Realistically, most people don’t construct their life stories with themselves as the villains. Everyone is the hero of their own story.
At tonight’s sequences-reading meetup, I argued that while it is a mistake to think that people typically see themselves as villains, it is also a mistake to think that they typically view themselves as heroes. Most people don’t have especially grand narratives, nor do they view themselves as very strongly moral in either direction (even though I believe there’s a trend toward positive self-image).
do you feel a sense of heroism—like righteous grand goodness—when it comes to your behavior or advocacy around politics, religion, or cultural opinions?
Yes very much
Sometimes/partially
Not really
Here are the (spoilered) results, after being up for a little over 2 hours and getting over 2,000 responses. Write down your predictions now if you want to actually test your models.
I saw this poll and thought to myself “gosh, politics, religion and cultural opinions sure are areas where I actively try to be non-heroic, as they aren’t where I wish to spend my energy”.
At tonight’s sequences-reading meetup, I argued that while it is a mistake to think that people typically see themselves as villains, it is also a mistake to think that they typically view themselves as heroes. Most people don’t have especially grand narratives, nor do they view themselves as very strongly moral in either direction (even though I believe there’s a trend toward positive self-image).
To get a little data on this question, resident Queen-of-Polls Aella polled over 2,000 people on the following question:
Here are the (spoilered) results, after being up for a little over 2 hours and getting over 2,000 responses. Write down your predictions now if you want to actually test your models.
Yes very much: 12.1%
Sometimes/partially: 27.2%
Not really: 60.7%
My comments on the results:
Once Aella told me she had sent out the poll, when I queried my anticipations, I actually predicted differently to the direction of my argument. (I later noted it was similar to the person who believes there’s a dragon in their garage but anticipates the flour falling to the ground). Anyway, given this poll, I predicted
Yes = 30%
Sometimes = 50%
No = 20%
Whereas in fact it was much more in-line with the argument I was giving. Not sure what that says about my world-models!
I saw this poll and thought to myself “gosh, politics, religion and cultural opinions sure are areas where I actively try to be non-heroic, as they aren’t where I wish to spend my energy”.
Do you think this is typical of people you know?
Yes, though I’m not confident.