lol I'm kinda glad Redhalberd decided to upload the whole match since it's getting quite a bit of attention from what I can tell.
And yeah I'm johning quite a bit but they're legit johns.
I'm going to do some philosophy here for a minute.
I think it's better to us, as a group engaged in a science (a way of coming into knowledge about a certain thing, -
i.e., winning at games), if 'john' is restricted to only those cases which are not legit.
It helps to make a distinction between
johns (excuses), and
explanations for losing.
What you have is an explanation for losing. It also appears to be a good explanation for losing. It is "legit," and stands up to scrutiny. We all believe it's true (and it is a matter of fact whether it is true or not), but also it is legit in that it allows you to preserve your credit - it, in being true, makes it "the right move" for people to remain as hopeful (or doubtful) of your ability as before, as opposed to giving good reason for people to believe there is less (or more) promise in your
Brawl play.
That is, it really does
excuse you for losing - only insofar as we let anything excuse a loss in a serious match, of course, even a friendly.
'Excuses' is a term that in common parlance, we use negatively much more commonly than otherwise - "making excuses" has one well-known interpretation. But because of the ambiguity that's still there between the 'empty' kind of excuse, and the ones which really do excuse the thing, we desired, as a community in which the idea of 'excuse' would figure
centrally in the things we intend to say, to create a technical term for it.
Thus was born the 'john'.
(I'm not saying this is historically what happened in terms of choices people knowingly made. But I do really believe that whatever happened, it can be understood this way.)
A john is an excuse which is not good. That is, it fails to meet some norm. (Norm is a technical term in philosophy meaning "something against which things are good or bad, succeed or fail, etc." Ideas which are subject to norms are called
normative.)
A john is an excuse which does not explain. It avoids responsibility for the loss
and for getting better. Saying "I lost because you were better" is sometimes called a john, which confuses me... of course it is an excuse. It is also true. What it isn't though is an explanation that takes up responsibility for what happened in a deep way. If it doesn't go any farther than saying someone was better, you have no route to changing that state of affairs. It neglects the norm it is subject to - that you should try to be better, to improve from losses (or never lose). Johnning is a normative idea. In particular, johnning is inherently
bad.
That is what makes a john a john, I think.
So, if you knew all this (or had them as prereflective thoughts, or just ideas that you knew 'behind' what you actually said, knowing you meant something fuzzy and nonstrict by what you wrote), then hey, I just wasted your time. But I would appreciate some feedback on this idea.
Does this make sense? (I'm asking anybody) "Legit john" is a fun thing to say, and we all get it... but do you really mean legit john, or is it just a way of saying something else in an informal way?
Thanks for reading.
