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Is it irrational to care what strangers think about you?

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We were talking about how to get over the fear of public speaking in my speech class and one of the other students thought that it would be best to just not care what other people think. Of course that wouldn't be practical in a persuasive speech among a variety of other settings, so I thought that maybe it's only irrational to care about what people think of you personally. What do you guys think?

Or is it only irrational when you let the fear of their judgment affect your actions/life/public speaking? And what if they weren't strangers? What if you wanted to be friends with them eventually, do you have to care what they think of you personally?

I don't think so. My thoughts were that your opinion of yourself is more important than what other people think of you. So it doesn't matter what people think/say about you because your opinion of yourself supersedes theirs, despite who they might be: friends, family, strangers. For example, you might think/say I'm strange/weird but I don't consider myself as that so my opinion of myself doesn't change despite what you might think about me.

Is this in accordance with Objectivist philosophy?

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I believe you are afraid that you might give a bad speech, not that you'll give a good speech and people will still hate you. The answer is to work as hard as you can on giving the best speech you possibly can. If you do that, there will be nothing to be afraid of. Even if the speech is not the best in the world, you will still have made enough progress in the area to be proud of it, and next time it will be even better.

As for the anxiety surrounding the event, you'll find that if you focus on work, and improving every aspect of your performance, it will become easier. Sure, you still might be anxious, but you'll be focused on the performance, and it will affect you less.

As for the opinions of others, that changes on a case by case basis. In this case, the opinion of the teacher is the most important, since you're in a class. But you have to admit the opinions of other students also matter to you, otherwise this would be just like any other class, with a written exam in it. It's not wrong to value other people's opinion, as long as their expectations are those of rational individuals (they judge you by how well you progressed, how well you are doing for yourself, not by some irrational standard like how altruistic you are, or how many cigarettes you can smoke in ten minutes).

But, of course, you should never let yourself be driven by their opinions, you must always ask yourself what you want, why you want it, and if you want something irrational, what you should want instead, and how to get there. Kinda like you just did B). So, to answer your question, no, it doesn't seem irrational to me to want to do well in front of your class, that's a perfectly good goal to have.

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We were talking about how to get over the fear of public speaking in my speech class and one of the other students thought that it would be best to just not care what other people think. Of course that wouldn't be practical in a persuasive speech among a variety of other settings, so I thought that maybe it's only irrational to care about what people think of you personally. What do you guys think?

It depends upon what is causing your fear of public speaking. The only way to get over such fear is to know your subject: communicating something is different than understanding a subject. If you really don't care what other people think, then why are you communicating with them? After all, a speaker is trying to impart knowledge, which means affecting what other people think. A speaker should not be focused on what other people think of him while preparing his speech or giving it. The speaker should be focused on the subject matter. But that shouldn't mean that you don't want others to think that you are a good speaker, or a knowledgeable person, or a dedicated person, or a rational person. One must objectively assess their opinion. After all, they could be right: you might be a good speaker or a poor speaker; without other peoples' opinions it may be difficult to assess one's abilities. Being told one is not doing something well gives one the opportunity to improve.

Or is it only irrational when you let the fear of their judgment affect your actions/life/public speaking? And what if they weren't strangers? What if you wanted to be friends with them eventually, do you have to care what they think of you personally?

I don't think so. My thoughts were that your opinion of yourself is more important than what other people think of you. So it doesn't matter what people think/say about you because your opinion of yourself supersedes theirs, despite who they might be: friends, family, strangers. For example, you might think/say I'm strange/weird but I don't consider myself as that so my opinion of myself doesn't change despite what you might think about me.

Is this in accordance with Objectivist philosophy?

It is only irrational when you let your emotions dictate your actions or judgment. You may have an opinion of yourself that is not objective or appropriate. So, what people say has to be evaluated objectively: is it true or not? One should not accept or dismiss without consideration. On the other hand, you have to realize that if you're going to speak to 100 people, you might get 100 different reactions to you abilities. Some who might say "He stinks" can be dismissed; some who say "He stinks because he did X, Y, Z" gives you something to consider about your technique or style or knowledge of the subject. So it is not their opinion per se that you're concerned with. Your focus would be "Did I do X, Y, Z?"

Edited by A is A
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You are not giving a speech in the desert.

You're giving a speech to people with expectations, backgrounds, beliefs, interests, etc.

It is in your rational interest to learn about your audience so that you can advance your goals.

And yes, it is also important to know how they see you, as you can be blind to some aspects of yourself.

But still you are the ultimate valuer. You are in control.

You are the one who will value your valuers. You are the one who will test, accept or reject any opinion, or inquire for more feedback.

So please try to not be intimidated by your public. They are potentially (and generally) a source of precious knowledge to you.

Hope this helps.

Edited by Hotu Matua
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The value of a person's opinion of you is equal to the person's real or potential value to you.

For example, lets say you aren't a big fan of wearing suits. That does not make you morally weak or conformist for wearing one to a job interview.

If someone holds some value for me I value their opinion of me because the reason I value them is that I admire something about them.

If someone could hold a value for me but I don't know them yet I care about their opinion in as far as it may have some effect on me.

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If someone could hold a value for me but I don't know them yet I care about their opinion in as far as it may have some effect on me.

I would argue that to some degree a stranger's opinion of you could serve as a truly third-party assessment of your personality. It can indeed be a useful thing to know what strangers think of you because their opinions of you are completely untainted by emotion, familiarity, or knowledge of determinist influences such as birthplace,childhood upbringing, etc. Of course, a stranger's evaluation of you must be taken with a grain of salt, and recognized as simply an assessment of your first impressions, but with the right amount of sound judgment on your own part, a stranger's first-minute opinion can be a useful tool for gauging the way you see yourself versus the way you might really be.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I would argue that to some degree a stranger's opinion of you could serve as a truly third-party assessment of your personality. It can indeed be a useful thing to know what strangers think of you because their opinions of you are completely untainted by emotion, familiarity, or knowledge of determinist influences such as birthplace,childhood upbringing, etc. Of course, a stranger's evaluation of you must be taken with a grain of salt, and recognized as simply an assessment of your first impressions, but with the right amount of sound judgment on your own part, a stranger's first-minute opinion can be a useful tool for gauging the way you see yourself versus the way you might really be.

While I agree that strangers opinions of you can be a useful tool i do not think that you should think that the way "you see yourself" is somehow less valid then how a stranger would judge you on a first impression. you may be able to gauge the way others will generally view you, but that may be totally irrelevant to "how you really are"

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