The Folly of Adjectives

[Some Schmo]

Are you happy?

I heard that question a lot when I was young (often in the context of religion and whether you were living the life recommended to give you the happiness you might be lacking... but that's a digression). It's not a question I've heard much lately, probably because people recognize that happiness is not a static state (or maybe it's because I don't have many religious conversations any more). You might describe someone as a happy person, which speaks to consistency, at least when around other people. Usually, happy is used to describe how an event made one feel in that moment. It seems that there is greater recognition that happiness is a passing mood than there was when I was young. It might just be my own experience coming out of religion.

The point is, calling someone a happy person, an angry person, a sad (unless clinically depressed) person, or whatever, contains an underlying generalization about that person that is inevitably false. Moods come and go.

It's not just adjectives for emotional states. How about good and bad? Creators of our modern entertainment have no problem creating protagonists with huge character flaws, and sympathetic antagonists. That's because people are complex, and our entertainment is maturing by recognizing that. Audiences can relate to doing bad things under certain extreme circumstances (I'm sure for a lot of people, the circumstances don't need to even be extreme). We all have our moments. Are people good? Are they bad? Depends on how consistent they are either way, but no matter what, we've all done good and bad stuff. It might be fair to call someone good if they are constantly doing good things, and fair to call someone bad for that same consistency (Trump), but we all have our moments either way.

Thinking this stuff led me to the adjectives smart and stupid. We all have moments of both. I guess it's about consistency. For example, I have no problem identifying a Trump supporter as stupid for supporting Trump, because that is obviously stupid (I suspect in most cases, people like Trump based on a massive lack of information and equal amounts of misinformation, so ignorant is the more probable descriptor). In those moments when they are showing support, they're being ignorant/stupid. They often are otherwise great people, but they lapse into irredeemable moments of stupidity. They may not act which such stupid abandon in other pursuits, but they put their brain to sleep in service of the GOP.

So, I guess I'm just saying... I spend a lot of time talking about how stupid the Trump base is. My message is that I'm hoping it's a passing mood for at least some of them. People can improve.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I wish I could ask people if they’re balanced out or centered up without looking like a loon. Personally, I think most people are so out of whack that those kinds of questions are absurd or beyond comprehension. Also, language is odd because while we may agree what something means, it’s impossible to know what it means to the Other, so much of what we say to each other is being gauged or filtered through our subjectivity.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

I wish I could ask people if they’re balanced out or centered up without looking like a loon. Personally, I think most people are so out of whack that those kinds of questions are absurd or beyond comprehension. Also, language is odd because while we may agree what something means, it’s impossible to know what it means to the Other, so much of what we say to each other is being gauged or filtered through our subjectivity.

- Doc

I think I get "balanced out," but I'm not sure what "centered up" means. Asking about being "balanced out" doesn't sound loony to me. But then, I'm a loon.

[Res Ipsa]

Schmo, I like your take on applying adjectives -- especially simple generalizations -- to people.

[Moksha]

How could one describe Marjorie Taylor Greene without using emphatic adjectives?

[Some Schmo]

How could one describe Marjorie Taylor Greene without using emphatic adjectives?

The automatic temptation for me is to say she's nuts. I don't think that's too emphatic.

But if I'm more thoughtful about it, I have to say that she consistently says and does nutty things, and that I perceive her as nuts. It could be performative politics, and she only plays a lunatic on TV (or some other explanation not involving a lack of sanity).

Any time we use an adjective to describe someone, all we're really communicating is our perception of that person, not necessarily the objective truth about them (this could be said about pretty much everything we say, actually). The folly is to interpret a statement like that as an objective truth. MTG could be perfectly sane, but believes her crazy act will get the type of attention she desires. She did get elected, after all.

But yeah, to me, she's nuts (or, in other words, every time I hear about her, she's doing something insane. Whether she is clinically insane or not is another question).

I also regard her as a piece of crap, but again, that's just my perception. Was she really born from someone's ass? Probably not, and even though it's hard not to imagine her origin story that way, one has to try if one cares about ascertaining reality as accurately as possible. I find it helps to remember that pieces of crap can't talk, Mr. Henke notwithstanding.