#in terms of human psychological development equivalent

[racefortheironthrone]

If management finds a way to automate jobs during a strike, is that scabbing?

Peripherally.

The automation itself is more part of the general category of management strategies to restructure workflow and production methods in order to reduce the need for, and thus the power of, labor. This dates back to the origins of Taylorism itself in the 1890s as an effort to “steal the brains from underneath the cap of labor” and through to the emergence of Human Relations and Industrial Psychology in the early 20th century as a means to better control workers. So I think you could see in as essentially equivalent to classic speed-up and stretch-out efforts to maintain production at as low a cost as possible during a strike, and thus break the union.

However, the dirty truth of automation is that there is no clean way to fully substitute machinery for labor. Due to the inherent limitations of technology at any stage of development, you need labor to repair and maintain and monitor automated systems, you need labor to install and operate the machines, you need labor to design and program and manufacture the machines. (This is one reason why the job-killing predictions around automation often fall flat, because the supposedly superior new technology often requires a significant increase in human labor to service the new technology when it breaks. For example, this is why automation in fast food has proven to be so difficult and partial than expected: it turns out that self-checkout machines are actually very expensive to operate in terms of skilled manpower.) And to the extent that a given automation contract or project is being undertaken during a strike in order to break that strike, that’s absolutely scabbing.

[wxlfbites]

A Werewolfs Guide to Terminology - an update

Authors Note: Below is an ever developing glossary which will be used by a new, yet familiar, branch of the nonhuman community known as the were community. For all those who wish to distance or no longer associate themselves with the current alterhuman, otherkin and therian communities, respectively, this glossary provides ways of describing one's experiences and identities that are more reminiscent of the "old days". While terms used within all of these communities will be listed here, you'll notice they're written a bit differently, to distinguish between "new" and "old" variations. Any and all questions about terminology are welcome. Any terms coined by individual Were's may not appear in any official Were community glossary unless it proves to be a useful, popular term; we want to avoid as much micro-labeling, excessive coining and term hoarding as possible.

A

Animality - the experience or state of being an animal.

Awereness - when one comes to understand their nonhumanity/animality; they become "awere".

Alt.Horror.Werewolves (AHWW) - a usenet group created in 1992 to discuss werewolves and the werewolf genre, it became the birthplace of The Were Community when others began discussing their experiences with nonhuman identity.

C

Calling - feeling drawn to something, someone or someplace as part of ones nonhumanity, this could be used for a nebulous experience that one might not be able to label otherwise, a placeholder while one is discovering what an experience means to them, or a standalone label : "I feel the call of x" or "I'm having a strong calling toward x".

Clinical Zoanthropy - a psychological condition wherein one experiences delusions of being, transforming into or having previously transformed into a nonhuman animal.

D

Daemon - a thoughtform representation of someone's subconscious, inner thoughts, or soul which is given a name, animal form, gender and, in most cases, sentience.

Daemian - one who has a daemon.

Drop - to no longer identify as or with a specific identity for whatever reason; typically seen in the context of voluntary identities.

F

Flicker - one who experiences a nebulous or temporary identity which is often brought on by the consumption of some source material; the thing one identifies as : "my x-flicker" or "I'm flickering as x".

G

Gear - accessories, including jewelry, clothing, taxidermy, etc. worn to express and connect to ones nonhumanity and/or relieve species dysphoria.

Greymuzzle - an older, well respected member of the were community who has been active for several years; equivalent to an elder.

H

Hearted - the strong connection one feels to something nonhuman which may include an affinity for, relation to, resonance or familiarity with; the thing one feels a connection with : "I am x-hearted".

Howl - an organized gathering of Were's, typically in a physical location.

L

Link - a nonhuman identity that is voluntarily chosen or created; the thing one voluntarily identifies as or with : "my x-link" or "I link to/as/with x".

M

Mundane -  indicating those who are not part of any nonhuman community and do not consider themselves to be nonhuman in anyway, particularly those who do not know of these communities or who do not believe in them.

N

Nonhuman - someone who identifies as something other than human.

Nonhumanity - the experience or state of being nonhuman.

P

Pack - a tightly knit group of Were's who communicate regularly and function as a chosen family; may or may not have ranks.

Polywere - a Were whose identity is that of multiple separate species at once.

S

Shifting - when one feels more like their nonhuman identity at any given moment; refer to part two of this glossary.

Species Dysphoria - a type of bodily dysphoria (i.e. anxiety, distress, dissatisfaction) arising from the perception that ones body is of the wrong species.

T

Transspecies - one who identifies as a species that is different from the one they are assigned at birth; typically used only by those who are also transgender, experience species dysphoria and desire body modifications which may resemble medical transitioning to resemble their species more on a physical level.

The Were Community - the overall population who identify themselves as Were's.

W

Were - one who identifies as nonhuman, specifically as some creature or animal; this can be a physical, spiritual, psychological or mixed-belief identity : "I am a Were" or "I am a Were-x".

Werefeels - the feeling of being closer to or reminded of one's nonhumanity; sometimes triggered by an image, item or sensation.

Weresona - a character created by a Were member of the furry fandom, based on their nonhuman characteristics; for use in furry circles.

Part Two - Shifting

Astral Shift - a shift where one takes on the form of a nonhuman creature within the astral plane

Aura Shift - when one's aura changes to reflect their nonhumanity.

Berserker Shift - when one's animality takes over, characterized by loss of control or an altered state of consciousness.

Bilocation Shift - a shift where one's spirit leaves their body and takes on the form of a nonhuman creature.

Cameo Shift - a shift of any kind that is not representative of one's established nonhuman identity.

Dream Shift - a shift experienced in an unconscious state or dream, where one takes on the form and/or mentality of a nonhuman creature.

Mental Shift - when one experiences what they believe to resemble the mentality and cognitive processes of a specific nonhuman creature.

Phantom Shift - when one experiences non-corporeal body parts associated with a nonhuman creature.

Sensory Shift - when one experiences heightened or altered senses that they feel resembles that of a nonhuman creature.

Transformation - a physical shift which is acknowledged by the one experiencing it to be a hallucination.

[losersroom]

some many thoughts on anatomical differences of alphas and omegas in the universe of that one fic in particular

-second sexed humans can sense scent in two ways: through the nose, and through the vomeronasal organ located above the roof of the mouth. the former is for ordinary smells, the latter is primarily for picking up pheromonal scent. both senses develop rapidly with second puberty.

-alphas and omegas have more scent receptors in the nose, which become active with second puberty. because of this there's a common superstition that children with large noses are more likely to present.

-all humans have a VMO, but in betas it remains vestigial and doesn't develop. the experience of 'scenting' a potential partner this way, through the mouth, means that often the wires get crossed with the sense of true taste, and it's not uncommon for alphas and omegas to experience it as such. this is where the trope of your partner smelling like specific delicious foods comes from.

-both alphas and omegas have scent glands in the neck that become swollen, sensitive, and overactive with arousal. claiming bites going from alpha to omega only is just a cultural convention. pheromone scent is strongest at the neck, behind the jaw, at the insides of the wrists, and of course the genital region.

-alphas tend to have larger canine teeth- "fangs" -than omegas or betas, and this actually can be an accurate predictor of which children will present.

-in fact there are many actual ways to check the likelihood that a child will present second sexed, from dental analysis to pelvic sonograms to genome testing. this kind of scrutiny is rare, however. most people prefer to wait and see. testing can be expensive and invasive, for one thing, and sexual phenotype is messy; often even betas who have the potential to present alpha or omega never do, given genetic or environmental factors.

-yes, it is possible through HRT to transition to or from a second sex, however the therapy is experimental and it can be very difficult to balance hormone levels. in betas transitioning a/o, this can cause the VMO and pheromone glands to develop, which is often the most desired goal.

-for most people, second puberty occurs somewhat concurrently with the end of regular puberty; the typical age range for presentation is between 12 and 15, though rare cases in the upper teens and lower 20s have been reported. precocious second puberty that begins before regular puberty is extremely rare but possible, and usually indicative of a disorder.

-during second puberty, the body goes through a very rapid and drastic set of changes, including to the genital structure and skeleton. it can be violent and distressing.

-unsuppressed omega males experience a long estrus cycle that typically includes two heats per year. this is the only time they are fertile. heat lasts between three and four days, during which the omega craves physical contact and closeness with an alpha in addition to the drive to be mounted. heat can be prevented by long term suppressant usage, but it is advisable to have at least one per year; after long enough without, it will begin rapidly after ceasing hormonal suppressants, so it's important for an omega not to miss a single dose.

-omega females experience heat on a schedule roughly equivalent to a beta woman's menstrual cycle. so about once a month. brutal.

-omegas also develop extremely strong pelvic floor muscles. during orgasm these muscles seize up, "locking" around an alpha's knot to keep it in place. this response can be triggered by any orgasm, but is most frequently triggered by alpha pheromones.

-concurrently, alphas do not knot with every orgasm. the phenomenon is partly pheromonal and partly psychological, so that sometimes the presence of a bonded partner is required. the knotting response is most frequently triggered by an omega partner, but can occur between two alphas or an alpha and a beta. an alpha in rut will knot every time regardless.

-alpha rut is not based on any type of schedule. it can be triggered by anything from a high stress, combative situation (such as professionally playing ice hockey) to the scent of an omega in heat. it typically lasts 24 to 48 hours. an alpha in rut can become extremely agitated and irritable, sensitive to light, and in the presence of an omega, single-mindedly focused on breeding to an extent that can return them to a primal, almost intoxicated state. for this reason many careers with high risk factors require alpha employees to be on suppressants constantly. most people just take them situationally as a precaution, especially outside of the US.

-if taken at the beginning of rut, suppressants can occasionally reverse it. this is not always effective.

[indignantlemur]

I was wondering what do andorians find attractive as a majority and individually?

Thank you.

Hello! To start off, I'm going to a quick and dirty breakdown of what all goes into attraction, and go from there.

Broadly speaking, attraction comes down to biology and psychology. Everyone and their grandmother at this point knows that we are attracted to cues which indicate a potential mate is healthy, is a carrier of desirable genes, etc. I could write an essay on that topic alone, but physiological cues are just one layer of the science behind attraction and mate selection.

A big factor in attraction and mate selection that folks often don't think about is histocompatibility. Bear with me, I'm remembering most of this from a biology professor's mid-class tangent many years ago. Histocompatibility is the sameness or sufficient similarity of the alleles of a set of genes called human leukocyte antigens (HLA), or major histocompatibility complex (MHC). In short: it's checking if the blueprint for your immune system looks a lot like the next guy's or not. Commonly, histocompatibility is tested when looking for compatible organ donors, but it plays a role in mate selections as well. Humans, for example, have tiny little receptors in our mouths which detect MHC markers within a partner's saliva when we kiss.

If a person's markers are sufficiently diverse from our own, we experience a "spark." This person's blueprints are different enough to be a good pairing for potential offspring! Hooray!

If they are too similar, Humans often feel that something is missing, or just generally felt weird/gross/put-off. Their blueprint is too matchy-matchy with yours: that's a firm no thank you!

This, of course, is a Human example. Andorians, presumably, function a little differently by virtue of their markedly different physiology and evolutionary path. Insects are well known for using chemical markers to communicate, and I don't see why Andorians wouldn't have this trait given their evolution, so I headcanon that Andorians are able to consciously parse pheromone markers utilising a vomeronasal organs (VNOs), which Humans don't really have.

(Well, we kinda-sorta do. Humans develop vomeronasal organs as fetuses, but then they go through a kind of regression and remain extremely under-developed forever afterwards. Human VNOs are really quite stunted, especially when compared with other animals on Earth. There's significant debate as to whether or not Humans actually can properly detect pheromones at all, in some scientific circles, while there does appear to be some evidence from recent studies that indicate that we can pick up some reproductive/social cues based on pheromones from our partners. It's a fascinating subject, but difficult to research as I understand it.)

Andorian pheromones would most likely relay subtle and complex indicators for health, fertility, arousal, and even moods to some degree. Andorians with long-term partners or strong relationships would be very familiar with any unique markers their friends, lovers, and family members have in their pheromones, and perhaps able to parse information on a subconscious level based on minute changes to those pheromone profiles. When it comes to aliens, however, all bets are off. Andorians are not built to parse Human pheromones, or any other species for that matter, and the information they do get from alien pheromones is confusing at best.

Thelen, for example, has noted in the past that Dagmar exudes a sharp, unpleasant chemical signal when in emotional distress, but at the time he had no idea what was being communicated to him.

Beyond pheromones, Andorians would often find markers of good health and diverse genes attractive as well, since that seems to be almost universal across many species. Some examples would be much like the Human equivalents, really: healthy blue skin, mobile antennae, thick hair, and very sharp teeth are commonly viewed as desirable (longer dual-incisors are considered particularly attractive, but there is a limit. No one wants to make out with a walrus.)

(Additional side note: Humans also tend to find longer incisors attractive, as it's generally regarded as a sign of good genes. Most folks find flat incisors a bit boring. Not outright unattractive, necessarily, but nothing to get excited about either. Individual mileage may vary, of course.)

Additionally, certain phenotypes are considered very attractive, such as blue eyes. Blue eyes on Andoria are very rare as the genes which result in this coloration are all recessive, but many believe that there is a beautiful, natural symmetry to an Andorian whose colouration is nothing but blue and white. Historically, a number of religious groups have assigned a kind of inherent divinity to those born with blue eyes, in fact, though modern sensibilities have since stamped such notions out quite thoroughly. That said, the appeal of blue eyes to Andorians cannot be understated: even aliens with blue eyes are deemed to be more attractive by default, and often find themselves on the receiving end of some very aggressive flirtation. Grey-eyed aliens aren't safe, either.

Now, beyond biology and appearance, we also have to look at more external factors, like culture, social pressures, and psychology.

Andorians place a great deal of emphasis on the importance of personal honour, strength, and the balancing act between self-control and passion. Additionally, we know they are a very social species, and that they are taught from a young age to value community over the individual. From this, we can conclude that these core values would inform their ideas of attractive personality traits and behaviours.

Personal honour and strength would, in some ways, go hand-in-hand in a society where duels to the death are still commonplace, but I would caution others to refrain from limiting their notion of strength to that of the physical alone. Mental fortitude is as valuable as physical might in as harsh an environment as Andoria often proves to be. Strength of arms paired with a weak mind and weaker self-control benefits no one, and Andorians look to the health and viability of the quad and the Clan above all.

Andorians are a deeply passionate people, which is what necessitates their often rigid social regulations, but that does not mean that they seek to remove their emotions entirely as the Vulcans are often purported to do. Rather, Andorians are very keenly aware that there is a time and a place for everything, and emotional outbursts outside of those times and places can be seen as deeply unattractive in a potential mate. Exceptions occur, of course - displays of great joy or terrible grief, for example, are given allowances that outbursts of rage or fear are not.

Additionally, childhood environment and parental figures play a huge impact on mate selection, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Sometimes, these factors serve as frames of reference for desirable traits and circumstances - and, sometimes, what to avoid at all costs.

Beyond that, however, individual preferences are the biggest deciding factors. Andorians are not all the same, nor do they have a mono-culture, and making more than broad generalizations here is a disservice to a complex species comprised of numerous unique individuals.

[gorbalsvampire]

More questions! Would you consider having cross splat play for a group with v5, ww5, and h5? Have the mechanics been simplified/streamlined enough for that to be possible without being a huge headache?

Also, unrelated: I think in today's ttrpg terms WoD5 wants to be a "fiction first" type of game. It definitely has introduced some features that add support in that way, such as the relationship maps, considering Coterie type, and the touchstones. But I think some of its mechanics still cleave to that "simulationist" mindset of the 90s and aughts, and get in the way of what the narrative does well 😅

This is a bit meandering, but I hope you gain something from it anyway.

So for my money, the big issues with cross splat play are thematic. Vampire and Werewolf are asking different questions of their players, and pursuing different kinds of horror. For all that they're nominally set in the same world, they don't fit right when they're shoved in next to each other. It's like how comics crossovers reduce the cosmic splendour of interplanar warfare between godlike entities and the workaday world of a nerdy student/photographer to a sort of spectacular slurry when they're put together - it can be fun, but it feels like less than the sum of its parts because none of them are getting to do what they were designed for.

Hunter is the exception. I think Hunter can dovetail with another splat reasonably well, because the Hunters are real people in over their heads and confronting a supernatural horror; a premise that can adapt to whatever kind of horror the other splat is presenting. Hunter also has tidier mechanics, which brings me to the "why I, specifically, wouldn't include Werewolf in a crossover" part.

When I've checked out Apocalypse in the past, I've found it aggressively America-centric (why do werewolves in the Celtic nations or the Balkans use terms from the First Nations?), not quite selling the "melting pot" pack (maybe this is me, but I feel like a werewolf pack should all be from the same tribe and differentiated by something else, like auspice), and worst of all - dull. Between Tribes and Gifts and Auspices and Spirits and five different statblocks it's managed to make pretending you're a werewolf fussy and pedantic.

I like trad games. I came up with Call of Cthulhu and WFRP. Pass me the percentile dice, we're going in! But the strength of V5, specifically, is that it's modular. From "only players roll" to "only simple conflicts" to "right, look in the back of the book for a combat move", V5 scales to an extent where it can be mechanically present, imposing the bare minimum of Hunger and Predator Type, in even a fairly lightweight chronicle - or it can go full tradgame, if you want it to!

The trouble with the wider WOD, in my opinion, has been the development outwards from Vampire. Most of the splats have started with Vampire's mechanics (an equivalent to blood points, humanity, disciplines, clans and so on) and adapted them and developed on top of them, which means they end up overburdened because they weren't working out from a neutral core. (CofD sidestepped this by starting with the human-focused core game and building very similar sets of numbers into the different splats, one direction at a time.) Combine that with the ever more convoluted world-building of the One World of Darkness conceit - you and I know that no amount of "the Lupines from Vampire aren't the Garou from Werewolf" holds up to the way the Revised books were written - and by the time you get to Wraith, both the system and the setting are overdeveloped and creaking at the seams.

I bring up Wraith because I really, really want Wr5 (technically it'd be the fourth edition, but whatever). I want a Storytelling Game of Psychological and Survival Horror, something that interrogates why the dead haunt the living and poses that as its central question. You can keep your Kingdoms and your Legions, but they're the threats that drive the playable ghosts into the periphery - they've made unacceptable compromises to survive deeper into the Shadowlands, closer to Oblivion. The Guilds offer another way - true death staved off by staying close to the truly alive. Maybe that's been the premise of Wraith all along, but I got the impression the game as published was more interested in building Stygia as a dark fantasy adventure than in ghost stories.

You're not wrong though: the WOD games have always existed in the space between blow-by-blow gun-catalogue tradgame and experimental, experiential storygame. When they're good, they turn that space into a sliding scale. When they're bad... well, when they're bad they're the detailed rules for kung fu in Requiem. The whole thing runs better when you're fiction first, but retain just enough risk/resource management that the mechanics get to intrude and remind you that you're not playing heroes. You are the monster. The more action you take, the more those trackers move. The Hunger is rising. When will you Rage?

[thepursuitofunderstanding]

Excerpts from Carl G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections: pgs 332 - 340,

"The God-image is, from the psychological point of view, a manifestation of the ground of psyche." pg 334

"The conflict between the opposites can strain our psyche to the breaking point, if we take them seriously, or if they take us seriously." pg 335

"If all goes well. the solution, seemingly of its own accord, appears out of nature. Then and then only is it convincing. It is felt as "grace."" pg 335

"The subjective conflict is only a single instance of the universal conflict of opposites. Our psyche is set up in accord with the universal structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche." pg 335

"I prefer the term "the unconscious," knowing that I might equally well speak of "God" of "daimon" if I wished to express myself in mythic language." pg 336-337

"It is a fact that symbols, by their very nature, can so unite the opposites that these no longer diverge or clash, but mutually supplement one another and give meaningful shape to life." pg 338

"By virtue of his reflective faculties, man is raised out of the animal world, and by his mind be demonstrates that nature has put a high premium precisely upon the development of consciousness. Through consciousness he takes possession of nature by recognizing the existence of the world and thus, as it were, confirming the Creator." pg 338

"We do not know how far the process of coming to consciousness can extend, or where it will lead." pg 340

"The need for mythic statements is satisfied when we frame a view of the world which adequately explains the meaning of human existence in the cosmos, a view which springs from our psychic wholeness, from the co-operation between conscious and unconscious. Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable--perhaps everything. No science will ever replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science. For it is not that "God" is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth, rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. The Word of God comes to us, and we have no way of distinguishing whether and to what extent it is different from God." pg 340

[hamliet]

... Can you really say that Qrow was horribly used by Ozpin? Like, Ozpin might have failed, but Qrow and Raven being turned into birds doesn't seem like it has a throughline to the way that Marcus treated Mercury. Also, how could Merc get his semblance back?

Ah, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here on two points! Apologies for being rather vague about it in the original post.

Firstly, while Mercury has been "horribly used," I actually wouldn't use that term to describe Qrow. Being able to relate to someone isn't the same as equating experience. I should have been more specific in explaining this.

For Qrow, what I would say is that Oz did mess up. I think what Raven says is that "Ozpin is not the man you think he is. And Qrow is a fool for trusting him. I would know, I trusted him once, too." And... we literally have an entire volume (6) about this. Ozpin does struggle to trust others, and as a result, comes across as untrustworthy. That doesn't mean he has purely self-centered motives or is villainous. He's just a flawed person.

Secondly, the point that I do make is that Raven explicitly draws a parallel between how Oz treated her and Qrow and how Cinder treats Emerald and Mercury. Not Marcus. Cinder (and honestly Salem). Mercury's abuse by Marcus, I think, has been called the darkest part of the entire story by the writers and when we get more into it, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets even darker. But I think Qrow might recognize the situation Mercury is in now, under Cinder-Salem-Tyrian, as somewhat sympathetic.

Being turned into a bird is also clearly seen as something of a violation by Raven, which makes sense alchemically because animals are considered less refined than humans (my dog disagrees BUT lol). So, there's a through-line of dehumanization here, which is also clearly an issue that relates to how Marcus treated Mercury, albeit to a far greater extent with Marcus and Mercury. However, me stating that I think it is possibly that Qrow will empathize with Mercury is not the same as saying that his experiences are exactly identical or even equivalent to what Mercury went through. The subtext to literally taking your son's soul is incredibly creepy, and nothing Oz did comes close to this.

As for Mercury getting his semblance back, I think it won't happen until Mercury reaches a point in his arc where accepts that he is a human being, which he currently still doesn't really see himself as. A semblance is unlocked when you reach a point of your own psychological development that Mercury is very much not near at this point.

The logistics of how that happens aren't clear because we still don't know exactly how Marcus stole Mercury's semblance either. I suspect the logistics would become clearer then. My current guess (which I may very well be wrong about) is I would say I think Mercury will realize that no matter what his father did to him, he still has a soul. His soul is unblemished. And he'll unlock a new level of his semblance.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jaco van Zyl

Published: Sept 2, 2021

The increased popularity of Critical Social Justice Theory (CSJT, commonly referred to as Woke ideology) and the different ways in which it manifests in academia, the media, politics, and private life necessitate not only a historical analysis of its evolution but also a psychological formulation thereof, based on adherents’ behavior, affective states, and what they reveal about their interpretation of the world today. The historical development of Critical Social Justice Theory in its current form has been well established thanks to the research by James Lindsey, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian. This developmental map describes the historical moments and philosophical checkpoints that ultimately led to CSJT, as it is applied today. In addition to its purely philosophical roots, there is a psychological structure underlying this worldview that requires certain psychological processes and intrapersonal dynamics on the part of its adherents for the ideology to be maintained, updated, and propagated. This article explores these processes.

Key Features of the Critical Social Justice Worldview

In their 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt categorize social activism into two types of worldviews, namely common-humanity identity politics and common-enemy identity politics. The former describes a type of social religion where the well-being of all humans is prioritized based on shared human values and common goals. It is a “social religion,” where all humans are equally included, and members of society are often referred to in familial terms. Historically, common-humanity identity politics has aimed to unite and harmonize racial, gender, and other strata of American life—and not to destroy, “dismantle,” or “cancel” any cultural artifacts of American heritage. The latter worldview, however, endorses a value system where an ever-growing list of aspects in American society are identified as “problematic” and consequently deserving of destruction. People who live by this worldview are vigilant and alert, ready to identify an enemy: a historical figure, an academic subject, language use, religious doctrine, a specific religion, a tradition, or a demographic based on immutable properties (gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.).

The common-enemy position has a well-established equivalence in psychology. Dividing people and human artifacts into all-bad or all-good categories is a basic feature of the Woke worldview. By virtue of a person’s immutable features, he is assigned a group-identity and is either classified as belonging to the evil oppressor class, the common enemy that needs to be exposed, humiliated, and cancelled or the virtuous, innocent victim class that deserves emancipation and social justice. To the Woke, the individual gets superseded by the group classification from which he cannot escape. Broadly, the categories carrying historical and current culpability include the categories of male, white, heterosexual, and able-bodied. Alternatively, categories carrying historical and current victimhood and moral innocence include the categories female, black/people of color, LGBTQ+ and disabled. This worldview in which every individual is classed as either all-bad or all-good actualizes a defense called splitting. Splitting is a primitive defence of young infants and in character constellations of some adults according to which people are either seen as purely evil and hostile, or purely innocent and loving. 

Within this split worldview, certain qualities are attributed to the Other, including feelings, intentions, wishes, and character traits. The attribution of such mental and character traits onto someone else can be described as the defence mechanism known as projection. Prejudice of any kind (be that sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, etc.) may be seen as the result of people projecting hostile aspects to whole groups of people. Once this split worldview has been established, guilt and innocence of the role players within every incident are determined by gender, race, or sexual orientation. Critical Social Justice Theory does not ask whether racism or sexism or homophobia took place; it assumes that it inevitably did:

“The question is not ‘did racism take place’? but rather ‘how did racism manifest in that situation?'” 

An appropriate question here may be framed as: “Where do the feelings, intentions, wishes, or character traits projected upon the other originate?”

There is no better a person to answer this question than the author of the Woke text White Fragility herself, Robin DiAngelo:

“I was invited to the retirement party of a white friend. The party was a pot-luck picnic held in a public park. As I walked down the slope toward the picnic shelters, I noticed two parties going on side by side. One gathering was primarily composed of white people, and the other appeared to be all black people. I experienced a sense of disequilibrium as I approached and had to choose which party was my friend’s. I felt a mild sense of anxiety as I considered that I might have to enter the all-black group, then mild relief as I realized that my friend was in the other group. This relief was amplified as I thought that I might have mistakenly walked over to the black party!

Patrick Rosal writes poignantly about the pain of being mistaken for the help at a black-tie event celebrating National Book Award winners…I have made this assumption myself when I have been unable to hide my surprise that the black man is the school principal or when I ask a Latinx woman kneeling in her garden if this is her home.”

The above admissions of her own prejudice assumed to be universal experience of all white people demonstrates the projection defenses CSJT adherents employ in their categorization of perceived oppression in each encounter. It is the contention of this piece that the feelings, intentions, wishes, or character traits projected to the Other originate with the person himself. These can be devaluing projections or idealizing projections (concordant with the primitive split into all-good and all-bad objects). With devaluing projections, aspects of the person they find internally intolerable, repudiating, or immoral within themselves get projected onto the bad object. Engaging the devalued Other with projected parts of themselves gives such individuals a greater sense of control over the otherwise intolerable aspects present yet denied within themselves. Often, those who employ this defensive splitting and projecting of bad aspects of themselves to the devalued Other, oftentimes manifest the exact type of projected characteristics themselves.

In contrast with devaluation and dehumanization of the Oppressor, the victimized Other is necessarily endowed with the opposite: all-good status of innocence, virtue, moral privilege, heroism, and essential purity. What is noteworthy is that some of the most passionate and devoted adherents of CSJT are also the most privileged elite of society. It seems that a vast number of these adherents belong to the category of white, often male, and heterosexual, frequently occupying prominent corporate, teaching, celebrity, or political positions, and belonging to middle- to upper-class households, having graduated from privileged schools and colleges, with concomitant great social influence, thus corresponding to CSJT’s definition of unearned privilege thanks to a most unjust, racist, and oppressive system. It is, therefore, logical to conclude that guilt about their shared perpetration of oppression may be too intolerable to bear. This anguish is solved in two ways: 

By projecting the guilt onto non-adhering members of the same devalued category, pointing out the racism in others, resorting to call-out and cancellation campaigns, and terrorizing individuals suspected of non-adherence (which is tantamount to endorsing racism) online, in the media, and especially before the suspected perpetrator’s employer. 

By employing a defense called identification with the victim, they act as allies to victimized minorities, describing themselves in self-deprecating terms, confessing their own racism and oppression, and vowing to commit to the Woke cause of dismantling systemically oppressive racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic systems. This allyship may, in fact, be described as a conscious or subconscious strategy to rid oneself of one’s own sense of complicity in the believed perpetration of oppression, by demonizing the devalued Other and, thus, camouflaging oneself through self-debasement and virtue-signaling behavior.  

A further appeal for such passionate endorsement of the CSJT comes from the social incentives. In the media, in centers of higher education, as the ethos of many corporations, at museums, in demonstrations by sports stars, at social events, and in the public statements by celebrities and artists, CSJT is framed as the moral goal of society—a new social religion. Not only is this worldview presented as morally superior to currently competing alternatives, but there is also a sense of prestige attached to it by virtue of the status associated with society’s trailblazers of trends—a Thorstein Veblen Theory of trendy morality. Through narrative saturation in the media, the appearance of consensus, fear of ostracization, and association with what is prestigious, classy, and trendy, a moral ideal is created: A mass movement has been formed consisting of individuals of apparently one mind, striving toward the same indisputable and prestigious ideal. In his 1921 volume, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Sigmund Freud expounded on the idea that everyone identifies with a parent, teacher, or other admired figure, according to which certain personal goals for the future are set. In committing to these goals, the individual makes certain sacrifices, while feeling motivated by the imaginary pleasure he would enjoy from attaining these goals. In addition to identifying with the victim as an object of sympathy, the subject is also seduced into identifying with the idealized object (admired celebrities, artists, athletes, etc.) endorsing a worldview portrayed as morally prestigious. In doing so, the adherent to the CSJT enjoys the comfort of moral bliss, a sense of triumph, and the enhancement of self-esteem.

This state can only be maintained for as long as the all-good versus all-bad split is maintained. Psychologically, this is a much simpler maneuver compared to a more difficult alternative: namely, to tolerate ambivalence. It may be more bearable to condemn whole demographics, whole cultures, and whole histories as all-evil on the grounds of the despised aspects of such persons and their artifacts (also called part-object representation) than to deal with the complexities of appreciating that people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, histories, and cultures consist of both positive and negative aspects to various degrees (i.e., whole object representation). 

CSJT ensures the maintenance of the psychic split in various ways. The assigning of privilege and perpetration, on the one hand, and disadvantage and moral purity, on the other, is not based on alterable factors but on static, immutable characteristics framed in totally offensive terms. One  does not and might never hear of authoritative-parenthood privilege; addiction-free household privilege; disease-free childhood privilege; or early-trauma-free privilege; nuclear family privilege. These categories (whose correlations with improved development into adulthood have been confirmed) would weaken the split between unchangeable categories and turn it into a more workable framework in which those concerned with social justice could work. Adherents of the Woke worldview disallow this more complex approach to social issues (psychologically, an ambivalent position) and, instead, succumb to the simplistic and often pleasurable permission to demonize entire categories of people according to immutable traits.

Adherents of the CSJT also have a conspicuous relationship with world history. Central to their worldview, historical research, as recounted by the oppressor (heterosexual white male), cannot be trusted and merely perpetuates oppression and hate. In response, the Woke engage in a process of historical revisionism, applying the principles of postmodernism (evidence has no objective value, only subjective benefit) and cultural Marxism (oppressor-victim dichotomy along racial, gender, sexual orientation, and other categories) as their methodology to arrive at preferred, predetermined conclusions. Therefore, the white heterosexual male is an evil oppressor, and the minority class is the tragic hero. Historical empathy, or the ability to appreciate the complex reality of history, is no longer applied. Instead, history is used to remind one of the oppressor class’ inherent evil. Whatever can be said of the historical white male may also be claimed of the white heterosexual male today: He is greedy, oppressive, violent, unjust, and immoral. Since the past is also present in the CSJT worldview, historical culpability is also present culpability. To the Woke, history does not exist as history; history is current, and representatives of history are to be judged according to today’s moral values (also called, presentism).

A fundamental flaw in the CSJT worldview of history is that it cannot adequately account for the historical record when white nations have been the victims of defeat and oppression. These include the enslavement of Europeans by North African and Middle Eastern nations as well as by other European nations. Similarly, the Woke switch strategy is applied when presented with well-documented history involving the imperialism, warfare, genocide, and enslavement of Native American and African tribes by other Native American and African tribes. Shaka Zulu, the warrior king of the Zulus in the 19th century, displaced Jele, AmaHlubi, Swati, Matebele, and Makololo people who settled in other regions in Southern Africa, or were assimilated into other tribes. Similarly, the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade involved non-European tribal warlords like Tippu Tip of East Africa and others who participated in the oppressionof other non-European subjects. Whole kingdoms like the Hausa and Igbo Empires of Nigeria flourished during the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade and virtually collapsed when Napoleon brought it to an end. History reflects the complexity of human society in which moral judgments can hardly be made in black-and-white (or all-good versus all-bad) fashion. Current research has not found an application of CSJ doctrine implicating non-European nations in a social matrix of oppressor and oppressed demographics. 

Tangential to the CSJT worldview is the strategy employed when current social affairs are reported. Politicians, Big Tech companies, university lecturers, and legacy media resort to narrative selection and narrative saturation by creating a perception of today’s world that closely resembles the CSJT “reality.” The aim appears to be the manipulation of the listener’s perception of social reality, heightened selective awareness of incidents, and perceptual blindness to aspects of reality which do not fit into this precise narrative. This narrative follows the same split in which members of all-bad object-categories are pre-emptively devalued and rendered culpable as the oppressor, and members of the all-good object-categories are overvalued as innocent and unfairly oppressed. Thus, Eric Kaufman explains:

“At the extreme, minorities are viewed as hyper-fragile children than must be protected from all harms, however microscopic or imaginary. The majority is hated and feared as a vicious predator against whom one must constantly stand on guard, and which should be attacked remorselessly.”

But contrary to the totalizing narrative, the latest evidence shows a significantly more complex picture in terms of: 

The income gap among ethnicities and genders in the United States

Hate crime statistics in the United States

Police brutality in the United States

State of suffering (as opposed to comfortable privilege) facing men 

According to Kaufman, this selective maneuvering by CSJT adherents in dealing with historical and social information reveals a concerted effort to perpetuate a social narrative in which the evil white male-dominated West is in toto responsible for the oppression and suffering of the innocent, noble, morally pure victim classes—not only historically, but also presently.

What follows from this? CSJT adherents are clear: Through a process called problematizing, every aspect of European/Western society is to be combed to make visible its inherent oppressiveness. CSJT provides the doctrinal blueprint for how evil Western society is, and every single aspect of society should be interpreted accordingly to confirm its inherent evil. In this process of dismantling all traces of “whiteness” or of the “hegemony of heteronormativity” from Western society, nothing escapes the devaluing gaze of the CSJT activist. Dismantling is a euphemism for destruction, and the moral rationale for this is due to Western society’s inherent badness. DiAngelo herself writes:

“There are many approaches to antiracist work; one of them is to try to develop a positive white identity. Those who promote this approach often suggest we develop this positive identity by reclaiming the cultural heritage that was lost during assimilation into whiteness for European ethnics. However, a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy…Rather, I strive to be ‘less white.’”

No credit is given to Western society as the locus of the Enlightenment, and the same standard of blanket disqualification is not consistently applied to other cultural groupings. CSJT adherents have demonstrated their disgust for the West, problematizing everything from Shakespeare and Beethoven to mathematics and science. The above excerpt is a clear admission that ambivalence cannot be endured; that there can only be one approach to dealing with Western society, and that is to dismantle it. Anything softer than that would be accommodation (also referred to as maintaining the status quo). Just as splitting into immutable categories ensures that the split is immutably secured, stating that non-racism can never be achieved ensures that dismantling is an endless process: There will always be something more to destroy. To those familiar with psychodynamic theory, this final defense of actively engaging in violating and spoiling even cherished (socially idealized) aspects of Western society is a defensive constellation called pathological envy.

In 1957, the British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein published her ultimate work Envy and Gratitude, in which she meticulously maps out the infant dynamics of greed (or appetite for pleasure), envy, and jealousy. She describes the conditions under which these dynamics result in pathological envy in adulthood and, conversely, how resolution results in gratitude and creativity. In this paper, she describes primal envy as “the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something desirable—the envious impulse being to take it away or to spoil it.” Due to the frustration of not getting their desires satisfied, the subject projects destructive impulses into the Other, who is perceived to be withholding what the subject desires. Excessive envy is accompanied by excessively destructive and spoiling impulses. Once the admired/idealized Other has been devalued (even irrevocably destroyed), it is difficult for the subject to regard this spoiled object as valuable and obtainable again. The ultimate loss of the once-idealized Other leads to gratitude impairment.

Persons who have character constellations dominated by envy come across as bitter, demanding, entitled, insatiably dissatisfied, critical, nonreceptive to compliments, pessimistic, and aggressive. Since relief from frustration is obtained from destroying the envied object, the satisfaction of gratitude is not achieved. Instead, the pleasure from devaluation and sadistic spoiling of coveted resources (to the Woke: privilege, power, and normativity) becomes irresistible. The subject also enjoys the bliss of self-idealization as it is no longer subjected to the limitations, criticism, and judgment of the now-devalued Other. Granting the devalued Other even the slightest bit of accommodation could result in unbearable ambivalence. Such ambivalence would threaten the narcissistic perfection of the subject and would expose him to unbearable guilt. Instead, the person resorts to splitting and devaluation, as ambivalence would remind him of the once-enjoyed valued object of which he is currently deprived due to his own destructive violation of that object. 

From the CSJT perspective, what is the coveted “something” that the Other possesses and withholds that justifies the envious destruction of the Other? It is, according to Douglas Murray, among other things, power:

“[E]verything is viewed solely through the prism of ‘power.’ Of course power exists as a force in the world, but so do charity, forgiveness and love. If you were to ask most people what matters in their lives very few would say ‘power.’ Nevertheless for a certain type of person who is intent on finding blame rather than forgiveness in the world…absolutely everything in life is a political choice and a political act.”

At a collective level, adherents of CSJT and their obsession with power manifests this psychoanalytic formulation of envy observably. Every individual is capable of disgust and bitterness due to his own privately-experienced frustrations and defeats. Crowded together around a socio-political cause like CSJ and fueled by narrative-creation and saturation from legacy media outlets, such individuals can easily align their grievances and demand the utter dismantling, destruction, and violation of an imperfect yet evolving system consisting of categories of people deemed unfairly advantaged, oppressively powerful, and protective of their privilege.

The aggressive utterances by CSJT activists and their destructive behaviour toward dissidents online, on university campuses, and at places of employment, belie their self-justifying claims that they repudiate hate, intolerance, and oppression. Such behavior betrays more a burning hatred toward those perceived to be privileged than concern for those perceived to be disenfranchised.

The Future of CSJT

As explained above, CSJT is a radical worldview under which more destructive trends can be expected. From a psychodynamic perspective, the CSJT worldview drives individuals to desire a particular resource: “systemic power.” CSJT has provided for the perpetual devaluation of the Other by formulating its utter intolerance of negotiation and accommodation of anything less than a commitment to destroy (or dismantle) Western civilization. Its totalizing nature drives it to ensure that not a single aspect of society is left untouched by its dismantling commitment. The outcome will be a three-fold experience: first, the enjoyment of brute primal pleasure from destroying the envied Other, primal narcissistic bliss of moral self-idealization, and, third, unbridled access to resources (“systemic power”) on CSJT terms with severely limited reflective ability. 

A worldview so voracious for power, with no capacity for self-reflection, is a recipe for totalitarianism. CSJT’s failure to usher in a worldwide “anti-racist” utopia will not disillusion its adherents. Instead, hunger for power and the pleasure of envious destruction will greatly weaken restraint. Maintaining a de facto conviction that their own position is above all scrutiny, adherents of CSJT will scapegoat yet another devalued and oppressive Other as the reason for society’s disintegration, and the reason for Theory’s “failure” will be sought elsewhere. Theory will be elevated to scriptural status, and, as a result, it will be immune from criticism. 

One extreme response to the failure of CSJT to turn the West into an “anti-racist” utopia will likely be a defensive maneuver familiar in psychoanalysis. Following Sigmund Freud’s observations in Group Psychology, devotees of radical religious and political movements identify with an external idealized individual or cause. The psychological investment into the idealized Other can be so extreme that, should the Other or their cause disappoint, devotees will much rather resort to masochism than to bear failure. It would, therefore, be no surprise if, even after the failure of CSJT to transform society into an “anti-racist” utopia, the most extreme adherents still seek a kind of heroic martyrdom in service of Theory.

Since CSJT is essentially hostile, envious, and ultimately necrophilic (destruction-oriented), what does the  alternative look like from a psychodynamic perspective?

The Burden of a Complex Reality

One of the greatest psychological milestones an infant achieves is to integrate good and bad within the Other and eventually the good and bad within the self. Prior to such an achievement, it perceives the Other entirely represented by its parts: the Other as the all-good breast, or the all-good hand, or the all-bad face, and so on. Healthy psychological development involves progressing from experiencing the world within this defensive split (and projectively engaging the world within this split) to gradually realizing that the same Other contains aspects that are both good and bad.

Developmental progress is, therefore, the infant’s ability more fully to perceive and respond to reality with all its complexity. This, undoubtedly, leads to greater restraint in instinctive responses. Within the more primitive split, the infant perceives and responds instinctively with destructive aggression, or with spoiling envy, or with engulfing adoration, etc., of the Other. More developed psychological representation of complex reality as a mixture of both good and bad aspects curtails such unbridled responses and leads to a more moderated affective response: 

When the primitive split representation of the Other is not adequately resolved, instinctive responses to reality will be the default mode of response. When any collective (family system, community, subculture, or society as a whole) fosters and rewards such regressive representations of the world, it will be increasingly difficult for individuals, especially those growing up under such poorly-structured systems of representation, to advance to a worldview that more adequately takes into account the full spectrum of complexities. A worldview consistent with a primitive psychological system of representation would be one of in- and out-group arrangements, highly tribalized interactions, stereotypes, and gross generalizations.

Conclusion

According to psychodynamic theory, when the early, more primitive position of crude splits and projections have been adequately resolved, the individual will appreciate more naturally that every person is an imperfect mix of both good and bad traits. This reality is true not only of the Other but also of the self and of  society, as it is made up of such “blended” individuals.

Such a worldview would likely fall within the category of a common-humanity social justice, as opposed to the common-enemy worldview of CSJT. A common-humanity worldview recognizes the failures—even dismally so—in tribes’ and nations’ histories, but it also appreciates their successes and accomplishments. It celebrates these triumphs, while acknowledging and committing to learn from the failures. A common-humanity worldview appreciates that while past eras may have consisted of social structures where a specific gender or certain religions or races were more dominant than others, their failures cannot be ascribed to such categories, nor can specific categories be essentially evil or essentially good.

Contrary to the common-enemy worldview, the common-humanity worldview is hesitant to resort to simplistic categories of saints and monsters. It appreciates the complexity of humanity, of society, of communities and of individuals, and reflects this in interactions and expressions. The common-enemy approach in CSJT (and the accompanying wholesale designation of culpability and characterization attributed to certain races, a genders, sexual orientations, and cultures) is a regressive response to social challenges. A more adaptable and psychologically mature approach is a common-humanity worldview, positioned to improving developmental and social factors such as family dynamics, parenting styles, adequate basic education, and living environments.

Jaco van Zyl is a clinical psychologist in South Africa.

==

One of the things that's thematically apparent from the Critical Theory-based, ahem, "scholarship" is the resentment and jealousy the authors hold towards the real domains, such as the sciences. Buried under the postmodern nonsense are petulant children who are envious of the fact they'll never produce anything as meaningful or important or even objectively useful. They could see how influential and well regarded the sciences are, but since they were incapable of participating or competing, they pivoted to attack at the level of epistemology - how we determine what's true - and demanded that it was bigoted for them to be excluded. That's why there's deranged, bogus fields and fraudulent papers like "Feminist Glaciology" and "Queer Agriculture."

It's not just Grievance Studies because the domains are based on hatred, envy and resentment of specific categories of people - men, heterosexuals, white people, healthy people, etc. - but because those embroiled in those areas are like the jealous Cain to the scientific Abel.

[ozimac]

Perception & Attention

Amodal Completion & Illusory Perception in Birds and Primates, Fujita et al. (2012)

Reaction-time Explorations of Visual Perception, Attention, and Decision in Pigeons, Blough (2012)

Experimental Divergences in the Visual Cognition of Birds and Mammals, Qadri & Cook (2015)

The article "Amodal completion & illusory perception in birds and primate" by Fujita et al. (2012) explores the perceptual processes of nonhuman animals, emphasizing the importance of understanding their cognitive abilities. It discusses the role of perception in providing information for higher cognitive processes and highlights potential evolutionary constraints that shape species-specific perceptual characteristics. 

The study involves experiments with pigeons and primates, investigating their responses to completion tasks and visual illusions. Pigeons have even been observed to have difficulty completing ecologically relevant stimuli, which proves the relevance of using ecologically meaningful stimuli, such as seeds and artifacts, in testing pigeons' completion abilities not necessary (e.g., Ushitani & Fujita, 2005). Another question that arises is if pigeons lack a visual perceptual system to complete an image at all, or do they just decline the completed image. Fujita & Ushitani (2005) developed a task to test pure perception, not just completion, where they trained pigeons to find and peck a punched red diamond among complete diamonds. Then put white square next to diamond with a small gap. Finally, tested pigeons with punched diamonds that had a white square filling the punched part using reaction time as a measure of perceived confidence in their choice. Their results found that this was easy for pigeons (with shorter RTs!), but difficult for humans (longer RTs)! Which, to me, suggests employment of an exclusionary process, and with the authors concluding that it seems as if completion seems to be the last resort of pigeons, whereas it is the first choice for other species tested. Further exploration questions whether pigeons lack an early perceptual system for completion or if they choose not to complete images. Other experiments, including investigation of the Ponzo illusion and Muller-Lyer illusion, reveal that pigeons exhibit biases towards expected illusions, though individual variations exist. The article concludes by emphasizing the concept of "umwelt," highlighting differences in sensory processes among species and suggesting that a species' visual perceptual system is tuned to its own ecological niche in the wild.

-

The chapter "Reaction-time Explorations of Visual Perception, Attention, and Decision in Pigeons" by Blough (2012)* aims to highlight the utility of reaction times (RTs) in unraveling psychological processes in pigeons during their interactions with the environment. The experiments primarily involve discrimination tasks with computer-generated stimuli, and the emphasis is on using RTs as a key behavioral measure. The introduction underscores the unique properties of RTs, serving as a valuable measure to understand the duration of processes underlying discriminative responses.

Throughout the chapter, the author explores manipulations of sensory, perception, attention, and incentive variables. The chapter highlights the connection between research conducted on pigeons and studies involving humans, enhancing our comprehensive understanding of these subjects across both species. Specifically, citing that pigeons “like to search”, which like the article above, tells me that there has to be some sort of exclusionary process (e.g., choice by exclusion) that is integral to pigeons’ survival in their ecological niche. Various other topics, such as inhibitory interactions between rods and cones, search processes, display size, and similarity, are discussed. In terms of attention, Blough (1991) found pigeons’ search RTs were shorter after a run of trials with the same target letter than during equivalent sequences in which alterative targets appeared in random order. Perhaps, expectancy makes a perceptual object stand out in the same way that a distinctive feature does. Expectation and priming could be a remedy. The chapter explores the distinction between serial and parallel processing in pigeons, noting similarities and differences with humans.

It also discusses search asymmetry, examining the role of distinctive features and potential influences of experience on search behaviors. Attention, expectation, and search RTs are investigated, with evidence supporting attentional influences on pigeon search RTs. Attention becomes a focus, with evidence supporting two attentional influences on pigeon search RTs, used to compare the pigeon's search-image with a recognition-controlling representation. The chapter concludes by developing complex models of discriminative processes using RT distributions. Models include a mixture of response types, a two-component model for visual-search RTs, and a random-walk model based on reward and stimulus similarity variations. The findings contribute to understanding pigeon discriminative processes, with implications for related processes in other species, including humans. Some results surpass comparable human work (e.g., assymetry in Blough & Blough, 1997), some align, and others suggest intriguing differences in visual information processing between humans and pigeons. Overall, the chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of visual perception, attention, and decision processes in pigeons through a measure of reaction time.

-

The article "Experimental Divergences in the Visual Cognition of Birds and Mammals" by Qadri & Cook (2015) again, explores visual cognition in birds, particularly pigeons, and compares it to human visual cognition. The introduction highlights the evolutionary divergence in diurnal and nocturnal pathways between birds and mammals, leading to distinct nervous system structures for visually guided behavior. Despite the smaller avian brain, pigeons serve as a model for understanding visual cognition, presenting both similarities that rival and differences with human visual behavior.

One significant difference highlighted is pigeons' propensity to attend to smaller local features rather than grasping the larger global form, possibly linked to their ecological needs for searching in dense environments. The article discusses various experimental findings, such as search asymmetry, vertices and edges processing, glass patterns, and perceptual completion, revealing discrepancies and divergences in perceptual behaviors across species. Pigeons exhibit complexities in processing lines, edges, and object completion, often showing resistance to perceptual completion tasks.

It also delves into potential explanations for these differences, including attentional mechanisms, stimulus size, feature weighting, and the ecological relevance of completing separated objects (e.g., Watanabe & Furuya, 1997; Aust & Huber, 2006; Ushitani & Fujita, 2005). The analysis suggests that pigeons may process spatially extended and disconnected information differently from humans, potentially due to limitations in connective or grouping processes. The ecological context of pigeons is considered, questioning whether completing separated objects is crucial in their natural environment at all. 

My thoughts

All three articles touch on the same things, with considerable overlap. All three articles revolve around studies or experiments related to the visual perception and cognition of animals. They involve investigations into how different species, such as birds (pigeons specifically) and primates process visual stimuli, make perceptual decisions, and exhibit behaviors related to visual cognition. The studies explore aspects like amodal completion, illusions, reaction times, attention, and decision-making processes. While each work has its specific focus, they all explore visual cognition in animals from various perspectives and using different experimental approaches.

Throughout the three articles, my current particular interest lies within visual perceptual completion and occlusion. Naturally, it is difficult to replicate a 3D image, or concept (i.e., food), on a 2D space, and furthermore, reflect some sort of depth perception on it. That is, unless subjects are given targeted depth perception training. To just display images on a screen without this training could lead to a number of interpretations: e.g., a “partially occluded” image of a star by a rectangle the same color as the background for example could merely be representative of a new shape, some sort of asymmetrical object with multiple vertices. Even if the occluder was a different color than the background, it could still be seen as an entirely new object, just with this new shape as a feature of it. This could be achieved through a number of ways. 

Engaging in mental imagery through occlusion not only relies on working memory and attention, possibly influenced by long-term memory of the stimulus, but also involves a sense of object permanence. The concept of object permanence becomes complex in a 2D space, where partially occluded images might be perceived as entirely new to birds rather than as the same object covered (object unity). To address this, priming birds with a potentially occluded stimulus during training could be explored as a means to prompt them to mentally imagine it during testing.

In comparing humans' capacity for mental imagery with pigeons, humans have received extensive training through various life experiences which leads them to have a more developed depth perception. This is evident in our ability to distinguish between landscape, midground, and forefront elements in any form of art medium, aided by experiences like viewing paintings and developing depth perception through real-life exposures. In contrast, pigeons are primarily exposed to 2-dimensional shapes, posing depth perception as a challenge. Perhaps, pigeons may benefit from prior depth perception training to show evidence of understanding occlusion on the 2D space. This training could involve introducing moving occluders over static objects to simulate dimensions in the 2D space - an approach I plan on exploring.

Paralleling occlusion literature with rats (e.g., Fast & Blaisdell, 2011; Gonzalez et al., 2022), which demonstrate mental imagery in a 3D space where they can touch and interact with objects, occlusion experiments with birds are presented stimuli solely in a 2D space. Thus, there is a need for exploring potential methods to enhance pigeons' depth perception training, suggesting the possibility of a moving occluder to introduce dimensions in the 2D space that could perhaps facilitate mental imagery.

On another note, I do think there are issues with the MTS (matching-to-sample) procedure, particularly when studying occlusion or the aforementioned illusions, as suggested in the Fujita et al. (2012) paper. Similar to challenges observed in symmetry studies, there's ambiguity in interpreting results because it remains uncertain whether birds are genuinely matching to the sample (e.g., choosing a “long line” comparison when presented with a “long line” sample) at test and were relying on habitual responses during training, (e.g., when A, pick B). An alternative approach could incorporate use of a reward contingency, akin to the procedure employed in our lab's rat mental imagery experiments. This reward contingency, previously utilized in Fujita (2001) for investigating line length estimation, moves away from interpreting MTS information and instead involves inferences from a distinct type of outcome, which could lead to cleaner data and provide a more insightful understanding of how birds categorize and perceive stimuli.

* Chapter from Zentall, T. R., & Wasserman, E. A. (2012). The Oxford handbook of Comparative Cognition. Oxford U. Press. 

[grokebaby]

Okay so I'm gonna use a different format for the angel bios, I wanted to go over it + some explanations so here. Might also use this for some demon characters I'll see about it. Ofc I can do whatever I want forever but this is my thoughts on how I could be doing it for now. Plus I wanted to explain this stuff.

Name (short pronunciation guide if needed)

Pronouns

Age: will be described with states of development (and in the brackets, what their age would be equivalent to in human years. This is bc I have angels ranging from a year to like, a century in age). Juvenile = Anyone under two years and not fully grown. Fully grown = self exploratory, but carries a meaning of someone who's only freshly an adult (equiv: 18-20ish). Adult = not young, not old. Equiv to mid 20's to 39yrs. Mature = Experienced, well lived adult. Equiv to 40-60yrs. These ones may have lived for several millenia. Elderly = general term for someone older than the prev category, however it's more of a title than a description of their developmental stage at this point, since angels have yet to reach lives long enough to die of old age. Ancient = I only have very few characters who'd fit here but this encompasses those who've lived for several eons and plus. What it says on the tin p much. If relevant I may also add a snippet about their birth/creation and info relevant to it.

Size: Self explanatory, except I'll use comparisons bc my brain does not handle numbers nor conceive what they mean in practice.

Job: Self explanatory. Will contain explanations of their titles if applicable. May contain hobbies or interests also.

Abilities: Self explanatory, although I'll only write up the most relevant ones, that are emblematic of the character, bc many angels share similar abilities to an extent.

Last bit will be a snippet of description text, free-form and whatever I'll feel is necessary to tell about the character and their place in the story and setting. Includes personality and potential relationships as well as mentions of backstory if relevant

The old bios used to be more like this

While I'm sad to leave out the "Sounds" category I feel like the Job and ability sections are more important. Initially I implemented that bc it added to the whole vibe and the story was more about a general exploration of the idea rather than focusing on the politics and forms, but that's also bc the worldbuilding was.. Considerably nonexistent when I started lol.

Another "for the vibe" thing I could technically add is something about their Off states which I find a neat artistic aspect (basically it's just mutations they may experience in certain situations, like during extreme emotion, being injured or other really significant stuff, where their psychological state influences their bodily form very strongly. Angels are prone to that since their form is so energy based and ethereal, it's not the same as just being made of real materials)

[clouds-of-wings]

I understand the occult stuff I tried 5 years ago much better now, as an atheist with an understanding of somatic psychology, than I did back then, and also why it didn't work for me.

What I did (that particular time! Not my first foray into such matters, but my most serious and systematic one) was some modified "paganified" Golden Dawn magic. Stuff that was supposedly "basic level, but if you do it every day it will get you far in terms of personal development, just try it for a year". Well I did try it for a year, I was very disciplined, and it got me absolutely nowhere. Depressing, but I understand why now.

Okay, so what do you do? Progressive Muscle Relaxation, a breathing exercise, then you focus your thoughts, then the LBRP, then the Middle Pillar. Then meditation, divination, stuff like that.

I understand so well now why you do these things. Everything before the meditation part is designed to get you into a mindset where you are calm, confident, you feel strong and safe. It's all designed to massage your central nervous system. Once a day you give your brain all kinds of cues of safety, first through relaxing your muscles and regulating your breath, then you do the LBRP, aka the spiritual equivalent of being approached by four world-class bodyguards who assure you that they are keeping an eye on you, that you matter to them, that you are with them. Then you do the Middle Pillar, aka the spiritual equivalent of five of the people you look up to the most approaching you and telling you how cool you are, how much they see their best qualities in you and how they are always with you.

I'm not describing it like this to make fun of it! Those ARE powerful experiences and they are probably a very good way of giving your central nervous system the cues of safety and power that it needs to relax and function properly. Of course that would get you far in terms of personal development! I'm not knocking it at all, I believe this can work very well.

IF you believe in it. And believing in it doesn't just involve "believing the gods in question exist", it also means believing that they would want to protect and strengthen you specifically. To stay in the analogy, if the bodyguards just roll their eyes and sarcastically say "yeah sure" when you ask for their protection, then of course you don't feel protected by them. If you don't actually look up to the Middle Pillar figures, or you feel like if they were humans they wouldn't be the kind of people who would care about you, then it won't work. What you're reinforcing in yourself is instead a feeling of being alone, unworthy, or just in the wrong place.

I think this last part is why it didn't work for me. If you ask the archangels for help but you're actually a wicked sinner (or think you are) who isn't making nearly enough of an effort to live according to God's law, then maybe you will wonder why the angels would possibly want to protect you. Though maybe Jesus' message of universal forgiveness can help with that (you still have to be sorry though).

In my case, it was less about sin (it wasn't Christian after all) than it was about me feeling like if the Aesir were human, we would probably have very different world views. Why would a guy whose entire thing is beating symbolic representations of wild nature to death with a phallus symbol ever protect me from my enemies? A guy like that would be more likely to BE my enemy, even though I understand why iron age farmers would worship a god like that. Why would a bunch of snobby patriarchal cliquish gods who live in a castle and think they're better than all the other giants while still exploiting them at every turn possibly want to have anything to do with me? Those are exactly the kind of people I don't get along with at all!

In a way, it was me getting my wires crossed. I had my reasons, plenty of them, to gravitate towards the Norse gods. But I had a certain critical distance to the most central figures of the mythology even though I vibed with it in other ways. Since I actually believed in these gods as autonomous beings (or did my best to) I figured I'd try my best and approach them with as little prejudice as possible. After all, I reasoned, if they're so wise and immortal and perhaps well-intentioned, they might correct my negative preconception if I approached them correctly. Theoretical analysis is one thing, but how someone real treats you can still contradict your preconceptions of how "someone like that" will usually act. I have certainly had the experience that what humans say about their worldview doesn't always predict how they will actually behave.

But sadly these gods don't actually exist as autonomous beings. Or so I believe nowadays. So there was no one there to correct the negative image I had in my head of them and my actions only reinforced them. This ritual stuff is all about priming your subconscious mind to work the way you want it to with bodywork, symbolism, imagery. There's nothing external to relate to, so whatever you work with will reinforce itself over time. You can't wring safety from god images you don't trust, you can't wring confidence from the idea of gods who you don't think would like you. Nothing happened when I did these exercises. Nothing blew up in my face, but I went through the motions and tried to make myself feel the correct things. The one positive thing I got from it was that it trained my discipline and willpower, which isn't nothing but definitely not all I wanted from something as time and energy intense as a daily ritual practice.

Anyway. The year after, I lost my faith for unrelated reasons (no, it wasn't the pandemic), so these realizations don't help super much now. Actually, maybe working with gods you don't believe in but who you think would be helpful if they did exist might even be more promising than working with gods who you think are real but wouldn't help you. Kind of like an "imagined community", except with spiritual beings. But I don't know if I want to do anything with that thought at this point.

[shrimpmandan]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I wouldn't say it's cultural performance. More that sexual orientation has a lot of psychological components that isn't driven as strictly by biology as we think it would be. I have known gay men and straight women who have developed crushes on butch women, and straight men and gay women who have developed crushes on femboys. You could make an argument for these people being bisexual. But they often lose the attraction upon discovering the person isn't the gender they assumed them to be, or will otherwise have no interest in them outside of fantasies and one-off flings. No desire for an actual long-term relationship.

The basis for sexual orientation also varies from person to person. Some people only care about genitalia, no matter the gender of the person it's attached to. Other people are attracted to specific traits, such as a defined jawline or wide hips, which are more common in one sex but may less commonly appear in the other. For other people still, the identity is the end-all-be-all of it, regardless of sexual traits. This can be seen in gay men who are attracted to pre-transition trans men, and have zero attraction to cis women.

It's also worth noting that most other mammals have less complex brains than we do. They don't often have a defined identity. They only have genitalia to go off of; we do not. Comparing human sexual behavior to animal sexual behavior is not equivalent. It'd be like saying rape is acceptable just because animals do it, as if we as humans don't have the cognitive capacity to understand morality and empathy.

In essence, sexual orientation isn't as clear-cut as we assume, because gender and sex themselves aren't as clear-cut as we assume. That doesn't mean that someone's given orientation is fake or outdated, or that it can be changed. Just that the labels exist as a broad generalization of an individual's sexual behavior, and not a defined rule. You are trying to apply a single, universal, defined rule to how sexual orientation works, and that's an exercise in futility, because literally every single individual on earth has a slightly different sexual orientation. Again: the labels are a generalization, not a limiting factor.

[maminzlaten]

The Psychology of Trading: Overcoming Emotional Biases and Making Rational Decisions

Trading in financial markets is not only about technical analysis and strategic planning but also about mastering the psychology of trading.

Emotional biases can significantly impact trading decisions, leading to irrational choices and potentially substantial losses. Understanding and overcoming these emotional biases is crucial for making rational, informed decisions.

This article delves into the common psychological pitfalls traders face and provides strategies to manage and mitigate these biases for successful trading.

Understanding Emotional Biases in Trading

Emotional biases stem from the innate human tendencies that affect decision-making processes. These biases can cloud judgment and lead to suboptimal trading decisions. Some of the most common emotional biases in trading include:

Overconfidence Bias:

Overconfidence can lead traders to believe they have superior knowledge or predictive power, causing them to take excessive risks. This bias often results in overtrading and ignoring potential risks.

Fear and Greed:

Fear can cause traders to exit positions prematurely, while greed can lead them to hold onto losing positions in the hope of a reversal. Both emotions can disrupt a trader's strategy and lead to poor decision-making.

Loss Aversion:

Loss aversion refers to the tendency to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains. This bias can cause traders to hold onto losing positions for too long, hoping to recover their losses.

Confirmation Bias:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for and interpret information that confirms one's preconceptions. Traders affected by this bias may ignore contradictory evidence and make decisions based on incomplete or biased information.

Herding Behavior:

Herding behavior involves following the actions of the majority, often leading to market bubbles or crashes. Traders may follow the crowd without conducting their own analysis, resulting in irrational trading decisions.

Strategies to Overcome Emotional Biases

Overcoming emotional biases requires self-awareness, discipline, and the implementation of structured strategies. Here are some effective strategies to help traders make rational decisions:

Develop a Trading Plan:

Creating a well-defined trading plan is essential. This plan should include clear entry and exit criteria, risk management rules, and a systematic approach to evaluating trades. Sticking to a plan can help mitigate the influence of emotions on trading decisions.

Set Realistic Goals:

Setting achievable and realistic trading goals can help manage expectations and reduce the emotional impact of trading. Focus on long-term performance rather than short-term gains.

Use Stop-Loss Orders:

Implementing stop-loss orders can protect against significant losses by automatically closing a position when it reaches a predetermined level. This helps traders avoid the emotional difficulty of manually closing losing positions.

Maintain a Trading Journal:

Keeping a detailed trading journal allows traders to track their trades, analyze their performance, and identify patterns of emotional bias. Reviewing past trades can provide valuable insights and help refine future strategies.

Practice Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation:

Mindfulness techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing exercises, can help traders stay calm and focused. Emotional regulation strategies can prevent impulsive decisions driven by fear or greed.

Educate Yourself:

Continuous learning and education about market dynamics, trading strategies, and psychological biases can enhance a trader's ability to make informed decisions. Staying updated with market trends and news is crucial.

Seek Feedback and Accountability:

Engaging with a trading mentor or joining a trading community can provide constructive feedback and accountability. Discussing trading strategies and decisions with peers can offer new perspectives and reduce emotional biases.

The Role of Technology in Managing Emotions

Technological tools and platforms can assist traders in managing emotional biases and making rational decisions:

Automated Trading Systems:

Automated trading systems, or algorithms, can execute trades based on predefined criteria, eliminating the influence of emotions. These systems can ensure consistency and discipline in trading strategies.

Risk Management Software:

Risk management software can help traders monitor their positions, set stop-loss levels, and manage their overall risk exposure. These tools provide real-time data and alerts to keep traders informed.

Sentiment Analysis Tools:

Sentiment analysis tools analyze market sentiment based on news, social media, and other sources. Understanding market sentiment can help traders make informed decisions and avoid herd behavior.

Conclusion

Mastering the psychology of trading is crucial for long-term success in financial markets. By recognizing and overcoming emotional biases, traders can make rational decisions based on data and analysis rather than emotions.

Implementing structured strategies, leveraging technology, and continuously educating oneself are essential steps in developing a disciplined and successful trading approach.

By staying mindful of the psychological aspects of trading, traders can enhance their performance and achieve their financial goals with greater consistency and confidence.

[jamzahid]

EDUCATION

education, discipline that is concerned with methods of teaching and learning in schools or school-like         environments as opposed to various nonformal and informal means of socialization (e.g., rural development projects and education through parent-child relationships).

(Read Arne Duncan’s Britannica essay on “Education: The Great Equalizer.”)

Education can be thought of as the transmission of the values and accumulated knowledge of a society. In this sense, it is equivalent to what social scientists term socialization or enculturation. Children—whether conceived among New Guinea tribespeople, the Renaissance Florentines, or the middle classes of Manhattan—are born without culture. Education is designed to guide them in learning a culture, molding their behaviour in the ways of adulthood, and directing them toward their eventual role in society. In the most primitive cultures, there is often little formal learning—little of what one would ordinarily call school or classes or teachers. Instead, the entire environment and all activities are frequently viewed as school and classes, and many or all adults act as teachers. As societies grow more complex, however, the quantity of knowledge to be passed on from one generation to the next becomes more than any one person can know, and, hence, there must evolve more selective and efficient means of cultural transmission. The outcome is formal education—the school and the specialist called the teacher.

As society becomes ever more complex and schools become ever more institutionalized, educational experience becomes less directly related to daily life, less a matter of showing and learning in the context of the workaday world, and more abstracted from practice, more a matter of distilling, telling, and learning things out of context. This concentration of learning in a formal atmosphere allows children to learn far more of their culture than they are able to do by merely observing and imitating. As society gradually attaches more and more importance to education, it also tries to formulate the overall objectives, content, organization, and strategies of education. Literature becomes laden with advice on the rearing of the younger generation. In short, there develop philosophies and theories of education.

This article discusses the history of education, tracing the evolution of the formal teaching of knowledge and skills from prehistoric and ancient times to the present, and considering the various philosophies that have inspired the resulting systems. Other aspects of education are treated in a number of articles. For a treatment of education as a discipline, including educational organization, teaching methods, and the functions and training of teachers, see teaching; pedagogy; and teacher education. For a description of education in various specialized fields, see historiography; legal education; medical education; science, history of. For an analysis of educational philosophy, see education, philosophy of. For an examination of some of the more important aids in education and the dissemination of knowledge, see dictionary; encyclopaedia; library; museum; printing; publishing, history of. Some restrictions on educational freedom are discussed in censorship. For an analysis of pupil attributes, see intelligence, human; learning theory; psychological testing.

Education in primitive and early civilized cultures

Prehistoric and primitive cultures

The term education can be applied to primitive cultures only in the sense of enculturation, which is the process of cultural transmission. A primitive person, whose culture is the totality of his universe, has a relatively fixed sense of cultural continuity and timelessness. The model of life is relatively static and absolute, and it is transmitted from one generation to another with little deviation. As for prehistoric education, it can only be inferred from educational practices in surviving primitive cultures.              https://www.britannica.com/topic/education

[adarsh12312]

Exploring the Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence: A Journey into the Realm of Possibilities

In the digital age, few concepts captivate our imagination and curiosity quite like Artificial Intelligence (AI). It's a term that sparks visions of futuristic landscapes, intelligent machines, and a world where the boundaries between the organic and the synthetic blur. AI has moved beyond being a mere buzzword to become an integral part of our daily lives, influencing industries, shaping economies, and transforming the way we perceive and interact with technology. In this blog, we embark on a journey to explore the multifaceted realm of Artificial Intelligence, delving into its history, present applications, and future possibilities.

Unraveling the Origins of AI

The roots of Artificial Intelligence can be traced back to ancient times, with myths and legends often featuring mechanical beings endowed with human-like intelligence. However, the formal beginnings of AI as an academic discipline emerged in the 1950s, with pioneers like Alan Turing laying the groundwork for computational thought. Turing's seminal work laid down the concept of the Turing Test, a benchmark for determining a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

From Fantasy to Reality: AI in the Modern Era

Fast forward to the present day, and AI has evolved from a speculative concept to a ubiquitous presence in our lives. From voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to recommendation algorithms powering personalized content delivery on streaming platforms, AI technologies have become ingrained in our daily routines. Moreover, industries ranging from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and transportation are harnessing the power of AI to streamline operations, enhance decision-making processes, and drive innovation.

The Building Blocks of AI: Machine Learning and Deep Learning

At the heart of AI lie two foundational technologies: Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL). Machine Learning algorithms enable systems to learn from data, identify patterns, and make predictions or decisions without explicit programming. Deep Learning, a subset of ML, employs artificial neural networks inspired by the structure and function of the human brain to tackle complex tasks such as image and speech recognition, natural language processing, and autonomous driving.

AI in Practice: Real-World Applications

The applications of AI span a diverse array of domains, each leveraging its capabilities to address unique challenges and opportunities. In healthcare, AI-driven diagnostics and predictive analytics are revolutionizing patient care, offering insights that enable early detection of diseases and personalized treatment plans. Meanwhile, in agriculture, AI-powered drones and sensors are optimizing crop management practices, improving yields, and minimizing environmental impact.

Ethical Considerations and Societal Implications

While the potential benefits of AI are vast, its widespread adoption also raises ethical concerns and societal implications that warrant careful consideration. Issues surrounding data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the displacement of human labor underscore the need for responsible AI development and governance frameworks that prioritize transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. As we navigate the ethical complexities of AI, it's imperative to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration to ensure that AI serves the collective good and upholds fundamental human values.

Charting the Future Course of AI

Looking ahead, the trajectory of Artificial Intelligence holds boundless possibilities and challenges. As AI continues to advance, researchers are exploring cutting-edge technologies such as Quantum Computing and Neuromorphic Computing to push the boundaries of computational power and efficiency. Moreover, interdisciplinary approaches that integrate AI with fields like neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy offer new insights into the nature of intelligence and consciousness, paving the way for transformative breakthroughs in AI research and development.

Conclusion: Embracing the Promise of Artificial Intelligence

In closing, Artificial Intelligence represents a paradigm shift in how we perceive intelligence, interact with technology, and navigate the complexities of the digital age. By harnessing the transformative potential of AI while safeguarding against its risks, we have the opportunity to shape a future where intelligent systems augment human capabilities, foster innovation, and enrich the human experience. As we embark on this journey into the realm of Artificial Intelligence, let us embrace the promise of discovery, collaboration, and ethical stewardship to unlock the full spectrum of possibilities that lie ahead.

[naturecpw]

Happiness:  Is Feeling Content More Important Than Purpose and Goals?

There are many ways to be happy, but we can also find comfort in the knowledge that our constant dissatisfaction is what makes us human.

The Conversation  Rafael Euba

Don’t worry, be happy.

There is much written about finding one’s life purpose and reaching self actualisation, but do we really need to have one? My partner is happy pottering around the house with his family around him, watching TV, reading the news, working in his unskilled job without responsibility, supporting his football team. Meanwhile, I am frustratingly “growing and developing”, learning, wondering what it is all about – yet without much actually changing in my life. Are drifting and feeling contented in life more important than having a “life purpose” and goals? —Brenda, Blackpool     

           Questions about happiness, purpose and goals remind me of Don Quixote, the dreaming knight in Cervantes’ novel of the same name, and Sancho Panza, his earthy page. Indeed, literature often contains characters and themes that reflect telling universal truths about human existence, experience – and psychology.    

           As the novel progresses, we realise that both characters are equally sophisticated intellectually. But while Don Quixote’s goals are utopian, romantic and clearly unobtainable, Sancho is satisfied with feeling safe and eating bread and cheese – accompanied by a little wine, of course – after each of their frustrated misadventures.    

           I’m a psychiatrist and research on personality shows that a more open and inquisitive personality will always want to seek new experiences and sensations. This is more exciting, but also less comfortable, than rejecting what feels strange or unfamiliar.    

           Don Quixote’s sensation-seeking and restless personality, as well as his lofty ideals, are the drivers of his misguided adventures. Unable to find excitement in the comfortable but mundane daily life of a landed country gentleman, he sets out to right all the wrongs in the world in the most chivalrous and valiant manner he can imagine. His ambitious goals are unobtainable, though, and so he remains chronically dissatisfied.    

           In contrast, Sancho’s goals (cheese and wine) are simple, and they are also reliable and immediately achievable. Sancho will inevitably have some difficult emotions, like every other human, that will prevent him from being consistently happy. But he will be less inclined to express his occasional periods of distress in complex existential terms – and they are unlikely to nag and torture him in the same way.    

           On one level, then, Sancho’s personality seems better suited than Don Quixote’s for achieving a satisfactory level of psychological wellbeing. But we need to consider the fact that Quixote’s tortured loftiness will also afford him occasional moments of ecstasy that Sancho will never experience. Quixote will sample all the many wondrous highs – and lows – of existence.    

Choleric Quixote

           Quixote has a type of personality that Galen, the Greek physician of classical times, would have labelled as “choleric”: passionate, charismatic, impulsive and sensation seeking. He also has an extremely rich, but equally unstable, inner life, which produces copious amounts of fantasy and emotion.    

           Soon after the second world war, a London-based psychologist called Hans Eysenck developed another personality theory that included the dimensions of extroversion and neuroticism. Quixote is high in extroversion (he engages constantly with the external world) and high in neuroticism (his emotional life is unstable and intense), a combination that would be the equivalent of Galen’s choleric personality.    

           Sancho is, of course, the exact opposite. He could be described as “phlegmatic” in Galen’s classification: he is generally introverted, and being perfectly steady in emotional terms, he would certainly score very low on neuroticism. He does not view the world through the filter of a rich but volatile inner life, and instead sees ordinary windmills where Quixote sees formidable giants.    

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Photo from Shutterstock.

           Personality types have been found to be predictors of psychological wellbeing in a way that could be considered relatively intuitive. Essentially, there is a positive correlation between happiness and extroversion and a negative one between happiness and neuroticism. Quixote is more neurotic than Sancho, but he is also more extroverted. The two will find and experience moments of happiness in different ways.    

           On one level, what we need to be happy is a stable (low neuroticism) and outgoing (extrovert) character. But that’s not the whole story. Those of us who see ourselves as a little more neurotic than we would ideally like – and perhaps not quite as sociable as some others – can find comfort in the knowledge that a busy and lively inner life, coupled with an inquisitive nature, can be associated with certain types of creativity.    

           The idea of happiness as a state of placidity and serenity, facilitated by a stable and untroubled psychological makeup, is persuasive. But it ignores perhaps the upper and more intense limits of human experience – and these have a power all their own. Cervantes novel, after all, is called “Don Quixote”, not “Sancho Panza”.    

Self-Actualisation

           You also mention “self-actualisation” in your question. When Abraham Maslow, the celebrated American psychologist, placed self-actualisation at the top of his hierarchy of human needs, he thought of it as a positive drive for developing one’s personal potential. Your own personal potential, Brenda, will be different to that of your partner.    

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Credit: Factoryjoe via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.

           Maslow thought that more basic needs had to be satisfied before moving up to the next level – water and food before safety, then love, self-esteem and only then self-actualisation. But subsequent research shows that humans don’t always do this in the anticipated order and that satisfying different levels of need either simultaneously, or in the “wrong order”, doesn’t seem to affect wellbeing significantly. This explains how those living in poor countries can also satisfy their psychological needs even when the fulfilment of more basic needs is uncertain.    

           In any case, having a set of needs – hierarchical or not – inevitably puts us in a needy position, and the relationship between striving to better ourselves and happiness is not a simple one. Maslow himself struggled in his personal life with issues such as racism (he was Jewish) and an awful relationship with his mother, whom he hated.    

Pain and Pleasure

           Research shows that factors such as poverty, pain and loneliness make us unhappy, and it is equally clear that pleasures of any kind contribute towards our sense of wellbeing.    

           The 19th-century British thinker John Stuart Mill postulated in simple terms that happiness is “intended pleasure, and the absence of pain” while unhappiness is “pain, and the privation of pleasure”.    

           Like Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, Mill also saw a similar hierarchy in pleasure, with the physiological at the bottom and the spiritual at the top. He also advised against too much introspection in matters of happiness, saying:    

                   Ask yourself if you are happy and you cease to be so.            

           I suspect you ask yourself this question at times, Brenda. And even though Mill saw happiness as being predicated by pleasure and pain, he also hinted that being human, with all that this implies, may bring a dissatisfaction that would be preferable to mere contentment.    

           Don Quixote is a dissatisfied man and his ambitions to achieve his glorious goals are always frustrated. He has, however, certain characteristics that have been found to be associated with happiness: an optimistic attributional style and an internal “locus” (place) of control.    

The key to happiness? Photo from Shutterstock.

           Don Quixote’s “internal locus of control” means that he feels in control of his destiny (despite all the evidence to the contrary). Control resides within him. His “optimistic attributional style”, meanwhile, refers to the fact that he always ascribes his failures to transient external forces, rather than to permanent internal issues.    

           Sancho, on the other hand, has a reactive attitude to life. He doesn’t have any fantasies about being in control of his destiny, which he believes is in the lap of the gods. “The lucky man has nothing to worry about,” he says.    

           So, in this respect at least, Don Quixote, driving his own fortune and making his own luck, is probably happier in his quest, however frustrating, than Sancho is in his passive contentment.    

Contentment Versus Happiness

           The difference between contentment and happiness, or to be more precise, the incompatibility that exists between a state of permanent contentment and being human, has also been explored in modern novels, written centuries after Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, such as The Time Machine by HG Wells or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.    

           Some of the characters in these future dystopias, where pain and suffering have been eradicated, are perfectly placid, even content. But their insipid pseudo-happiness, devoid of choice or intense emotion, is less desirable than our own imperfect emotional tribulations – at least according to the authors.    

           Indeed, our ability to feel happy is affected by a variety of personality factors and temperamental attitudes, not by just one single dimension of placidity versus psychological restlessness, or even optimism versus pessimism.    

           But does it matter anyway? Whether we are “half-empty” or “half-full” personalities, none of us is designed to be happy – only, ultimately, to survive and reproduce. Consequently, we will all battle with frequent unpleasant emotions, whatever our temperament.    

           It is good, Brenda, that you haven’t given up your efforts to grow as a person and that you remain hungry for knowledge. Even if I told you that there is a better strategy for happiness, that you should be content with watching television and little else, I am pretty certain you wouldn’t want that.    

           You need to continue being who you are, even if being who you are doesn’t transport you to a state of sustained and uninterrupted psychological bliss. Our nature is to chase the teasing and elusive butterfly of happiness, not always to capture it. Happiness can’t be bottled and bought and sold.    

           It can, however, be a journey – and this never-ending quest includes you, Brenda, as well as your partner. And perhaps we can all find comfort in the knowledge that our nagging dissatisfaction is a key part of what makes us human.    

Rafael Euba is a Consultant and Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry at King's College London.

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