Instrumentality.

[bluecherry]

Unfortunate truth it is that so many really DO do just that. However, don't write off all of humanity for that as it's not a universal thing. There are those that actually do try to change things about themselves that they find to be undesirable if they can not accept knowingly living with the issue(s).

 

[scotch0069]

Ill just say for a fore warning that i jsut skimmed the replies, (thats a lot of reading...) so if i repeat please do not hate me, it just means we think alike... with that said... Like bluecherry stated before when i think of the intrumentalism i do think about the Neon genises evangellion series... Now how this relates to the topic is not nessassarily the idea that people need acceptance its how the person defines his own reality through peoples eyes. Anything that they dont want they fight the idea that the person has or just numbly ignores it with uh huh, or ok. This can mostly be seen in our politicians in office today... They see themselves as supiour by using their positions to create a self image, and any one that dares to redifne what they think of them comes with violent and dangerous results. The politicians define their reality by what they are doing, and if something malfunctions they feel the hurt to their reality. (does that make sense? its kinda complicated...) If you want to go a bit deeper, instrumentalism to me sounds like the idea that their entire world is developed around that item, something earthly, materialized. Something that they can manipulate. So that their reality is that item... (kinda like video games)... This obvious to some people but not many because they dont want their bubble popped and realize that their world is comprised of something fallabe. I think i better stop or ill start going in circles i hope you get an idea of what im trying to say. (if you want to ask me directly pm me, im not online often. sweatdrop )  

[bluecherry]

Hmm...to me it sounds kind of like the idea in my psychology class mentioned last year of the "mirror self" theory of identity, that people base their identity off what they think others think of them. They then react like how they think will get others to think of them as they want them to and/or as they think others expect them to. This is extending it in this case to it effecting their view of reality a bit even too though. (Though not really quite to the extent of how it works in Mage: The Ascension or anything. You aren't proposing here that their mere thoughts alone can alter physical reality, just that they think of things in a certain way and think that that is how things are and do their best to refuse to believe it is different then they think.)