(no subject)

[netmouse]

If you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.
--The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance


True? False?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Utterly false. There are people whose thought patterns run to things like, "I can get away with that," and, "They can't stop me from taking advantage of this person in the following ways." You can reproduce them and think ahead to predict them, and you can utterly despise the person, depending on what they want to get away with and take advantage of.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

I can imagine absorbing small subsets of thought patterns as you describe, yet to me the experience of thinking like such a person, what their motivations may be - their whole way of thinking - is still a mystery. I believe it is that level of being able to think like another person that Vance is referring to.

Also, of course, his whole story is about language, and how it influences thought patterns. So I could imagine him saying that when you are thinking about the thought patterns of these detestable people, you are doing it in your own language, which is different from theirs. And if you could think in the language they have for thinking, you might see things differently.

I might have the opinion that your way of thinking is more lovely than theirs, so I'd rather you didn't, yet it makes an interesting thought exercise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The trivial example, of course, is the number of people who don't like themselves.

I think some of the other questions in support of Vance's position get into really trulies, and I'm kind of allergic to really truly-based arguments, so.