While thinking about my past and my intellectual preferences as to how to approach it, my mind took flight on a question that I find many others approach with caution, disdain and confusion - in the realm of human relationships and whether the terms we use to describe them are problematic, thereby contributing to their collapse and almost routine failure. As Korzybski provides in his Science and Sanity, I believe that the term "boyfriend/girlfriend" or "husband/wife" or even "partner" which is used as an abstraction for same-sex relationships are over/underdefined, and as such carry with them the burden of disappointment and unfair expectation.
Over/underdefinition runs rife in politics and media. An example of over/underdefinition in a political context can be found in the word "democracy" - while the intensional definition of "democracy" could be applied to an extensional dictatorship such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (functionally, the DPRK exists as a multi-party democracy, although no power is ever delegated to anyone else except for the "Dear Leader") it becomes apparent that the word, democracy, has been overdefined to fit a political agenda and not the facts as we confront them.
As the Wiktionary states as an intensional definition, the term "girlfriend" means the "female partner in a romantic relationship" - but when we declare to ourselves or even others (setting our Facebook status to reflect the territory to the dreaded 'In a Relationship' status) are we displaying a definition rather an an extensional fact? If your boyfriend cheats on you, claiming the relationship dissolved in his mind's eye, does the intensional term still fit the extensional territory? (By that definition, if you thought him to still be your boyfriend, but did not extend the same courtesy as you being his girlfriend, does the relationship still exist?) If one partner intensionally defines a relationship as something akin to a "booty call" or some such vulgar term while the other expects total fidelity of word and deed, who is "in the relationship"? In this example, does it appear that either of these two are in a relationship, by extensional definition? Why do so many over/underdefine the term to satisfy a tendency to decieve oneself for the sake of an equally over/underdefined term "love" or "companionship?"
Simply put, some relationships simply dissolve from a mismatch in expectation - the maps for the relationship simply do not fit the territory and neither party shall give the other the benefit of the doubt to explore one another's map to evaluate fully as to what map will be followed and how to apply this to the territory that confronts them day-by-day. It feels like a struggle to be surmounted - however one can find the vividness in life's grand palette by drawing more detailed maps and becoming more extensionally oriented to avoid such conflicts arising from mere "definition."
References:
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, 5th edition.
The New Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir, Science and Behavior Books, 1988.
5 comments:
I feel bad, because we never had the opportunity to define the relationship we share.
What do you want out of it? I'm a compromising individual. Let's work together to explore each other's maps.
Are you sad? Did something trigger such a subtly bitter rant?
No, I was just doing a General Semantics analysis of relationships. I like to explore such concepts to see if I can understand them better.
So many people argue about "the same thing" - only the language and its structure causes the conflict; not a clash of values per se. I find that many disagreements start because of inaccurate "maps."
I'm quite glad we have a relationship on my blog, because you give me new perspectives and challenge my own, so its all good from my end :D No, I'm not sad, I'm feeling quite good actually. :)
How are you? :D
Why not just live life and learn from it rather than using wank theories to explain what doesn't really need to be explained? Armchair academics can only go so far... they say that the lesson of life is the best school to learn from. Don't think so much?
Remember: you can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you're preaching to blank faces, you're the fool in the grand scheme of things.
What do I challenge? Educate me on what I have educated you on.
I am glad you are not sad. If people are sad, they are not happy. And the most complicated thing worth thinking about is whether or not someone is happy. You just made it easier by being not sad.
Also, it's, "it's," not, "its."
It's = it is (which was your intended you)
Its = everything else
Put that in your knowledge cake and bake it good and long.
I am good. I wish I had port. Thank you for asking; it is very generous of you to think enough of me to ask.
My possessive and contractive forms of its change wildly. I never learned how to figure them out!
I spose when you say "are you angry" and things such as these it does challenge my thinking.
No one's perfect. But the difference between the people worth knowing, and the people worth forgetting, is that the people worth knowing realise they're not perfect, but strive to learn something new every day nonetheless.
Please don't ever get a gun. =(
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