4 ms·

Some people are just assholes. Pathologizing it with clinical terms doesn't help or change anything.

by mcpackieh 3y ago

hollerith 3y ago
Maybe it's worthwhile to learn about the different kinds of assholes.
ModernMech 3y ago
It helps you recognize and deal with them. Narcissists are easy to take down a peg if you know how.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Getting into fights with assholes might get you some feeling of satisfaction, but I've rarely seen it work out productively. Usually both people get mad and it escalates into a deeper feud that puts both parties into an even worse place than where they started. And suppose you've misread their personality, due to your personal biases or limited information, then who's really the asshole when you start baiting that person? This is why it's usually better to avoid assholes than to "take them down a peg." Usually. Individual circumstances obviously need to be considered. In any case, the label you apply to somebody after observing their personality traits doesn't tell you which of their buttons to press, it's the observation of their personality traits which may inform your angles of attack. Somebody is observed to be self-absorbed, and is therefore labelled a narcissist, and the observation of their self-centered personality is what tells you how to push their buttons. You can press those buttons whether or not you use or even know the clinical label, people have been doing it for millenia before these labels were formulated. The labels themselves aren't actually useful here. Discrete kinds of asshole is a dubious proposition in the first place. Assholishness is probably a continuous spectrum of behavior, so if you really want to strike at somebody deep you're better off considering them as a unique individual and tailoring your attack accordingly. Of course, once you've considered them as a unique individual you may find yourself less inclined to attack them...
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    You're making the case that heuristics aren't useful, and I just don't agree with that given how I employ them effectively.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      I'm arguing against the utility of discrete categorization of continuous phenomena, not against heuristics generally. Treating others as you wish to be treated is an example of a good heuristic that people should follow most of the time. On the other hand, armchair psychological diagnoses are usually bad heuristics.
      - ModernMech 3y ago
        Mapping a measurement from a continuous phenomena to a point on a discrete space I have experience with is exactly applying a heuristic. I’m all for treating everyone like individuals, but I encounter new people every day who want things from me, and I just don’t have time for that. So I use shortcuts and put people in boxes. That’s life. I’m not “armchair diagnosing” anyone, I’m just dealing with people.
        mcpackieh 3y ago
        > I’m not “armchair diagnosing” anyone, I’m just dealing with people. If you're not armchair diagnosing anybody, then we don't have any disagreement. If you're classifying people as NPD on the same day you met them, that's what I'm arguing against. Doing so isn't helpful and you don't have enough information about that person to even do it properly. Even when you do have enough information about that person, like a long-term friend or family member, and yet also enough personal distance from the situation to limit your biases, it's rarely a useful thing to do. It might help you feel better about a failed relationship, which is what a lot of people seem to use NPD for, but these are not real diagnoses.
siva7 3y ago
That’s like saying some people are just fat. Or some people like to kill themselves. Patholizing it with clinical terms doesn’t help or change anything.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  I think it's unlikely that discrete categorizations for fatness or suicidal inclinations helps many people. To help somebody who's fat, you need to consider them as an individual, particularly their habits and physical and mental circumstance. Splitting hairs with these clinical discrete categories of continuous phenomena is a waste of time. For instance we can create the discrete category of "obese" and define it as any BMI above 30, and "overweight" as any BMI between 25 and 30. But do these discrete categories really give you any advantage when considering somebody who's at 29.9 or 30.1? Do or should you offer substantially different advice to somebody based on what side of the 30 line they fall? Probably not, one person might fall into either of those discrete categories depending on the day of the week. Fatness, and the underlying reasons for it, are a continuum. The clinical terms create discrete categories which might be useful to scientific research but have limited usefulness when you're considering a single individual. And with suicidal behavior, do discrete categories really help? I don't have much experience talking people off ledges so maybe you can say better than I, but to me it seems like the line between some chemical imbalance model of depression and shit life syndrome isn't always so clear. I think in most suicidal people it's probably some combination of those two, or other factors as well.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    > The clinical terms create discrete categories which might be useful to scientific research but have limited usefulness when you're considering a single individual. This is the entire point of identifying said categorizations so you can at least have some chance in classifying an individual when they have an issue. It also allows you to identify if treatment for classifications is working on broad scales. Yea, the world sucks that we exist in an analog continuum and use discrete labeling to save in information space and processing, but there is no solution to that for the time being.
kbelder 3y ago
Also, makes it pleasantly binary, instead of just recognizing that it's a personality trait in everyone that's scaled to different degrees at different times in different situations.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  I agree. And furthermore, I think these binary labels for personality traits facilitate dehumanization. Labeling somebody a narcissist, psychopath, etc is often a prelude to applying a totally different ethical standard when dealing with that person; e.g. attacking them in vicious ways they wouldn't normally consider as acceptable, but this time it's okay because that person is a narcissist.. It may sometimes be necessary to do this, but I think it's important to be very careful when doing so, particularly when somebody is judging a situation they're personally involved with. Nobody is a truly impartial judge of others, and when somebody has a personal stake in the dispute the biases are even stronger. Applying a dehumanizing clinical label to people I can't get along with could be an easy (ego-preserving) way to contextualize a dispute, but if I'm personally involved in the dispute then my ability to impartially analyze and categorize that person has been compromised. And if my analysis of that person is incorrect, then I've sabotaged myself by miscategorizing that other person.

Some people are just assholes. Pathologizing it with clinical terms doesn't help or change anything.

hollerith 3y ago

Maybe it's worthwhile to learn about the different kinds of assholes.

ModernMech 3y ago

It helps you recognize and deal with them. Narcissists are easy to take down a peg if you know how.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Getting into fights with assholes might get you some feeling of satisfaction, but I've rarely seen it work out productively. Usually both people get mad and it escalates into a deeper feud that puts both parties into an even worse place than where they started. And suppose you've misread their personality, due to your personal biases or limited information, then who's really the asshole when you start baiting that person? This is why it's usually better to avoid assholes than to "take them down a peg." Usually. Individual circumstances obviously need to be considered. In any case, the label you apply to somebody after observing their personality traits doesn't tell you which of their buttons to press, it's the observation of their personality traits which may inform your angles of attack. Somebody is observed to be self-absorbed, and is therefore labelled a narcissist, and the observation of their self-centered personality is what tells you how to push their buttons. You can press those buttons whether or not you use or even know the clinical label, people have been doing it for millenia before these labels were formulated. The labels themselves aren't actually useful here. Discrete kinds of asshole is a dubious proposition in the first place. Assholishness is probably a continuous spectrum of behavior, so if you really want to strike at somebody deep you're better off considering them as a unique individual and tailoring your attack accordingly. Of course, once you've considered them as a unique individual you may find yourself less inclined to attack them...
- ModernMech 3y ago
  You're making the case that heuristics aren't useful, and I just don't agree with that given how I employ them effectively.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    I'm arguing against the utility of discrete categorization of continuous phenomena, not against heuristics generally. Treating others as you wish to be treated is an example of a good heuristic that people should follow most of the time. On the other hand, armchair psychological diagnoses are usually bad heuristics.
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      Mapping a measurement from a continuous phenomena to a point on a discrete space I have experience with is exactly applying a heuristic. I’m all for treating everyone like individuals, but I encounter new people every day who want things from me, and I just don’t have time for that. So I use shortcuts and put people in boxes. That’s life. I’m not “armchair diagnosing” anyone, I’m just dealing with people.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        > I’m not “armchair diagnosing” anyone, I’m just dealing with people. If you're not armchair diagnosing anybody, then we don't have any disagreement. If you're classifying people as NPD on the same day you met them, that's what I'm arguing against. Doing so isn't helpful and you don't have enough information about that person to even do it properly. Even when you do have enough information about that person, like a long-term friend or family member, and yet also enough personal distance from the situation to limit your biases, it's rarely a useful thing to do. It might help you feel better about a failed relationship, which is what a lot of people seem to use NPD for, but these are not real diagnoses.

siva7 3y ago

That’s like saying some people are just fat. Or some people like to kill themselves. Patholizing it with clinical terms doesn’t help or change anything.

mcpackieh 3y ago
I think it's unlikely that discrete categorizations for fatness or suicidal inclinations helps many people. To help somebody who's fat, you need to consider them as an individual, particularly their habits and physical and mental circumstance. Splitting hairs with these clinical discrete categories of continuous phenomena is a waste of time. For instance we can create the discrete category of "obese" and define it as any BMI above 30, and "overweight" as any BMI between 25 and 30. But do these discrete categories really give you any advantage when considering somebody who's at 29.9 or 30.1? Do or should you offer substantially different advice to somebody based on what side of the 30 line they fall? Probably not, one person might fall into either of those discrete categories depending on the day of the week. Fatness, and the underlying reasons for it, are a continuum. The clinical terms create discrete categories which might be useful to scientific research but have limited usefulness when you're considering a single individual. And with suicidal behavior, do discrete categories really help? I don't have much experience talking people off ledges so maybe you can say better than I, but to me it seems like the line between some chemical imbalance model of depression and shit life syndrome isn't always so clear. I think in most suicidal people it's probably some combination of those two, or other factors as well.
- pixl97 3y ago
  > The clinical terms create discrete categories which might be useful to scientific research but have limited usefulness when you're considering a single individual. This is the entire point of identifying said categorizations so you can at least have some chance in classifying an individual when they have an issue. It also allows you to identify if treatment for classifications is working on broad scales. Yea, the world sucks that we exist in an analog continuum and use discrete labeling to save in information space and processing, but there is no solution to that for the time being.

kbelder 3y ago

Also, makes it pleasantly binary, instead of just recognizing that it's a personality trait in everyone that's scaled to different degrees at different times in different situations.

mcpackieh 3y ago
I agree. And furthermore, I think these binary labels for personality traits facilitate dehumanization. Labeling somebody a narcissist, psychopath, etc is often a prelude to applying a totally different ethical standard when dealing with that person; e.g. attacking them in vicious ways they wouldn't normally consider as acceptable, but this time it's okay because that person is a narcissist.. It may sometimes be necessary to do this, but I think it's important to be very careful when doing so, particularly when somebody is judging a situation they're personally involved with. Nobody is a truly impartial judge of others, and when somebody has a personal stake in the dispute the biases are even stronger. Applying a dehumanizing clinical label to people I can't get along with could be an easy (ego-preserving) way to contextualize a dispute, but if I'm personally involved in the dispute then my ability to impartially analyze and categorize that person has been compromised. And if my analysis of that person is incorrect, then I've sabotaged myself by miscategorizing that other person.