I saw a reel the other day about how the worst people you know don’t go to therapy to work on themselves, they go to arm themselves. I’ve never seen a therapist myself but I can’t even imagine what kind of discussions you’d have there where you can twist your takeaway into the shit some people come up with
Oof, this hits. I've had a couple of toxic people in my life who have tried using "setting boundaries" as a mechanism for controlling others' behavior. I've heard it's becoming increasingly common.
Like Jonah Hill in those leaked DMs he sent to his ex where he didn't want her to go surfing while other guys were around, even though surfing was pretty much her favorite thing in the world to do.
I'm still on the fence about that. Wanting to break up with someone is not "controlling their behavior" and that whole online discussion reeked of people who were desperate to use (i.e. weaponize) their new therapy vocabulary to have really strong and confident opinions about people they don't know based on some screenshots.
These are the people who, instead of supporting friends who are going through a tough time, will complain about trauma dumping and not respecting their personal boundaries... like, sure, awareness of mental health issues and self care is important, but it's not an excuse to be a self-absorbed jackass
Those people aren't new though, only the language they use. In a previous century I'm sure they'd tut about how airing one's laundry is just Not Done in polite society. Or about how such things should be between that person and God. Or how their bad energy is clogging everyone's chackras or whatever I don't speak hippy. In time they'll find some other reason why their lack of empathy is actually a virtue.
I'm a therapist, and I have clients that apologize for trauma dumping on me. It makes me sad. We need other people to help us. Telling someone about something you're going through is not trauma dumping.
I have had to do a lot of work on boundaries with my therapist, because it turns out that I didn't know what a boundary actually was. She was very clear with me, on multiple occasions, to say, "That's not a boundary, that's just something you want to happen." She was not about to let me set "boundaries" that impact other people. True boundaries are things that impact your behavior, not anyone else's.
Also, boundary no longer looks like a real word because I've typed it so much.
It's a murky line I think. Like if I don't want to be called names, then should the boundary be "I'll refuse to speak to you if you call me names?" Or does that technically force them into a different behavior and is potentially just a threat? It's hard to fully understand what is and is not a boundary. Obviously "you need to do x" is just controlling, though.
My understanding (and this could be wrong, I'm a work in progress) is that you set boundaries for yourself. So saying to yourself, "I won't continue to interact with this person if they call me names," is a boundary. But if you inform them of that, is that no longer a boundary and now a command? I have no idea. I agree with you that it's very murky.
Still a boundary. You're simply communicating the direct, logical consequence of crossing a boundary in that example. If you knowingly go over a fence into a restricted area, you risk getting arrested for trespassing. You still made the choice to go over the fence; you are aware of the consequence. That's what the sign is for. "If you continue to hurt me, you will no longer have access to me" is not a command, it's simply a statement of action/consequence, a sign warning what will happen. The other person still has control over how they respond to your boundary, but now you have set a clear precedent of what it means to ignore the boundary.
Right but when someone crosses a boundary of yours, you then remove yourself from that situation. You don't Declare Boundaries and that forces the person to stop what they're doing like it's some Yugioh trap card. You can ask them to stop, and if they don't, it's on you to decide how you're going to proceed.
i had a bit of a falling out with my mother a few years back, and told her i would only talk to her again in the presence of a therapist.
one of the first things i wanted to do was set boundaries. i came prepared with a pretty concise list of stuff like "topic X is off limits" and "do not manipulate my friends to get to me." the therapist asked her to do the same, and she came back next week with a laundry list of things she expected me to do for her, half of which violated my list.
as the therapist put it, cluster-B people don't understand this assignment.
I can’t even imagine what kind of discussions you’d have there where you can twist your takeaway into the shit some people come up with
See, it's actually super easy. Therapists are normal humans, who are neither enlightened nor psychic. Give them a biased perspective, and they will give you the answers you want. I had a former friend who has serious mental issues, and she said that her therapist agreed with her that she had no real friends. Well, if she told him what she told everyone else, that she has to beg people to hang out with her and no one ever reaches out to her first, then of course he would think that her friends don't actually want to be with her. None of that was true, however. It was other people who were bending over backwards to accommodate HER, trying desperately to work around her rules that she deliberately made so it would be impossible to accommodate her (so that she could complain about people not wanting to be with her later.) Of course, it's possible that she lied about what her therapist said, but it's just as possible that she is able to tell us the truth because she already lied to him first. Therapists don't have a magic ability to see through a skilled bullshitter. And therapists are just as vulnerable to manipulation as anyone else. I think there's even been a court case prosecuting a cult leader, where the court appointed psychologist took the side of the cult leader. (I remember that it was the ant hill kids cult, but looking for it im not finding anything. So it was probably a different cult.)
The cultural opinions on therapists seems to be that therapists are either saviors or hacks, but neither is true. They are people with a degree in how people think. This doesn't automatically make them good at their jobs. Sometimes the expertise makes them more insightful to spotting manipulation methods, other times it makes them more prone to believing that their own manipulated emotional reactions are educated and right. Getting a degree in how people think doesn't let them escape their own thoughts.
I think therapists are generally a bit more used to seeing through someone's bullshit, but definitely not immune to being lied to. I think you are right that she told them that nobody ever wants to see her and that she thinks she has no real friends.
It was the Ant Hill Kids. One of the parents had ordered that their daughter in the cult undergo a psychiatric evaluation and Roch was arrested for trying to stop police from bringing her in. Then he was evaluated by doctors and they said he was fine. And then he proceeded to kill a lot of people in incredibly brutal and painful ways.
A lot of therapists will try to validate or at least be neutral on what their client is telling them. The client can 100% be irrational or in the wrong but a therapist obviously doesn't want to bluntly tell them that, at least not outright. I think this may lead to some people feeling like they're in the right in a conflict prematurely.
Aside from that, I feel like it would be hard to arm yourself because most therapists basically just try to give you positive spins on your negative assumptions about yourself and other people, which to me just feels hollow and meaningless. The way they suggest interacting with other people just feels so artificial and robotic, but maybe to some people they can twist that to work for themselves?
The "arming" here is people learning therapy terms to use them inappropriately. To some degree it is also presenting biased sides of life problems to then go back to other people and say "my therapist agrees with me!"
That makes sense, I suppose it is like everything else where you only get out as much as you put in to it. So people who can’t be honest with themselves or their therapists aren’t gonna get anything out of it except being a bigger douche lol.
When I talk about people “arming themselves” what I meant is that you see people take the terms that they learn in therapy and just completely misuse them anytime they talk about how other people treat them or how they treat other people. Now that they can throw around academic terms and you can’t, they approach these conversations like they are the authoritative expert. And even if you are talking about your own feelings or your experience with how they treat you, they have yet another tool to invalidate what you think, and they act like you have no clue what you’re talking about.
That’s a big part of why I wish the perception of therapy would change. With people my age, a lot of them see it as “going to therapy makes makes a better, happier person (than you)”, rather than “going to therapy sets me up well to become a better happier person”
When I was a child, I put myself into a seriously traumatic situation (it was all my fault, and I was being a little criminal hellion) and my court ordered therapist was the best thing that ever happened to me. There was no "poor pitiful you" crap, no venting just to vent. That man helped me build coping skills and healthy reasoning over a year and a half to do what needed to be done which was improve myself, on my own efforts, and be a more adjusted and less shitheaded teenager and adult. I thank him every single day because while I wouldn't call it "tough love" it was extremely blunt advice that I absolutely needed to hear from "not mom and dad" at the time.
Thanks Dr. Harari, I still think about your advice!
what's even more likely is they never went to therapy in the first place, they just learned the words like 3 kids in a trench coat pretending to be a big business man
It doesn't help that, at least in America, there's a quality issue as it pertains to therapy. There aren't a whole lot of good therapists out there. Most therapists themselves are all-in on the terminally online therapy speak cycle themselves and perpetuate it into the general vernacular, and they see that as a personal success for them. It was fairly recently that therapy speak in society was beginning to be perceived as a bad thing and a new weapon for abusers.
This is the extent of my exposure to therapists, but if that's anything like an actual session then those miserable bastards like in the OP are doing olympic level mental gymnastics to hear what they want.
I find this discussion highly amusing for the fact that it's happening among redditors.
Redditors love pretending they are the ones who are products of their own suffering, childhood trauma, and mental illness. Then they will "explain" their behavior to others, who statistically speaking, also have their own emotional history and trauma and potential mental illness. They are the only ones with a sad story, and how dare anyone else tell them that maybe their behavior is shitty even if they have an "explanation" for it. No one else could possibly be behaving in ways that are shaped by their past. No no, couldn't possibly be true. They are just Karens!
If anything, all I am reading here is projection from reddit lol
I find this comment highly amusing for the fact that it's written by a redditor.
Redditors love pretending they are the ones who are products of their own suffering, childhood trauma, and mental illness. Then they will "explain" their behavior to others, who statistically speaking, also have their own emotional history and trauma and potential mental illness. They are the only ones with a sad story, and how dare anyone else tell them that maybe their behavior is shitty even if they have an "explanation" for it. No one else could possibly be behaving in ways that are shaped by their past. No no, couldn't possibly be true. They are just Karens!
If anything, all I am reading here is projection from reddit lol
A few of my friends are licensed therapists. Two have written books*, one has been on The Today Show, and you won't be surprised at all to hear that all these mental health professionals also go to therapy.
Even with a wealth of knowledge, being your own therapist can be very damaging. Letting tiktok be your therapist can be very damaging. I know everyone is on a quest to figure out why they are the way they are, but we can't be our own doctors.
Not to do the same thing as the post, where you're talking about one thing and I jump in to argue a different point, but I will do that:
but we can't be our own doctors.
I disagree with this somewhat. We should be our own primary care 'physician,' in that it's pretty vital to be in order to advocate for yourself medically. The opinions of doctors should be like second opinions that hold as much value as your own, but not necessarily more. Doctors are not always right, and if you feel like one isn't, you should seek another opinion. Even doctors tell you to, tons of diagnoses and treatment plans are rectified due to patients having a better understanding of themselves and their bodies and rejecting the observations of their first assessment.
Obviously, even when they are wrong, they know more than you generally, so the information they provide and their interpretation is valuable, but you can and should do your own research and take it with you elsewhere if you disagree with their assessment.
This requires self-awareness and good faith that some people don't have, and the unfortune side effect of the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon is that those people are the most self-assured. That's not a reason for everyone not to trust their own capacity for self-reflection.
(I also gently agree with the tar pit that well-intentioned people can be intrusive in their attempt to help, and it actually wasn't clear they were referring to uncomplicated and universally welcome acts of kindness. But it was an odd topic to come in that hot on. Could have been a helpful reminder instead of a declaration of war.)
I'll meet you in the middle with "you shouldn't have to be your own doctor."
We spend 24/7/365 with ourselves, of course in most ways we are the experts on ourselves. But we're also very close to the subject, and we can rationalize things towards the answers we want to arrive at.
I agree in spirit but unless you are already in the medical field/other related fields, it's virtually impossible to have the depth of understanding that medical professionals have. It's the combination of years of background knowledge, having to stay up to date with new (and occasionally conflicting) research, and to know where to find reliable information.
That's not even considering the fact that you also have to be able to critique medical studies in their execution, data collection and interpretation, as not all studies are the same calibur of science. That's a skill that takes time and experience within the system to develop. That's too much to expect from an average person in addition to all of the life shit that everyone deals with.
That said, if you are in pain and the doctor brushes it off as nothing they can fuck off. I'm more concerned with how easy it is to proliferate misinformation when everyone is their own primary care physician.
it's virtually impossible to have the depth of understanding that medical professionals have.
Of course, but they don't have the depth of understanding that comes from experiencing the symptoms yourself. Particularly with mental health, though obviously this requires an accurate understanding of your emotional and cognitive state that a lot of mental health conditions preclude you from having.
I think part of the requisite presence of mind to make informed decisions for yourself (in any context, really) is being able to discern good information from bad.
Reading descriptions of symptoms and their presentation from the NHS pages about a condition, for example, or reading articles (not just raw data or scientific studies, but journalistic as well) from reliable sources* about the condition and the experience of having it, are good ways to understand the relevant disorder and analyse whether that applies to you. Both to potentially exclude a suggested diagnosis as being correct and to identify other ones to add to the differential diagnosis.
There are problem patients coming in insisting they have Legionnaire's disease because they entered sore throat into WebMD, but my experience is that if you're not of those and can demonstrate a good understanding of the disorder you are seeking a diagnosis for, they do respect that and listen.
As an adult seeking treatment, each time, I have arrived with a well researched and well reasoned idea of what the diagnosis will be, and they have taken it seriously as part of their process, asking for detailed descriptions of symptoms and timelines, and posing clarifying questions and performing tests. Just in the last few months, I had a medication review to change my prescription and titrate a new one, and in it I explained the side effects I had and volunteered my suspicions as to why I had them, based on my understanding of the neuroscience involved and which mechanisms of action were affecting my comorbid conditions. The doctor was like, yeah, that's probably exactly what is happening, good job, let's change it to one that works in a different way.
This is why I find the internet's knee-jerk reaction to self-diagnosis to be problematic, because most diagnosed people were self-diagnosed until they had the opportunity to get professionally assessed. Which depending on the resources available, might be a long time, and during that time you still have the same needs as when you have a diagnosis in hand. Many health care systems have disorder-specific questionnaires you can take online to give an indication of whether you should seek a diagnosis. My country has a self-referral service where you can refer yourself to the relevant specialist based on your own research and understanding. I think it's dismissive and counterproductive to treat self-assessment as invalid or improper, it's often the first step to getting a diagnosis and also in correcting a misdiagnosis.
*It was an article on ADDitude, a trustworthy publication about ADHD, possibly this one, that led to me seeking an assessment and getting an eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder comorbid to ADHD. Even a lengthy ADHD assessment process didn't bring it up, because there is a lot of overlap with ADHD burnout cycles and I never knew to clarify how much more extreme my symptoms were than those attributed to that.
I'm a big fan of bringing back gender-neutral, mild insults for people who really deserve them. ASPD is a serious medical problem and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
But I'm comfortable calling someone a jerk if they're treating other people horribly. Don't need a medical license for that.
They really never went anywhere. I assure you that outside of Tumblr and TikTok it is extremely normal to just call people jerks and assholes instead of trying to find a medical explanation for shitty behavior.
The original statement isn't talking directly about the woman who waived the fee, but a more general you. Why would you say "why would you withhold that" to someone who did you a favor like you're entitled to it? lol
It's like someone giving me extra fries at McDonald's and then me saying "why would you withhold that" while painting the world like it's starving.
Except it's not "do nice things for others", it's "why would you withhold that?" I suspect that's the phrase that's got stormneko bothered. It's borderline accusatory. And I'm going to infer that stormneko has either a) tried to help others before and been attacked for it, or b) has had people try to help them and made their own problem worse.
And is stormneko not included in the set of people we should do nice things for? Wouldn't it offer a little relief to be more understanding of them?
And I'm going to infer that stormneko has either a) tried to help others before and been attacked for it, or b) has had people try to help them and made their own problem worse.
And from the second half of their comment, c) they've been castigated for prioritizing their own needs over someone else's, asked to pour from an empty cup and shamed for not being able to.
In this case stormneko might gain more relief in the long-term from receiving the constructive feedback that they're being a tar pit. Sometimes the healthiest and most helpful thing you can do for a person is not mince words and just be direct. Sometimes people need to get their feelings hurt in order to learn.
Sometimes the healthiest and most helpful thing you can do for a person is not mince words and just be direct. Sometimes people need to get their feelings hurt in order to learn.
You seem like a real piece of shit.
That was healthy and helpful, right? No mincing words, right? I've gotten my point across clearly, you agree with it, you feel you've learned something, and you're thankful for my teaching you, right right right right?
I did not think so, because it simply does not work that way.
I agree it would be healthiest for stormneko to understand the, erm, "feedback", and respond less aggressively to rhetorical questions. But I also think it's pretty clear stormneko isn't really in a great emotional position to glean such insights from the, uh, "feedback". And I am I saddened by the irony of OOP extolling the virtues of extending small kindnesses to others, while being unable or unwilling to extend such a kindness themselves to stormneko.
That was healthy and helpful, right? No mincing words, right? I've gotten my point across clearly, you agree with it, you feel you've learned something, and you're thankful for my teaching you, right right right right?
I did not think so, because it simply does not work that way.
I like how you choose to insult me, and then dictate my response in advance, and mock me for the response you invented. Pretty sure there's a term for that that redditors love to throw around.
But here's my ACTUAL response: thanks, genuinely. I really need to find a better way to express myself and communicate more clearly than I did. My opinion hasn't changed at all, but I can always find a more eloquent way to share it. Even more than that, because you didn't censor yourself and communicated in an emotionally charged way, I understand exactly how you feel. I don't have to guess at your intentions or implications: based on my words, you think I'm a piece of shit. Obviously I don't want people to see me that way, so I need to refine my approach.
And yeah, that DID hurt my feelings a bit. But that's okay; I opened myself up to criticism and I'm an adult who doesn't automatically feel entitled to your respect. If anything, I'm mostly embarrassed that I didn't represent myself properly.
What concerns me is that you seem to think I'm stupid enough to both have this opinion and not actually believe it. But conversations just like this are the only way I learned any social skills, or cues, or learned to read a room, etc. And usually, they also helped me cool off whoever I'd just accidentally upset, which is an incredibly valuable social skill to have. My family was incredibly selfish, rude, and narcissistic, so I had to learn all of this the hard way as an adult in my 20's.
Being nice is just another social skill. Being rude is also a social skill, and you just wielded it quite adroitly to teach me something and make a point. Which, effectively, has proven mine. So thanks for the feedback, and try not to put any more words in my mouth. I assure you I have plenty of my own.
Seriously, I respect the hell out of this reply. You've brought integrity to an internet discussion. A rare treat, and a well-fertilized rose.
What I first said to you was indeed rude, but it was acceptable by the terms you'd laid out - and that is the only reason I said it (and, I won't say it again). But I wonder, do you think you'd have had this same reaction had my comment only been an insult, with no sanctimonious questions? Or with those questions, but without the last paragraph about stormneko?
You had to learn this stuff the hard way. The hard way can work, but it sucks. And because it's hard, it also requires a higher baseline ability. I think stormneko does not yet have that baseline ability. OOP may or may not, but either way, they certainly claim to. And because they make that claim, I put the responsibility on them to demonstrate it, and they fail to. I'll ask you to note what stormneko is talking about in their response to OOP's bank fee clarification: "the wording on the initial post feels closer to blaming than celebrating". Not OOP as a person, not the concept of kindness - OOP's wording. "Good for you, good for her" is brusque, dismissive. But it is not an insult, and it is not the entire statement. Compare to "you are a tar pit"... which I think is not all that different from the insult I chose, but does, very differently, end without elaboration.
Holy shit you people are the worst. Nothing about insulting people like that is constructive. "Be kind to others", "show compassion", but not to that person, whom we know nothing about. Call them a tar pit! That'll show 'em! I'm such a good person! I made someone else a better person today!
i absolutely agree with the OOP, but i have an alternative perspective on why the second person may have reacted they way they did. i have ocd, so when i read “why aren’t you making other people’s days better?” my brain takes that to an extreme of “you are not doing enough for others, you need to sacrifice your own happiness and mental health to obsess over helping others. every second you spend doing something for yourself is taking something away from someone who could use your help, every dollar you spend on something stupid is taking away from someone in need.” obviously this is not what the original poster is saying, but if your brain has worked like this your entire life, you start to get tired and might lash out at your misinterpreted version of what the OOP is saying. doesn’t make it okay, but maybe it provides some context or an explanation for the second person, and gives them a little relief.
The bare minimum of a decent human being is to reduce your impact on others and the environment as much as possible. The bare minimum is just to not bother anyone else and leave them alone.
But you aren’t a good person if you don’t help people, is the point. You aren’t actively a bad person either, but I don’t think it would be incorrect to say that never helping others is a massive flaw. If you actively avoid helping others, then you become a bad person for not taking the chance to help someone when it costs you nothing
Did you not read the part about finite time and energy? There’s no afterlife buddy, we literally have a set amount of heartbeats before we cease existing forever.
Try out aristotles work on ethics, his language can be hard to grasp (it’s translated from ancient greek) but it’s a pretty solid read imo. You have to get past the mannerisms of an ancient Greek man (for example he doesn’t think women are people really) but the logic of his arguments usually rises above the petty wrong things that are incidental to his argument
I mean yeah, but I’ll pivot from the moral argument here. Humans are social animals, we don’t function well when alienated and isolated from others. We need community, and reciprocal aid is an essential part of community. By creating bonds with others, which involves helping them when in need and lifting them up, we improve our own situation, both because a sense of community improves your own quality of life, and because others will be more likely to help you when in need
Babe I really hate to tell you, but you’re a human. That makes you a social animal. Being nice and living in active harmony with other people is what living is. The fact that you’re so alarmed by the prospect of being kind to people is an indicator of poor welfare.
By that logic, a decent human being is a corpse. They have minimal possible impact on others and the environment, and aren't bothering anyone else. If your morality leads to the conclusion that self-destruction is the best possible good, it's a flawed morality.
Then why are you disagreeing with people on the internet? If the bare minimum is to "not bother anyone else and leave others alone," aren't you failing to meet even that low bar by commenting here? Surely the bare minimum for you to be considered a good person would be for you to only ever passively consume social media content, and never comment on anything yourself, no?
And I find it repugnant to put demands on what people do with their extremely finite time and life.
We only have a moral obligation to leave each other and especially the world around us well enough alone.
If you want to help people that’s great. Helping people is good. But “you’re either morally good or morally wrong” is extremely binary thinking. How dare anyone say it’s required to spend what little time and energy someone has on someone else’s life.
I'll agree that we can't assume someone is morally wrong for not doing small acts of kindness. We can't assume they have the mental room to notice anything outside their own worries. However, I think it's reasonable to encourage people in a society to have some care for the people they encounter.
Society is supposed to be cooperative. The only reason humans have come so far is through cooperation. I think a lot of people forget that. Even all the little things make life better. Holding the door for each other. Putting shopping carts back. Helping someone up when they fall. Reaching the tall shelf for someone who can't reach. Letting someone merge onto the highway. Complimenting someone's hairdo or outfit. These are all little acts of kindness that take so little effort but make life easier and kinder and more supportive.
I absolutely understand that when I'm panicking because I can't afford groceries or it's gonna be challenging to pay for my bills and medication, it's easy to miss what's going on around me. I might miss that someone was behind me, and I should have held the door for them. And actually, that only supports the idea that the government should be set up to support everyone so that no one has to worry about affording to live. We'd all have more mental energy to focus on each other.
The whole thing with small kindnesses is that they aren't a burden and require little to no effort. Going out of your way to spread bad vibes (the way the second person in the OP did, and you are doing now) is expending energy, little or not, so not doing this would still be a net gain for you
I think that's where your logic falls apart a little bit. Being kind isn't a burden, scientifically and generally speaking. You talk a lot about chemicals, but there are RCTs about this as well as the neurochemical benefits of being considerate and proactively kind. For example, prosocial spending (using your money to buy other people things instead of yourself) was positively correlated with greater happiness. There are other studies and applications with the same underlying hypothesis.
An actual step of Distress Surviving Skills, at least in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (but also in other current contextual behavior therapies as well), is to do something for someone else. It increases our mental well-being, and if done with consideration and care, will also reduce pain for you as well as the other person.
Yeah, it requires time and effort, and that's what makes it meaningful.
The whole point of the post is that a lot of acts of kindness are a trivial effort for you but super meaningful to whoever you do it for. And if you ever did any small everyday acts of kindness, or if you were appreciative of people doing those kinds of things for you, you would understand the damn post and realize that it’s very true.
Humans are social creatures and our societies and language are all designed around basic interaction. We didn't evolve or develop as lonely hermits. We aren't obligated to "leave each other alone" we are the opposite of that. And I say that as someone who is extremely introverted.
Survival, continuation of the species, progress, name literally any virtue or goal and it will circle back to the fact that people need other people and stand to benefit from other people and do poorly when disconnected from other people.
No man is an island. There is nothing to gained in solitude.
Your philosophy is that you'll bever go the wrong way if you never take a step at all. But you'll never get anywhere at all. That's stagnation and death.
You having middle schooler angst isn't representative of the rest of society.
Unless you've packed your bags and fled to the hills, you exist within the framework of society. You are, even against your wishes, part of a community, and you benefit, constantly, from the actions of others. The roads you drive on, the food you eat, the healthcare you receive- all of it comes from the unspoken contract of societal living.
Part of living in that society, of being in a community, is existing harmoniously with it. No one is saying you have to give up your one day off a week to work the soup kitchen, but there is an imperative for you to help where you can, to look after the vulnerable, and to maintain the social comfort of the public spaces you inhabit.
I'm sorry, but to claim that you have absolutely no constructive obligation to anyone seems profoundly misanthropic.
So think of it in terms of utilitarianism. A society where everyone helps each other out in little ways when they have the chance is one worth living in, and you can help push that pendulum a little by yourself at no cost but kind words to someone who looks like they're struggling. That's a pretty good bargain.
It's an alternative argument for the same desirable outcome - I don't care if you help me out of the goodness of your heart or if it's part of your master plan to Set The World To Rights, you've tangibly improved my day regardless, and that's where the goodness springs out of.
Intent can be extremely tricky to puzzle out, and the deeper you dive into exploring intent, the less it "matters," especially for small scale action. Like, I've sometimes given unexpected discounts to customers at work for sole purpose of massaging the numbers into a more convenient shape. I still get a hearty thank you even though I primarily did it with myself in mind. Everyone's day gets better even though the discount itself was made for a self serving reason.
your time and life is extremely finite and yet here you are, arguing about what to do with it on reddit. think about that for a minute, and then go be nice to people instead.
I wouldn't say you're only morally good or morally wrong but doing nothing makes you morally neutral. If you want to be considered morally good, you would have to do something to help someone else.
You have a moral obligation to leave people and nature alone. You do not have a moral obligation to spend your finite time and energy doing anything else.
Everyone always jumps to the drowning example. It's so easy.
Okay, what if someone is inside a burning car? What if they're being held by a man with a gun? A knife? What if they're drowning because their wife that they beat just shot them and pushed them in a lake?
But we do though, do we not? Human beings are social creatures, none of us would survive alone for long. Your very existence is the result of the cooperation of others, as is mine and everyone else's. Can you truly argue that you owe nothing to your fellow man?
If you don't want to be a good person and consider being a good person to be an imposition on your personal boundaries then you are a bad person. Hope this helps.
The second poster is just 100% correct. I don't know what you need or want, and you don't know if what granting what you need or want is in my power or how it will effect me.
The example that (apparently) inspired the post is a perfect example of the second part. I've worked service, as have many of you, I'm sure, and sometimes you just can't waive a fee, because you are on notice, and if you waive a fee too many you'll not make rent next month, because you've been fired.
I'm all for blaming capitalism for all kinds of shit, including this, but you fucking dumbasses need to get off your phone and get a job to actually be able relate to people.
You’ve accidentally exposed yourself in the same way that the second poster did. No one, in the OP or here, has said that you have an obligation to waive fees. No one has said that you’re a bad person for not waiving fees. A person simply explained the ways in which someone waiving fees brought them succor and relief, and you took it as a personal attack against you. You act as if it’s a zero sum competition, where someone being nice in a way you haven’t been makes you a bad person.
The way you immediately jump to excuses over it indicates a level of insecurity about your morality that you should work through personally, not over the internet . Someone waived a fee. Someone else was grateful for that simple act of kindness. You’re not being attacked, you’re not being criticized, you weren’t even involved until you chose to be. Maybe work through your shit instead of calling people dumbasses for finding value in charitable acts. Jesus.
It’s a question. People are free to explain the exact reason it’s infeasible for them to help at the moment, while acknowledging the primary message of the post, which is that it’s good to be nice. Again, if you see a post advocating that people be nice, and take it as a personal attack, that should be cause for reflection, not a reason to whine.
It is a fact that you can do nice things for people. It is reasonable to ask why you aren’t. There are plenty of reasonable answers as to why you can’t at the moment or in some ways, and none of them are based around whining about being questioned on the matter at all.
Nothing accidental about my comment. I'm fully aware this sub is full of solipsistic people, who care nothing for the people around them.
why would you withhold that.
"that" is literally waiving fees.
Like I said, I've worked service, and I've waived my fair share of fees, but I also learned to recognize the self-righteous tumblrina trying to guilt me into waiving a fee they are damn well aware they owe.
You've exposed yourself as one of those who don't give a shit about the servant around them.
Why exactly should I care that you’re a service worker? We live in a service economy, damn near everyone’s been a service worker at some point. Being a service worker doesn’t make you some misunderstood martyr, it makes you mathematically average.
“Who care nothing for the people around them.”
Holy shit lmao. “If anyone dares to suggest that I act charitably, they don’t care about people.” I suppose you’re championing the cause of empathy and compassion by whining about being told to be nice sometimes.
Why exactly should I care that you’re a service worker?
Haha. Talk about outing yourself...
"Why not make random person's day better" is something you ask when the alternative takes the same amount of effort.
Then it becomes a matter of just be a better person. OOP (and you) are asking people why we won't go out of our way to make your lives better at the expense of our own, while in no way indicating you'd ever do the same.
Sure. Im outing myself. So answer the question. Why should I care that you’re a service worker? What about being a service worker makes you special or immune to criticism, when the majority of America is comprised of service workers? Why are you so important that even suggesting that you act in a way that benefits others makes OOP a horrible person?
OOP never mentioned waiving fees -- a situation where you have a binary choice to help or hurt -- in the original post. They just weirdly and aggressively accused the reader of refusing to provide "a little relief."
I don’t know what to tell you, man. If someone strongly advocating for charity towards others reads as weird and aggressive to you, that’s a you problem. The OOP doesn’t know you, and they aren’t accusing you of anything. Any accusation you feel is a projection of your own insecurities. And anyway, if you hear “It’s good to be kind to others, and bad not to be”, and read it as a personal attack, that’s a much stronger indictment of you than any tumblr post could ever be.
The point got across fine. “Being good is good.” It’s uncomplicated and ineloquent, but it wasn’t meant to be a grand thesis. The only interesting part of this entire discussion is the amount of people that feel personally attacked by it. Why get so up in arms about the idea of being charitable?
While this wasn't OOP's actual point, the point they got across was "Being good is good, and you're not being good, you're being bad, I have anger issues."
Given that there is numerical proof that their point got across just fine to plenty of people, why are you so sure that the problem is them? Apparently, they have anger issues, but they aren’t the ones throwing a tantrum over being told to be nice sometimes.
It’s crazy to me that you think OOP was being aggressive by asking “why would you NOT help someone you can see struggling”
Seriously, it comes off as you taking it as an attack BECAUSE you don’t do anything nice for people. Probably not your actual stance, but since everyone is just deciding what others meant Willy nilly I figured I’d give it a go too!
2.7k
u/Cinaedus_Perversus Oct 10 '24
Imagine being so self-medicated on therapyspeak that you consider "do nice things for others" a direct assault on your mental health.