comment on symbolism in relationships
Sep. 11th, 2003 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayDredged up from a conversation still going on in a month-old entry of mine...
[quote frombikerscum:]
Why does it devalue to you a sincere offer to babysit if you know that similar offers are made to others?
(grin) it doesn't! That's not my context. My context is: if offers to babysit are made to others, but not to me, then *I'm* devalued (not the offer) with respect to whatever set of others, in the network of the person making the babysitting offers. In a connectionist sense, my link-weighting estimate is reduced.
If the given person makes babysitting offers to a stranger-with-kids he's just met, but I'm supposedly a close friend of his and he's never offered (or refused my past request), then my estimation of the value of my friendship in that person's eyes is placed lower than that of someone he's just met -- i.e., practically zero.
In a third-grade context... (grin)
If mommy gives all the other kids a cookie but won't give me one, that means that she must love all of them more than me... If she gives one to the new kid that just moved in down the street, but not to me, then she must not love me at all, because she doesn't love the new kid at all (and I'm even less important that he is, because he gets a cookie and I don't).
That's over-simplified, but how I feel about symbolism... especially for publicly-displayed things. The "cookie" may be unimportant in itself, but as a token it conveys information about the state of a given friendship or relationship.
[quote from
bikerscum:]Why does it devalue to you a sincere offer to babysit if you know that similar offers are made to others?
(grin) it doesn't! That's not my context. My context is: if offers to babysit are made to others, but not to me, then *I'm* devalued (not the offer) with respect to whatever set of others, in the network of the person making the babysitting offers. In a connectionist sense, my link-weighting estimate is reduced.
If the given person makes babysitting offers to a stranger-with-kids he's just met, but I'm supposedly a close friend of his and he's never offered (or refused my past request), then my estimation of the value of my friendship in that person's eyes is placed lower than that of someone he's just met -- i.e., practically zero.
In a third-grade context... (grin)
If mommy gives all the other kids a cookie but won't give me one, that means that she must love all of them more than me... If she gives one to the new kid that just moved in down the street, but not to me, then she must not love me at all, because she doesn't love the new kid at all (and I'm even less important that he is, because he gets a cookie and I don't).
That's over-simplified, but how I feel about symbolism... especially for publicly-displayed things. The "cookie" may be unimportant in itself, but as a token it conveys information about the state of a given friendship or relationship.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 03:04 pm (UTC)btw - I was about to start working up a reply to this in the old thread. Any preference from you on if I do that there or here?
Also - mind if I link to the discussion in my own journal? I've a few points I've been thinking of expanding on and that struck me as something I might want to do there.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 03:13 pm (UTC)Either place is OK with me...
You can link to it if you'd like... arguably I've cast myself in an unfavorable light, but that's rarely stopped me from airing things before ;-).