Bizarre. I don’t know how to respond to that.
I was thinking in these terms.
“The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.”
We’re used to seeing straw man enemies, but I think Falwell has created a straw man friend. I think that’s the only way you can make sense of that. There’s a lot of chaos going on, right?
You really have to lie to yourself to convince everyone that Trump is a Christian god fearing man.
Of course when your career is lying for a living not too hard
Politician job prerequisite lmao.
I meant religious leader but your point is accurate as well
Yes there is Puff…yes there is…
Talking about character. I recall reading an article about Lincoln. It talked about how great leaders are high in both confidence and humility. It sounds like a paradox, but you have to be confident enough to stay the course, or to do the right thing even when it’s hard. Have a spine. Confidence in that sense isn’t arrogance or an inflated sense of self. Humility so that you will listen to wisdom, are willing to learn from others, acknowledge the possibility that you may be wrong. I’d add high in empathy, or low in callousness.
After the war and politics, George Washington just wanted to be a farmer.
We tend to admire and want to follow people who have these qualities. You could certainly put Christ in there. High compassion and empathy, but certainly had confidence or a spine (drove money changers from the temple, often opposed the intellectuals or power structure of his time), so many examples of humility and compassion.
edited twice.
I agree. I also don’t think it’s all that much of a paradox to have a high degree of confidence and a high degree of humility, but maybe that’s just because my personal definition of “confidence” tries to exclude “arrogance” (which I basically view as false confidence or unjustified confidence).
Anyways, I totally agree that a truly great leader needs to be both confident and humble.
Yeah Jim Collins level 5 leadership right there. The less the ego and the more humble the person the better the leader
Thanks, H. It’s a bit of a threadjack, but bear with me. I recently took the Big 5 inventory, and scored really high in agreeableness which made me wonder if I’m too quick to agree. This made me feel a bit better.
See if you can’t see a certain someone’s incessant tweets in some of this.
“Agreeableness (versus Anger): Persons with very high scores on the Agreeableness scale forgive the wrongs that they suffered, are lenient in judging others, are willing to compromise and cooperate with others, and can easily control their temper. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale hold grudges against those who have harmed them, are rather critical of others’ shortcomings, are stubborn in defending their point of view, and feel anger readily in response to mistreatment.”
Puff…I consider your “thread jacks” insights!
I have to take a personality test for the 5th stage of this job interview. Not looking forward to it. I only have one speed and can’t bring myself to cheat the test.
I like the confidence combined with humility concept. Confidence comes from competence. Competence comes from being humbled… repeatedly.
I like this a lot.
Thank you. Haha.
I don’t know what they’re going to give you, but if you want to get an idea, here’s the link to the one I took recently. I did the short version. When you get your results, make sure you copy and paste them into a document elsewhere so you can look back later.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/
Not related to your interview, but I could see some traits that I want to improve. Ben Franklin was constantly trying to work on developing Conscientiousness, developing his character.
Not to freak you out, but you don’t want to score high on Dark Triad traits, unless the company is looking for someone to help with some nefarious scheme, or you’re planning a coup detat. wink.
edited
Wow.
(From Puffs article):
"Narcissists are “grandiose self-promoters who continually crave attention…”
(No comment…)
Yeah. Continuing the personality threadjack then…
About the article, you can think of the Dark Triad as arrogance, dishonesty, and resentment. That’s probably more helpful for most of us. It’s pretty easy for us to think that we’re nothing like Machiavelli, or Hitler so we have no dark side, but when you start looking at some of these traits, we all have them, it’s a matter of degree.
About resentment, people who talk a lot about concern for others, but if you look at what they actually DO… Maybe they spend time feeling resentful because other people are more successful, but admitting that makes you a flawed human. It’s easier to cast ourselves in the role of being better, more caring, and then talking about how other people who have more money shouldn’t be so selfish. Or maybe you cast “the poor” as all people who are gaming the welfare system, because it lets you feel better about not doing anything. That’s just a very common human problem. We like to protect ourselves from seeing the dark stuff.
This is a variation on Proverbs 16:32, “It is more difficult to rule oneself, than a city.” It’s disconcerting to see someone attempt to rule the city, when they clearly don’t have their own character in balance, or in a whole or healthy place. That’s also a very human thing. It’s easier to try to rule the city, look for things external to ourselves, than to get our own selves together. “Maybe before you think about reorganizing the global economic structure, you should think about cleaning your room.” I’m channeling, and paraphrasing Jordan Peterson here. I don’t agree with everything he says or thinks, but he’s right about that. He simplifies the Dark Triad traits down to arrogance, dishonesty, and resentment.
Perhaps Churchill would make a good exception that helps prove the rule, or perhaps it may be more along the lines of if you’re going to be arrogant than have something to back it up. The whole arrogant and ignorant thing does seem to be increasingly common though.
Listening to JP has gotten me cleaning something and slaying little dragons every day.
That’s fantastic, anonym. Mostly, I’m discovering that I’m not as sorted as I thought I was! That’s a bit painful. I want to watch his Maps of Meaning courses, and the Bible lectures when I have a bit more time. I recently got invited to join a group of really competent and sorted people, talking around JP and philosophy, psychology, and religion. I’m trying to catch up with them, which is usually a good place to be in terms of growth.
I don’t know a lot about Churchill. Please let me know if you know of a good documentary or bio. Agree, arrogant with ignorance is no bueno. I find myself in that position sometimes. I think the worst place is dishonesty, as applies to lying to yourself about your motives, or lying to yourself about why you feel the way you do. Also, not a good place to be. Most of us don’t have the opportunity to lie about big political issues that effect millions. wink.
I like that synopsis of the dark triad. Thanks.
Took my personality test. A lot of false choices in there, too binary. A great deal of “which statements do you agree with most/least”. My verbal response was “neither”, but I had to pick. Then there was algebraic exponential number sequences, which went great, then the shapes and patterns… not so great.
Got the 4th interview scheduled though. Must have done something right.
My favorite was the first two volumes of The Last Lion. It’s been almost two decades since I read them though.
His memoirs of WW2 are fascinating. Five part series, great stuff.