puts it:

@claudiu

The way I would put it is that, there is the ultimate and the relative. The ultimate is the nature of all the perdurable & actually-existing matter as sold/as energy etc., which is perfect and undying. There is nothing to do but to enjoy and appreciate this ultimate nature of actuality, and of course, to be living as that, as a flesh and blood human being, is literally infinitely unmeasurably astounding and wonderful and renders it clear how all of ‘my’ doings and achievements are but meagre and paltry scraps.

But as soon as you start to talk about the particular configuration of this perfect matter, now you have necessarily moved to the relative, which is where the 1-to-10 scale applies. There’s no way around it. And here it makes sense to be enjoying those 10-of-10 things on that scale more than the 1-of-10 things, and obviously, to not be enjoying the negative-10-of-10 things like murder, war, rape, torture, etc.

The confusion comes from conflating the two and therefore believing that one must enjoy even those things like murder, war, rape, torture, etc., along with the perpetrating murderers/warmongers/rapists/torturers/etc.

But I highly recommend reading the entire thread. I had read it previously but I’m not sure what I was doing (or, ‘being’ ) when I previously read it, as just now I found it quite enlightening.

---

To conclude, it does seem - and please correct me if this is inaccurate - that you came back to this thread after a long period (I see that you were a part of the discussion in May of '23), and, seeing the recent post by Jonny, took him as being serious/sincere and found it “unhinged,” missing the joking tone set up by the previous posts.

---

As for

@Felix

I think you are rather assuming that I was triggered….I know I’m a feeling being but it doesn’t mean that just because I say or do anything , it means that I must have been highly triggered.

One does not have to be “highly triggered” for there to be a trigger at play and for there to be upset happening albeit at a lower level than “highly triggered.”

You have been quite candid on this forum discussing your recent baseline of high stress, and I have been pleased to hear as you have increasingly been having naive/sensuous experiences (referencing your most recent journal post)

However, it is worth noting that the human condition consists of broad spectrums of feeling, not just a binary of “highly triggered” vs “untriggered/naive/sensuous”

I am speculating, and again please correct me if I am off base, but is it possible that you were bothered at a lower level than “highly” or even your recent baseline, perhaps peeved, irritated, affronted, or annoyed? None of these are considered extreme and indeed seen as quite normal in most polite society, but with an eye toward sensitive attention do indeed constitute a trigger (especially compared against happy & harmless!)