nyyki

For some reason Dixie has taken to lounging in the middle of the hallway a lot of the time. I get that it's the center of the house, it's close to the HVAC system so it can be warmer, and it's close enough that if I call her she's going to hear it unless she's asleep. That said, since I got the new doorbell she doesn't bark at it, and where she lounges is right by it since it's a Wi-Fi doorbell and I've got a power outlet halfway up the hall wall – my choice, it was added on to the switch for the attic fan.

All that said, tonight she was there until I fed her – then she moved her hanging out to my room.

I said, "What up, Dix?"
"I'm staying inside."
"Oh? Because it's cold outside and you've got such short fur?"
"No, because Morris is angry."
"Why is he angry now?"
"Sparky made him that way."
"And what did Sparky do to Morris?"
"I think it's sort of a silly thing – he started something he calls a club and told Morris he couldn't join it."
"Because Morris is a cat?"
"No, because it's a club for mutts. He says I'm a mutt."
"He's right, your mama and daddy weren't the same kind of dog, though they were different in size and color, not the important stuff like innards."
I picked up on my slip the moment I said it and hoped she wouldn't pounce on that – faint hope there, she's a terrier so pouncing is one of her major traits. "Did they both have four legs and a tail?"
"I don't know, I never met them, but I bet they did. And before you ask, ears and eyes and a nose and teeth, and yes, of course a butt too, because all dogs and most creatures have butts."
"What did they smell like?"
"I have no idea, like I said, I never met them, which also means I never smelled them; we Two Legs don't sniff each other's butts. So this is a mutt club?"
"Yeah, and Morris is growling and meowing and stomping around about it. I still don't understand something – why would looking different or not being exactly the same make someone not the same type of dog?"
Yeah, she sniffed that one out, and now I needed to navigate it with care. "Dogs and cats are different from Two Legs in how they're talked about. Bruno was a different type of dog than you because of how big he was and how his fur was different."
"So looks make dogs different?"
"Sometimes, or at least some people focus on that. You know, like the difference between you and a chihuahua or a big dog like the one next door."
"Okay, so different looks make dogs different?"
"Sort of, but not really."
"You look different from my past back leader."
Yeah, she was going there. "Yes, but we're still the same kind of people.

lanalucy is the same type of Two Legs as I am, and the differences don't make her different enough to think of her as a different type of person."
"I don't understand, Pack Leader."
"Join the club, Dixie, a lot of time I don't understand why people do that either."
"So you're in a club? Are you a mutt too?"
"We don't use that term for two legs, or at least most people don't; I don't want to be around people who do. There are other clubs besides a mutt club."
"Could Morris join one of those?"
"He could, if they'd let him join; Morris likes to mess with people and argue all the time."
"Pack leader?"
"Yes, sweet dog of mine?"
"Do all pack leaders have puppy lumps?"
"What are puppy lumps?"
"Those two lumps on your body, you know, for feeding puppies."
"Oh, those, no, some pack leaders don't have them; some of them are boy pack leaders, and others don't have them for different reasons."
"Why do you and the pack leader before you have them?"
"Dixie, that's a very long conversation, and I don't have the energy to get into that part of human anatomy. It's something about how we're built. More than that can get way confusing, so let's not get into that, okay?"
"Okay, I won't ask about it. Pack leader?"
"What is it now, Holy Terrier?"
"I'm going to go lay down in the dog run now."
"Dix, we don't have a dog run."
"Okay, then what is it that lets you and me and the other Two Legs go from room to room?"
"Doors? Or the hallway? That's long and kind of narrow like a dog run."
"Yeah, that."
"Okay, go rest there, but if you want to you can sleep next to me when you get tired."
"Okay." She ran off, leaving me thinking about how else I could have explained bigotry based on physical differences in humans.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Chuck Wild - "Max Headroom Theme)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

flamingsword

I would describe bigotry as illusory and unreconcilable thoughts about cause and effect that stem from unrealistic expectations. Something along those lines, maybe throw in that some Two Legs live in defiance of observable reality and want to keep thinking that the world is whatever way gives them the most power over it. Food for thought.

From:

nyyki

So you're categorizing bigotry under cognitive dissonance?

From:

flamingsword

I mean, people believe that some people are untrustworthy because of gender, race, etc., in defiance of observable reality? So yeah. Bigotry has some cognitive dissonance to it.

From:

nyyki

I don't know that there's any dissonance in it for most bigots -- the mind is facile in dismissing anything that doesn't fit what it assigns to truth.

From:

flamingsword

If you distinguish between reality-approaching behaviors like updating incorrect information from reality-avoiding or disavowing behaviors like dismissing your own lived experience or observations of the experiences of others, then by necessity you have to put bigotry in the latter camp. I consider dismissing evidence to be a form of cognitive dissonance. Since that is an uncomfortable experience for the bigot, they blame their feelings of discomfort caused by their own cognitive dissonance onto the objects of their bigotry. It's classic projection: I am uncomfortable when I think about or witness you, therefore YOU are making me uncomfortable, therefore you are BAD and MEAN and WRONG. Our own assumptions are the problem when we are operating under bigotry, but our assumptions are invisible. Other people are just the ones standing there while we having a problem with ourselves.

From:

nyyki

This requires that their disconnect processes through the brain, and there's no evidence this is the case in these situations. The conflicting data hits a conceptual wall and is discarded with no analysis ever happening. We're talking about apex predators evolved to focus on the kill or required things to be gathered. We did a lot of things like this in Learning and Cognition class -- this is well-documented brain science.

And then there's the cat experiment. After wiring a cat with neural probes to the auditory nerves the cat was shown a mouse, and of course focused on it. The experimental team rang a bell, but the cat didn't hear it -- it didn't show up at all in the auditory nerves. It's amazing what people don't see or hear I'd like to direct you to examples of this, but I don't know that me directing you there will give you the same experience my classmates got.

From:

flamingsword

Do I need exactly the same experience as your classmates for some reason? Do your classmates need the same experiences as each other?

Also, I tried to look up the experiment with the cat, and got a bunch of “Cat Telephone Experiment” references but nothing that backed up your point. Could you provide more details about the paper you’re referring to so I can look it up?

From:

nyyki

There are things unseen until they're brought to attention, then they can't be unseen from then on -- it's the way brains are wired/miswired.

For some of this the case of Clive Warren can apply, along with the perceptual experiments in a similar vein. But the basketball bear video, which of course I didn't see because I suck at seeing these days, stunned the class, and there were others that also caught everyone off guard (and I'm still so, since these were visual surprises). Remember we're talking brain science here, and the second word in that means that all "data" and "conclusions" are approximations based on subjective processes. Anyone who claims any science reveals the truth is either a tyro at the study of it or is a religious zealot of the church of Sciencism.

From:

flamingsword

So you are effectively saying that the task-positive network is in effect at every single point that a bigot is interacting with even the thought of an Other? That the default mode network which takes in more information is never operating when a bigot witnesses or thinks about the object of their bigotry? That sounds unlikely and I would need some experimental substantiation for that.

And are you implying that you can’t give me anything about a paper to back up your earlier point?

Also, the person claiming that the science was already settled in this conversation was not me. Science mostly provides evidence, not proof. But I would settle for some evidence.

From:

nyyki

I ran into the cat study a while back, so it'd take some time to unearth it -- I'll check, and it may not be available in common access circles -- it sounded back then, and still sounds, like it might be from an article in a peer-reviewed journal (there's a massive amount of stuff like that). I'll dig some more to locate it.

The simple core concept is that we experience what we believe. Those who don't do that may find themselves unable to function in the world because context is so vital to putting together sense data. And the moment that someone makes a blanket judgement about a category of something the details can be shrugged off. This is also key to how the Mark of the Plural is wielded -- someone assigns to, as an example, the blanket blind concept that all Zendians are untrustworthy and kidnappers the mind will try to reinforce that. The folks who keep an open mind about the people from Zenda are a minority, potentially one small enough to get missed by statistical analysis. Classical and operant conditioning is involved at some level in most cases, so it takes a bit to achieve extinction of problematic patterns, like everything conditioned in the way minds work, across multiple species (this is core to training, after all).

The other key factor in this is again from the Mark of the Plural -- when someone is told from their youth that Zendians are kidnappers they have to have a reason to question that belief; the ability to notice inconsistencies is limited to people of certain backgrounds and perhaps also may be more common among people with certain structures of cognitive architecture.