A Person’s Ality

Alle and I were having a discussion in the city the other day, I was saying that drugs, such as marijuana, demonstrate how fragile our sense of ‘personality’ is and how I find that the concept of a personality is in practice equatable to a sort of prescriptive response, it’s not an entity that exists in the mind independently but is simply my ‘likely/reasoned’ response to a question, which I think all social situations can be described as, they’re all just questions of how will you respond, if at all.

She thinks that the personality is much more holistic and ingrained than simply a revolving answer sheet, something inherent, which an introduced drug can’t change but she agreed it can change the responses, she expanded by saying that the mind is perpetually introducing ‘drugs’ which alter responses, a simple example is that endorphins change your response, so then in my theory anytime there is a shift in the chemical make up of the brain the personality would change, she disagrees with this, she believes that even if the responses are changed it’s still the same personality.

I went on saying that when you attempt to describe someone, you speak in terms of their behaviour, "She is observant, kind and thorough." All of these things are the resultant actions of the answer sheet, so if when introducing marijuana that changes to say selfish, dull-witted, unobservant and aggressive it is difficult to argue that it’s the same personality, for that matter why is one behavioural set any more legitimate than the other? Why is the first personality any more real than the second?

Isn’t it fun engaging in a bit of high minded nonsense? It is interesting to take flawed ideas past their logical conclusion, to their absurd conclusion. Attempting to do a marvellous argumentative dance in full show of another person to see if you can get some semblance of a real, arguable, theory. Nothing like putting the best of your wit to the worst idea. Brent and I do it a lot, he is always very convincing at the time as his argumentative skills are unmatched by anyone I know, honestly he is absolutely masterful in that regard, however the tenets of his argument often come undone when his great throw away lines are reviewed with finer detail.

Hmm, I should mention that I make a distinction between a good arguer and an accurate arguer, does that make sense? It’s like a brilliant tap dancer who uses R&B backing music, it’s impressive and dazzling, but it’s absurd and often inappropriate, redundant or irrelevant.

So whilst I do enjoy that kind of silly nonsense don’t get me wrong, anyone who says they’re just playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ really ought to take a look at their idea of socially acceptable, it’s only enjoyable if both parties acknowledge it for what it is but continue amicably onward, contentious people are just fucking exhausting and very rarely do you find one who ever contributes ideas, they seem set only to criticise other ideas, which is again agitating but what makes them so deeply unpleasant is that they will do so whether they agree or not. Mostly they just want to argue, no, that’s not true, they just want to dominate others, there is no sport, nobility or meaning to it, it is utterly vulgar.

The devil’s advocate is an interesting and necessary concept for well considered discussions, so I don’t mind it in that regard, but the petty and aggressive use of it is just abhorrent.

Curiously what is your take on what makes up and or defines a personality?