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Anger, Anxiety, Resentment, Stress, and Basic Humanity
- Numberwang 9y agoMostly nonsense said with authority. Psychology and dietary advice really are crap sciences.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoSo was medicine at one time... and all the rest. We got a lot of stuff wrong, and a few things right and built on that. Psychology isn't all bad, since a lot more folks with severe mental illness can now go on to lead a much more normal life due to medication and coping mechanisms. Same for folks that go through trauma and have after-effects. But we are still refining this stuff, so some of it is going to be crap and there are going to be lots of pseudo-psychology fed to the uneducated masses. Nutrition is somewhat similar. We simply don't have the knowledge to understand its complexities right now. But it isn't all crap: We understand connections between malnourishment and stunted growth, for example. Understand folic acid helps prevent birth defects and vitamin C helps prevent scurvy. To confound matters more, we have a lot of misinformation, partially due to politics and business practices. This isn't really confined to nutrition, though. Society is prone to reject new ways of thinking. Heck, the US pushed against modern "european-style" medicine back in the 1800's - they didn't think they needed science in their medicine or something like that.
- transman 9y ago(I have an undergrad degree in Psychology.) Psychology has the means to be a proper science, but historically a significant amount of hasn't been. The examples you present tend to come from neuroscience, which in turn tends to be a much more empirically based field. - http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-f... - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-s-credibility-crisis-the-bad-the-good-and-the-ugly/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-s-cred... - https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/05/25/was-the-crisis-in-social-psychology-really-that-bad-have-things-improved-part-one-the-researchers-perspective/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/05/25/was-the-crisis-in-socia...
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoDisclaimer: I've read the articles well because I just woke up, but I'll read have the read in a bit (I like the subject). I do understand some of that, and probably see more of the psuedo-science application than most: there is a psychological model of occultism folks follow, some of it heavily leaning on Jung's work... who didn't have passable education that we'd like now. And that was pretty common for early psychology: It was more akin to basic philosophy and unbased theories than science. But I realize that is changing and I realize the good the system really does - my ex was schizo-affective (though he got diagnosed with regular schizophrenia after we broke up). Without the whole system, both the stuff based on shaky psychology and the more pure medical portion with the meds and psychiatrist, he'd have died - no exaggeration.
- random_comment 9y ago> Mostly nonsense said with authority. Psychology and dietary advice really are crap sciences. You don't appear to have presented any evidence or reasons that would make your hostile opinions a useful contribution here.
- virgil_disgr4ce 9y agoWhat do you think is nonsense?
- KirinDave 9y agoIt might have been true 25-30 years ago. While dietary advice may still be fraught with charlatans, the general quality of work in psychology has improved tremendously. Methodologies have been devised, reproducible results have actually become an expectation, and psychology has benefited quite a bit from biology, computer science and information theory.
- Numberwang 9y agoAnd with all this we get gems like 'surrendering to a higher power' Pathetic.
- KirinDave 9y agoLike many other scientifically backed disiplines, people with other agendas co-opt the prestige of the space.
- redcat7 9y agoIt's bullshit as it assumes that hunters and gatherers worked together in a form of an altruistic bullshit society. We today are fucking far from altruistic society. Even people from political left are egoistic double standard ideological fanatics whose values only apply to themselfs. Political right is just their mirror image. Hunters and gatherers are two distinct, you can say, sub-species with diffferent attributes and action-reaction pairs. What the "specialist" wrote in that article is for gatherers.
- nkohari 9y agoIt appears you might be suffering from anger, anxiety, resentment, and/or stress.
- manmal 9y agoWe are far from an altruistic society because we might count our friends, maybe neighbors, and, just maybe, people we see on the subway as part of our tribe. The rest of society is viewed as "the others" for whom we could care less, emotionally. We can be tricked into caring for them by emotional TV ads (poor kids in Africa need water or are blind) or reading books or watching documentaries about them (e.g. indigenious people, we want them to keep their habitat). But as long as nothing brings us "close" to others, they remain.. others.
- rdudekul 9y ago"The only significant and lasting improvement in life and relationships results from becoming 'a better person.' We become better persons by staying in touch with basic humanity, the survival-based capacity for interest in the well-being of others. Basic humanity motivates respectful, helpful, valuing, nurturing, protective, and altruistic behaviors. In adversity it motivates sacrifice. In emergency it motivates rescue." Fantastic article. In essence when we dwell on ourselves or our insecurities, we tend to get stressed out. When we act of out service mindset (give first) doing good for all(much harder in practice), where our own good is included, we will be more fulfilled in the long-term.
- Noxchi 9y agoAgreed. I found that a strong feeling of mortality brought upon me the basic humanity described in the article. I immediately noticed a difference in how others treated me (and how I treated them) for the rest of the day.
- roceasta 9y agoI've come to realise that if I'm run down or hungover or guilty in some way then my mind automatically starts to relive old resentments. I think it's a form of projection. There's a bad feeling internally and so memories are activated to 'explain' the badness and direct blame elsewhere.
- ASpring 9y agoThis is 100% real and everyone experiences it. Academics talk about it as mood congruence; it's a well studied phenomenon in psychology and some work I've done in the past has touched on it. Basically you're more likely to recall past events that match your current mood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_congruence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_congruence
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- grondilu 9y agoThe ancients thought a lot about what makes a human "good", and they came up with the notion of virtues[1]. If I'm not mistaken, none of them was particularly oriented towards altruism. It seems to me altruism was very much introduced by Christianism. I vaguely recall that Nietzsche analyzed the subject in details, for instance in ''On the Genealogy of Morality''[2]. Now, I'm not saying one of this point of view is right and the other is wrong, but at the very least there is a debate to have. Therefore it seems presumptuous to me to call one of them "basic humanity". Philosophy, or in the present case psychology, should use accurate words as much as possible. IMHO "Basic humanity" is not satisfactory in that regard. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality
- hyperpape 9y agoI believe that in psychology and evolutionary biology, altruism can be used for a wide variety of pro-social behaviors that are displayed in cases where there is no direct benefit to the individual acting. Punishing a murderer who killed someone who is not a family member counts as altruism in that sense. So the Greeks certainly praised altruism in that sense, though there's a lot more to be said than that. One aspect of what you say seems correct. Christianity expanded the circle of the people you owed altruism. (This isn't to speak up for this article, which seems really vague/content-free).
- BatFastard 9y agoPsychology today has never been known for its in depth analysis.
- quickben 9y agoThey are valid points, but in his case, after a PhD and 3 decades working with people, the phrase ' basic humanity' is a lot more memorable than, '12 things that will define you: here they are'. At some point, the knowledge is too dry unless transferred and having impact. People that want to change will look into what basic human virtues are, and more. The rest will remain adamant no matter how appealing the approach is. Sometimes professionals sum up things for the audience. The more professional they are, and the less time they have, the more one hears : maybe, most likely, etc. It's not that they don't evaluate the cases, it's the realization that a complete educative list will bore out the audience, and they will miss other, more basic, points.
- discreteevent 9y agoI like the article. He keeps it simple and the advice matches my experience. One nitpick though is that not being in touch with basic humanity is not the only reason for anger. Even the nicest people will eventually get angry if they are treated badly.
- ams6110 9y agoI think if we could get to the point where we admit that racism (or more generally, bias against or fear of those outside our group) is a normal human trait, and not something deliberately chosen by hateful people, then we could more effectively discuss how to counter it.
- chewz 9y agoI am a cynic. I do agree with compassion and kindness as basis of humanity. Eudaimonia. But I do reject shame and guilt as motivation. For me this is just a mechanism of social coercion, especially for urban societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy)
- Chris_Jay 9y agoI would agree with the rejection of shame and guilt, they can certainly catalyze action but that action usually carries a strong element of self-sabotage along with it. I'm intrigued by your mention of eudaimonia - I've been interested in the concept since coming across it in a computer game in my early teens - but I have a hard time finding discussions of it. Is there any reading material you could recommend that looks at the concept in more depth?
- chewz 9y agoSorry for late reply. This book is pretty good introduction for modern reader. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629522-philosophy-for-life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629522-philosophy-for-... I am also close to epicureism (enjoying intellectual pleasure without interacting with busy world) and stoicism (quieting one's emotion) and studied buddhism for some time. However I am impressed by how modern and contemporary are dilemmas brought by Diogenes. He had been a sort of investment banker charged with debasement of currency. He explained that he attempted to undermine the system (financial, capitalism) from within. He rejected purse of material stuff (broke a chalice when realized that he could drink water from a his hands), real estate (living in a barrel), favors from those in power ('Stand out of my sunlight'). But most of all he criticized and ridiculed compromises and social mechanics of urban life. For me this is quite relevant today.
- RikNieu 9y agoAfter reading the first few paragraphs, it occurred to me he was talking about what Buddhism calls metta, or loving-kindness practice.