Rationalizing: How do we know for sure that we aren't?

Arminus, compassion is a virtue.

Yes, it is, unless it is misused and misdirected. It can become just as easily a vice without discernment, which may also be a virtue.

Then it’s not compassion but other than that, I agree.

The eyes are having it, ey Arc?

Are you enjoying your eye avatars?

Fortunately, signatures and avatars don’t work on my iPad.

Yes I am. I am greatly enjoying and employing the internet’s green-eyes avatars. Mine are green. Once i have exhausted the green ones to my satisfaction I shall employ the colors of my children’s eyes, a set of blues and a set of browns.

They say that the eyes are the mirrors to the soul or as I would have it, one’s own psyche.

Is fuse still around these days or has she/he vanished from ILP.

No images at all?

Compassion may be another form of rationalization. Like killing with kindness. Like compassionate euthanasia, broadly defined.

Conversely, rationalization may be a form of self serving compassion, again, we can not be completely sure we are doing it. Knowledge has not much to do with it , feelings and emotions do, this is why rationalization consist of unacceptable knowledge of certain thoughts.

Since the knowledge of certain things is usually suppressed by rationalizing them away, we definitely can not ever know for sure.

The safest assumption we can make is to assume that we are rationilzing (always for perceived positive outcomes) and then act with caution.

jerkey,

That’s why it has to be based in discernment.
Why does euthanasia have to be a form of rationalizing - if you can see reality clearly and if for you life is based on quality and meaning - not simply on preserving a lifeform?

Only if we are trying to protect ourselves in a way which is not productive or conducive to maturing. But then I don’t think of that as compassion. But it would be part of the flight instinct.

Another defense mechanism.

We can begin to know by seeing when we are in rationalizing mode. I think that whether or not people choose to believe it or not, sense it or not, there is a level in ourselves which can observe it - we just as you say choose to suppress it. Just as in our dreams, we can choose to ignore some object which is there, the very object which might be the most important to see.

Just as in realizing that we are not going to live forever can become our friend and lead to a more positive and enhancing life, so can observing our rationalizations free us from our delusional cocoons and cause us to fly more freely - rationalizations bind us to a false self. :laughing:

Rationalization cannot be observed unless it is exposed and then, when it gets exposed, a new rationalization kicks in.

I personally have no idea. Fuse is a guy unless the image of himself he once posted wasn’t real.
Most of us are like swallows.

Change the word “observed” to felt. We can feel or become aware of when we are rationalizing - that is its moment of exposition. Can’t you feel or sense it in yourself?
The more they are exposed to us, the more we can see what triggers them and how we relate to them.
Then we can practice not lying to ourselves or making excuses for ourselves and the power they have over us dies.

Think of them as having a life of their own.

Most of the time rationalizations are completely invisible and hence unfelt but, sure, sometimes some surface to our consciousness and create dissonance.

Arcturus, One Liner: Whether it is felt or observed, is a matter of gradient.
Both, feelings and observation relate to rationalizing, but one is compelled to ask, which occupies a deeper, or more central position.

Thoughts and images are closer to the surface, easier to access, they are more sensible. Feelings are misleading, because, verification is harder.

We can cry at something funny, and laugh at something sad.

But some can cause consonance, are completely visible, even if, only felt, like in gut level feelings. To say most are of this kind or that, is a probability/uncertainty issue.

Reality is you will never really know and so is it wise to exercise caution?

Jerkey,

Yes, we can rationalize our feelings and what we seem to “observe within ourselves” jerkey, but does that mean that we will necessarily indulge in rationalizing?

Define “verification” with reference to feelings? Do you mean as in seeing that they have validity or that their - I mean are “real” and reasonable insofar as what has occurred within us or without us?

As for the last, that’s possibly because we aren’t taking a look at our emotions in the moment, what we are “really” dealing with.
Another defense mechanism? Repression?

We cannot rationalize feelings as such but we can rationalize our thoughts about our feelings.