Tag: handicapping

Handicapping: Part 3 – Who We Do It For

crimson

With everything going on in the world of late, it is hard to maintain focus. I want to continue my topic, but I am often compelled to address those other things that are going on. For the moment, I have abated my compulsion and will continue my treatise. We will see if I can keep doing that as time progresses.

In my last post, I spoke of ethics and tried to present what it is in the most basic of senses. The big question I ended with was determining who the others were. That is, who’s interests and desires are so important to me that I am willing to sacrifice my own interests and desires in favor of theirs. Where does the ethical impetus come from?

In some sense, the answer seems simple enough: everyone else. Society. My community. My parents. For some strange reason, I care what everyone else thinks about me, and so I will sacrifice my own crazy desires to appease those around me. I admit that this is something I feel and perhaps you do not. Over the course of my life, I have met some people who certainly do not valuate the world as I do. Perhaps you are such a person?

However, it has also been my experience that those sorts of people are fewer and further between. And unfortunately, those people also tend to be in positions of authority or power. I have often wondered if there is a correlation between these seemingly opposing things. (Spoiler: I do believe this is the case, and this is part of the point of this theory of handicapping).

It has been my experience that people who voluntarily limit themselves, who handicap themselves, are putting themselves at a disadvantage. Perhaps not in every instance, but in the lion’s share of instances limiting one’s self often leads to being in a situation of less. This is why I chose the word “handicap” in the first place. In general, handicapping has a negative connotation, suggesting that handicapping is negative and ought to be avoided at all costs.

In sports, when someone is handicapped it is meant to level the playing field. The one with the clear advantage is given a limitation to offset their advantage. That way, when the game begins, even those who are not as proficient can stand a chance against those with great proficiency. But this is simply another way of saying that the one who clearly ought to win in the match up is being limited so the one who should not win the match up can be placated.

In this case, the handicapping may be viewed as positive for the underdog but negative for the superior athlete. I would imagine the superior athlete would not accept such an arrangement normally, unless there was some reason to allow the limiting action. This, once again, is ethics. The superior athlete sacrificing what they may desire in favor of the desires of others. Perhaps others in this case include the audience, wanting to see a more balanced match up. Perhaps it is the business owners trying to ensure the match up is less predictable; if the same people always won, the sport would become quite boring.

But in this case, the handicapping is once again happening not because of the desires of the individual, but instead the desires of others. Once again this is about doing something others want instead of what I want.

In the case of the athlete, they may be compelled to follow and obey in order to continue in their sport. After all, what would sports be without the support of audiences and others? Some may argue that a sport is strictly for the individual in isolation, but how many athletes can you think of that never perform for some sort of audience? To be fair, those that do would likely not be very well known for precisely the reason I am making.

This all falls into the category of definitions now. That is, an athlete is an athlete in large part because they perform for some sort of audience. Were there no audience to be concerned with, it may affect the impetus of the individual to accept some sort of handicapping.

For me, for my discussion, focusing on the case of athletes is not really where I wish to focus. I am more concerned with a general concept of handicapping, particularly in the average person’s day-to-day life. The individual who is self legislating, deciding for themselves that they ought to behave in ways other than the ways they would like to behave. Like so many other ideas and concepts I prefer to discuss here, this one once again is likely causing some confusion. I can tell by the way my sentence structures are becoming fuzzy and unclear, even to myself who is writing this all down.

I think I will tie this post off here for now, and think about this a bit more. It seems to me it is pretty clear who the others are in this situation: society. However, what may still be less clear is why one would abandon their own desires in favor of the desires of those around them. As I suggested in my previous post, it seems like the why is related to a sort of “keeping the peace.” But that over simplified answer has also not been sitting well with me.

It has taken me a long time to really talk about this topic. It seems I am still struggling to explain it properly.

Handicapping: Part 2 – Why We Do It

crimson

In my last post, I established in the most basic sense what handicapping is (as I see it): it is the act of limiting one’s self when up against others. In particular, for my purposes, of giving up on one’s own projects in order to pursue (or help pursue) the projects of others. To sacrifice one’s freedom (perhaps temporarily) to support the freedom of another. So the next natural question I would expect to ask is why would someone do this?

When pursuing our freedom in our modern world, we often run up against ethics and morality. The idea that what we may want to do is either right or good, or perhaps wrong or evil. Or to perhaps be a bit less dramatic, when I act, I can do what I want to do, or I can do what I think I am expected to do. This is literally ethics.

For those who may not know, ethics is all about oughts. As I go about my life, I am compelled to do what I want to do at any given moment in time, in a sort of selfish manner. That is, I know through my passions and my intellect what sorts of actions I want to take based on what will make me happy or what will give me advantage. If I am hungry for chocolate, I can follow a course of action that will lead to me eating chocolate. Perhaps I will walk down the block to the nearest convenience store and purchase some chocolate and then eat it. The concept I’m suggesting here is not all that complicated. In general, I pursue my interests and desires most of the time. I think most people do.

However, there are certainly times when the thing I want to do is not going to be well received by those around me. Perhaps walking to a convenience store to get chocolate seems quite unproblematic, but what if I do not wish to pay for that chocolate? What if I decided to simply break in and take the chocolate so that I could satisfy my craving? It may seem extreme to think about stealing chocolate, so perhaps I will escalate the idea to help with clarity. What if I decided I wanted money, and I decided the best path to getting that money was to rob the convenience store. This pursuit of mine is clearly becoming quite controversial.

I think most would agree that robbing a convenience store is not the sort of action I ought to do. And there it is, the word ought has already come about. I may want to do this action of stealing, but I know that I am not supposed to pursue this particular action because it is considered prohibited. I ought not rob a convenience store. This is ethics. According to ethics, I ought not rob a convenience store. According to ethics, I ought to sacrifice this particular desire or interest, and instead pursue the desire or interest of another. In this case, the other happens to be my community or society.

In its most basic form, ethics is simply a description of how I decide what I ought to do despite what I want to do. There are many different theories about ethics that try to explain my behavior, such as utilitarianism which suggests I choose my actions based on the consequences of those actions. In utilitarianism, I ought to choose my action based on whichever action will result in the greatest increase in happiness (or sometimes the greatest reduction in suffering). Using my example from above, robbing the convenience store would clearly make the store owner quite unhappy, as well as those who use the convenience store. If I were to chose another manner with which to acquire money, such as working at the convenience store instead, that would seem to generate greater happiness.

There are many other theories of ethics out there, but in cases as straight forward as the one I’ve laid out, they generally will agree that stealing is a prohibited action. All that is really different between theories is how they come to the conclusion. The reason there are so many different theories is that there are cases that are not so easy to define and so each different theory may suggest a different course of action in these harder to define cases.

The purpose of my discussion is not to dwell on different ethical theories, but to instead highlight something the all have in common: they suggest that I give up an action I may want to do and replace it with an action that I ought to do instead. That I should limit myself in some fashion, sacrificing a particular desire or interest I have and instead pursuing or supporting the desires or interests of others around me. Ethics is one reason I might chose to handicap myself.

The next difficult aspect to consider is who those others might be.

Handicapping: Part 1 – Simple Logic

crimson

It is time, not to poke fun at my previous posts. I have avoided this topic for a while now. Technically, I posted about this over two years ago on Reddit. Even then, people seemed not to understand what I was referring to. It isn’t really easy to talk about nor to explain. But it is time I did just that.

Unlike the post on Reddit, I’m going to approach this slowly, bit by bit. A little about what I’m talking about before tying it all together. Hopefully by doing this, there is a greater chance you will understand too.

This is a theory I’ve been working on for a while now. I refer to it as the Theory of Handicapping. I consider it to be a viable explanation as to how humans (and possibly all life) behaves. And I consider it to be an explanation as to why we have not witnessed sentient life from outside our tiny sphere we call Earth. And, unfortunately, I consider it to be an explanation as to why we are all doomed to eventually expire. Probably not this generation, but the clock on humanity is running out slowly. This is what I believe, and perhaps my explanation might resonate with others.

The driving force of this theory is in the name, as often is the case with naming things. The idea of handicapping is the idea of purposely limiting one’s self for some reason or other. In sports such as golf, a handicap may be used to balance the game, making it possible for a less skilled player to compete with a player who is much better. In my theory, this is precisely the idea I have in mind.

In life, I find myself in constant competition with those around me. I am in competition for resources and space and even time. As I try to exercise my freedom, pursuing my interests and desires, I am nearly constantly challenged by others as they pursue their own. This is where the Existentialists, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, are helpful to talk about. For Sartre, he considered us all to be in this competition at all times, fighting to express our freedom and pursue our projects. For Beauvoir, she considered it instead to be a cooperative venture, where individuals had to make space for each other and acknowledge each others’ freedom. Perhaps it is from reading both of these thinkers that my own theory emerges.

On the Sartrean side, the competition is ruthless and unavoidable. Like the myth of the Alpha, I am forced to bully and fight and sometimes even resort to violence to make my way in the world. No one will give me a moment’s rest and I must defend my claim to space and interests. For Sartre, this is simply how freedom works. Those who fight well and out compete others will get to enjoy their projects, while those who do not will simply be forced to follow the projects of others. I imagine Sartre likely felt women were often on the losing side of this game.

On the Beauvoirian side, the competition is a losing endeavor. Only through recognizing each other’s freedom can any of us succeed in our pursuits. But more than that, she suggested we needed to acknowledge each others freedom, even going so far as to sacrifice our own from time to time in order work with others on their projects. That is, for a while I will help you accomplish your projects, and then later you can help me with mine. We work together, cooperatively, so that we both can pursue our respective goals and interests. The only problem comes when our respective pursuits contradict each other; in this situation, it is less clear what to do. Clearly Sartre’s response would be less problematic.

For me, for my theory, it is this very troubling dichotomy that I am trying to address. For me, I think both are correct in their assessment of the situation. We are stuck in both competition and cooperation with each other in our pursuit of our freedom. Much of the time, we must convince others to assist us in our pursuits, because most of our pursuits are not feasible to pursue alone. I might be able to build a house by myself, but it would certainly take a very long time to do; if I had the assistance of others, the process would be much quicker, and likely a better made house would result as well (considering my own lack of proficiencies).

But then it becomes a question of when to stand one’s ground and when to sacrifice. At what points do I fight for my project, working to ensure that it gets achieved? At what points do I submit to the will of others in their own pursuits, helping them to accomplish theirs? Fairness might suggest that we split the difference and help each other out in equal measure. But if you’ve lived in this world for any amount of time, certainly you will have noticed that this definitely does not happen.

I hate to bring it up, as I’ve been avoiding this topic as well, but the recent election in the United States is a great example of the situation I’m talking about. Donald Trump has recently been elected president again, and he did so on a platform suggesting he would take care of the people. He even went so far as to say “whether the women like it or not, I’m going to protect them.” The crazy part of this is how it so clearly flies in the face of his project, completely undermining the project of his own constituents. That said, he was still voted in, so perhaps there are plenty of women who actually want Trump to protect them.

The problem with all of this is that Trump only said what he said to get elected. He hasn’t even entered office yet, and he has already backpedaled on virtually every promise he made during his campaign. Meaning he only said what he said to convince those around him to help him with his project, never having any intention of cooperating and helping others pursue their own projects. This is the Sartrean competition I am talking about; Trump’s strategy for a successful fight was to use deception and lies to convince those around him to help him with his project. He successfully convinced others to sacrifice their own projects for his.

And so, this is the first part of my theory that I need to establish and make clear. In this world, where we all are trying to pursue our desires and interests, individually we have to somehow convince others to allow us to pursue our projects, either through fighting for them or negotiating for them or some other strategy. And perhaps at times we have to sacrifice our pursuit to assist others in their pursuits. At any time in your life when you have been helping others to do the things they wanted to do, this is precisely what you are doing. You are sacrificing your own desires or interests or goals to assist someone else in accomplishing theirs. And if you look really hard at what you are doing, you may come to realize (as I have) that you are more often submitting to others than doing things for yourself.

This is what I will refer to as Handicapping.