October 21, 2007

• Types of Shallow

  I wonder if there are lots of different ways in which someone can be
  shallow?

  Generally we think we can all identify the shallow people in the world.
  They’re the people who rag on you for wearing the wrong clothes or look
  down upon you for not driving the right kind of car or whatnot. The
  shallow people generally are concerned with trivial things associated
  with appearances to the exclusion of all else. That is, things
  generally affected by wealth and beauty and not determined by any other
  virtuous capacity or feature.  So the shallow person would be friendly
  to you if you are rich and gorgeous even if you were otherwise the scum
  of the Earth and likewise would not give you the time of day if you
  were a Saint but happened to lack a fortune or have been born without a
  certain requisite degree of symmetry in your facial features.

  But is this the only kind of shallow that there is? If we think about
  it, the thing that makes this idea of shallowness distinctive is that
  the person privileges these features to the exclusion of all other
  features. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with caring about
  appearances, not really. But if appearances mean more to you than
  courage and honor and honesty and wisdom and integrity and ambition and
  kindness and justice and intellect and humility and every other
  relevant characteristic of man, well then you have a problem now don’t
  you? You’re being irrational, and irrational in such an absurd manner
  that we in society rightly ridicule you for your shortsightedness.

  However, we can easily abstract this idea can’t we? Couldn’t it be that
  someone could be equally overly concerned with some other feature of
  humanity in their social interactions to the exclusion of all others?
  Maybe instead of speaking of just being shallow we should specify what
  kind of shallow a person is. That is, a person could be X-shallow where
  X is any characteristic. Hence a wealth-shallow individual is a person
  who judges on the basis of wealth to the exclusion of all other
  characteristics. And so on and so forth. 

  Does that concept make sense? Perhaps. If we look in television and
  movies we can sometimes find examples of unusual kinds of shallowness
  that are depicted. For example you sometimes see someone who is
  Vegetarian-shallow, meaning they would only really ever consider going
  out with someone who is not a vegetarian, or someone who is Smoking-shallow
  meaning they avoid any and all people who smoke.  These kinds of
  shallow certainly exist sometimes but they aren’t that interesting. I wonder if the people who demonstrate such trivial kinds of
  shallow really really deep down hold to these beliefs? When faced with
  a person who is otherwise perfect in every way, would the fact that
  they smoke or are not a vegetarian really prevent them from interacting
  with such a person? There are thousands of other X-shallow’s that have a
  similar vibe to them. Its conceivable that there are people who really
  are shallow in these ways, but it just seems unlikely that there are that
  many of them.

  But what about something even more unexpected and yet much more
  serious? Is it possible to be shallow with respect to certain features
  of humanity that we consider to be good? Can you be shallow with
  respect to a virtue? Is it possible for a person to be honesty-shallow
  or honor-shallow or courage-shallow or justice-shallow? What about
  something defining about who someone is? Can you be
  intelligence-shallow? Can you be kindness-shallow? What about something
  that is more of a vice? Can you be cruelty-shallow, or hatred-shallow,
  or hypocrisy-shallow?

  The idea of the existence of these kinds of shallow fascinates me. If
  they do exist they could serve as a profound tool for understanding
  human interactions, what causes people to connect to one another and
  perhaps more importantly why sometimes they reject one another. For
  example say in a work environment you observe that two equally capable
  persons hate each other and can’t get along at all despite the fact
  that to your mind they are both decent people. Perhaps the only
  difference that you can tell between them is that one is very neat and
  organized whereas the other is messy and chaotic, yet they developed
  and disliking to one another right from the start and no matter what
  you try to do to resolve the conflict between them or point out to them
  the good features of the other they just never develop any sort of good
  will toward one another. It’s just impossible.  Why would that be? 

  Perhaps the answer is that one of the two is organizational-shallow and
  the other is messiness-shallow?  The one, for whatever reason, just
  can’t accept someone who is unwilling or unable to take the time to at
  least bring a minimal degree of order to his or her environment. And
  the other might likewise find it fully impossible to deal with someone
  who is just a little too neat and organized. In his or her mind you have to
  let a little chaos into your life or they just won’t be able to stand
  being near you.  And maybe that’s just the entire problem? The two
  can’t see past these aspects of their nature. All other features are
  just not as important to them as this one sticking point. They might
  not even be conscious of it, but in their hearts that’s just the way
  they fundamentally feel.

  Shallow always has pretty negative connotations, but one wonders if we
  use this framework if being shallow is always bad? I mean, if someone
  is virtue-shallow, meaning they reject people who are not sufficiently
  virtuous, how exactly is that bad? Maybe we all need to be a little
  more virtue-shallow? And likewise, how much can we really blame someone
  who is generosity-shallow or honesty-shallow or humility-shallow or
  kindness-shallow?

  The problem is, of course, from the point of view of the object it is
  never pleasant to be judged by a being who is shallow with any
  respect. And that’s just inherent in the definition really. Shallow, as
  I have explained is the consideration of some feature to the exclusion
  of all else. That means that when you are the object of someone’s
  shallow perspective on you, you feel bad. Worse, you feel helpless.
  Because it is as if there is nothing you can do to make up for this one
  failing. It’s as if you can’t get the other person to really see you.
  They only see that one part of you that is not up to their own
  standards or expectations or desires? And so often, it is the one part
  of you that is hardest for you to change too, a thing ingrained in you
  because of the way in which you were raised or may even be inherent to
  your nature. It doesn’t matter how many other good features it seems
  like you bring to the table, just that one thing serves as the sticking
  point. That’s why, even when the focus of such shallowness is a good
  thing like honesty or integrity or humility, it feels terrible. You,
  the object, are always left with that feeling of frustration. It just
  doesn’t seem fair!

  And that’s just it. It may well be entirely normal to be shallow with
  respect to certain virtues and vices and important characteristics.
  Maybe we are all shallow with respect to something. But in all cases
  where we treat with people on the basis of the shallowness, no matter
  how reasonable or important the characteristic we are evaluating may
  seem, we are being unfair to them. We aren’t treating the totality of
  their being as we should be. It may not always be wrong to be shallow
  with respect to certain characteristics, but it is always unfair.
  Perhaps then, even with this expanded definition of shallowness, the term
  still deserves its negative connotations.

  One more distinction needs to be made though with respect to being
  shallow of a particular mode. There is an important question of whether
  this being shallow resembles more in kind a kind of fixation or a kind
  of fetish. This speaks to the idea of whether or not someone would be
  able to change themselves if they are shallow and to what extent the
  objects of shallowness should expect or hope for those shallow people
  to change.

  If being X-shallow is the result of a sort of a fixation on X we would
  expect that it is possible and perhaps even likely that at some point
  the person will change. Just like fixating on a shiny object, it only
  takes a single moment for
  you to lose your focus on it and it no longer becomes an object of your
  fascination. One day you might hit yourself upon your head and say “Oh
  my god, maybe X wasn’t as important as I thought it was?”  Or maybe
  over time you just grow out of thinking that X is the end all and be
  all of a person and start to perceive other characteristics as being as
  important or more so.

  The classical example of a fixation shallowness is the classical
  physical beauty-shallowness in most people in which it manifests. We
  would reasonably expect that over time human beings as they grow older
  become less fixated on physical beauty. They grow out of that kind of
  shallowness just because of time and experience and the fact that
  happiness requires more than the appreciation of beauty for most people
  anyway. Plus, if there is any truth to the expression “beauty fades” you can hardly be too consistent to remain fixated on physical beauty even as you yourself lose whatever attractive characteristics you may have once had.

  But shallowness can sometimes be much more resistant to change.
  Sometimes a kind of shallowness may be ingrained in you. Perhaps it is
  genetic. Perhaps there is some kind of traumatic experience that leads
  to your being X-shallow which would take years of therapy to excise if
  it is even possible. An example of being shallow in this way might be a
  person who was lied to terribly during their childhood and develops a
  kind of honesty-shallowness as a consequence. The very act of lying to
  them brings them such internal pain and arouses such terrible memories
  that they can’t move beyond it. It’s the thing most important to them
  not by choice but by their very nature at that time. In these cases we
  would not expect a shallow person to change quickly, if at all, unless
  some equally traumatic experience were to happen to them to shift their
  underlying nature.

  Unfortunately it can be difficult to determine whether someone’s
  shallowness is more fundamental or more fictional. One person might be
  honesty-shallow because of some deep childhood trauma but another
  person might be honesty-shallow just because they were lied to in their
  last relationship and resolved in the short term to not trust a
  dishonest person in their next relationship. They later that next
  relationship might reveal another different flaw which results in their
  fixating upon a different characteristic to be shallow with respect to and they may well lose their honesty-shallowness.
  How can you tell? Only by knowing the person better, which can be
  difficult of course if they are shallow with respect to something that
  excludes you from being a person with whom they choose to interact.

  It’s also equally difficult to actually figure out what you are in fact
  shallow with respect to and try to change yourself to be less so. I
  think at one point in my life I was likely privacy-shallow. The only
  friendship which I can recall purposefully ending was due to the
  person’s invasions of my privacy and for no other reasons.  It didn’t
  matter what other features were worth while in that person,  the fact
  that they would choose to do such a thing to me was something I could
  not tolerate.  

  I don’t think I’m the same way anymore. Not really. Though privacy
  still concerns me, I think I’ve grown out of that stage where I feel
  that my privacy is my life and nobody better violate it. What changed?
  Nothing really as I can see. Just time passed, experiences happened,
  and I became a different person than I was before.

  I’m sure there are other ways in which I am shallow, but I can’t seem
  to identify them. Really how would you know until after the fact or
  unless someone points them out to you? Or maybe you do realize but it
  just doesn’t seem to matter since you can’t change your feelings of
  rejection that arise when approached by that thing about which you
  cannot accept because of the nature of your shallowness. Had I known at the time I was privacy-shallow would I have acted differently? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

  The only thing I can think of is that we just need to keep on
  struggling to keep our minds as open as possible. To in all cases try
  and see everything that a person is and understand all that there is
  about them that is worthy of remembrance. We may not change our
  opinions. We can’t always change ourselves. But at the very least we
  can be more fair to others if we understand the nature of where our ill
  feelings are coming from and we try our hardest to see people for who
  they truly are.

  • 2:49 pm
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