I do think there is more going on here than signalling and applause lights, and there will be at least one more article where I explain the underlying thought process, and discuss both the utility and the danger of ritual.
I was referring to the specific paragraph, though other examples in the article can be found.
Not sure exactly what you mean—those words were very explicitly true. I am genuinely upset that there are not enough good, powerful, moving songs that express ideas that I genuinely believe in. I’ll elaborate on why later.
They were ALSO signalling and applause lights—this entire article is signaling and applause lights—but I think things can be signalling and applause lights while also saying true things and being important.
I think that the question here is, were you bothered by the songs because you really don’t like falsehood? Or were you bothered by them because you like to think of yourself as someone who doesn’t like falsehood?
Once I put it that way, it seems silly. Almost anyone is at least somewhat bothered by something they know to be false, the first time they encounter it. Almost anyone can eventually learn to live with that falsehood, without embracing it, if they want to. People differ in degree on this, with some being more innately honest and others being less bothered by lies. (My analogy here is how illogical phrases like “could care less”, which viscerally grated on me when I was younger, would long since ceased to have been peeves of mine if I hadn’t domesticated and fed those peeves as pets.)
But this innate honesty is almost never what I care about. Since actually noticing that God is a silly idea is, for most people, not a reflexive action, having sensible opinions about God (and many other things) is less a factor of an innate allergy to falsehood than of a learned ability to be hard-nosed about truth-seeking. And signalling and applause lights are a worthwhile kind of evidence about whether a person has that learned ability.
In other words: yeah, “itched at the back of my mind” may be something you chose to have happen, and the “my mind” there may be largely a constructed identity rather than innate characteristics. But since I actually care about your constructed identity, I don’t have a problem with that.
It’s actually not a matter of “the songs bothered me because they were wrong.” In fact, if that’s what people got from the paragraph, I should rewrite it.
What bothered me is that there did not exist other songs, just as beautiful, with just as much cultural weight behind them, which I truly believed it.
The christmas carols weren’t the problem, they were just the benchmark I had to compare a non-existent thing to.
I was referring to the specific paragraph, though other examples in the article can be found.
Not sure exactly what you mean—those words were very explicitly true. I am genuinely upset that there are not enough good, powerful, moving songs that express ideas that I genuinely believe in. I’ll elaborate on why later.
They were ALSO signalling and applause lights—this entire article is signaling and applause lights—but I think things can be signalling and applause lights while also saying true things and being important.
I think that the question here is, were you bothered by the songs because you really don’t like falsehood? Or were you bothered by them because you like to think of yourself as someone who doesn’t like falsehood?
Once I put it that way, it seems silly. Almost anyone is at least somewhat bothered by something they know to be false, the first time they encounter it. Almost anyone can eventually learn to live with that falsehood, without embracing it, if they want to. People differ in degree on this, with some being more innately honest and others being less bothered by lies. (My analogy here is how illogical phrases like “could care less”, which viscerally grated on me when I was younger, would long since ceased to have been peeves of mine if I hadn’t domesticated and fed those peeves as pets.)
But this innate honesty is almost never what I care about. Since actually noticing that God is a silly idea is, for most people, not a reflexive action, having sensible opinions about God (and many other things) is less a factor of an innate allergy to falsehood than of a learned ability to be hard-nosed about truth-seeking. And signalling and applause lights are a worthwhile kind of evidence about whether a person has that learned ability.
In other words: yeah, “itched at the back of my mind” may be something you chose to have happen, and the “my mind” there may be largely a constructed identity rather than innate characteristics. But since I actually care about your constructed identity, I don’t have a problem with that.
It’s actually not a matter of “the songs bothered me because they were wrong.” In fact, if that’s what people got from the paragraph, I should rewrite it.
What bothered me is that there did not exist other songs, just as beautiful, with just as much cultural weight behind them, which I truly believed it.
The christmas carols weren’t the problem, they were just the benchmark I had to compare a non-existent thing to.
Yes, I think you should rewrite. Not that it’s bad the way it is, but it would be better if it had this more positive message.