Agree that people acting aggrieved are often selfish in doing so. People instinctively distance themselves from community members making such shows - the winning move is not to engage.
If I understand the novel angle here, it's that necessarily some of the unhappiness is chosen by the biggest complainers (it's traded away to generate more accommodations from people who are stuck with you). This seems to assume a kind of standard not-explicitly-deceptive authentic emotional human who has to work themselves up into real misery in order to credibly signal it. I think we don't quite have this when 1. cultural resources arise transmitting learnable tips for gleefully scamming w/o unhappiness 2. constitutionally different outsiders with a different victim-happiness tradeoff enter a population that doesn't yet recognize this fact (in both cases i'm positing advantages in successfully imposing a felt obligation in the community for how much unhappiness is felt by the complainer)
We evolved instincts to empathize with those who suffer, for a reason. Throwing these instincts away sounds like a genuine example of the "drift" you talk about.
To a large extent it doesn't matter what emotional signs the victim is giving off. You ask yourself: did the perpetrator do what they are accused of? Did the perpetrator lie about it? Did they treat the victim disrespectfully? Did they act in accordance with the golden rule? Did they abuse their power? That's all you need to know about the situation.
Abuses of power are a much greater danger to society than the occasional exaggeration of emotional impact from a victim.
Do we all get one exaggeration per week or per month or something?
And how to tell the exaggerations from the genuine?
When the child of KKK parents is fearful of black people, and complains about their presence, what then? Or the child of Zionist parents who is fearful of people with Palestinian flags, what then?
People's instincts are trained into them during their upbringing. Their complaints often don't seem like exaggerations to them even when they do to someone else.
We can empathize with the fearful child, but understand also that the solution is to teach him compassion, not to remove the group he fears. The perpetrator in that situation is the child's parents.
The child has become part of group behaviors that frequently lead to evil: in-group favoritism, out-group negativity, authoritarianism. These behaviors result in fascism and genocide.
In theory yes, but it all gets pretty fuzzy when you are talking about perpetrators that aren't present and perhaps aren't even alive, and it maybe takes a psychologist to identify them And the examples I gave specified things clearly and are reasonably extreme. In reality, it takes a lot of digging and and still often you can't work things out for sure.
Being offended and feeling victimised or attacked are often in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes we agree with the beholder, and sometimes we don't.
There's one party in whose interest it is to emphasize how fuzzy and uncertain who is the victim and who is the perpetrator: the perpetrator. "Gosh, this harm is so complex we just can't say who's to blame! Probably not me, eh?"
Sometimes it really is fuzzy and uncertain. But be suspicious of someone telling you this. Look for who lied and look for who tried to dominate someone else. Look for who benefited from the situation and who suffered from it.
Love that "being unhappy is adaptive". And yea disengaging is perhaps the most optimal path as we have many more options to spend our time on productiver interactions.
But if we cant help but be with these unhappy people, I wont call out their blame game. Instead see it like a puzzle "So which events and variables influence them to have this attitude?"
Then sort out stoically. Which are within and outside my control. Can I nudge them to reframe. Can I offer alternative solutions. Can solve this asap. Can I make the happier people engage with them differently so as to not reinforce the unhappy tactic. Ultimately, I want my environment to have self-responsibility and accountabilty the adaptive strategy.
in addition to this, i think the questions that need to be asked are: Is does it cost less for me to change my environment, than to try to engage. If i we're to engage for x many trial steps "doing things for y that are in my control", will i be able to more accurately determine the costs of continuing to do so vs disengaging.
I have a daily mantra that makes me incredibly appreciative and therefore happy: "I am one of the most privileged humans to ever walk the face of this planet."
Our social emotions evolved in small, kin-based communities where everyone knew everyone and relationships persisted over time. As we moved into larger societies these emotions became less well suited to our new circumstances. Grifters sprung up to exploit these gaps. "Victimhood signallers" are one such grifter.
I find it helpful to understand what those adaptation gaps are because with understanding I can start to think about how to modulate my behavior in a more intentional way. If I can understand why my body really wants that cookie, it helps me to not eat the cookie. Ditto with the telemarketer trying to guilt-trip me on the phone.
I feel the most effective mantra I've heard is that one by Epictetus: "Do not desire for things to be as you wish, but wish for them to be as they are. Then your life will go well."
Interestingly when I get into this frame I actually also feel more capable of making changes, since I would be more content if it didn't turn out like I'd hoped
Other than the satisfaction of necessaries (food, health...) I've always seen my own happiness almost entirely as a function of my own expectations - for myself. If I achieve less than expected, I'm unhappy. And vice-versa.
I don't pay much attention to how others treat me. If I feel mistreated by others, I just disengage from them.
While I fully understand this, and as someone with a parent that has this "self-seen victime" complexe I do wish and try to make light of the fact that yes, while that event was miserable, you refusing to move on purely because you benefit from the fact that the event happend, it's also upon you to change that about yourself and see things from another angle.
But we also have to take other things into account such as trauma, while it's annoying to deal with self-seen victims there's a reason those people are victims, the "self-seen" part is simply a step forward to understanding that trauma and fully seeing it.
Again, I know how annoying it is to have to deal with it but we cannot simply "add on" to that's person's weight and we cannot keep adding blame as it will not result them in seeing things better, instead it will most likely result in them believing that even was their fault: further victimizing themselves and causing more self hate than already there.
From personal experience, I advise to simply guide those people with empathy and compassion, just because their victimhood is exaggerated doesn't mean it's wrong and they're suddenly no longer victims
Some people go through life building mountains out of molehills, then wasting energy trying to fix what doesn’t exist. The Brits made a great tv series about this problem in some people. Show was called Doc Martin, I occasionally have to remind myself not to have a Doc Martin moments.
Not to deny the insight presented by the author, I’ve heard such before. In my case however, there is nothing I associate with or have seen within myself. As I look back upon a long life and especially the “forks in the road”, I’ve always consider myself most Blessed. Never do I remember sitting alone desiring what others have, or are imagined to have—or decrying my lot in life. Is that “Stoic” happiness? I’ve wondered about this often, especially now as I near the end of life—but am at a loss to explain my “strangeness” in this society.
Agree that people acting aggrieved are often selfish in doing so. People instinctively distance themselves from community members making such shows - the winning move is not to engage.
If I understand the novel angle here, it's that necessarily some of the unhappiness is chosen by the biggest complainers (it's traded away to generate more accommodations from people who are stuck with you). This seems to assume a kind of standard not-explicitly-deceptive authentic emotional human who has to work themselves up into real misery in order to credibly signal it. I think we don't quite have this when 1. cultural resources arise transmitting learnable tips for gleefully scamming w/o unhappiness 2. constitutionally different outsiders with a different victim-happiness tradeoff enter a population that doesn't yet recognize this fact (in both cases i'm positing advantages in successfully imposing a felt obligation in the community for how much unhappiness is felt by the complainer)
I'm going to keep on blaming the perpetrator.
We evolved instincts to empathize with those who suffer, for a reason. Throwing these instincts away sounds like a genuine example of the "drift" you talk about.
To a large extent it doesn't matter what emotional signs the victim is giving off. You ask yourself: did the perpetrator do what they are accused of? Did the perpetrator lie about it? Did they treat the victim disrespectfully? Did they act in accordance with the golden rule? Did they abuse their power? That's all you need to know about the situation.
Abuses of power are a much greater danger to society than the occasional exaggeration of emotional impact from a victim.
"occasional exaggeration"
Do we all get one exaggeration per week or per month or something?
And how to tell the exaggerations from the genuine?
When the child of KKK parents is fearful of black people, and complains about their presence, what then? Or the child of Zionist parents who is fearful of people with Palestinian flags, what then?
People's instincts are trained into them during their upbringing. Their complaints often don't seem like exaggerations to them even when they do to someone else.
We can empathize with the fearful child, but understand also that the solution is to teach him compassion, not to remove the group he fears. The perpetrator in that situation is the child's parents.
The child has become part of group behaviors that frequently lead to evil: in-group favoritism, out-group negativity, authoritarianism. These behaviors result in fascism and genocide.
In theory yes, but it all gets pretty fuzzy when you are talking about perpetrators that aren't present and perhaps aren't even alive, and it maybe takes a psychologist to identify them And the examples I gave specified things clearly and are reasonably extreme. In reality, it takes a lot of digging and and still often you can't work things out for sure.
Being offended and feeling victimised or attacked are often in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes we agree with the beholder, and sometimes we don't.
There's one party in whose interest it is to emphasize how fuzzy and uncertain who is the victim and who is the perpetrator: the perpetrator. "Gosh, this harm is so complex we just can't say who's to blame! Probably not me, eh?"
Sometimes it really is fuzzy and uncertain. But be suspicious of someone telling you this. Look for who lied and look for who tried to dominate someone else. Look for who benefited from the situation and who suffered from it.
Love that "being unhappy is adaptive". And yea disengaging is perhaps the most optimal path as we have many more options to spend our time on productiver interactions.
But if we cant help but be with these unhappy people, I wont call out their blame game. Instead see it like a puzzle "So which events and variables influence them to have this attitude?"
Then sort out stoically. Which are within and outside my control. Can I nudge them to reframe. Can I offer alternative solutions. Can solve this asap. Can I make the happier people engage with them differently so as to not reinforce the unhappy tactic. Ultimately, I want my environment to have self-responsibility and accountabilty the adaptive strategy.
in addition to this, i think the questions that need to be asked are: Is does it cost less for me to change my environment, than to try to engage. If i we're to engage for x many trial steps "doing things for y that are in my control", will i be able to more accurately determine the costs of continuing to do so vs disengaging.
I have a daily mantra that makes me incredibly appreciative and therefore happy: "I am one of the most privileged humans to ever walk the face of this planet."
Our social emotions evolved in small, kin-based communities where everyone knew everyone and relationships persisted over time. As we moved into larger societies these emotions became less well suited to our new circumstances. Grifters sprung up to exploit these gaps. "Victimhood signallers" are one such grifter.
I find it helpful to understand what those adaptation gaps are because with understanding I can start to think about how to modulate my behavior in a more intentional way. If I can understand why my body really wants that cookie, it helps me to not eat the cookie. Ditto with the telemarketer trying to guilt-trip me on the phone.
This is basically what Epictetus had to say. Great minds think alike!
I feel the most effective mantra I've heard is that one by Epictetus: "Do not desire for things to be as you wish, but wish for them to be as they are. Then your life will go well."
Interestingly when I get into this frame I actually also feel more capable of making changes, since I would be more content if it didn't turn out like I'd hoped
Other than the satisfaction of necessaries (food, health...) I've always seen my own happiness almost entirely as a function of my own expectations - for myself. If I achieve less than expected, I'm unhappy. And vice-versa.
I don't pay much attention to how others treat me. If I feel mistreated by others, I just disengage from them.
Am I strange? Or just lucky?
Very wise, thoughtful, and impressive positive plan you have to remain engaged.
While I fully understand this, and as someone with a parent that has this "self-seen victime" complexe I do wish and try to make light of the fact that yes, while that event was miserable, you refusing to move on purely because you benefit from the fact that the event happend, it's also upon you to change that about yourself and see things from another angle.
But we also have to take other things into account such as trauma, while it's annoying to deal with self-seen victims there's a reason those people are victims, the "self-seen" part is simply a step forward to understanding that trauma and fully seeing it.
Again, I know how annoying it is to have to deal with it but we cannot simply "add on" to that's person's weight and we cannot keep adding blame as it will not result them in seeing things better, instead it will most likely result in them believing that even was their fault: further victimizing themselves and causing more self hate than already there.
From personal experience, I advise to simply guide those people with empathy and compassion, just because their victimhood is exaggerated doesn't mean it's wrong and they're suddenly no longer victims
Some people go through life building mountains out of molehills, then wasting energy trying to fix what doesn’t exist. The Brits made a great tv series about this problem in some people. Show was called Doc Martin, I occasionally have to remind myself not to have a Doc Martin moments.
Dick Minnis
removingthecataract.substack.com
Not to deny the insight presented by the author, I’ve heard such before. In my case however, there is nothing I associate with or have seen within myself. As I look back upon a long life and especially the “forks in the road”, I’ve always consider myself most Blessed. Never do I remember sitting alone desiring what others have, or are imagined to have—or decrying my lot in life. Is that “Stoic” happiness? I’ve wondered about this often, especially now as I near the end of life—but am at a loss to explain my “strangeness” in this society.