Willfulness and content/position/sense cases may still exist, generally and possibly in spin-like ways, possibly with cases familiar, like a lawyer, like the young counterfeiter, like Bartleby, or like the Underground Man with people being/acting/thinking in consistent/different/wondering ways, more or less independently/relatedly/conciliantly. In some cases, if you don't like it you can go suck an egg may come into play with regard to content/rapprochement. Camus suggested, "There is no fate that cannot be overcome by scorn", though I'm not sure how you'd sassafras feel about being head down in the mud of an Inferno or something, whether some conceivable negatives are due to stupidity or malice, how about "no cruel and unusual punishment"? The latter part of Harry Nilsson's "Who Done It?" is kind of funny/pertinent, not that murder situations are common or wanted/liked/done by people like the singer in that song.

A multiplicity of contents/meanings has seemed to me a positive fact of life, in some ways/extents at least, for instance I like music and have some personal taste/freedom, though there may be some issues. While favored contents/interpretations may be most advantageous for some people at some time and place, local truth can be mistaken for global truth to the detriment of freedom, creativity, and diversity and at the risk of overrelying on flawed or incomplete building blocks. William H. Simon suggested, "A society which treats all conflict as a threat sacrifices individual development to conformism and impoverishes both self-expression and social relations. In such a society, where officially sanctioned patterns of behavior are perceived as coercively imposed, they engender cynicism and frustration. Where they are spontaneously adopted, they narrow the individual's perception of the world and of his own possibilities." The freedom of content/interpretation/perspective/will keeps society in flux, content/sense/people, possibly with “no one in complete agreement with anyone else about any of it”, though there is substantial thoroughfare of reality/content/sense, which can be substantially actual/true/congenial/agreeable (good/right is a parallel for congenial/agreeable, though they are not synonyms, considerably), generally and/or individually/particularly/availably, etc. 2+2=4 is a pretty solid example piece of benign/good/right/true content that exists, that people have and are pretty much same/agreed about. I can do it right now with my fingers, two fingers, one, two, two other fingers, one, two, them together, one, two, three, four, variousness/doubt/other-possibility case aside. School makes sense in a good/right/reasonable/suited way, in first principles circumstance/idealism and in good faith assumedly honestly/earnestly intended/done, with some positive nature/facility/validation/accountability, e.g., one's experience and understandability/conscience. The distance of the pitcher's mound from home plate makes sense. Vehicles are for transportation in space. I'm an excellent driver. Etc. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life", and I'm presently reading Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to have some coffee and read Jesus of Nazareth. Yeah. I usually get my underwear in 5-packs of boxers, different designs. Definitely boxers. If I was forced not to wear boxers, like one of the other kinds, that would be a detriment to my freedom, and who are you?, but you don't have to be exactly the same in these details. About this one, can definitely have different things you health/taste need/like fine in flexible/congenial case/proportion some. Some narrow/broad field/issues of good/right. Jesus says narrow is the way that leads to life, and in familiar-to-me normal situation/sense that is true and practiced significantly and does lead to life. I/people do things pretty specifically within conceivability/possibility in a sensible way, e.g., when I have to go to the grocery store I go to the grocery store and then return to my home and eat and drink water and stuff reasonably specifically to health/taste life maintenance - not sure if an apple a day'll keep the doctor away, or if motherhood and apple pie is truly wholesomely benign, amongst other things - though this is a sense/finding of that that is pretty common, not that rare. Some possibly further issues/specifics of whats/narrowness. Do you not do, like, armed robberies, cause that could be hazardous? God, no, not even if you asked me to. Heat is not my idea of a good time. I could, and might want to, wear plain white boxers, not that that specific detail's a big deal, and I don't want to set up rules that would be onerous or inappropriately/overly specific/consequential like if I step on a crack I break my mom's back, but I like good white, good/right/comfortable.

If one's objective is true/good/right/fair generally, then everything is actually there in the way that it is, possibly aside from how well you grasp it, how palatable/preferable it is, what it's actually like, content and sense reality as may be. There's a line in Samuel Beckett's Watt that says "no symbols where none intended" (is Watt probably a pun for what?). Willfulness and content/position cases may still exist, generally and possibly in spin-like ways, possibly with cases like the young counterfeiter, Bartleby, or the Underground Man acting or thinking in different ways. In some cases, if you don't like it you can go suck an egg may come into play with regard to content/rapprochement. Camus suggested, "There is no fate that cannot be overcome by scorn", though I'm not sure how you'd sassafras feel about being head down in the mud of an Inferno or something, whether some conceivable negatives are due to stupidity or malice, how about "no cruel and unusual punishment"? Or something like Harry Nilsson's "Who Done It?", the latter part's kind of funny/pertinent, not that murder situations are common or wanted/liked/done by people like the singer in that song.

Pluralistic Meaning

The multiplicity of meanings seems to me a positive fact of life, despite conflict it may engender. While favored interpretations may be most advantageous for some people at some time and place, we often mistake local truth for global truth to the detriment of freedom, creativity, and diversity and at the risk of overrelying on flawed or incomplete building blocks.

Everything You Say Has Another Meaning

-- By GregOrr - 12 Jun 2009

In my first paper, I discussed our reliance on precarious interpretations in communicating and making decisions. With the help of a chapter of Lawyerland called “All Great Problems Come from the Streets,” I’ll discuss the struggle over meaning within the legal profession.

Adjudicating Meaning

“This is a business in which everyone relies on representations,” Judge Day says. “Lawyers are the ones who invented spin.” She distinguishes this form of deceit, however, from outright misrepresentation. Of the less objectionable variety, she says, “Lawyers know too much. If you know too much, how don’t you lie?”

There’s “too much meaning”—by which Judge Day means ‘too many interpretations’ as opposed to ‘too important’. In the context of statutes, cases, facts, procedures, and various players, “everything you say has another meaning.” Since “a real lawyer has an ethical obligation to defend his or her client,” lawyers play with meaning opportunistically: using multiple definitions, varying levels of specificity, feigning or feeding misinterpretation, inducing fallacious reasoning (e.g. ad hominem), changing the story, etc. On one hand, “the posturing, the playacting, arguing over the smallest things, the narcissism, the beyond-belief egomania—it’s all part of that.” But on the other hand, “it’s inherent in the process.”

In the end a judge or jury adjudicates meaning by “discerning,” but even this is just an unscientific resonance between subjective interpretations.

The Winkers

This structure gives rise to a powerful and infuriating type, which I’ll call ‘the winker’. Winkers are well-prepared, tenacious, and endowed with heightened situational awareness. Situational awareness is the knowledge of underlying factors combined with perception of others’ projection and reception of (un)intended meanings. It’s the capacity suggested by the poker saying, “If you can’t spot the mark, then you’re the mark.”

Situational awareness puts a grouping in relief, with people operating at different levels of the conversation. Winkers can manipulate various levels simultaneously, perhaps by goading one toward a dead-end while winking at another. The winker can then use the winked-at (who feels good for being winked at) to reinforce the misdirection while he talks with his secretary about travel plans.

People capable of this sort of behavior are proud to be in tune and believe in their superiority. “People who say ‘I’m not a talker, I’m a listener,’ it’s nonsense. If you know how to talk, you know how to listen. If you know how to talk, you’re listening to what you’re saying. It’s those who don’t listen to what they’re saying who are the most insufferable people on earth.”

But Judge Day gives examples to show why people hate this sort of person. “He was looking straight at the girl with enormous confidence. You know, that look—and letting you know it—of knowing something you don’t. Of being above, somehow.” She is even disconcerted by someone she regards affectionately, “You never know about Paul. He sounds so sincere—the way he looks and talks—and he is, but sometimes you don’t know when he’s kidding you.” They seem to have exclusive access to a higher level of meaning.

The Insolent and Scared

In contrast, Judge Day presents the “insolent and scared,” people who resent the systemic and interpersonal imposition of meaning. Under this heading, she includes a young counterfeiter: “You know you’re going to put them in prison, and they know you know it, and they try to look right through you … Insolent. Toward you, toward themselves, toward life itself.” And she includes a former clerk: “He says—he’s quite agitated about it—that there no longer is a nation. What is really going on is that we’re in a state of civil wars … A Generation X lawyer has thoughts like this? Well, I can tell you, just because they may be insolent, and they are scared, doesn’t mean there aren’t some very serious sorts in their twenties roaming around out there.”

They don’t believe in the system's assignment of meaning, they don’t believe in the characters the system favors, and they express unlikely defiance. But they have doubts and fear for themselves—even Kafka said, “In the struggle between you and the world, back the world.”

Deep Answers?

Joseph’s inscription for Lawyerland is a quote from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet: “Don’t be confused by surfaces; in the depths, everything becomes law.” Is he telling us that uncertainty and contradiction are illusions and that we can become aware of law-like meaning? Are the insolent and scared mired in an immature, immobilizing reaction?

Judge Day offers a seemingly similar view: “Perhaps the finest lawyer I’ve ever known used to say—it was one of his cardinal rules—if you look hard enough for an answer, you’ll find it. Everything’s there, you just have to look for it.” But the lawyer later reappears to urge, “Do whatever you can to achieve your objective.” That statement, to me, recasts the first to mean that there will always be an argument to make for your objective. One side never definitively conquers the other. Like the young counterfeiter, Bartleby, or the Underground Man, we may always resist from unlikely positions with unlikely methods. So society remains in flux, in a perpetual state of civil wars, with “no one in complete agreement with anyone else about any of it.” An ongoing battle of wills determines reality and meaning.

Epistemological certainty may be untenable, and its pursuit could be an enervating roadblock to will formation and action. As Robert Frost quipped, “A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” I would hope, though, that it’s possible to take some core of personal meaning and individual purpose on faith—which I believe is consistent with Rilke—while allowing doubt and reflection to broaden horizons and provide tactical awareness. This perhaps approaches what’s meant by the buzzword ‘empathy’, and its calling card might be to reconcile opposing types by facilitating plural understanding.