We do not have to choose between these two theories. Sometimes the conscious goals are best, and the unconscious procrastinates in an undesirable fashion. Sometimes the unconscious is doing what is best, while consciousness struggles to cover the actions with a veneer of acceptability, for example by dissassociating itself from them.

Excellent point.

However, neuro professionals seem to prefer more complex explanations, and avoid using the term unconscious.

To me the theory that seems most consistent with research and my personal experience is that we have multiple selves (self modes/ego states/roles etc.), and only one of them is active at any time. Single continuous consciousness or self is an illusion of the mind.

Each self has it's own will. For example one self can decide to wake up early. If another self is active when we wake up, it can decide to do something else. Being consistent is not so much about will power, but about which self is active.

You can start to control your behavior better by first observing which self is active at any time, and later trying to control that, and not being identified by harmful selves, in other words by increasing your meta-cognitive capabilities.

You could say that your consciousness (or level of consciousness) increases when you are conscious about your consciousness. This is really very difficult, and in the beginning you can do only for short moments before you forget to be second-degree conscious again.

Whenever we talk about status it's always other people. I think maybe this is because keeping track of the conversation about status, and doing your regular subconscious monitoring of your own status, and consciously observing the subconscious monitoring of status by yourself and those around you all at once is just too much.

Also, making meta references went out of style a long time ago, and a person who wants to talk about status in general while talking about what status movements are occurring currently is going to have to use a lot (e.g. "I'll bet you wouldn't have made that comment about status if your status was lower.")

Reminds me of this C&H strip.

Funnily enough, one person reading my disrespect essay last week commented that it reminded him a lot of Johnstone, and recommended exactly that book. (I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.)

Your instances do not include politically incorrect statements (racist, sexist, or various other -ists, depending on who exactly is listening), whether factually incorrect or otherwise, which seem to be one of if not the major sources of serious offense.

A racist statement is usually one that, if accepted by the listener, will tend to lower the status of the targeted race. Same for other -ists. I'm not seeing how it doesn't fit with the status theory.

If I ran into a church picnic and started yelling obscenities, people would get offended, even though I'm not threatening their "high" status so much as advertising my "low" status.

Of course you're threatening their high status. You're implying that vulgar language is appropriate in their social circle, and the only way it could be appropriate is if they have low status.

you can make incredibly offensive comments towards a close friend with no ill effect, yet a person hearing the exchange might themselves be offended

Edit: On second thought, I think what's going on here is that once you're a close enough friend with someone, there is no longer a significant chance that you'd want to intentionally lower their status, so an otherwise offensive comment (especially in private) becomes a signal for close friendship. You're signaling that you believe your friendship is so close that your friend won't think you're intending harm, and by not taking offense, your friend then signals the same thing. This probably takes a mathematical model to make completely clear, but maybe you get the gist.

I'm having difficulty putting my finger on it, but this concept and definition don't seem to square with my understanding of offense in practice. Your instances do not include politically incorrect statements (racist, sexist, or various other -ists, depending on who exactly is listening), whether factually incorrect or otherwise, which seem to be one of if not the major sources of serious offense. There seems to be a strong bent towards maintaining the existing social order, as opposed to being concerned specifically with the status of the speaker. I'm trying to arrive at insight cogent enough to post, but, since I'm not there yet, I'd just hand-wavingly say that offense has more to do with the preservation of an existing social order than it does with status specifically; if I can back that up rigorously I'll comment or post on it.

As one example, taking offense to vulgar language or imagery does not seem to fit into this mold. If I ran into a church picnic and started yelling obscenities, people would get offended, even though I'm not threatening their "high" status so much as advertising my "low" status. This doesn't seem to be suggesting that a person or group should have low status, and "person" can't mean "me," since I doubt they're getting distressed on my behalf. "Preserving social order" seems to wrap it up pretty neatly, though.

It also doesn't seem to explain why (in some cases, for some people) you can make incredibly offensive comments towards a close friend with no ill effect, yet a person hearing the exchange might themselves be offended. This may be humor as a special case, but it doesn't seem to square with a status interpretation.

Indeed, I think that jajvirta was largely right in observing that status is fairly ubiquitous in human exchange. I think this simply rides on that ubiquity, rather than providing genuine insight. I'm working on the genuine insight myself, but I haven't gotten something cogent enough to post yet, unfortunately. I'm just fairly confident "status" does not pay enough rent.

Edit: spelled this out in another comment here.

I think maybe status is the wrong approach. Status sounds neutral enough and easily changed. But if we swap it out for the word 'power', then it works better, and now we can handle arguments about status, why people won't change their linguistic ways, etc.

I have an old essay on this at http://www.gwern.net/On%20Disrespect

I didn't think it appropriate for LW because it seemed a bit too fluffy and based on personal experience, but maybe this post shows I was wrong in that.

How about using LW to collect the data to answer this question?

For example by introducing tags to mark comments as sexist/racist/otherwise offensive, and few months period to collect data.

After that period there could be another thread to analyze the data and collectively decide how to continue?

"God exists."

How about this: The process of conscious thought has no causal relationship with human actions. It is a self-contained, useless process that reflects on memories and plans for the future. The plans bear no relationship to future actions, but we deceive ourselves about this after the fact. Behavior is an emergent property that cannot be consciously understood.

I read this post on my phone in the subway, and as I walked back to my apartment thinking of something to post, it felt different because I was suspicious that every experience was a mass self-deception.