This Psychiatrist Might Need a Psychiatrist

[SummerMadness]

I have no idea why person with a Black Lives Matter avatar.

Concerning almost all your posts in this thread are complaints about Black people, I figured you would know.

 

[MehGuy]

Concerning almost all your posts in this thread are complaints about Black people, I figured you would know.

Because I mostly see white guilt centering around black issues. This was certainly the case with my own past white guilt. I do not see how this doctor (who I'll assume is Indian based on her name) would be as bold and brazen to utter her vile thoughts about white people other than taking advantage of whites who are guilt ridden mainly due to what their ancestors did to black people. Sorry but I feel this discussion took the natural and reasonable course. I do not get any joy out of airing my thoughts, but they helped relive me of undeserved guilt and I hope there is a chance it might do the same for another who reads this thread.

 

[MehGuy]

Ahhh...ok.

It's the empathy thing. Self-righteousness through a sort of performative compassion?

I am talking about that fact that people can simply enjoy feeling sorry for others. No self-righteousness needed. While I do think many social justice advocates can fall into self-righteousness I do think many of them do not find this the highest motivation.

Performative compassion is something I see mixing well with enjoying pitying others. Emotional empathetic highs are more easily able to become heightened when you are surrounded by other people. Just like listening to your favorite song is more likely satisfying when you're at a concert than just at home by yourself. While probably lessened online, I see areas of twitter and tumblr where they increasingly become more and more graphic about the brutal history of slavery stemming from this need for this emotional drug.

Our society really needs start start becoming aware and having conversations about masochism. Especially in this age of victimhood culture. Which I hate to say but I think has mostly started from women having more and more of a voice (and no I'm not arguing that they shouldn't have a voice..). This modern black victimhood culture seems to have evolved from female victimhood culture a few years back.

 

[MehGuy]

First off....really thoughtful answer. I gotta give you credit for saying things that I imagine sre difficult for a white male to say just out of the responses you can expect in return.

Thank you.

I wouldn't say the things I have said in this thread were difficult for me to post. Honestly I thought the likelihood of my posts in this thread generating responses in return were very minimal. The one response I did receive I do appreciate. It forced me to acknowledge, articulate and try to justify why the majority of my criticisms revolved around black people despite the woman in question not being black herself.

The only thing I find difficult about this is simply trying to write up my posts. I was born with a language disability so as a consequence communication and basic grammar are difficult for me. A major reason why my response time to posts has been so slow. While I could rush things, I feel like a thread like this deserves more care and a greater importance in having my words and thoughts more clear and concise.

I have suspected for awhile that I might be stunted in my emotional development in some way. I can remember feeling guilt when I was much younger but I haven't in a long time. I don't even really feel embarrassed anymore when I do or say something foolish in front other people and get laughed at for it.

Like most things I suspect that the brain cannot help but become less sensitive with emotional empathy over time. A theory I have is that maturity has less to do with wisdom and experience and more to do with the natural diminishment of experiencing emotional empathy over time. With lower levels of emotional empathy you are less likely to have emotional overload and as a consequence have more control of your feelings and actions. Being less prone to drama and acting out.

My depression has made me very numb these last couple of years and it's not a coincidence that I have emotionally cooled down and "matured" and have an easier time engaging in the more rational and logical side of my brain. I do have a fear that if I ever do defeat this depression I will revert back to my old self. Perhaps not to the same extent as I once was but even the few days where my depression subsides I do feel the dramatic loss of control.

My in laws came to visit once...for the first time since I had married and my wife was understandably nervous about it. I was making dinner and tried to be on my best behavior.

Her father had missed the highway exit he needed, tried to call her and began arguing with her even though she had given him the correct directions and gave him the correct directions to fix his error. When he arrived his tone was slightly angry and he was trying to blame her for his mistake.

I love my wife and even though I knew she wanted me to stay quiet...I couldn't. I knew if I did I would hate myself later for it. I took a pretty harsh tone with him, told him it was all his fault and he was wrong to blame my wife, and it was petty and disgraceful for him to do so. I told him if he was going to continue, it would be better for him to leave right then instead of staying for dinner.

To his credit, he did shut up even if he didn't apologize. It was a rather quiet and tense visit after that. I don't think he or my mother in law said another word to me even though they were happy to see their daughter. My wife was happy that I stood up for her later, but I know that in all honesty it was more about how I would feel about myself than whatever was going to make her happy. She would have been happy if I had let it slide so we could have had a less tense visit.

Interesting. I have pondered about whether or not emotions like disgust are more primitive evolutionary compared to feelings of guilt. Primitive in the sense of disgust being less reliant on the ability to feel emotional empathy. Evolved before a socially complex species such as ourselves. So that even those who are low on the emotionally empathetic spectrum can feel feelings like disgust almost intact.

I think shame may promote social conformity and I can certainly see why that helps the group from an evolutionary perspective. As an atheist from a very young age I lost a lot of respect for the group and in a way, began to admire those willing to risk the disdain of the group for not conforming. As I've grown older though, I've learned to see more value in conformity and group respect.

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that emotions like shame do not have evolutionary psychological reasons behind them. Simply that shame like disgust may be more primitive than guilt. Less reliant on the theory of mind and more of an emotion that concerns the self. Shame initially evolving as an emotion that discouraged the individual from adverting reproductively unfit aspects about themselves.

Shame probably further evolved as our species became more intelligent and evolved a deeper theory of mind but I would say as a whole it has less to do with emotional empathy than guilt does. Guilt being an emotion that evolved later on in human evolutionary history. Shame is less of a social thing and less of an evolutionary incentive to be irrationally passed on generationally the way guilt is.

I don't think this is entirely their fault either. If no one challenges bad ideas, racist or otherwise, people can rarely see any need to challenge them all on their own. Few people, of any race including black people, seem willing to challenge or confront racism in the black community. Racists always seem to think their racist beliefs are justified .

I agree.

I've noticed that the less one is attached to their racial identity, less racist they are towards others. I think that the condition of the black community in general, not all of them obviously, has been a struggle for a sense of identity because of being stripped of a culture so long ago. I noticed when I was young that many black people I knew...friend or not...had an idea of "white America" and "black America" as if we both lived in two very different countries. It didn't matter that we had very similar experiences....in their eyes we were not in the same boat, so to speak.

I do find it amazing how I seem to be able to relate and see eye to eye more with black people who grew immigrated from Africa compared to black people who grew up here. Admittedly a few years ago I seriously considered the possibility that black women on average were more genetically aggressive compared to women of other races. Until I thought back to my interactions with African women who immigrated from Africa compared to the ones who grew up here. The immigrant women acted no differently than the races of other women I knew. This helped me snap out of the mindset, and I still feel kind of bad for harboring these thoughts in the past. Taught me to be a little more careful about judging people in the future.

I don't think I can reasonably or morally suggest that the positive sense of identity of black people is something i6could influence or even have a right to influence as a white person. Heroic struggle and righteous struggle are things easy to believe in. Individual achievement and individual responsibility are not as satisfying emotionally I think. They are a harder road to walk in my opinion...and as such, hard to encourage.

These are some interesting thoughts. I do have some questions, but I fear I might be charging a little too deep into the politically incorrect waters. Might have to come back to this one later.

Values and perceptions are influenced by environment.

Sicilians in history had long given up on respect for governmental authority because of how often Sicily had been invaded and conquered. It's not a surprise how this led to a mistrust of government and eventually a lack of respect for those who acquiesced to its authority.

Again, I'm not saying that this is the same thing as what you're describing and I certainly wouldn't suggest that it is a racial issue....it's a cultural one. Anyone outside a culture looking in will inevitably be wrong about many things. I do think the examination of culture and cultural attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, and the like is beneficial...even if it's ugly for awhile. I don't pretend to have any expertise on black culture, it's subcultures, or the results of such things.

I don't see how anyone does....it's extremely difficult to have such conversations in our nation. We would rather stay quiet out of the idea of politeness or something.

Again, in hopes to avoid the many reports from other posters....I don't attribute any of my opinions to race. I've speculated about some aspects of culture. I don't think it's a monolithic culture either. It's as varied and diverse as any other culture.

No offense was intended if any offense was taken.

I did not intend to imply that black people are more genetically prone to violence or are more criminal in nature compared to other races. Humanity in general is prone to extreme brutality, and I believe that the aspect of crime and violence within a group like height is extremely variable between generations. I will say though I disagree with people who act like it's an impossibility that some races (socially constructed or not) cannot have higher rates of criminal and violent behavior when social factors are all equal (which could even be whites who are more prone to this) but personally I do not take such notions very seriously nor do I have any real reason too thus far. Just as a skeptic.. I do not like this idea that it's not possible. It is.

I have read that black people are over represented in the prison population throughout many countries in the world, but I haven't seriously looked into it. If accurate I think it is for other reasons than some special predisposition towards violence.

 

[MehGuy]

I have heard of that professor. I think he sensationalizes and exaggerates the evidence, and ignores other evidence that empathy is associated with well-being.

Can you give some examples? In the video I posted he did mention the Iraq war and empathy being a major reason we went into the conflict. Which is highly debatable, and probably a gross over simplification. Personally I would focus on the smaller stuff.. just basic psychological logic. Expanding the ways people can express empathy.

Although I do not get the sense that Paul Bloom views empathy as totally bankrupt of good qualities. I've heard him say empathy can lead to good things. He seems to be more of the opinion that empathy is a tool and like any other tool it can lead people astray and that it is preferable if we focus more on logic than feelings.

Do you always think empathy leads to good? Can it ever lead someone down a bad path?

Empathy is not "lauded in our culture". In the age of Trump, how could that even be taken seriously? There has been a marked decrease in empathy in the last few decades, as noted by sociologists.

Speaking of Psychology: The decline of empathy and the rise of narcissism

I do not view empathy and narcissisms as necessarily mutually exclusive. Also I seriously question these sociological studies, mainly that they probably have a very narrow view about how empathy can be expressed. I do agree that empathy was probably expressed in a healthier way in the past. Mainly due to the intensity of the empathy being lower.

Personally I think we live in an age of extreme empathy and extreme narcissism. As I posted earlier in this thread.. many people like to feel emotionally empathy simply for the enjoyment of it. People who slobber their feelings for others all over the place because they get a high out of feeling bad for another are expressing both empathy and narcissism in my opinion.

I partially blame the narcissism we see in modern society on adults being too empathetic with us when we were kids. As a millennial I experienced what I would call the "Everyone is special.. everyone should get a trophy simply for being themselves" mindset. Many of the adults coddled us, a lot of minor problems were viewed as huge problems. I believe this has led many younger people to develop an extended adolescence later on in life while at the same time also imitating the hyper empathy they experienced from adults on kids onto other people.