[HN Gopher] How people learn to become resilient (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
How people learn to become resilient (2016)
Author : singold
Score : 70 points
Date : 2021-04-05 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| ericmcer wrote:
| In this sense, privilege just lets you circumvent having to learn
| to be resilient. You can choose the amount of stressors you want
| to let in. I have two friends who come from wealthy backgrounds,
| one is putting in 70-80hour weeks doing residency at a hospital,
| the other doesn't work and couldn't deal with the bay area rental
| market, so their parents purchased them a $1.5m home.
|
| I guess what I am getting at is there is a blend of self-respect,
| self-expectation, discipline, morality or something involved. At
| a certain point a person decides to stop trying to fight and be
| comfortable with whatever hand they have.
| emteycz wrote:
| I have many friends coming from wealthy backgrounds, and about
| half of them are very depressed. I myself am coming from a
| wealthy background, and have severe psychological and physical
| problems. I don't think this privilege stuff has much meaning
| in it.
| kiba wrote:
| As opposed to people experiencing trauma and failing to meet
| the challenge?
|
| I guess no matter what backgrounds we have, we have our own
| ways of failing.
| mucholove wrote:
| An interesting, and different aspect of "resilience" you sort
| of touch on but don't spell out is resistance to temptation.
| Avoiding gluttony if you refer to the deadly sins.
|
| Some family environments may "spoil" the child because wealth
| allows the care-givers to provide a "Brave New World" like
| environment to grow up in.
|
| This is very different than an environment where food and
| shelter isn't being met and the challenge is to acquire the
| basics.
|
| In an environment where "getting spoiled" might be an issue
| what is lacking is the fundamental need to develop autonomy and
| self-efficacy.
|
| This is the environment I grew up in.
|
| While a student--my dad was always trying to cheer me up with
| fancy dinners, and sumptuous gifts instead of trying to teach
| me how to create this same environment for myself.
|
| Later, as an adult--they would discourage me from all attempts
| to overcome struggle.
|
| Once I had a problem with a supplier while trying to launch a
| business and the first reaction out from my dad was that I
| should quit. My struggle was too much for my parents to bear.
| He didn't believe I could endure the challenge.
|
| Two things further complicate the situation.
|
| 1-
|
| The child in question may also be continually told that they
| are lucky to be provided for. Isolation may ensue.
|
| 2 -
|
| If only one parent is the breadwinner--the spouse may also end
| up being spoiled because they are out of touch with the
| circumstances that created the financial privilege.
|
| --
|
| Without going too much more into it, I do believe I have
| developed a much better sense of what to accept and what to
| reject as gifts. I'm not perfect at it, but here is my thinking
| right now.
|
| Reject material goods. Reject rent payments. Reject the payment
| of household expenses.
|
| Accept experiences and time together. This is not as easy as it
| sounds.
|
| For example, how should I pay for extra activities if my dad
| has picked out a luxurious resort and is inviting me on his
| dime? If it was my dollar, I would have opted for a much
| cheaper backpacking trip where 7 days camping equate to to one
| night at said resort. Still--I don't want to have a bad time
| while I'm on vacation and so I choose to do these activities
| which he is more than happy to pay for. (Previously I have been
| on miserable vacations where I did nothing fun because I felt
| bad about spending his money. Truth is--I can't afford this
| place on my own.)
|
| At the end of the day--we are a family and we need to get along
| and we need to understand each other. We need to spend time
| together. We actually even like spending time together.
|
| If I'm ever as financially successful as my father I need to
| make sure that these rules are clear up front for my children.
|
| The more complicated wrinkle is with my mother who divorced my
| father. She is spoiled and spends her money very poorly. There
| is nothing I wish for more than to see her run her life with
| self-efficacy. She should have enough self-restraint so that
| she can actually enjoy the very exciting things she does do in
| life. Still--she dosen't. In fact, she may never develop the
| capacity to do this for herself.
|
| Money is a powerful creature. If used correctly--it can really
| enhance life. If used incorrectly, it can destroy you. In my
| life--I have seen it do both.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I would argue that privilege comes in other forms than wealth,
| and at a certain point no amount of wealth might make up for a
| rough childhood, or broken relationships, and those things can
| drive people too. Some people don't work 70-hour weeks because
| of the money, or even because they enjoy it, but because on
| some level they are broken and it's an acceptable "addiction"
| that lets them avoid confronting their inner demons
| iliketosleep wrote:
| You make a good point. It's interesting how people seem to
| automatically equate hard work as automatically being a
| positive (or even as some kind of morality). In reality,
| without fully understanding an individual's true motivations,
| it's hard to make any kind of proper judgement.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yes. See also a great little book from ages ago called "The
| Hacker Ethic" by Pekka Himanen, which examines and
| critiques this "Protestant work ethic".
| maverickJ wrote:
| Interesting article.
|
| One place where one needs to build resilience is in how we work
| and how we learn new things. The key thing is developing
| skillsets that enable us to go through life. Some key tools are:
|
| 1. Understanding how humans work: On why the early stages of work
| tend to be stressful.
|
| 2. Pushing through pain points: On the power of mental reframing.
|
| 3. Seeking motivation from within: Especially on large projects
| where you're just a cog in the wheel.
|
| This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/humans-and-
| work-thre... explores this further.
| paulpauper wrote:
| No mention of IQ anywhere in the article. I am sure IQ plays a
| major role in terms of outcomes. Often children from
| disadvantaged backgrounds and abusive/negligent parents who pull
| themselves up tend to also be smarter than average.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| The article actually says the opposite, that these kids weren't
| particularly smart.
|
| "Though not especially gifted, these children used whatever
| skills they had effectively"
|
| At least that's how I interpreted the above quote.
| kian wrote:
| The only prescription this article appears to make is "Positive
| Construal" -- thinking of potentially traumatic events as
| opportunities for growth, learning, and forming tighter social
| and community bonds seems to prevent them from becoming actually
| traumatizing.
| watwut wrote:
| People naturally build bonds with others in traumatic
| circumstances. It is called trauma bonding. One unfortunate
| side effect is that it makes out harder for abuse victim to
| leave abuser. Unfortunately, that mechanism works regardless of
| who caused the initial issue.
| mikelyons wrote:
| Is that where "builds character" comes from?
| watwut wrote:
| It is how you learn to cope. It does not mean you necessary
| end up as overall better person. This is about people who are
| on edge of being dysfunctional due to issues happening to
| them.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| "In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has
| shown that teaching people to think of stimuli in different
| ways--to reframe them in positive terms when the initial
| response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the
| initial response is emotionally "hot"--changes how they
| experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to
| better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have
| lasting effects."
|
| For some additional prescriptive details.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _How People Learn to Become Resilient_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083526 - Feb 2016 (25
| comments)
| inv13 wrote:
| I had the same nearly the same situation, like 70% to 80% of the
| sandwich kid mentioned in the beginning.
|
| Its impossible to read a summary of what have happened with me,
| because it would be so long that I would never end.
|
| A short summary of the beginning would be something like this: I
| just never accepted anything coming from adults, teachers. I saw
| when they said something to me, than the next second do the very
| opposite. And I realized that when my parents divorced, that
| everything that I learned from them needs to be erased. They
| could not tell why they divorced, a specific reason. Because it
| never really is about one thing from what I can tell now. It was
| not something I come up with, it was more like a realization,
| hard truth, something that hit me hard, or something around these
| lines. And then I just proceeded to build up a mental image about
| the world from the ground up. I guess we all do that while
| growing up, but I really just couldn't accept anything anyone
| told me to do, or think the way they want me to.
|
| Cant say that I 'am a very successful person. Sometimes I can be
| spot on, even on very large scale questions, using my own version
| of the world. I was able to make a really good investment choice,
| when everyone was shitting themselves, and running around like a
| beheaded chicken that the world was about to end. 2008 financial
| crisis and Covid. (I was in 7th grade in 2008 with really shitty
| grades) And sometimes I miss by a mile, usually when around
| topics where feelings must be involved. That is the part that I
| am trying to get better since I've realized.
|
| I think its more about some things can make you or brake you.
| Resilience is understanding the real reasons why something
| happened. Like someone got angry at work when I asked him to send
| some documents for me. If the person is rude and got, to some
| extent angry at me, than I could translate that as that person
| not liking me, or that the person has some difficulties at home.
| In the first choice we could grind on about why is that, what
| have I done wrong, where in the other, you just move on. At least
| in my experience.
| psychtrauma wrote:
| 'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive
| personal trait to be proud of.
|
| However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple
| reflection of the undue trauma I faced and was required to
| handle.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| In the article Konnikova (and Seligman) describes resilience as
| a product of methods that can be taught. The framing is that
| resilience is an interpretive skill.
|
| The Konnikova article links to a NYTimes article [0] which in
| turn (in the reader comments) links to a HuffPost article [1]
| by a medical school specialist on PTSD. Quoting from that: "The
| American Psychological Association defines resilience as 'the
| process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma,
| tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.' ...
| Resilience is common and can be witnessed all around us. Even
| better, we learned that everyone can learn and train to be more
| resilient. The key involves knowing how to harness stress and
| use it to our advantage. "
|
| The problem with resilience as a skill is that "resilience" may
| be a skill you don't have before you need it. How can one be
| expected to have total control over one's "construal"? Trauma,
| like grief, is personal and subjective. Emotion is immediate.
| We feel the way we feel. In a crisis, should one feel worse
| because you are not yet deploying the resilience? Resilience is
| not one sure trick but an interpretative mindset set that may
| or may not be available to you when something that you may or
| may not be able to understand has happened to you. One could
| view therapy as a process of developing over time a resilient
| response to experienced trauma.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-
| emp... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-
| resilience_b_1881666
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the
| calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar.
|
| Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and
| do something bigger.
| rzzzt wrote:
| For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The
| green ones return to their original shape easily once force
| is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible,
| but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated
| bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either
| type.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
| watwut wrote:
| That is motivational, but inaccurate.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| No one ever became stronger by getting their legs crushed
| by a ton of metal. In fact, I'd argue they mostly became
| weaker.
| majormajor wrote:
| This is certainly wildly untrue for many sorts of trauma.
| What doesn't kill you can leave you less capable, weaker,
| more vulnerable, etc...
|
| You might have to be resilient to deal with the trauma
| without collapsing, and then find that you _still_ have to
| be resilient to deal with your new, permanently changed
| life after the fact too.
| throwaway3b03 wrote:
| We either read different articles, or have almost contradictory
| viewpoints. I have deep background in developmental trauma,
| developmental psychology, and trauma is in fact what destroys
| the resilience mentioned in the article.
|
| You don't become resilient due to going through trauma, you are
| resilient when your body is in a certain physiological state
| (which is reflected throughout, from brainwaves, to vagal tone,
| to digestive system functioning, to immune system etc). Trauma
| is an event that takes the body out of that state into a state
| of fear/fight-or-flight. This state can become chronic if the
| perceived state of danger is maintained (even if the actual
| physical danger may no longer be relevant, the thought patterns
| developed could continue for the rest of person's life for
| instance). Some people go their whole lives with the coping
| behaviors developed in response to that trauma (whether it's
| workoholism, addiction etc).
|
| Also important to mention is that there's a window of time
| between birth (and even before) and the very early childhood
| when the brain structures related to affect regulation are
| developed. Trauma in that period is likely to affect a person
| severely for a lifetime.
|
| In other words, trauma is what makes a person less resilient.
| Lack of stressors does not make a person less resilient, on the
| contrary. Learned helplessness is an extremely common outcome
| of severe trauma, which is quite the opposite of resilience.
| type0 wrote:
| The impact of trauma is important, monoamine oxidase A is one
| of the genes that is often shaping the outcome.
|
| https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-
| syr...
| majormajor wrote:
| If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is
| anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider
| those who faced trauma and failed to handle it.
|
| I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling
| in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with
| something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does
| a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the
| pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're
| still here.
| psychtrauma wrote:
| > I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma
| and failed to handle it.
|
| I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is
| an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply.
| But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be
| proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better'
| than those other people.
|
| Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.
| Fellshard wrote:
| You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent
| reasons for doing so -- merely saying 'I changed my mind'
| is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're
| expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to
| authoritatively create truth.
| gonetherapin wrote:
| hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree
| with you.
|
| i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me
| resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd
| rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and
| effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without.
| and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal
| can attest to that fact.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Not being resilient doesn't mean not having to experience
| trauma though. If you're saying you'd be happy to not be
| resilient _if it meant not experiencing trauma_ then I
| can see your point.
| akoncius wrote:
| contradiction:
|
| I have a personality type which crumbles on every
| occurrence of some challenges in life, and I'm havin
| nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of
| that emotion is "why me, I don't want this problem in my
| life". and frequently for short periods of time I'm on
| the verge of giving up.
|
| what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events
| in my life are kinda inevitable, and it's up to me to
| decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is
| trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining
| that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting
| older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable)
| unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so
| on. so having resiliency _is_ a good thing, regardless if
| you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you _should_
| be proud that you handled it well.
| akoncius wrote:
| on the other hand: you said you would rather not be
| resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to
| the exact same trauma you experienced previously?
| assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma
| at all.
| watwut wrote:
| The person you are responding to would prefer to never
| having to go through trauma and would be fine with never
| building that additional resilience. That trauma is not
| good price for the supposed resilience he got.
|
| And I can add that another benefit for him would be time
| and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a
| lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it
| is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.
| majormajor wrote:
| Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types.
|
| "Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer.
| We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that,
| but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer"
| really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being
| unlucky?
|
| That would be a very different statement to make about a
| trauma inflicted by another human, though.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life
| should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered
| view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided
| by modern technology and the invisible labor from less
| privelidged people and those who lived and died before us.
|
| Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and
| always will be a defining characteristic of successful
| people... Of whom we are descendents.
| haswell wrote:
| > _Trauma is the natural state of the universe._
|
| As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of
| survival, it's difficult to communicate just how strongly
| I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and
| the sentiment behind it.
|
| It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and
| trivializes the experiences of those who've been
| subjected to things that are anything but natural.
|
| Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being
| "natural". Trauma, by definition, is the opposite,
| prevalent though it may be.
|
| And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the
| same category, my conclusion would be very different than
| yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be
| doing everything to change that state, not throw up our
| hands and conclude "oh well, that's just the way things
| are, and the best survive".
|
| Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly:
| racism.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >Trauma is the natural state of the universe.
|
| I agree with everything you said.
|
| Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural
| state of the universe is shit and we should seriously
| fight against it.
|
| There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of
| the universe. Nature is a bitch.
|
| But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good
| and make the environment better.
| [deleted]
| KittenInABox wrote:
| The defining characteristic of successful people IMO is
| not resilience but that their life has given them the
| opportunity to be successful in the first place!
|
| There is nothing hyper-modern about condemning war,
| sexual assault, child abuse, and genocide. These things
| have been viewed as terrible by various civilizations
| since civilization existed.
| wiggumspiggums wrote:
| I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps
| the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies
| can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual
| abuse, war, etc.
|
| I would have thought that since traumatic experiences
| have been around forever, humans would have adapted to
| dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical
| evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing
| from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is
| something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most
| awful cases).
|
| I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's
| the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore
| further:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-
| keeps-...
| currymj wrote:
| a major part of 12-step programs is getting people to shift to an
| external locus of control. they're supposed to accept that they
| have a permanent problem that it's totally beyond their power to
| fix.
|
| somehow this helps people make difficult, lasting changes in
| their lives that were previously beyond them, which is exactly
| the opposite of what should happen according to the research
| profiled in this article.
|
| I think it's probably valuable to have an accurate locus of
| control -- the serenity to accept the things you cannot change,
| the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know
| the difference.
|
| Unfortunately this idea that an internal locus of control is
| always the superior, correct attitude is already floating out
| into pop psychology in schools and workplaces. I'm sure the
| actual research is nuanced and interesting but that's not what's
| reaching people.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| For what it's worth, I don't think the twelve step program
| should be universally lauded such as it is. Does it help
| people? Absolutely. Could there be a better way? Probably.
| leetcrew wrote:
| hard to attack something that is already the status quo and
| free.
| cambalache wrote:
| I cannot wait to see n-gate.com take on this thread. People one-
| upping each other by humblebragging how they recovered from
| severe trauma and how they are not actually better for having
| done so.
| rednerrus wrote:
| Someone smarter than I am should draw parallels from this to
| modern social justice movements.
| ericmcer wrote:
| "Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. "We can become
| less resilient, or less likely to be resilient," Bonanno says.
| "We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own
| minds. That's the danger of the human condition.""
|
| It isn't that difficult to draw parallels lol.
| [deleted]
| ceh123 wrote:
| >Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children
| had what psychologists call an "internal locus of control":
| they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected
| their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as
| the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that
| measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard
| deviations away from the standardization group.
|
| This sort of reasoning is exactly why I intentionally moved
| away from leftist frameworks that (although many of them I
| would argue are more correct) focus heavily on systemic
| critiques. This is my main problem with a good amount of
| leftist philosophy and why I much prefer the frameworks of
| post-modernists.
|
| Even when the systemic analysis might be correct, if your goal
| is to improve your life it is far more important to move the
| locus of control into yourself rather than examine things
| outside your control that might be working against you.
|
| Edit: e.g. if you want to get a new/better job it's far more
| productive after receiving a rejection letter to ask questions
| like "what did I do wrong?" and "what can I do differently next
| time?" than it is to worry about what systemic factors make you
| less likely to get the job.
|
| I also want to be explicit that this is not a critique of the
| validity or importance of systemic critiques, more so just what
| I found to be practical in my life.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| What's interesting is that what matters most is the amount of
| agency you perceive yourself to have, rather than the 'real'
| amount (which, admittedly, probably doesn't exist, but our
| brains trick us into thinking it does).
|
| Based on some of the movements that seem to be picking up
| steam, and my own life, I believe there's something about
| this current time that promotes a diminished locus of
| control. There seems to be a real appeal of ideas who that
| speak to this need.
|
| It's quite a mindvirus. Even if you know you have it, you
| can't quite shrug it off.
| newacct583 wrote:
| I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think
| that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you
| think there are, but you don't want to because the
| disadvantaged should just be resilient instead?
|
| It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to
| pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's
| rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you
| don't like their tactics.
| nxc18 wrote:
| The way leftists approach fixing systemic issues is
| fundamentally incompatible with actually changing anything.
| The smart leftists work towards positive change by doing
| disgusting things like engaging in compromise and working
| with people who aren't ideologically pure; when they do
| such things they inadvertently reveal themselves to be
| something far more horrible, like a liberal or a
| progressive-but-not-progressive-enough.
|
| Can you explain what exactly you want to see and how
| burning anything or tearing down statues accomplishes that?
| As far as I can tell, all it accomplished was status quo,
| with a lot more people feeling threatened by leftists.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| They're doing a damned poor job of being threatening
| given how popular they've been on a national political
| level in the US.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Taboo on the word "leftists". You're otherizing, I don't
| think it's helpful.
|
| I don't see the people you're referring to as being in
| the driver's seat of any meaningful change that's
| actually being considered in a way that might actually
| lead to implementation.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Yes, exactly, they are not in the drivers seat because
| they systematically choose not to be in the drivers seat.
|
| I don't know if its necessarily wrong to otherize the
| people who smash windows in my community, spray paint
| graffiti on the walls (Land Back! Pigs must die! Kill
| cops! Rent is theft!). If anything, I think they have
| chosen to make themselves the enemy of the community they
| live in by refusing to productively engage with it.
|
| Its really frustrating seeing people who purport to want
| progress actively destroy community will to make progress
| on things. They make things a lot harder for the people
| who are trying to make good changes happen.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I think it's always wrong to otherize, though I get your
| frustration.
|
| It's fairly interesting to me to see this relatively
| small group of people causing fairly limited damage be
| the focus of so much attention, rather than the ideas and
| concepts of more influential (and therefore relevant)
| social justice advocates.
|
| It's noisy and grabs your attention yes, but I think it's
| a mistake to think of it as representative of anything
| other than the specific people causing the damage.
| watwut wrote:
| If left wing does something wrong, it is left wing fault.
| If right wrong does something wrong, or is left wing
| fault because left made them do it.
|
| But, it is never the case that right made left do
| something bad.
| kiba wrote:
| I don't think that's what he's arguing.
|
| Systematic problems are worth correcting and shouldn't be
| ignored.
|
| The problem is that systematic problems requiring
| systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for
| individual behavior in the meantime.
|
| You can't wait for problems to get fixed. Even if you're
| working hard or contributing money to those that are
| working to get problems fixed, you're still stuck in
| whatever circumstances you are in. It may be a long time
| for these problems to be fixed, in the meantime we're the
| heroes(or villains) of our own stories.
| ceh123 wrote:
| Yup, this is exactly what I was trying to say.
|
| Systemic critiques are absolutely necessary to improve
| society, but you can't live every day only in a systemic
| mindset because that will inevitably move your locus of
| control much farther outside yourself.
| rednerrus wrote:
| This is what I was trying to get at with my original
| post.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| majormajor wrote:
| I think we're all lucky that not everyone's goals are just to
| improve their own life, but that some people want to improve
| society too.
|
| If you were ill you'd want the doctor who told you both
| "here's how to cope" and "here's how we cure this thing," not
| the one who stopped at the first.
| ceh123 wrote:
| To quote from kiba's reply elsewhere in this thread:
|
| >The problem is that systematic problems requiring
| systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for
| individual behavior in the meantime.
|
| To twist your analogy around, it's more like having a
| doctor say "you probably got cancer because you lived next
| to a coal plant." Incredibly important information to have
| societally, should absolutely be considered and maybe even
| an have impact on policy. However, that does nothing for
| the patient today.
| watwut wrote:
| It does not take away anything from patient either. It
| may push him into changing place where he lives, so that
| further harm is prevented both to him and his family.
|
| Also, if that is actual cause, it would be harmful for
| doctor to speculate about how patient harmed himself.
| nxc18 wrote:
| To add to this, the article mentions the need to be more
| specific when facing challenges and stressors.
|
| A big trend, at least in PNW leftist activism, is looking at
| the entire system while focusing in on flaws. No improvement
| is acceptable unless it is total and complete, and partial
| steps are even worse than doing nothing.
|
| Myanmar coup? Time to protest global capitalism. Bad
| conditions in a jail in Wyoming? Time to protest global
| capitalism. Trial outcome isn't exactly what you wanted? Time
| to protest global capitalism. Frustrated that people aren't
| paying attention on the 170th night of increasingly
| incoherent, demand-free protests about issues over which
| locals have zero control? Time to protest global capitalism.
|
| Then on Twitter, after every protest, you have to complain
| when global capitalism wasn't dismantled. If action was taken
| in response to protest, you have to tweet that it isn't
| enough, because it didn't abolish all borders, dismantle
| global capitalism, give all land back, and eliminate all
| government and corporations.
|
| If people had an internal locus of control, they might think
| about how they can accomplish things, and that might involve
| identifying solutions to fix parts of the system, rather than
| demand the whole thing comes crashing down (with no actual
| thought on a replacement).
|
| edit to clarify: none of the protest triggers leading to
| 'time to protest global capitalism' is meaningfully connected
| to or specifically about global capitalism; that's the point.
| The folks I'm talking about don't actually have a solid
| conception of the world and how they specifically want to
| change it, they're just angry and don't really think they
| can, so they act out against the entire system (I think in
| decades past it would have been 'The Man'). Right now its
| trendy to hate on global capitalism, and assert that it
| fundamentally is linked to colonialism and white supremacy,
| among all other social ills. I'm not defending this thinking,
| just describing it, since it was so foreign to me and
| apparently to others.
| kiba wrote:
| I don't see what global capitalism has to do with Myanmar
| coup or jail condition in Wyoming?
| watwut wrote:
| I have seen protests against police violence and against
| coups, but none of them was framed as protest against
| global capitalism. They also had demands. If you perceive
| those as being about global capitalism, you was using odd
| information sources. Or you lie.
|
| Maybe you socialize only with most hardcore communists, or
| only with hardcore right wing, but your perception is not
| based on reality.
| nxc18 wrote:
| What are the demands of the Myanmar Coup protests that
| happened in PNW, and how could they have been met by the
| local community?
|
| I am specifically referring to the most hardcore
| leftists, but I don't tend to socialize with them. I
| don't think its right to call them communists, anarchism
| is popular though.
|
| I don't know if you can make a broad claim about no
| protest being framed as against global capitalism; if you
| had been to one, you'd know that the protestors like to
| be clear that they are decentralized, so no one person
| owns the framing. They have many different framings
| internally, and certainly you know how I frame them. My
| framing is based on the chants of, and sprayed graffiti
| saying 'land back', 'rent is theft', 'kill all
| landlords', and 'end capitalism'.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| Your post kind-of reminds me of this:
| https://youtu.be/ZDTkn6PCbtY
| newacct583 wrote:
| You mean the people who are out there (to use terms from the
| article) meeting the world on their own terms, believing that
| they (and not their circumstances) affect their achievements?
|
| You realize that the idea of characterizing a large and active
| social movement as an idle demand for a handout and government
| coddling is just spin, right? Have you ever met a serious SJW?
| Do they seem like apathetic victims to you, or do they have the
| kind of "resilience" detailed in the article?
|
| You seem to be taking the article to mean that "injustice is OK
| because <insert disadvantaged group> can just be resilient and
| endure it"?
| hn8788 wrote:
| That's one of the main findings from the book "The Coddling of
| the American Mind". Overprotective parents raise children that
| don't know how to handle conflict, and colleges give in to the
| student demands for protection from conflict because the
| colleges care more about collecting tuition than educating.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Off-topic comment: newyorker.com hasn't loaded successfully for
| me in Chrome for probably a few years now. Literal white page
| that flickers with the article for a second before going blank.
|
| I figured it was anti-ad-blocker tech, but even disabling ad
| blocker and going to incognito does nothing. Calls to
| "https://dolphin.condenastdigital.com/engines/atmo" are the calls
| that seem to fail with "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED". I don't see a
| similar call being made in Firefox, which does load successfully.
|
| Is my Chrome getting fingerprinted and somehow punished for
| running uBlock, or is newyorker.com just broken for Chrome in
| certain cases? Either way, it makes using my subscription that
| much harder...
| lostandbored wrote:
| I am using Brave, which is Chromium based, and I had no problem
| loading the article.
|
| Sucks to hear you having that issue.
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