I couldn’t figure out which one
of these quotes to use, so here they are:

In most models of
reality — assessment, problem solving, policy, standards,
etc. — there is often an assumption that there is a negative
trait based on some standard… and to me this identifies it as
BS….

Example: I saw a neat assessment
model the other day that showed workaholism as a trait.

Whether they mean it too or not,
this word is pejorative, and holds that there is a negative
connotation to this trait by nature.

Obviously, someone like me is
overly sensitive to this connotation, in that my entire life
revolves around my work —> by design.  I love to work, or what
some people would call work, and certainly the overuse, as
workaholism, depicted by a pejorative trait.

Yet, it’s clear to me that
I find
@F-L-O-W and Happiness as well as Success in my design. Reiss
indicated that we find who we are through six modalities, one
of which is Work, the others I think I remember as Sports,
Family, Relationships, the Pursuit of Pleasure, and
Spirituality.

A model that elevated one of these
above the others, rather than noting how they fit and the
possible consequences emerging from that fitness, or emphasis
of one over the other, to me is BS.

@F-L-O-W tries to establish an idea that there is no
pejorative,
only thinking makes it so, as each condition in the
environment often calls for some "fit" and this
fitness is based on such, not an
apriori standard… which means there are standards created
through fitness and consequence.

The second we lean into judgment
about good or bad, we color the situation through our values,
rather than fitness and consequences. A person who was high on
family, might not be so high on the idea their spouse was high
on work… and there are fitness levels, compatibility issues
and consequences that are emergent from these equations.

To label someone as a familyholic
(which I have never seen because society is slanted in the OKness of family) would achieve the same
pejorative valuing
from those workaholics are us —> I think I hear the term
family balance again, I will throw up.<g>

[Side note: more than likely the
children of these workoholics often are not motivated much to
family anyway, and understand the needs for this trait
expression, or not. But it’s an idea to be checked out, versus
judged according to a narrow standard.]

What’s key to me, is the idea of
fitness and consequences.

Do we know the situation and the
appropriate fit, and can we discuss the consequences. Those
steps are pretty important in determining a path, rather than
projecting an unconscious standard into the mix of assessment
by suggesting by it’s existence something is pejorative or
bad, or for that matter good.

Too many of our assessment models,
reality models, problem solving models carry with them the
author’s bias of reality and don’t give us the neutral tools
we need to assess fitness and consequences, IMHO.

Helpful Hint:
While it’s obviously a relativist
position — relative to conditions — it may be less so than we
think due to the idea that even taking this perspective has
within it, some rigidity and dogma, so to speak —> that in
order to judge, we need fitness and consequences, before we
apply good and bad value judgments.  For those who think this
might be relativistic, one would want to see the fitness and
consequences of the model to judge it so.<G>

Action Step: Try this. The
next time you run across a model using pejorative language in
its reality making, ask yourself, is this a model that is
providing me with neutral (not pre-judged according to hidden,
or author standards) data exploration and filters, such that I
can identify fitness and consequences —> allowing sense to be
made from those data points.