Jotted down at the gym a few days ago

[redbird]

Among my people, "Do you believe in that?" is not a very useful question.

I'm putting this here so I'll have a record of the thought once I recycle this piece of newspaper.

Comments

[kiya]

I occasionally wonder why people ask it.

(There's a coherent thought in here screaming to get out, but I don't have the energy to chase it down.)

[redbird]

I'm glad this is useful or interesting to someone besides me. I just wish I'd noted down what particular item about which that can be asked was on my mind at the time.

[kiya]

I've most often seen it done in the direction of pagan religious beliefs, most specifically polytheism, often with an edge of contempt. Also magical/ritual practice, including, incredibly unfortunately, funeral procedures.

I haven't seen it (that I remember) with things like 'can polyamory work?', but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened there.

I'd probably be less confounded by it if it didn't seem to most often come up with that sort of 'You couldn't possibly . . .' tone.

Not much more coherent, that.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it goes the other way.

"Mr. Buckley, you are far too intelligent a man to believe in God"--Ayn Rand, at their first and last meeting.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Among my people, "believing" has very different implications than it does elsewhere. I first realized this almost 17 years ago, when I overheard someone say, "I don't believe in alcohol." If I were designing the world, or society, or the subset of society I lived in at the time, I would have wanted to write the alcohol parameters differently. (And maybe left the stuff out altogether. It squicks me badly.) But I recognize that disbelief is not going to make the stuff go away. The woman I overheard didn't think she was making alcohol go away, not even that she was acting in a way that would cause alcohol to cease to exist if many others joined her in disbelief. (Like a Tinkerbell effect, in reverse.)

She said, "I don't believe in" when she meant, "I don't approve of." This is shockingly common. (Especially when you count the variants in risk assessment and quality engineering.) I hadn't realized quite how common until you pointed it out just now. I suspect it might be a feature of Newspeak.

[redbird]

That's the "believe in it?--I've seen it done" answer with regard to infant baptism.

I believe (for lack of a better term) that alcohol exists, and is used in various ways by many people (not only human). I think some of these uses are beneficial and some are not--and that some people have very odd ideas of fun.

Again, this isn't what I was reaching for, but I'm glad to have been the catalyst for that moment of noticing.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I try not to use the word "believe" at all. I generally don't "believe" anything; the furthest I will go is "This is my opinion right now, based on information and evidence to date." I think that many times, people's use of "I believe" is the sound of their minds closing.

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

I've always found this question aggressive, only rarely value-neutral, right up there with, "Is that so?" I think in response, "Of course it is, that's why I just said so!" (a bit trickier with belief, though - I remember speaking about a vampire novel to a church-going friend, who asked me if I believed in vampires...) I feel, the questioner poses it to imply that you are either a liar or a dupe, for believing something the questioner considers not worth belief.

I'm trying desperately to parse the words a la Suzette Hayden Elgin's books on verbal self-defense, and for the moment am getting nowhere. But it's early, and, at least as she says in one book, if you feel verbally attacked, then it is. I'm just not being very good at tracking down the specific language items of why that feels so for me.

Oh, yeah, and posing it as a question is a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing thing. Questions make the other look reasonable; a full-out honest declaration of their own position means the other has to go on the defense, rather than make you do all the work...

Eeep. I can't believe that just came out. Good find there, redbird

Crazy(off for some coffee, now...)Soph