If the very existence of one’s proclivities and personality is deemed an illness, a blight, simply the wrong answer to what society desires: it is in a word to be Incorrect. To not commit a crime but to be a crime.
To form into a new society that selects for the traits that the original society selected against:
This would be Absolution from being a sin.
Category Archives: Subtle Social Theory
The Grading Card
One might recall how multiple choice tests were graded back in school.
The teacher would take a card with holes punched in the appropriate places and lay it over each test sheet.
Then each test would be graded according to how well the answers lined up with the card.
Few people ace this test, but there are some.
Most people pass comfortably but must put in a significant amount of work to make it.
There are some who do poorly and who just get by.
Then there are a very few who fail to line up with a single hole on the grading card. There is no like alignment, only empty bubbles to be seen.
The traits that society selects for are naturally expressed by a majority, but probability demands that there be those who are completely at odds with the accepted standards.
Every school seems to have that one kid who is completely ostracized/seceded from the group.
There are many thousands of schools, however. In an age of the internet, nearly any group can reach critical mass. Any newly formed group has the opportunity to select its values.
By so doing, a union of those deemed Incorrect could form a new society in which they implicitly belong. By selecting, they would implicity select against the forces that banished them.
In a sense this would at last be Absolution from being a sin.
Collective Checkmate
There is no formal police force of social norms because no such organization is necessary. From mass society arises a self-enforcing slavery.
One might picture a chessboard that sprawls as far as the eye can see with a king on every square. Every king is controlled by a different player.
In a mass society, one must behave a certain way or be punished by one’s neighbors. One’s neighbors must enforce or be punished by their neighbors for not enforcing. Such a system of bondage self-perpetuates:
Each individual king is compelled in turn, everyone coercing everyone else. This is Collective Checkmate.
The Purpose of An Introvert Civilization
Leads to: The Dark State
One who is perpetually immersed in society takes all of its features for granted and tends not to perceive the forest for all the trees.
It takes one who is introverted to remove from the tumult and to perceive society as a means, rather than an end in itself. To stop and ask:
-What is society for?
-Does it promote human happiness?
-How would it better produce human happiness?
-Would humanity be better off without mass society?
An extrovert can scarcely conceive of any other fate than being directly and forever subordinate to surrounding social norms. When all meaning and value in one’s life comes from within society, anything on the outside is an insane, nonsensical Void.
Indeed one who self-defines by an inner life is not so far removed from mental illness by the reckoning of the masses. Thus, much of what is written about introversion is about curing it as if it were a disease.
An introvert reaps benefits from civilization yet is chafed by the countless strictures that must be observed just to avoid Social Censure and Commonality Audits.
Thus improvement of society is contingent upon reduction of drawbacks to the individual while still benefiting from the pooled contributions of many.
Individuals must always make compromises and sacrifices from the moment they become involved with one another. For collaboration to be worthwhile, the benefits gained ought to outweigh the sacrifices as much as possible. Introverts understand very well that there is inevitably friction and restriction of freedom involved in any human interaction. Thus the logical goal is to minimize the friction of association.
An introvert society is not about subjugating or indoctrinating its members so much as it is about individuals combining to give all other individuals the strength to stand apart.
The extrovert philosophy is precisely the opposite:
-That individuals are insignificant in comparison to standards of behavior that arise spontaneously from life in aggregate.
-That the individual is subordinate to society and is intrinsically bound by its rules.
When such a world view prevails as it does now, the nature of society goes unquestioned. The fundamental purpose, that society is a tool to be used for the furtherance of humanity, becomes all but forgotten. When society itself is enthroned as ruler of humanity, everyone lives under the direction of a mindless autocrat.
The False Choice of Participation
In any given society, among the greatest of crimes and taboos is simply non-participation in the group’s sanctioned practices and customs. This is a reality to which the extrovert remains oblivious and one which the introvert is never allowed to forget.
We typically think of transgression in terms of something one does. The crime of the introvert, however, is no single act. It is the overall failure to adopt the group approved talk, walk, behavior, and beliefs. It is a crime unlike any other crime, because it is not an action. In a sense oneself is the crime. In a word it is to be, ‘Incorrect.’
Different cultures and ethnicities are understood to be born into a different tradition. Some differences are expected from those born into clearly different circumstances. Most importantly, they are often in part shielded from the mass society by their less massive society.
Those who have diverged since birth in their personality, values, and preferences are not outwardly different and cannot be outwardly different. The mass society that claims them by accident of birth will punish or reward them according to their degree of adherence to its values and rules. There is no central intelligence or bureacracy that punishes, there is no need. There are millions of informal enforcers daily doing their work merely by holding and acting upon the common values with which they have been imbued.
A great many introverted people would likely be more social or socialize more out in the open if they did not live in fear of social censure. One key reason that introverts do not ‘get out more’ and one which most extroverts do not begin to understand is:
A life lived mostly away from the seething public sphere is safety from being revealed as Incorrect.
Introverts commonly describe themselves as being exhausted from social outings. In no small part this condition exists because: when the Correct are at their most relaxed, the Incorrect are most on guard. One is thus recharged, the other drained.
The ‘Correctness’ of Extroversion
Extroverts frequently hold their way to be the ‘correct’ way as their defining traits are considered desirable in Western society. However, this is an ad populum mindset. Their ways are desirable, not because they are right, but only because more people observe them.
Any group in the process of selecting desirable characteristics also implicitly excludes.
Thus, one could imagine a system in which typical traits of those classified as introverts were held as highest virtue. In such a state, the most effusive of individuals would find themselves dismissed as unprofessional loudmouths and as shameless sycophants.
The introverted philosophy is ‘incorrect’ only insofar as it is selected against by a tyrannical majority. The extrovert reign enjoys no more legitimacy than any other regime imposed by sheer inertia of popular acceptance.
The False Glamor of Pickup Culture
“Someone needs to get laid.” Is one of the stock responses to one who shies from conventional social venues.
The ultimate proof to the socialite of an introvert’s wrongdoing is their more frequent lack of sexual comanionship.
In addressing this matter, I would look to pickup artists, and in general those who get frequently laid by means of their social prowess.
The success of these individuals is taken to be the disproof of everything cloistered, nerdly, and inspired of solitude:
However, its not the magnificent thing it’s touted to be.
Pickup artists/seducers count themselves superior oftentimes on the most fundamental of grounds: the Darwinian.
They hold that it is they who will propagate the species, not the pathetic ‘shy people.’
This turns out to be an absurd proposition upon examining the actual conduct of these people.
It is a rarity to actually hear of them having children! If ever they do it is later in life.
They scrupulously use protection during sex so their escapades might continue to another party night. The women they court are those who wouldn’t want a kid ruining their party life. Even in the instance contraception failed, abortion would be highly likely. The chances of Darwinian success from being a pickup artist/seducer are nil.
Ironically, these party people would enjoy considerably greater success according to the standards they hold dear if they converted to conservative monotheism and entered into a traditional marriage.
Ironically, the very car salesman skills of super socialites that allow them a quick night of sex tend to impede any aims at having any sort of deeper satisfaction than the immediately physical.
For all their labors, they obtain very little more than their own hand could have given them. They perhaps obtain less in terms of intimacy than a masseuse might have given them.
The mystique that Western culture attaches to the act of intercourse is altogether undeserved. This writer has had what could be termed extremely casual sex. It was a pleasant experience, but nothing I would base an entire lifestyle around.
I have talked with many others who have had sex and express similar sentiments. Nothing spectacular unless there is some kind of deeper personal attachment involved.
What the pickup artists really become obsessed with is the ability to make the sale, however dubious the product. The rush of subduing another human being through wits alone. However, even the power that a seducer wields is an illusion.
The pickup artist must define himself by his quarry. He is a shapeshifter morphing into whatever form his target’s desires might take. He is but a slave making himself whatever others want him to be, a product well marketed to instant gratification.
Pickup artists, seducers, spend years perfecting their art. The time and energy they spend becoming adepts is time taken away from other modes of development.
The introvert often engages in sexual intimacy sparingly:
Firstly, introverts, haven’t the opportunity because they do not have the willingness to actively sell themselves. Their identity is too grounded to be malleable even if they should try.
The introvert better understands: sexual intimacy is the pleasure of life that endangers all others. Its tendency to distract and its many possible negative and even deadly outcomes are a considerable obstacle to all else. Large amounts or time, money, and energy are required to enjoy this activity that can be experienced to a lesser, but not at all insubstantial degree for free: not to mention at one’s convenience and without any risk or effort. Overall: an awful deal and hyped up beyond all proportion.
The Social Ineptitude of the Extroverted
The social scene formed by introverts is about substance over form, the process of interaction is a tool and source of recreation. A line is crossed in the introvert culture when what is a resource becomes a tyrant, a distraction, a source of white noise.
Many introverts find it onerous just to give daily greetings to people, especially if it’s lots of people. Their reluctance to observe basic niceties is thought of as rudeness by the larger society, even though there is no intention to be rude.
The greeting/nicety being gone through is just a rote reflex, a meaningless procedure in the world view of one who looks to substance over form. It is an annoyance and a pain to waste the powerful tool of language saying the same greeting that is said every day with the same affectation of feeling required to mask the underlying annoyance.
What the loud person does not understand is that THEY are being rude. They maneuver the introvert in question into a position where they MUST respond or suffer censure from the mass society in which they are involved. How can a greeting or good wishes mean anything if it must be given on pain of social shaming and punishment? The cheerful person demanding the greeting is rude, insensitive, a coercer. The scripted response/action to any such situation is done for the sake of sociability. Yet for introverts, who do not define themselves by society, is to be put in an upside down situation. Society is to serve the individuals within it or else they would be better off alone! The fundamental purpose is perverted when one becomes used by the tool.
So it is an introvert’s nightmare that one must dance like a clockwork figurine when presented with a stimulus that demands a preset response.
To put it succinctly: take the statement. “15 minutes early is on time.”
The statement contradicts itself, 15 minutes early can’t be early.
Similarly, smiling and greeting every acquaintance one runs into on a busy morning is done out of obligation and fear of punishment. Therefore, niceties can’t be nice.
Form and Substance
Leads To: The Social Introvert
One of the great fundamental differences between the Extro and Intro
Extrovert: Form over substance
Introvert: Substance over form
Extroverts are perceived as ‘leaders’ as ‘having initiative’ as being ‘achievers.’ However, most of this is an illusion; a combination of the intrinsic quality of valuing form over substance and possessing by default the favored template.
In all aspects of life, the extrovert creates the appearance of being glamorous, driven, and interesting. Spending time alone is a supreme torture, because to be forced to spend time alone is to confront the inner vacuum. If the veneer is what gets attention/money, then it is what matters.
In all aspects of life, the introvert strives to do and achieve things of substance, at the expense of appearances if need be. What something looks like is incidental to what it actually is. Spending time in social environments that are all about appearances, jockeying for position, and small talk is a supreme torture. To do so is to confront the fact that most people around have opposite values to their own. To be forced to participate is to live in a hostile country. It is a waste of precious time alive, the veneer is an insubstantial shadow and a distraction.
