Althouse: If you genuinely believe there is something that shouldn't be talked about...

December 9, 2022

If you genuinely believe there is something that shouldn't be talked about...

... you can't break your silence to talk about how other people are talking about it.

25 comments:

Howard said...: Hypocrisy is a natural uncontrollably state of the human condition. Why the heck do you claim people should stop being hypocrite? It's like asking people to stop breathing.; 12/9/22, 4:00 AM
Readering said...: Seems like this invites speculation on what you are alluding to. I have my guess but there are probably a dozen better ones.; 12/9/22, 4:27 AM
tim maguire said...: “The Test of a First-Rate Intelligence Is the Ability To Hold Two Opposed Ideas in the Mind at the Same Time”

Unless you’re on the internet, in which case someone will attack you for hypocrisy.; 12/9/22, 5:06 AM
Howard said...: Exactly right tim; 12/9/22, 6:04 AM
RMc said...: I remember a colleague once telling me that something-or-other made her "unspeakably happy". So, I replied, "If you're 'unspeakably happy', how can you tell me about it?"; 12/9/22, 6:26 AM
RMc said...: I remember a colleague once telling me that something-or-other made her "unspeakably happy". So, I replied, "If you're 'unspeakably happy', how can you tell me about it?"; 12/9/22, 6:26 AM
Inga said...: Go ahead, talk about it, even though you’ll regret it later.; 12/9/22, 6:40 AM
Christopher B said...: Simple minds view complex thinking as hypocrisy. Ditto people who claim their opinions are based on rational analysis when they're just cheering for the laundry.

"Reporting the controversy" has a long sordid history of being the way to acknowledge a scandal exists without admitting the behavior is, in fact, scandalous. See also, "pouncing" and "seizing".; 12/9/22, 7:09 AM
tim in vermont said...: "The Test of a First-Rate Intelligence Is the Ability To Hold Two Opposed Ideas in the Mind at the Same Time"

More like the evidence for two opposed ideas. What shuts down critical thinking is short stopping lines of thought that one subconsciously suspects will lead to a conclusion one does not want to reach. Your subconscious has been eighty million years, or however long it has been since mammals evolved, in the making and it tightly and elegantly evolved to operate at near light speed, and your reasoning, conscious mind, is comparatively slow and balky, and has only been evolved for maybe 600,000 years. It is going to lose a race to a conclusion with your subconscious every single time. It's advantage, of course, is that it can think ahead, and put little fences around the subconscious to prevent it from vetoing certain lines of thought, but that takes a lot of effort. Most people go for the 'feels goods,' and so follow only lines of thought that are likely to bring the psychic rewards that they have been programmed to seek by their culture, or more recently, by propaganda. People like Howard live for those little frissons of superiority he derives from posting his half-baked ideas, and regurgitating talking points from people he thinks are smart, for an example. It's about the feels, and he has admitted as much, allowing as how he considers coming here as a bratty child might attend the monkey house in a zoo, to rattle the cages of the "animals."; 12/9/22, 7:12 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: I remember a colleague once telling me that something-or-other made her "unspeakably happy". So, I replied, "If you're 'unspeakably happy', how can you tell me about it?"

I keep hearing ads on the radio for Dick Morris's book on how Trump's "secret plan" to win the presidency in 2024. How can the plan be secret if Morris published it in his book?; 12/9/22, 7:23 AM
Bill Crawford said...: For rh hardin

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein; 12/9/22, 7:34 AM
Jake said...: I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to express myself. -Mitch Hedberg; 12/9/22, 7:35 AM
boatbuilder said...: So we can't talk about what we think the Professor is talking about that shouldn't be talked about...

I suspect this is some sort of exercise about why true freedom of speech is important, but I guess that is breaking the rules.; 12/9/22, 7:37 AM
Rusty said...: Ann Althouse said...
"Please don't put guesses about what I'm not talking about in the comments. It's something that some people are saying shouldn't be talked about but they are talking about how other people are talking about it. So don't talk about it. Just talk about talking about it. Keep it abstract."
Why shouldn't we talk about it? I can see a subject too personal to bring up. But what is taboo on a public forum concerned with the arts and politics?; 12/9/22, 7:41 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: The WaPo lost 500,000 subscribers and won't make a profit this year. I feel their agony. Boo hoo! I can't express how sad I am about this development.; 12/9/22, 8:23 AM
rhhardin said...: Participatory soap opera.; 12/9/22, 8:51 AM
Owen said...: Bill Crawford @ 7:34: classy quote, there. But while I am no kind of authority on Wittgenstein or anything else, that has never checked my tendency to rush in. Here, it’s my sense that he was pointing toward the ineffable: “certain stuff cannot be reduced to language,” rather than warning us “if you talk about X, you’ll be sorry.” And I got the impression that our hostess intends the latter meaning.

I am confident that if my reading of her remark should offend; is in fact a case of me attempting to the unsayable; violating the contemplative trance of her post; she will make me sorry. In a manner of speaking.; 12/9/22, 9:14 AM
William said...: You pose the question in an enigmatic and Sphinx like way. I'm sure that those who do not answer the question satisfactorily will get tangled up in their own inchoate needs and suffer a tragic fate.... The family affairs of the Windsors and Kardashians have no great interest for me but everyone on earth is talking about them. Perhaps this is my loss. Perhaps the people who fret about the Kardashians and the Windsors have reached a more serene level of consciousness than those who worry about Trump and Biden. Politics can drive you crazy, but the Kardashians not so much.....Worrying about Meghan & Harry is the first step towards a Zen indifference to earthly suffering whilst preoccupation with Biden's grammar is a step down into the madness and pain of life.; 12/9/22, 9:40 AM
gahrie said...: I'm the type of person who when he learns about something he's not supposed to talk about purposefully talks about it.; 12/9/22, 10:21 AM
Eva Marie said...: Miss Manners said long ago that you never repeat criticisms parents make of their children. If they ever mention that a pregnancy was unwanted or they preferred one child over another, the proper response was to pretend you didn’t hear it and then never mention it to anyone - even that parent, even someone who could “keep a secret”, even a complete stranger. Excellent advice and I have always followed it.; 12/9/22, 10:56 AM
Jupiter said...: "Disinformation Down 92% As NYT Writers Go On Strike"; 12/9/22, 11:26 AM
Kylos said...: The power of words is that they can bring into existence/consciousness by their very utterance things that should not be. It forever reframes how we think of a matter. Perhaps it were better that the thing had never been spoken of. But once it has been spoken, it can only be resolved or undone by addressing it directly. So the thing must be spoken of to undo its effect, but it would have been better had it never existed.; 12/9/22, 12:23 PM
stunned said...: Hypocrisy is a form of entitlement.; 12/9/22, 12:39 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Yes, I believe people should not talk about ____________________________, never EVER speak of _______________________ and don't even think about saying ________________________ out loud, especially in _________ company. Of course, that would be _________________________.; 12/9/22, 1:54 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Chinese protesters know what not to talk about, and their signs reflect that. They also reflect light nicely. Pardon my reflexive repetition.; 12/9/22, 1:57 PM