I thought the article provided a pretty clear definition: i.e., a preference for Mysterious, Prestigious, collective Authority over known, functional, individual capability.
Thank you for posting this, btw, because I hadn’t actually heard of it before, and reading the article allowed me to finally make sense of a way that my mother treated me as a child, that I couldn’t get my head around before. (Because it just seemed like she was demeaning me and my abilities personally, rather than simply having a semi-religious belief that no mere individual imperfect human could ever do something meaningful through their own actions, rather than through the divine authority of proper institutions.)
Oddly enough, I was actually trying to change a belief I’d picked up from her (that I can’t do anything meaningful or important “for real”) when I had the impulse to go look at LW and spotted your question, then read the article. It was just what I needed to wrap my head around the belief and remove it so that I don’t get nervous when I get close to doing something meaningful “for real”.
Indeed, what I found was that while I hadn’t fully internalized her belief in Ra, I effectively picked up as a background assumption the idea that only certain blessed people are allowed to market themselves successfully or succeed in business in a big way, or write Proper Books… and that I’m not one of them.
So even though I am about as anti-Ra in philosophy as they get, I still had a Ra-like alief that made me feel inadequate compared to the Mysterious Authorities when I tried writing books or promoting my work too effectively. (Versus the very ineffective methods of doing both that I’ve been doing for the past 14 years.) I’m very much looking forward to see what I can do when I don’t have Ra-induced feelings of inadequacy dogging my steps.
I thought the article provided a pretty clear definition: i.e., a preference for Mysterious, Prestigious, collective Authority over known, functional, individual capability.
Thank you for posting this, btw, because I hadn’t actually heard of it before, and reading the article allowed me to finally make sense of a way that my mother treated me as a child, that I couldn’t get my head around before. (Because it just seemed like she was demeaning me and my abilities personally, rather than simply having a semi-religious belief that no mere individual imperfect human could ever do something meaningful through their own actions, rather than through the divine authority of proper institutions.)
Oddly enough, I was actually trying to change a belief I’d picked up from her (that I can’t do anything meaningful or important “for real”) when I had the impulse to go look at LW and spotted your question, then read the article. It was just what I needed to wrap my head around the belief and remove it so that I don’t get nervous when I get close to doing something meaningful “for real”.
Indeed, what I found was that while I hadn’t fully internalized her belief in Ra, I effectively picked up as a background assumption the idea that only certain blessed people are allowed to market themselves successfully or succeed in business in a big way, or write Proper Books… and that I’m not one of them.
So even though I am about as anti-Ra in philosophy as they get, I still had a Ra-like alief that made me feel inadequate compared to the Mysterious Authorities when I tried writing books or promoting my work too effectively. (Versus the very ineffective methods of doing both that I’ve been doing for the past 14 years.) I’m very much looking forward to see what I can do when I don’t have Ra-induced feelings of inadequacy dogging my steps.
Great to hear that this article helped you