rationalize yourself

[gurdonark]

I always get amused by the phrase which crops up in arguments from time to time, to the effect that "you're just rationalizing it". In context, this means something quite negative, I suppose, but in my point of view, it describes everything. Let's grant for a moment that arguments which merely try to justify a result are rationalizations, and let's not focus on what "rationalizing" really means. Although this post seems to be about what the phrase "you're just rationalizing" 'really means', it's in fact about something altogether different. As Tweedledum observed in the Alice books (or was it Tweedledee?), the question in such matters is 'who is the master, you or the word?'. What I love about the phrase "you're just rationalizing" is the way it assumes that one way of looking at things is 'logical' or 'right', and that other ways of constructing the argument are just justifications or constructs. Now I tend to believe that there are absolute truths, and that the human condition includes a significant dose of trying to figure out a few of those truths. But my whimsy comes from the idea that anything we do is ever anything BUT rationalizing chaos into words. It's not that I believe that existence is all chaos. It's that I believe our instruments of science, heart and soul make it very difficult for us to do much but make crude approximations based on inadequate data. In this way, we are all merely "rationalizing", trying to give structure to what we see and feel as we go along.

This notion makes some folks awfully disconcerted. The fact that any ultimate conclusions about meanings and structure require either much faith or much rejection of insufficiently supported suppositiion seems to drag folks down tremendously. It's not hard to fathom why--we all want to feel as though things lace together, like Converse All-Star tennis shoes. This leads to those constructs, though, that one cannot be happy if one "really understands" what is going on. The theory goes that if one "really got it", then one would sink into despair.

I guess my take is different. It seems to me for good or for ill, we are biologically constructed that we need to have a sense of meaning. I don't mean in particular that we need to believe in God or any formulation of faith or fancy. I mean that in order to function our best as people, we have to feel that things mean something. Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist, wrote powerful books which used his experience in the concentration camps to posit that a sense of purpose is essential in life. Frankl's theories don't work for everyone, but in one critical respect I agree with him--
we must assume that life is more than anomie and chaos if we are to
function and keep on going. In this respect, the quest for inner health seems to me to include an acceptance that things must tie together somehow. It may be that the only "tie" is an acceptance that we are merely biological units in a universe governed by entropy about which we will never understand much (this is not my own view, by the way), but establishing a sort of working covenants about "why I'm here" with oneself seems to me to be important.

We've all known folks who are horribly deluded by notions and "faiths" and fancies that distort them from experiencing what we perceive to be "what is" in favor of mere fantasy. All of us slightly differ in how we define the boundaries of when this occurs, depending on our own faiths or faithlessnesses. But the thing that strikes me over and over is that the folks whose "rationalizations" convince them that life is hopeless do not do very well. Some of this is about chemical imbalance and other things within the realm of medicine (and beyond the ken of my narrow skills about which to post). But among the things we can control--in essence, our worldview--the extent to which we can make covenants about how life is to be lived in order to enable ourselves to get through the day, the better off we are, it seems to me.

Perhaps we must all "rationalize" our world(s) in one way or another. No faith explains everything, not even a faith that nothing makes sense. The question is not whether our inner arguments are "rationalizations", the question is whether our rationalizations make our lives work. I don't want to knock those whose inner "rationalizations" are based on the perception that there are very real external truths which they are trying to approximate. I feel myself pursuing this particular path, however flawed I may be in seeking it. But I do believe that whatever Creators or creations we may exist in (including the non-created ones that just "are"), each person ultimately, for health's sake, must "sub-create" a view of things that must keep life making sense.

When did it become so fashionable, for example, to denigrate those who just simply live their lives without a second thought? I grant you that on the negative end of this way of living, the 'good German' phenomenon can come into this, but there are people who live good lives simply because they cannot imagine that life is lived any other way . This "sub-creation", that people do good because it is "right", is very important. I myself am glad that I live a basically contented life, but how much more could I get done if I just had a bit more faith and a bit more in-bred discipline?

So I guess I'll smile a bit, and "rationalize" to myself that this is after all a pursuit of truth. I will rationalize that I am engaged in this pursuit, albeit in a flawed, side-road, very small way. I won't worry much that I must work to "rationalize" a bit of meaning to my life--I'll just remember how despondent people get when they feel they have lost the way. I haven't exactly found the way, or the Way, but I know I must keep searching for it. It's hard-wired, or something--or at least that's how I rationalize it.

In my church, we tend to look warily at people who reveal "the only truth". One of our many trite expressions is "you've got answers? We've got questions". But although many of us look warily at easy formulae for faith, this does not mean the search is not worth undertaking. Rather, I think the search is essential. But I also think it's essential to live one's life as if the search will be satisfactory--whether one ever finds all the answers or not. It's not that I claim any ultimate certainty that this isn't another "rationalization". It's that I think the rationalization is essential to our ability to function.

In my view, we are beings who live in a universe created by a God in which we have just begun to hunt for the first essences of the first slight glimmers of the initial hopes that we might someday get an idea of what is going on. We've only been at it for a few millenia, after all. But it doesn't really matter if my view is right--or dead, drastically wrong. What matters is that in order to function, we must assume we have a place, and that we must live to fulfill it. I am not sure why this is. But I believe this rationalization is essential to all we do.

Comments

Biological

[starling321.livejournal.com]

This was interesting and insightful. (As usual, smile)

Matt Ridley discussed somewhere in Genome, the idea that it may be genetically encoded in us to have a need for an external sense of meaning. Hence the near universal belief in God. Of course, this is my paraphrase and he has a better outline of what this entails. It was just an interesting correspondence with you wrote, too.

Re: Biological

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting. I've read some similar material which suggests that we are mythic or "story telling" animals who need the origin stories and the like. It's a very interesting field of inquiry.

[wildgarden.livejournal.com]

I understand you to be defining 'rationalization' as the activity of constructing meaning, a framework for existance. Nice. Is this similar to what you are meaning when you discuss faith? 'Faith' is a term I am not sure that I understand, in the way that you do.
However this had me looking at my own 'rationalizations' in this particular sense, which are quite large, expanded and full of architectural details. And then of course in Zen buddhism there's a sense that one needs to, if not to demolish the architecture, at least to see through it, render it invisible, in order to attain satori, or a direct glimpse at the nature of existance.

But usually when I use say 'you are just rationalizing' it is to my 12 year old, when he is involved in some complicated dissembling regarding his behavior.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think you're right--I'm trying to use rationalizing as a holding word for "constructing meaning". It looks like I use "faith" all over the map here, varying from organized creed to my usual definition, the belief in things one cannot prove deductively from the supporting evidence. I like the Buddhist idea that one must cut through the surface to what is "real", although that, too, is a form of faith process in my view.

[mockinggreylock.livejournal.com]

Hrm...I think the need for meaning or purpose is a need characterized by other aspects -- comfort, security, love -- in other words, a multifaceted whole which is essentially a person's set of motivations which drive or drag you through life. Rationalization, methinks, is the process of conforming these motivations to cultural/personal/intellectual boxes. One needn't be the least bit aware of their motivations or the process of intellectualization to be fully subject to their own internal system.

"What is the meaning/purpose of my life? Am I doing the right things? Am I doing a good job? Should I be doing something else?" -- such difficult questions to answer...we've been asking them since we had the abstract concepts to express them. I may never figure myself and my life out, but I find it comforting that everyone else faces the same challenges...of course, in the here and now, we're afforded a wider range of opportunity, which makes it all the easier to wonder and question if we're doing the right thing, or if we should do something else.

Pardon my illucidity -- my migraine from yesterday continues... :)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think you make very good points, and they don't seem "illucid" to me at all.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

I think maybe I refer to this notion as an "ordering principle"--a set of assumptions which guide. However, this is the root of my problems, I think. What happens when your ordering principle doesn't jibe with the "real world?" Your experiences tell you this is so, yet you cannot, will not, abandon your ordering principle even though you understand it to be a construct which will is somehow "flawed" in that it sets up unrealistic expectations for you because you have to exist in the "real world."

Actually, I guess this is different from what you call "rationalization." I don't think I practice that! But the ordering principle is what generates meaning in an otherwise meaningless world, so perhaps it is related. Oh dear, I'm talking in circles again. I just don't think I'm delusional simply because my ordering principle is better than what I experience. Perhaps you would say otherwise.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I would never say you are delusional, although I might say that you have a sure hand with a pencil puppet. I think it's important that your ordering principle for how things should be is always more rigorous than the way life really is--how else could you help things improve? I think the disconnect is different--it's how you react when life doesn't meet your expectations. I kinda see you as the Icelandic saga type--the fight is worth fighting, win lose or draw--but you seem to want to throw down the weapons.
Perhaps your ordering principle needs a few verses on how you deal with the mismatch. This is what I call rationalization, of which an ordering principle is a key part.

Re:

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

I think after writing that comment I decided I am delusional! But I'm okay with that. (Pah!)

I think protoblast and telltale have convinced me (without even trying!) to sign up for NaNoWriMo this year...talk about delusional. You should do it, too! 50,000 words would be nothin' for you!

I definitely think the fight is worth fighting...in theory. You're right--it's the action I have a bit o' trouble with. But I like that I might be considered the "Icelandic saga type"! Eventhough I'm not quite sure what you mean. I do wish I had me some long, long Viking maiden braids! Oh, yeah.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I don't pretend to be an Icelandic saga expert, although I've read several, because they haven't put out a Classics Illustrated Comic Book for them, and all my higher learning comes from that publication.
I found a 33 cent Iliad in a reissued Classics Illustrated, so I'm sure my posts will soon be filled with Menelaus and Paris.

But the Icelandic Saga reference is to a quirk in their mythology. In the sagas, the universe will end when the bad gods inevitably win! But the good gods and the good folks fight on anyway, because it's just the noble thing to do! I have to think you fit in here someplace. You have norse hair, don't you (reddish, this week?), and wouldn't those operatic pigtails be easier than combing? Maybe not.

What was that Elvis song about "a little less conversation, a little more action". We can re-interpret its 60s go go movie context into some life plan, and there you have it. Saved by Elvis.

I would LOVE to write 50,000 words, but then if I did, I'd get Trafford.com to publish up as my very own book, and I'd be a self-published bad novelist.

I'll still check out that website further, though...I just glanced at it, and did not give it the serious deference it deserves.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Well, isn't that just the coolest! I had no idea, although I have been to Iceland (very briefly...)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Iceland, but the Icelandair "cheap one stop way to Europe" is an old time tradition--sounds you've partaken of that time honored way. Only the Romanian airline used to be cheaper, but Icelandair had much safer planes!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

actually read that nanowrimo site. This is so me!
I think I'll sign up.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Hey! I see you signed up. I did, too. Aack! I'm ridiculous. I'm intrigued that other folks seem to have these elaborate plot lines all worked out and character studies and are doing research...I currently have nothing. Yet, I'm quite happy about that. I intend to give it a go but not take it very seriously. I think I may be taking a cue from Robbe-Grillet and spend a couple thousand words, here and there, describing water rings on table tops and such. Describe 30 or 40 water rings and I'm done! Honestly, though, nothing could top the book I'm reading now, courtesy of sortofkindof, Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. Or for that matter, the sense I'm getting about Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, which I am desperate to read. Ahhh...books and stories...

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Your reading list always seems more intricate than mine. I'll feel good when I get anything on the page at all on this writing thing. I think I'll write my novel about how our first contact with aliens is by radio telescope, but the distances are too far to travel. All that interface--entirely virtual. I hope I can figure out 50,000 words of that sort of thing.

I didn't even notice how worked out the plots are. I don't plan to worry about it. But if, by unlikely chance, I finish it, I've promised myself I will do a routine edit and then self-publish it.
Why play at all if one is not going to play for keeps?