DETACH: The dark side of ABSTRACT. If we objectify our thinking too much we’ll begin to objectify people too. Individuals who play all-in on Systemland (or anywhere in the conceptual world, generally) become hyper-individualists who think of emotion, spirituality, and personal morality as vestigial weaknesses to overcome.
“Before you say ‘I love you’ you have to say the ‘I’” — Ayn Rand (perhaps the best modern example of detached thinking.)
But abstractions are a poor substitute for Normland patterns and create an obtuse, destructive kind of collectivism. When we swap patterns of relationship for conceptual ones, it looks like prioritizing binary logic trees and spreadsheets to answer the society-wide moral questions (e.g., Effective Altruism) or employing apps and psychological gaming to improve dating chances. When abstract scientific rationality becomes a solo arbiter for social policy, it doesn’t take long before we see rationalizations for some form of eugenics emerge — detaching people from life or the gene pool for the greater good of their family, society, or future generations.