Rationalization
In his famous essay “The Myth of Sisyphus,” French philosopher Albert Camus describes the ridiculous sight of a man wildly gesticulating in a phone booth, citing this as a demonstration of life’s absurdity.[1] This, he implies, is a representation of the entire human condition: All of us making a big fuss, as if anything meant anything! We are all, each of us, mimes trapped in our own phone booths. The problem with this, of course, is that he stands outside and reports upon the situation “objectively,” as if he were an entomologist observing the comical behavior of an insect. Such is the attitude of the crude behaviorist who records outward gestures and acts and believes either that there is no inside at all or that, from the exterior, the inside can be sufficiently inferred, being secondary.
What Camus hereby ignores and minimizes is the lived reality of the caller, his first-person experience, which to him is undeniably a matter of importance. Perhaps the caller is talking with his ailing wife, discussing his job with his boss, or hearing that his child has been hospitalized; however, Camus never considers any of these possibilities—in fact, he discounts them entirely, content instead to view human life from a detached, external perspective, from which he can pronounce a general judgment on existence. This is largely the fault of which Hachiman, too, is guilty, especially throughout the first and second seasons. To give an example, he is always highly critical of his classmate Hayato Hayama’s clique, which he comments on from a distance, sitting at his desk, his head buried in his arms, mocking their falseness, their lack of intimacy, the shallowness of their conversations, the pettiness of their drama, and the weakness of their bonds. All groups, he has decided, are by default fake.
But like Camus, he has the privilege of being an outsider, giving him total discretion. Now, it is true that in many cases Hachiman’s diagnoses are correct—Hayato and his “friends,” Tobe, Hina, Yumiko, Yui, et al., are, in fact, petty, shallow, and not super close—but just because he is correct in a few judgments does not justify his broader claims. An armchair, or rather desk, psychologist, Hachiman has nobody to consult, but remains inside his head; he has never been in a group, so he has no firsthand experience of group dynamics, except what he has seen from afar. His deductions are nothing more than prejudgments. At the beginning of season two, Hachiman tells Hayato to his face that in trying to prevent his group from falling apart, what he is trying to save is probably not worth it if it needs saving.
The great irony is that by the end of the same season, he finds himself in the very same position, noting his own falseness in interacting with Yukino and Yui, the first group of which he has been a part and to which he feels an obligation. Therefore, it is only when he is in a group himself, when he has surrounded himself with people who care for him and for whom he cares, when he is finally on the inside and learns what friendship is and can be that Hachiman lives this out for himself internally, and can truly understand what is at stake in relationships. An outsider or a stranger never has stakes in what they are looking at from the safety of the sidelines; whereas someone who commits themselves to something or someone has a stake therein, the effects of which they will feel deeply. Indeed, this is the exact criticism Ms. Hiratsuka directs against Haruno toward the end of the third season, when the latter tells Hachiman that his relationships with Yukino and Yui are not genuine, but merely expressions of co-dependence.
To elaborate, if, upon observing a couple passing by, and having no acquaintance with them, I declare what they have to be false or not “real,” attributing some ulterior motives to either, then I have not made a deduction, but only succeeded in falsifying it. This abstraction at a distance does not disillusion; to decide from the outside that a thing is false is nothing but a falsification. There is something deeply false, in other words, in the very act of falsifying, from which follows the corrosiveness of skepticism and cynicism. There is a subtle difference between the words “mistrust” and “distrust” that I think bears upon this analysis. The two are the same in terms of outcome, namely, not trusting others, but they differ in how they arrive at that conclusion. I would argue that distrust is founded in mistrust, so the former is narrower than the latter. As the prefixes indicate, when I mistrust someone, I mistakenly trust them, usually unintentionally; and if I end up having enough negative experiences, then I may develop the inclination to distrust everyone, in which case, prior to all interactions, I automatically assume they are untrustworthy, self-interested, and disloyal.
This is sadly an all-too-common phenomenon; you most likely know someone in your life who may have been generally optimistic or happy but who, having had a bad romantic relationship or friendship, then declares that they will “never love again,” “never open myself up to another,” “never let my guard down,” “never make the mistake of being vulnerable,” etc. Once one has been hurt, one becomes closed off, understandably, and protects oneself from the possibility of it ever happening again. As creatures of custom, we make inductions all the time, generalizing from a few cases, so that if we have been fooled once, five times, ten times—then the whole of humanity is to be distrusted henceforward! This is not to diminish the very real and painful experiences of having been wronged, having one’s trust broken, being manipulated, being abandoned, or anything like that; rather, the point is that from a few incidents, whether isolated or closely connected, we tend to overcompensate, thinking that we are helping ourselves by erecting walls, when in reality, by closing others off from ourselves, concealing or repressing our feelings, and forsaking relationships, we only exacerbate our hurt.
To live in distrust, I propose, is to live a diminished life. Such is the existence Hachiman leads. Watching how he interacts with Hayato and some girls, Haruno observes, “You always try to read what’s behind every word and action. It’s […] like you’re afraid everyone has evil intentions” (S2E4 13:26). There are two aspects to this. The first is, as I have noted, life history. Due to his negative early experiences, having mistrusted others, Hachiman is generally distrustful in the present. Yet the second is something introduced earlier, i.e., projection. There is an extent to which Hachiman attributes his thinking to others, partly for explanatory value, though partly for self-protection. That is to say, despite being (overly) honest with those he dislikes, Hachiman is far from being open when it comes to his genuine feelings, about which he remains silent, particularly with Yukino and Yui. Thus, his uneasiness or reluctance to believe in sincerity is itself an expression of insincerity on his part.
I take it this is the unstated rationale behind his notorious “Nice Girls” speech, in which he doubts the realness of any expression of kindness, seeing it as disingenuous, impersonal, or utilitarian coming from a girl. There is no way, he thinks, that a girl could possibly—and for seemingly no reason at all—want to be nice to him, from which he deduces that there must, in every instance, be some sort of unseen gain or ploy at work. Notably, the occasion for his monologue comes after a stiff conversation with Yui. Earlier in the school year, he saved her dog from being run over, getting hit in the process and having to skip school for a while until he recovered. Surely, there is no conceivable reason why Yui should pay the slightest attention to him, he calculates, unless it is for the sake of paying him back, as it were; a way of saying “Thanks!”, being, therefore, ulteriorly motivated.
He reflects, “If the truth is cruel, then lies must be kind” (S1E5 21:37); and seeing as Yui is kind toward him, then as per the premises, her kindness must be a lie. The truth, correspondingly, is that in reality, beneath the appearances, Yui does not like him, or is indifferent to him. What he does not consider, of course—because, in this mode of thinking, he is incapable of considering it—is the possibility that her kindness is motivated by nothing other than kindness. He cannot comprehend kindness “for no reason,” even though it is arguably the case that kindness “for a reason” is undermined thereby. In other words, kindness is not “for” any reason because it should not be (unless we use a tautology: Being kind for the sake of kindness). Again, kindness, like other acts proceeding from the heart, does not fall under the domain of calculation or logical deduction.
Even the Underground Man, the great rationalist, the ultimate overthinker, realizes, at the end of his reflections, the futility of his way of life: “But reasoning,” he painfully admits, looking back at a shameful incident with a prostitute, “explains nothing, and consequently there’s no point in reasoning” (124).[2] He comes to acknowledge, as Heidegger pointed out, that the demand to render reasons is itself without reason; the compulsion to explain and provide a reason for everything—the ideal of rationalism—is at its heart deeply irrational.[3] Although we think that reasons provide the ground for a thing, it is really the case that rationalizing takes us away from life and ourselves. As soon as we set upon conceiving the rationale behind something a friend said, a gesture a classmate made, or the act of a stranger, as if each were a code to be demystified, we have become detached from them, more attached to the realm of imagination; we are the farthest from them in thought.
There is a secret order to the heart, an ordo amoris, which cannot in the final analysis be comprehended, but which must rather be experienced. Or as Pascal eloquently put it, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know” (Pensées, §277).[4] Haruno further indicates this in the third season. She tells Hachiman that, like her, he “can’t get drunk” (S3E2 (09:38). I take this to mean that, similarly to the Underground Man, no matter what he does, Hachiman can never turn off his mind—or, more specifically, the restlessly critical, distrustful voice that is constantly operating therein. The idea is that drinking is a way of quieting the inner voice in our heads; we want a little respite from the judgments we are always making, whether about ourselves or others, and a little intoxication takes the edge off. Yet these three characters—the Underground Man, Hachiman, and Haruno—do not find even this adequate. When the Underground Man has dinner with some old schoolmates, he gets maddeningly drunk, which happens not to defuse his thinking, but to fan its sparks into a conflagration. Hachiman only drinks coffee throughout the show, but Haruno, as I suggest, is implying that his critical function is something from which he cannot escape, something he cannot “turn off”; it is, to echo the Underground Man, a real sickness to think too much, which no numbing can mitigate.
Notes:
[1] The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays (1991), p. 15
[2] This may seem ironic, if not textually dishonest, considering the bulk of the Underground Man’s criticisms are directed precisely at rationalism, which overlooks and comes at the expense of humanity’s irrational side, its capacity for freedom. However, I defend calling him a rationalist for two reasons: (1) although he praises passion and emotion while denouncing reason, he engages in the latter for most of the book and comically desists from the former, being utterly incapable of acting upon his impulses, which are often impeded by reflection; (2) he can recognize and praise the importance of irrationality only because he has been cut off from it, being a well-educated man and living in an increasingly rationalized, Westernized Russia; it is precisely in his disconnection from his emotions, his analytic approach to them, that he laments this condition, for the rationalism he denounces is not some empty ideal, but his very own rationalism.
[3] Cf. The Principle of Reason (1962), pp. 11-2
[4] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm
Works cited:
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien, Vintage Books, 1991.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Vintage Books, 1994
Two metaphors are pertinent: The seed and the Sun. Of course, the seed metaphor is clichéd, expected, and perhaps overused: The mentor or tutor is someone who “waters the seed,” who manages to actualize and make grow the “seed”—the inner potential—of another person. According to this worldview, every single person contains within them infinite possibilities, but only some in their lifetimes are cultivated, more care and nourishment being shown to some over others. We might modify it to be more realistic by imagining some seeds to begin bigger than others, symbolizing predilections and skills, but the key point remains the same: Any seed, if shown enough attention, and watered by the right person, can grown, and this growth, while limited in some cases, is still growth nonetheless. Thus, as a writing tutor, my goal is to either “plant” the seed of writing if it does not already exist or to “fertilize and grow” that seed if it 
Alternatively, I can act as the Sun: As the provider and source of light, of vision, I highlight and draw out otherwise-neglected or -unknown aspects. Based on this paradigm, my purpose consists in transforming the very vision with which one views writing. By altering their perspective, by “shedding light” on certain details, by “enlightening” them, and by letting them see what previously escaped their vision, I can hope to show them what they have been missing, that to which they have been blind. In a sense, I function as the omniscient overseer since I “circle” the globe and have seen all there is to see, which is passed down as knowledge and maybe even wisdom. To be sure, I can combine both metaphors seeing as sunlight is necessary for the growth of a plant, which by nature turns toward the light. 
spontaneous, thoughtless, impulsive method works for many, I am sure, but I cannot do it; as I am writing these sentences, I am thinking along with them, thinking them through, allowing the words to feel themselves out across the page. Long sentences, which I love writing, are a good challenge because they require planning beforehand: I must know in advance to what end my sentence is moving, and it is merely a matter of removing the roadblocks which get in the way of its course, which might require taking detours, backtracking, and adding more connections. Then I might ask myself whether a semicolon, colon, comma, or em dash is required because they all do different things. I wonder whether it will read smoothly, if it has good rhythm, if any pronouns are vague or ambiguous; I am constantly thinking about how best to express myself, and this is how I lose track of time. 
was not only noticed, but appreciated and admired. I wanted to tell them that I had not done anything. But then it made me realize that the labors of a humble writer such as myself were worthwhile and actually had some effect—it usually just goes unnoticed. In fact, this is why we so often feel uncomfortable, demurring, “It was nothing, really,” when a skill of ours is pointed out: Intrinsicality, which develops as a result of devotion, practice, and skill, becomes so sedimented that it is interpreted as “natural,” something that inheres in us, no more questionable than the act of speaking, walking, or swallowing; that is, a writer who writes well and is marveled at feels awkward because, as a writer, what else could have been expected of them?
This widespread idea that people are at birth destined into some skill-based caste may seem very appealing, and perhaps there is more veracity to it than I have here considered, which will prompt some further research. A famous mathematician is likely to have a child with a knack for math and logic, while a poet will probably have a literary child—this seems to me likely. Yet it could also be the case that the 
So for now, suspending the question of deciding on this deterministic picture’s validity, but supposing that it 
governments, religions, and more. In short, we are dealing with 
Essentially, the optimistic answer to my initial question before diverting to politics—must we necessarily live such short-sighted, monochrome, and insulated lives?—is as follows: I neither think nor hope so; and consequently, returning to the original problem at hand, namely, varying talent in various subjects, I think the key is to appreciate that we are good at certain classes or practices while recognizing that although we may be bad at others, there is something equally valid and rewarding in those other activities, something that can be learned from them, leading to what the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer called a “fusion of horizons.” 
The reason I wanted to write this post is motivated by the following event: A while ago, one night, I was writing a page for a fictional work, which usually takes no more than 30 minutes, yet I ended up taking an entire hour and a half to write the singular page. I had an imaginary conversation with myself as I was getting ready for bed in which I pretended to be a friend of mine in order to get a reaction, and it occurred to me how insane such a thing would appear to someone else that I spent 90 minutes writing one page—and not even for school or because it was expected of me, but because I actually kind of had fun. Normally, I and anyone else would be frustrated spending so much time on something rather straightforward; it seems normal that anyone, if it took more than an hour, would call it quits and take it up the next day when one had the patience and energy; however, I kept going until I wrote the entire page. At first, even I was confused by myself, by the fact that against all expectations, I did not consider my night wasted or my work “uninspired,” “not worth it”; it was a genuinely enjoyable experience. 
does for its own sake—writing for the sake of writing, or for the sake of writing 
I came across the book by chance while browsing my university’s library, and, recognizing the author, and having a penchant for anything that has to do with the meaning of life—the title of the book is taken from the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, which itself borrows from his contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous dictum in Being and Nothingness that we are
Man, by nature—the argument goes—lives by and with meaning, showing that the historical context in which Smith is speaking, the ‘60s, is somehow aberrant, off course; whereas it is his goal to explain and/or solve this crisis. Hence, in his introduction, Smith discusses how cultural pessimism characterizes the post-War world. He compares this zeitgeist with the Ancient Greeks, for whom pessimism was a fringe and extreme sentiment—“an occasional Greek,” he says, flirted with antinatalism
Another implicit factor which I think Smith would acknowledge if pressed on is the symbolic and notorious announcement of Nietzsche about “God’s death,” despite its being an earlier development; because with it, an attitude of laxity and lostness sets in: without a transcendent foundation for morality or values, the nihilism of his and our day, Smith would contend, is only natural and to be expected. To fill this empty space, existentialism awards to humans the freedom to define themselves, to create their own values, a freedom which, as Kierkegaard and Sartre vividly put it,
without a meaning, Smith says, is directionless, and without direction, a civilization loses its way and flounders. He makes the provocative statement that we begin by posing answers and proceed from there to ask questions. For example, people create myths to survive, and from these stories, they create a narrative framework under which questions become possible and askable. It is on the basis of a story of the origin of water, for instance, that the question of its purpose can be raised. Yet this apparently insightful comment does not make much sense: an answer clearly cannot precede a question, for an answer is always an answer to something, which requires, first of all, that the something be raised, i.e., called into question. Anthropology, in short, teaches that meanings are vital.
Psychology, because it is the study not of collective humanity but of the individual human, arises in the midst of individualism. As soon as the collective grounding of meaning was lost, having been subjected to critical and historical analysis, resulting in a condition of anomie in which norms no longer hold up, psychology took it upon itself to provide help to those struggling to find value in their lives. Hence, Smith highlights the contributions of Viktor Frankl, the existential psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor who invented logotherapy, which declares the will-to-meaning to be man’s innate drive. Meaning, then, is not a luxury but a necessity; a “why” is needed to live on.
philosopher like Albert Camus will ask what it means for my life, or life in general, to have any meaning, but Rudolf Carnap will ask what this “meaning” means, that is, what significance, if any, such a proposition has. It is evidently Continental philosophy that is more closely aligned with Smith’s problem; however, rather than view Analytic philosophy as misguided or useless—which it is not—Smith wants to use its methods in application to Continental themes. While Analytic philosophy can get bogged down and restricted in its devotion to empiricism and cognitivism, its tools of inquiry can be carried over for better clarity. Such is Smith’s goal: to look at existential meaning through an analytic lens.
Meaning can be either articulable or inarticulable: can meaning be expressed in words or does it remain outside the realm of expression? Here, Smith posits degrees of communicability. Some things are fully articulate and can be put into words; others are merely tacit, meaning they are felt in some way, intuited, yet they resist speech; and others are what he calls “subceptual,” indicating that they are unconscious, making them “unknown knowns”—things we do not know we know. These degrees, furthermore, are convertible, like when we attempt in painting to get across our unnameable impulses and feelings or when in therapy a psychologist tries to bring out an unacknowledged truth.
(1) First, meaning requires pain and suffering. Alright, then. It is a brutal and honest start, to be sure, but it makes sense. Many philosophers, from the Buddha to Schopenhauer, have maintained that the one truth of life is the fact of suffering. Life can be and often is unpleasant. Such an acknowledgment is important because, without it, one would be lying; anything said about existence that excludes suffering as a key component is a misleading and false one. Yet it is the existence of pain as a first category that makes possible the second.
(2) 
(3) Endeavor. If I have a goal, an end to suffering, then I can work toward it. This presupposes, then, that I do have the capacity to do this; there is no point in having a goal which cannot be reached if one tries. Such a philosophy would be hopeless by definition. “The capacity for intentional self-transcendence,” Smith declares, “is the chief attribute that divides man from the lower animals.”
(4) Trust. A meaningful life is one in which I have assurance not only in myself and the world but also in this assurance being reciprocated. Trust is a relational term, so it requires that the one who trusts be themselves trusted. Otherwise, if in doing something good I do not feel fulfilled, if the world actively pushes me back and resists me, then such a life is not sustainable. It may be the case, however, that the world is actively resisting me, but the key to trust is maintaining it in spite thereof: resilience is a matter of having faith.
Accordingly, it strikes one as strange and impossible that a mathematician, a physicist, a musician, and a yo-yoer should all stand before a crowd of unshaped, directionless children and, with equal confidence, state matter-of-factly, “My path is the best”: “Math is the highest pursuit in life,” “Physics is the highest pursuit in life,” “Music is the highest pursuit in life”—”
But this is common sense. We surely understand these adults to be speaking subjectively, so it is absurd that we should expect them to add so trivial a phrase to the end of their speeches as though it were a much-needed disclaimer. If one occupation or passion were truly the best, greatest, and most meaningful, then we would expect more people to be doing it. But even this is a childish claim, as we know not everyone can do what is most meaningful or that about which one cares most considering there are jobs in society that need to be done and that are often neither desirable nor pleasurable. Both of these are fair and evident considerations, yet I do not intend to focus on them; instead, I will be ignoring them, expressing in more detail the uniqueness of one’s calling by sharing my recent thoughts.
This year, for class credits, I have been working in my school’s tutorial center as a writing tutor. My responsibility is to help students who need help with their English assignments, typically essays. For what deeper reason, beneath the surface-level motive of getting credits, did I choose to be a writing tutor? Simply and naïvely put, I wanted to get my fellow classmates to enjoy, or at least understand, their English classes. Ever since middle school, nearly every one of my contemporaries has consistently rated history as the most boring class and English the most hated, two opposite explanations being either that “We speak and write in English every day, so there is no reason to have an entire class on it” or that “I barely understand our language or what I’m saying.” 
Then, in response to protests that English is useless and a waste of time, English teachers eagerly and desperately defend their class by arguing that, on the contrary, their class is the most practical in everyday life since we are expected to write and speak well regardless of the field we end up entering, a claim which is then summarily attacked by students who are fed up with analyzing the symbolism hidden in an elaborately described doorway, the passing of nighttime, or a character’s name; explaining why an author used repetition in one place, emphasis in another, and rhetorical questions at the end; or having to engage in a “class Socratic” where participation is required and which is about a book that nobody cared to read or understand, that has no relevance to daily life in the 21
What I find problematic yet unavoidable is that the diversity of opinion regarding experiences in English class is thus attributed to some deterministic aspect; that is, whether one has a good time or does well in English depends upon the type of student one is, some people “just being good” at it while others are not, with those who have a good experience therefore being singled out as the exception because they have something in them, some quality—perhaps genetic, perhaps temperamental, perhaps superhuman—that sets them above the rest, distinguishing them as “those who do well in English,” as though it were a conspiratorial secret which only a few elites know but which is, and shall remain, forever inaccessible to those outside. 
Writing well and speaking well are enviable skills that seem as far off as competing in the Olympics, and those who enjoy the class must surely be naturally talented; hence, it is hopeless and futile for everyone else to “train,” as it were, or even to have hope, since “that is just how it is”—namely, they will never be good writers nor do well since writing is “not one of my strengths, fortes, or talents.” The sports analogy runs much deeper and is actually more apt than we might imagine inasmuch as talent is overrepresented and -valued in athletics just as it is in writing, the heritability of the two—sports and writing—quickly deconstructing when we examine them further: Inheriting “athleticism” is a vague, misleading notion since athleticism is nothing but a set or bundle of 
When it comes to doing work, whether it be tedious or demanding, it’s hard to get started and 
10 sentences—so a paragraph! And in Spanish?! Both my classmates and I pretty much always responded like this, and were filled with dread upon its being assigned. We would joke that we could hardly write a paragraph in English, so to have to do it in Spanish!—well, it couldn’t possibly be done. As our eyes flitted over the numerical requirements—five of these, 10 of these, and three of those—we groaned and agonized, not knowing how we would get through it, how we would even begin. It seemed a Herculean task. However, through the years, as I’ve completed more and more assignments, combatting procrastination, overcoming feelings of futility and uselessness, what I have observed in myself is that there are really two ways of approaching work, as I have mentioned; though I found myself, and others, primarily remaining stuck in the first. And what I have found is that, by clarifying the two, I have found that assignments which appear long and difficult tend to not take as long or require as much effort as I thought.
Prospective thinking is transcendent, that is, it views things from outside, above, like a bird’s eye view, taking the thing in as a whole. It represents the work to be done, creating an image of it, which is what we fret over; our mind amplifies it, enlarges it, and so it takes on an intimidating quality. Looking at my Spanish assignment, I go beyond the parts to what it is as a whole, and this yields something that thus becomes unmanageable, like a behemoth, a massive project that defies my grasp. In contrast, inspective thinking is immanent: Instead of looking at the project from beyond, it looks at the project from within, as it actually occurs in the bounds of what is asked. One does not stand outside, observing objectively and detachedly, like a spectator circling it; instead, one walks into it, 
Another way to conceptualize prospection is in grammatical terms, through the verbal tense of the infinitive, which takes the form of “To…” For example, I say to myself, “I have to write 10 sentences in Spanish.” From this perspective, my assignment consists entirely of infinitives; this means that there is something expected of me, and these expectations have an indeterminate sense. When I say, “I have to write 10 sentences in Spanish,” there is that residual sense of incompleteness, of deferral; I have not yet written these sentences, but their completion, and the obligation which it demands of me, looms, hangs over me, beckons—I have to x, I have to y. In this way, the project becomes overbearing.
Inspection, on the other hand, is characterized by the verbal tense of the present progressive, which takes the form of “-ing.” For example, I say to myself, “I am writing one of my 10 sentences in Spanish.” Here, the difference between the two is its largest, because one of them—prospection—is anticipatory in that it awaits an action to be completed; whereas the other, inspection, consists of the action itself, the engagement with the requirement. It is one thing to think that one has to write a sentence, which can be done whenever one wants, and another to realize that one is writing a sentence. Of course, before the sentence can be written, it has to be thought; and here, too, the distinction applies, for one can sit and think, “What am I to write?” while another can think the sentence improvisationally: “Cuando yo… asisto a…” and proceed from there.
see,” so they refer to how we see and conceptualize the world and our projects in it. Where they differ, is in the prefixes: Prospect has the prefix “pro-,” which can mean “forward” and “outside.” Thus, to prospect is to “look forward (to),” and this can be understood both in terms of space and time. Thinking of my Spanish assignment, I prospect it, I look forward to it, which now means one of two things: Either I am planning for it, thinking of it in advance, oriented toward the future, which is uncertain; or I am viewing it from outside, from afar, as if through binoculars—ultimately, the two meanings reinforce each other because I am at a distance from it, I distance myself from what “needs to be done.” Therefore, in prospecting, I can never hope to do my work because it is transcendent to me, because I transcend it, and because my futural grasp of it means it is infinitely undone, awaiting my initiative—in short, I am merely thinking about my Spanish project, which does nothing: It is impotent conjecture and imagination.
Although both the explorer and the prospector are united in their search, the act of “Looking-for…,” there is a subtle difference between the two, with the prospector depending on his find to justify himself, extrinsically motivated; meanwhile, the explorer is concerned with what she will actually find, intrinsically motivated. Tasked with writing a sentence in Spanish, I am confronted with these two options: I can think about the sentence I will write, or I can think through the sentence I will write. Suppose, though, that I encounter a block, and cannot think of a specific vocabulary term. If I think about the word, then I will rarely, if ever, find it; the word becomes a fog, vague and amorphous, drifting through my mind, eluding my grasp. Or, I can actively inspect the situation, grabbing my Spanish dictionary and flipping through it, looking at the words in order to determine which will fit best. This means I have to actually do the work.
To use yet another example, I can refer to my Physics homework, which can often be daunting. Opening up my textbook and flipping to the designated pages, I read the problem I have been assigned: Oh boy. How will I ever solve this?! I think to myself. It seems impossible. I’ll never get it done. In fact, now that I think about the problem even more, I realize that I’m going to have to do it in parts, and I realize that I’m going to have to use a bunch of the formulas I learned throughout the chapters. But having the formulas is not enough: I must also know which values to substitute for the algebraic symbols, then relate them to the diagram, and then x, then y, and then… It’s no use! This’ll take me an hour to do! Notice, though, how I used phrases and words like “think about,” “going to,” “have to,” “must,” “then,” all of which are temporal and obligational. In thinking prospectively, I put myself outside of the task—stand outside it, before it—and it becomes an unruly monster that must be slain, but whose magnitude prevents me from doing so; I set before myself a bunch of expectations, things “to do,” which intimidate me, prevent me from starting. Viewing it as a whole, and predicting that it will take me an hour, I think it hopeless, and will likely put it off.
Alternatively, I can decide with some willpower to begin inspecting the problem, thinking through it rather than merely about it. Thus, I write out what variables and formulas I know, draw an image representing the scenario, and begin relating them to each other. These individual acts are all things that I first know and, second, know how to do. If I forget a formula, then I flip through the book; if a variable, then I reread the problem closely. I inspect each item. I do not get caught up with the entirety of the problem, but concern myself with what I know to do, piece by piece, building from the bottom up. It is a matter of taking a deep breath and taking the leap. It is not enough to think “about” the thing; I must get up close, I must get within it, travel through it, as along a path, rather than flying up above from it, detached like a bird. Physics and Spanish must be done, not thought about. Prospecting leaves one in a ditch, where one becomes stuck; there is an impasse against which it is powerless. Sizing up the embankment will not get rid of it; rather one must take up a pickaxe or spade and set to work.
go within the contrast, that is, if we think through these two modes of cognition, then we realize that it is a dialectical relationship: Inspection cannot exist without prospective, and vice versa. Both elements are needed in order to work. Without prospection, inspection would be blind. In order to do something, we need to know what we have to do. We need the aerial view in order to chart a clear path and see how the parts relate to the whole. Identifying the problem in the first place then determining what it involves and what is required is integral to problem-solving. Equally true is that prospection without inspection is like a candle without a match: It cannot light, and nothing will come of it. The real thesis, then, is not that we should do away with prospection in favor of inspection, but rather that we ought not confuse prospection for inspection or neglect the latter altogether; in other words, thinking about a problem is not the same thing as doing the problem.
In the early ‘70s, Philip Zimbardo, a social psychologist, conducted an (in)famous experiment: The Stanford Prison study. Getting a group of students together to be his test subjects, he randomly assigned them into two groups, guards and prisoners. After just six days, Zimbardo had to stop the study, for it had gotten out of hand: The guards, who were psychologically stable, but who were equipped with uniforms, batons, and reflective glasses—providing a sense of anonymity, thus disinhibiting them—became increasingly violent and abusive, both physically and emotionally, toward their fellow students, who were themselves dressed in prison uniforms, shackled, and identified by numbers, dehumanizing them. 
In light of the murder of George Floyd on May 25 at the hands of a police officer and his fellow officers who stood idly by, worsened by the shooting soon after of Rayshard Brooks and a whole host of others, invoking the painful memories of the past murders of Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, to name just a few, and in reaction to the violent law enforcement response to protests for the Black Lives Matter movement, people who are upset with these unjust acts, perpetrated by the very people supposed to protect us, are seeking radical change while asking themselves constantly: Why does this keep happening? Why does it seem that police never learn, that police brutality continues, and 
that justice is kept deferred? Why, with all that is happening, does senseless, unnecessary violence haunt the streets and neighborhoods of America? When people of color fear for their lives every day, when concerned citizens who are freely and peacefully protesting are shot at with rubber bullets and gassed and beaten, and when safety is threatened by those who swear to ensure it, there will be cries of ACAB—All Cops Are Bastards—and calls for the defunding, and even abolition, of the police. In chaotic times like these, we look for reasons behind it all: What could possibly drive someone to act so cruelly? So in this post, I will be exploring (by no means exhaustively) the question of why police tend to resort to brutality. 
In the absence of school, work, and other obligations, and in the presence of our devices, which for the time being our only ways of access to our friends and family and the “outside world,” what better way to spend one’s newly acquired leisure time than to lie on one’s bed and entertain oneself by scrolling through one’s TikTok feed and watching the latest trends as they play out on the “For You” page? Whether or not this is better classified as “using” or “wasting” one’s time, for many it is their only way of staying sane; love it or hate it, TikTok serves as a community in these times, an outlet where people can interact with others and express themselves, get a laugh, or maybe make new friends. During times of crisis, we look for comfort in humor and other people. And when you pair this with the fact that everyone is locked in one place, with nothing better to do, you get a recipe for immense productivity and creativity, everyone looking to outdo each other in their jokes and skits. As a result, we witness dozens of trends on TikTok, some funny and original, others not so much, but all of them united by one thing: time. That is, while the content might differ dramatically, it is the form, or character, of trends that remains universal, namely that they all last for a brief period of time before “dying out,” or becoming unfunny and overused, then abandoned. In this post, inspired by a TikTok live stream, I want to explore what a trend is, what role TikTok plays in trends, and what makes trends problematic. 
example, we might now ask, “What is the difference between a trend, a fashion, and a fad?” Some will answer that a fashion is more historical, a fad more crazed, and a trend more lasting. Right away, though, we come up against the conflict of the lay and the educated: often, our attempts to classify, that is, to be scientific, are opposed to the way we experience things 
In order to be a crowd, the members of the group must give up their sense of personhood and have a common purpose. Hence, numbers do not matter; a crowd can be three people or it can be 50, just as long as it believes the same thing. Our idea of mob/herd mentality, or of a “hivemind,” originates from Le Bon’s work, in which he writes that the group assumes a collective mind, one that speaks for everyone involved. The collective mind is like the Leviathan in the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ political theory, the monarch who, by representing all individuals, thereby takes away their freedom. Since it is a “collective,” this mob mentality is greater than the sum of its parts, making it an entity of its own. No longer do the members make their own decisions; the mind makes it for them, and they obey it. It is as if each member dissolves into the collective. 
Now we can look at the exact role that TikTok has and how trends work there. To do this, it is important that we understand the function of TikTok. As a social media application, TikTok assumes its role as an extension of the 
However, it might seem strange to describe TikTok as a public sphere—and rightly so. Earlier, I described it as an “extension of the public sphere,” which is more accurate. In fact, TikTok is unique because it constitutes a new sphere, what we would call the 
making up a name for oneself, ridding oneself of one’s identity. At school, people know our names, know who we are; online, however, we are a blank slate, so nobody can hold us accountable. This is what makes cyberbullying prevalent: we cannot be held responsible because nobody knows who we are behind a screen. Putting this all together, one comes to a frightening thought: if the cybersphere simultaneously socializes—tells us what to value—and deindividualizes—takes away responsibility and selfhood—then to whom are we listening, and from where are we getting these so-called values? The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm called this “anonymous authority”—when we adopt values from seemingly nobody. After all, we can say that a trend on TikTok is perpetuated by individuals, and perhaps put together a chronology of who said what when, but at the end of the day, the truth is that it is not just one person to blame; on TikTok, values are truly anonymous (the word literally means “without a name”). 
A look at the algorithms should tell us… only, we cannot look at them because TikTok, run by a Chinese company, does not make its algorithm public. However, efforts have been made to understand at least a little about the algorithms, such that we know it operates according to a process called “collaborative filtering,” which makes predictions based on our past history as well as what other people like. The videos that appear on our “For You” page are therefore tricky at best. Several experiments have been conducted to show that, based on one’s liking tendencies, certain viewpoints become favored. This seems like commonsense. What makes this troublesome, however, is the blurred distinction between description and prescription: is TikTok recommending things that we really like or that we 
Polarization is something that ought to be taken seriously. Many of us, when we hear the word “polarize,” think it means “to break apart,” which is indeed one of its meanings—”to fragment.” However, psychologically, its meaning is much more important. Already, within the word, we see “polar”—think North and South Pole. The phenomenon of group polarization, therefore, refers to radicalization; it is when groups become extreme in their original views. Just as the North and South are opposite each other, never able to meet, so groups that are polarized are at opposite extremes and refuse conciliation. Polarization is a matter of pulling-apart, dividing. Consequently, we form in-groups with which we identify and out-groups which we designate as the enemy. Collaborative filtering creates filter bubbles, which polarize individuals into groups, creating an “us vs. them” mentality. Thus, we see the inevitable introduction of identity politics into TikTok.
Now, I wish to demonstrate what has just been said through an illustrative case study based on some of my own observations, in the hopes of providing insight into the collective behavior that takes place over TikTok. Specifically, I want to look at the case of sexism on TikTok. To begin, what is sexism? I shall define it as prejudice, or negative appraisal, toward members of another sex. Sexism is believing one sex is superior to another. (It should be noted that while it can affect men, sexism is primarily directed toward women.) Furthermore, one of the things which distinguishes sexism from other -isms and -phobias is its ambivalent character. Researchers contend that there are two types: 
What does this have to do with TikTok? Frankly, it is uncontroversial to state that TikTok is a place of tremendous strife with regards to sexism and prejudice in general. In reaction to the ‘50s, and reaching its heights in the ‘70s, the Women’s Liberation Movement made great strides forward in advancing women’s standing in America. When I was younger, having been raised in a small, friendly, and liberal city, I took it for granted that men and women were equal; I did not understand why people claimed women were lesser in any way. This might just be a purely subjective judgment, although maybe some will feel the same, but I feel that, moving in the direction toward liberal progress, the U.S. has become complacent, leading many, including myself, to falsely believe that we live in a post-sexist society—that is to say, as we have become more progressive, we believe we have “moved past/beyond” sexism. What this does is silence the matter, and de-problematize it. 
What leads me to say this? Well, one might argue that TikTok, for example, is perfectly democratic because, like the American Dream’s promise of making anyone rich, the TikTok Dream’s promise of making anyone famous (if only for a while) is open to everyone. Creators can be male, female, non-binary, young, old, white, black—it matters not… or does it? Despite our apparent liberalism, sexism is far from gone. Take, for instance, the following remarks that can be found in pretty much any comment section: “If a male made this, it would be funny,” “Waiting for a guy to remake this…,” “The ‘f’ in woman stands for funny,” “You’re actually funny for a female,” “What? A woman who’s funny?,” “We did it boys, we found one that’s actually funny!,” 
Is it the expression of “the people”? Is it representative of our times? I shall address this later. The fact is, each of the above cited quotations is evidence of a lingering patriarchy or—if you prefer to deny the existence thereof—male dominance. Is it really indicative of sexism, though? Isn’t it just an observation that, perhaps, 
were to comment, “Men are stronger than women,” then I would agree insofar as that is a biological, objective truth; however, to apply this level of competency to the comedic level, which, mind you, is subjective, and to declare that women are not as funny as men, is not a matter of fact but a matter of personal beliefs—though not good ones. We men are taught at a young age that we are the more “successful” sex, success being measured by our wealth, our social status, our political standing, 
language, so what could be so controversial about it? As she explained, though, how it was “unnatural”—forced—and thus overly formal—a cop might say, for instance, “The suspect is a female”—it made sense to me. It seems entirely acceptable to play this off as just being “oversensitive” or a “snowflake”—I thought so myself as she first began—but when I really thought about it, I realized what it really meant. To me, the word “female” has an objectifying character. By objectifying, I do not mean sexualizing, however; instead, what I mean is that “female,” drawing on its formality, its unnaturalness, turns women into an 
becomes “other,” in fact, 
lot of likes and followers from it? One of the sad things I have observed on TikTok is the self-degradation in which some girls engage, seemingly for this reason; they “go along” with gender roles to elicit the approval of male followers. Of course, I do not want to generalize: some do genuinely believe in such roles, but what I am concerned about is when girls do it 
group polarization and in-group favoritism. When we are in any conflict, we will usually side with our tribe. At that point, communication between the two camps is fruitless. This, in turn, leads to the in- and out-group homogeneity effects. When this happens, we see the group of which we are a part as being alike in its virtues, and the group to which we are opposed as being alike in its vices. Seen from the perspective of sex, boys might say, “All girls are the same: they’re promiscuous and stupid, whereas we boys have each other’s backs and are funny,” and girls might say, “All boys are the same: they’re cheaters and objectifying, whereas we girls are compassionate and loyal.” Do some say what they say because they have been indoctrinated by the all-encompassing monolith known as “The Boys”? 
funnier than women is not saying sexist remarks because one has social needs, but because one is sexist, plain and simple. This also makes it the hardest explanation to tackle because it is hard to change someone’s mind when it is already made up. In TikTok comments, one can read such things as “The girls are pressed now” or “All the females are silent because they can’t respond.” While these may have merit to them, they are also inherently provocative; the very post on which they are made was created to elicit these responses due to their beliefs. Both men and women are guilty here, as they often post videos which are controversial because they want to blame the other sex, resulting in conflicts which divide even more.
As Heidegger put it, idle talk is 
Psychologically, this resembles something known as “pluralistic ignorance.” A social psychologist writes, “[W]e often misperceive what is normative, particularly when others are too afraid or embarrassed to publicly present their true thoughts, feelings, and behaviors” (Kassin, 
However, we must not forget that there are people out there who, through their courage, and despite their minority status, 
Evidently, words like “simp,” derived from “simpleton,” and “incel,” derived from “involuntary celibate,” are overused and, as such, have lost their true meanings. Just as Le Bon explained, meaning and truth do not matter to crowds; as long as a word acquires some kind of normative significance, it can hold influence over people and their actions. As soon as a guy speaks out against mistreatment by girls, like if he had been cheated on by an ex-girlfriend, he is labeled an “incel” because that word, through careless use, somehow acquired the wide-ranging meaning of “anything remotely anti-feminist.” Yet the word 
and Time
and why we do the things we do. We learn, for example, about what enables a crowd to prosper, as well as the complex, nuanced reasons behind why we side with groups. In turn, this raises ethical questions. Is this a problem? Should we say the things we do? How do we fix it? and so on. I guess I should offer a disclaimer (more of a debrief, seeing as it is coming at the end) by saying that, for the most part, I enjoy TikTok and derive a lot of enjoyment from it. Some of the trends I criticized in this post, for example, are actually among my favorites. It is good to be able to compartmentalize, to enjoy something on the one hand and to be able to step back and criticize it on the other. Life is a pendulum swinging between humor and seriousness (where does irony lie?). It is important that we stop and think before we post or comment, but equally important that we not take jokes too seriously (what’s the line, though?). In the end, it is most important that we make the best of our time in quarantine, whether that means getting a laugh out of a TikTok, spending time with family, going outside, 
Neologikon 