Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 39 posts

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#11

Post by white-flame »

FlipperBucket wrote: post #10
Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/communication-and-... This is a widely discussed topic.

Notice that the OP's love language of "Quiet stability" is not listed there.

It's sorely undermentioned and often told that it's "wrong" in common western culture, even though tons of people (especially men) within it have that love language. That arbitrarily enshrined list of 5 is absolutely not representative of everybody.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#12

Post by Sangermaine »

WalterSear wrote: post #9
Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

But that just begs the question. What’s classified as a “behavioral dysfunction” is going to depend on your culture. If you come from a more “open” culture, a more reserved one will seem repressed and controlling. If you come from a more reserved culture, a more “open” culture might seem childish and unable to handle their own emotions.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#14

Post by conistonwater »

Endama wrote: post #3

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other. For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given per…

> “If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: ‘I don’t object to you, you know.’ If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: ‘I rather fancy you, in fact.”

“How to be an Alien” by George Mikes

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#15

Post by WalterSear »

Sangermaine wrote: post #12
WalterSear wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO as a bi-racial person who has spent over a decade on three separate continents, I have come to a very different perspective on culturally-driven explanations for mores and behaviours like Amae, and appeals to duty /conformism/emotional repression. I don't beleive they are anything more than rationalizations for ingrained society-wide behavioral dysfunction. IMHO, that is.

But that just begs the question. What’s classified as a “behavioral dysfunction” is going to depend on your culture. If you come from a more “open” culture, a more reserved one will seem repressed and controlling. If you come from a more reserved culture, a more “open” culture might seem childish and unable to handle their own emotions.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction.

Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM.

You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line between this and any other deleterious cultural conscripted conformation - just distance.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#16

Post by [deleted] »

WalterSear wrote: post #15
Sangermaine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that just begs the question. What’s classified as a “behavioral dysfunction” is going to depend on your culture. If you come from a more “open” culture, a more reserved one will seem repressed and controlling. If you come from a more reserved culture, a more “open” culture might seem childish and unable to handle their own emotions.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM. You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line…

[deleted]

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#17

Post by Sangermaine »

WalterSear wrote: post #15
Sangermaine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that just begs the question. What’s classified as a “behavioral dysfunction” is going to depend on your culture. If you come from a more “open” culture, a more reserved one will seem repressed and controlling. If you come from a more reserved culture, a more “open” culture might seem childish and unable to handle their own emotions.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM. You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line…

>No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction.

“It’s dysfunctional because it’s dysfunctional.”

I hope I don’t have to explain why this is, again, begging the question.

What is “dysfunctional”? That’s largely culturally determined, because what’s “functional” is relative to the environmental you’re in.

You seem to conflating morality or human rights with mental dysfunction. I suspect you are doing this because it’s easier than addressing the comment thread I was replying to regarding “open” vs “closed” cultures. What is the objectively correct “functional” mode of human interaction?

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#18

Post by Endama »

WalterSear wrote: post #15
Sangermaine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that just begs the question. What’s classified as a “behavioral dysfunction” is going to depend on your culture. If you come from a more “open” culture, a more reserved one will seem repressed and controlling. If you come from a more reserved culture, a more “open” culture might seem childish and unable to handle their own emotions.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM. You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line…

I think Sangermaine is right. While the example you gave is certainly, obviously, deleterious, what about countries where the work week is culturally < 40 hours per week? What about those who, on average, work 80+ hours. At what degree is it a "dysfunction". The decision of what is or is not a dysfunction is not as cut and dry as you assume because you are assuming the parameters by which such dysfunctions are determined are as universal as the claims of dysfunction themselves. This cannot be the case, it dismisses too many shades of gray by saying only the colors of black and white are "real" colors.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#19

Post by WalterSear »

Sangermaine wrote: post #17
WalterSear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM. You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line…

>No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. “It’s dysfunctional because it’s dysfunctional.” I hope I don’t have to explain why this is, again, begging the question. What is “dysfunctional”? That’s largely culturally determined, because what’s “functional” is relative to the environmental you’re in. You seem to conflating morality or human ri…

Good thing we have a thoroughly cross-cultural construct for developing an understanding of exactly that: clinical psychology.

So, yes, we do know what dysfunction looks like, to an extent.

Re: Unknown Unknowns: The Problem of Hypocognition

#20

Post by WalterSear »

Endama wrote: post #18
WalterSear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't: it depends on whether it's dysfunctional or not. Even if the people involved don't see the dysfunction. Genital mutilation is mentally unhealthy. And yet, many of the people who suffered it insist it's 'their culture' and perform it on their offspring: FGM is a tradition which is passed down and performed by women with FGM. You may want to argue that that is an extreme example, but there's no big line…

I think Sangermaine is right. While the example you gave is certainly, obviously, deleterious, what about countries where the work week is culturally < 40 hours per week? What about those who, on average, work 80+ hours. At what degree is it a "dysfunction". The decision of what is or is not a dysfunction is not as cut and dry as you assume because you are assuming the parameters by which such dysfunctions are determ…

I never said that differences in effectiveness of societal functions were cut and dry.

I posited that they existed, cultural relativism notwithstanding, and the difference the were being discussed, along with the reactive denials they elicited, were an example of that.

Post reply on HN