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When I was failing classes in college, I had a conversation with a dean who suggested that I subconsciously didn't want to be there, and that I was committing a
by Buldak 9y ago
When I was failing classes in college, I had a conversation with a dean who suggested that I subconsciously didn't want to be there, and that I was committing academic self-sabotage as a result. This struck me as an extravagant, bizarre theory. (Cynically, I also wonder if she was trying to convince me to voluntarily leave the college so that I wouldn't ding their graduation rate.)
I tend to be suspicious of this kind of move, where what seems like a character flaw is explained away as something more benign. In the article in question, the author suggests that the woman writing in is not really lazy, but has been holding back out of fear that she might disappoint herself. But why can't she just be lazy? I don't doubt that there are people who have the kind of subtle psychology that the author suggests. But I wonder if we're too eager to accept such explanations because they are more comforting than more straightforward, harsher ones.
- mathattack 9y agoI agree. There are lots of psychological things at work more plausible than not wanting to succeed. (Short attention span, getting sucked into online dopamine rushes, etc)
- Gatsky 9y agoSo why were you failing classes in college?
- taneq 9y agoDidn't want it badly enough.
- duopixel 9y agoI suppose she first asked you about the underperformance and was not satisfied with the answer. It wouldn’t be a bizarre theory if she saw sufficient intelligence along with a lack of personal investment, in fact it would be a quite reasonable guess.
- RandomInteger4 9y agoMaybe the word 'lazy' is itself a lazy way to describe the behaviors arising from biological factors beyond our control? Maybe medication is in order.
- gizmo686 9y agoWhat does it mean to be "lazy"? Why are some people lazy, and others not? Why are people lazy with regards to certain things and not others? Ignoring all of these questions and simply considering laziness to be a fundamentally characteristic is highly unsatisfying and, dare I say, lazy. Maybe the authors explanation is wrong, but she offers a potential explanation. Your proposal is simply that 'she is lazy because she is lazy' which offers no explanatory power.
- hateduser2 9y agoRosted
- invalidOrTaken 9y ago>What does it mean to be "lazy"? A few months ago my little brother was taking an introductory CS class. I warned him not to procrastinate his assignments, because you can't hurry programming. Nine women can't make a baby in one month, etc. I think "laziness" is similar: it's an emergent phenomenon to be debugged, not a single "thing" to be attacked with more-of something.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Sylos 9y agoIn my opinion, laziness is not a character flaw, it's rather a fundamental characteristic of any living being. Therefore saying that you're lazy is tautological, obviously true therefore not worth pointing out, and not a reasoning for a perceived difference between you and others, because they're all lazy in their heart, too.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago> extravagant, bizarre theory Absolutely not. Self-sabotage is psychology 101. > why can't she just be lazy Because laziness, like demonic possession and telepathy has not been identified by any medical science. > we're too eager to accept such explanations because they are more comforting than more straightforward, harsher ones Or maybe one explanation is backed by decades of research while the idea of "laziness" is backed by nothing more than popular culture and some religions.
- koonsolo 9y agoSorry, but I have totally no clue what you are talking about. Laziness is preserving energy, which seems pretty vital to survival for me. Have you ever seen a "lazy" lion just laying there, doing nothing most of the day? The reason why he's not running around all day doing active stuff is because of survival, energy preservation. He will put his energy where it is most important, food and sex. He's even so lazy that he lets the ladies hunt for him. So I don't understand in what kind of world you are living where laziness is not a real thing.
- cc81 9y agoLaziness is a thing (at least we describe something with the word) but for a lot of people in that situation the laziness is not a good strategy for preserving energy. They will procrastinate to a point where the total amount of work is much more than just doing something immediately. For example instead of doing the dishes immediately they will wait until they pile up with dried food stuck to them making the total effort much bigger.
- eeZah7Ux 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laziness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laziness "Laziness (also called indolence) is disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or exert oneself. It is often used as a pejorative; terms for a person seen to be lazy include couch potato, slacker, and bludger." To clarify: I'm talking about "laziness" as a pejorative - e.g. something to be ashamed of. Your example is about good prioritization and saving precious energy and there's nothing bad about it especially when food is scarce.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoInteresting. Personally, I believe the opposite - that the very concept of "character flaw" should be expunged from our dictionaries, as it tends to be useless. It works only as a way of assigning blame - "you do everything last minute because you're lazy". "You suck and I don't." Identifying character flaws doesn't help a person fix them - which is the only thing that should matter. Because it's all about some factor making a person unable to do things that are in their best interest, often also causing huge emotional distress when said person attempts to behave in a "more correct" (by their own standards) way. C.f. http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que..., which is an interesting article on the way we frame diseases and character flaws.