I've read about the Monopoly experiment and dozens like it and they all show the same thing.
We had a casino day in math class in high school. Some games required skill, others chance, and I was the best person at math and everyone knew it.
I ended up winning all the chips and acknowledged luck was a big factor, especially in the beginning, but once you have significantly more than anyone else, you become almost unbeatable. I could afford to cover half the roulette table, so even when I lost on red, one of the numbers would hit or vice versa.
A weird thing--the last players left were miserable, angry, and hopeless, but the people I'd already busted started to root for me once it was obvious no one else had a chance.
There is something wrong with our brains. With all of our problems and the intelligence and technology to solve or at least mitigate them, the real problem is inside of us, and other psych studies have shown there's almost nothing we can do about it, at least that's legal or considered ethical.
As someone who 'discovered' the loa this year and consumed a lot of self help, I agree. I'm a bit embarrassed I went down that road but I think I had to in order to truly see what was wrong with it. A bit of it can be helpful for someone like me who's privileged and who's held back mostly or only by themselves. But for more people that isn't the case: they can't 'self improve' their way out of a collapsing society. However, as you said, the temptation for Gen Zers like me (and millennials) to relentlessly self improve themselves is high, because it appears to be the only control we have left over our lives. We were also brainwashed to think that way in school (especially high school and college).
The original work behind growth mindsets, mindfulness, etc, has a lot of value. It's just too bad that these often wind up getting warped and distorted through the lens of ultra-consumerism, until it winds up on some listicle. We would all be a lot better off if everyone really did practice these virtues.
A long time ago I watched some British program that was about co intel psyops and propaganda and one of the things that was touched on was that "new age" lifestyle/philosophy was no accident after the counter culture upheaval of the 60's & 70's. That the ideas behind new age (you create your own reality with positive spiritual vibrations) was a co intel psy op to encourage people to take the internalized route (with self blame if the crystal energy isn't good enough) to stop effective organizing and protest.
I didn't want to read this article which is the reason why I had to read it. I completely agree there is a lot of 'self-help' out there that is just another version of the age-old snake-oil salesman schtik.
The monopoly experiment is a microcosm of how our economy is not working, and how the privildeged see the problem vs how the rest of the world sees the problem. Our current global economy is not working. At the root of the problem is unrestrained, unregulated capitalism.
I set the date of the complete takeover of the political system by corporations as 1987, the year Wall Street (the movie) was released and "Greed is Good" made its way into corporate polticial thinking. The roots were much earlier, and Regean's presidency accelerated the 'unfettering' or de-regulation of business (and the process of underminig worker rights in the form of safety legislation and unionization).
There is hope, of a kind, out there despite how dismal the world is looking right now, if we have the courage to grasp it. I commend the Club of Rome's initiative Earth4All https://www.earth4all.life/
The Club of Rome has modelled two scenarios: a "too little, too late" model which is the track we are on now, that results in global climate destruction and collapse of the biosystems necessary for human life, or the "giant leap" in which there is... hope. The call to action has five parts:
1. eliminating global poverty through economic transfers from the high icome world to the low income world
2. reversing/reducing income inequality through what it refers to as "commons dividend" programs more commonly referred to as Universal Basic Income
3. Empowering women. This is both a global initiative and a right here, right now necessity. How different would our current political economy look if women were in charge? Monopoly experiements aside, we would be putting an emphasis on universal health care, and increase expenditures on public education for a start.
4. Transform food systems: production through distribution--there is so much waste! We can feed the world but we need to transform the way we grow and distribute food (with choices on what food to grow as well).
5. The energy turnaround: we need to get off of all oil and gas--all fossil fuels--for energy, as fast as we possibly can.
This is going to seem like a radical agenda to many, but that is what it is going to take to avoid catastrophe.
I push everywhere I can for UBI and a real plan for the climate emergency we are in. I have been thinking about how to work with EarthEAll--what to do.
Love this. This mindset starts in schools -- we moved from pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to grit to resilience to grown mindset, but it's all the same story, and it's so damaging to the kids. We once had a PD event featuring work by Paul Gorski, who HATES all the grit-speak because people most marginalizes are often models of grit, but they can't pull their bootstraps any higher! I was excited that we might turn a corner on this, but it was just one presentation that went nowhere. It's too scary for schools to suggest that if you're struggling, it might not be your own fault because they they might have to accept some of the blame. Here's a bit on Gorski and that PD day: https://apuffofabsurdity.blogspot.com/2019/11/paul-gorski-on-education-and-inequity.html
I'm one of the ghostwriters who gets paid to write self-help nonsense that gets churned out to the masses. I absolutely *hate* it, but it's still the biggest part of my income and I can't afford to quit until I replace it, which is hard to do right now, given that I'm limited to working from hope to avoid dying from covid but I'm working on it. Almost all of the self-help stuff is nonsense, much of it is actively harmful, and almost all of it is regurgitated from other authors and resold with different packaging.
This expressed very clearly something I got frustrated about, because I couldn’t find the words to say what I felt. The self-help industry is a species of supremacy masquerading as something benign. This analysis was just great.
There are older, wiser cultures that believe and behave otherwise. Ubuntu is one. The local First Nations in Canada also share whatever they have. They are admirable people.
In the Victorian era, poverty was your own fault and riches were God Given. I read Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL in a new way, this year. It is not about the reformation of one man. Dickens was writing an indictment of the entire smug society that believed people chose to be poor.
The most important section is the first Stave, Marley's Ghost, in the scene where the wailing damned, chained to their money, are revealed to Scrooge. They, the formerly oblivious, entitled rich, are made aware of others' suffering, after death, and are forever unable to help. Their knowledge is their punishment.
Most readers still think the story is about one individual, rather than an entire society's attitude. Judging from the Monopoly experiment, the Victorian attitude that selfishness is good and poverty is deserved, is back with a vengeance, and sadly, is admired now just as it was then. Evil people are attempting and sometimes succeeding in rolling back all of the advantages won in the 20th century. I am unable to understand why anyone would want to do this. But that is probably why I am not rich.
Norms have broken to the point where about 20-30% of the country knowingly support institutionalized sociopathy, voting for the very people who keep them bitter, disadvantaged, and hungry. I agree with Jessica that elitism and entitle-ism spreads across the political spectrum. The CDC leadership has stopped role modeling mask wearing: ableism at it’s finest. We can strive to keep beating the drum, influence others, and share love and kindness with our immediate family and friends.
Jessica, I appreciate this article very much - weaving together several threads I had noticed but had not recognized the emergent pattern of (sorry for the awkward syntax).
Quick question - the age of unraveling - is that your phrase, if I want to credit someone when I use it?
I've read about the Monopoly experiment and dozens like it and they all show the same thing.
We had a casino day in math class in high school. Some games required skill, others chance, and I was the best person at math and everyone knew it.
I ended up winning all the chips and acknowledged luck was a big factor, especially in the beginning, but once you have significantly more than anyone else, you become almost unbeatable. I could afford to cover half the roulette table, so even when I lost on red, one of the numbers would hit or vice versa.
A weird thing--the last players left were miserable, angry, and hopeless, but the people I'd already busted started to root for me once it was obvious no one else had a chance.
There is something wrong with our brains. With all of our problems and the intelligence and technology to solve or at least mitigate them, the real problem is inside of us, and other psych studies have shown there's almost nothing we can do about it, at least that's legal or considered ethical.
Now I'm depressed.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Crisis!
As someone who 'discovered' the loa this year and consumed a lot of self help, I agree. I'm a bit embarrassed I went down that road but I think I had to in order to truly see what was wrong with it. A bit of it can be helpful for someone like me who's privileged and who's held back mostly or only by themselves. But for more people that isn't the case: they can't 'self improve' their way out of a collapsing society. However, as you said, the temptation for Gen Zers like me (and millennials) to relentlessly self improve themselves is high, because it appears to be the only control we have left over our lives. We were also brainwashed to think that way in school (especially high school and college).
The original work behind growth mindsets, mindfulness, etc, has a lot of value. It's just too bad that these often wind up getting warped and distorted through the lens of ultra-consumerism, until it winds up on some listicle. We would all be a lot better off if everyone really did practice these virtues.
What's "the loa"?
On the mark as always
PS typo? Should it be bed not beads?
A long time ago I watched some British program that was about co intel psyops and propaganda and one of the things that was touched on was that "new age" lifestyle/philosophy was no accident after the counter culture upheaval of the 60's & 70's. That the ideas behind new age (you create your own reality with positive spiritual vibrations) was a co intel psy op to encourage people to take the internalized route (with self blame if the crystal energy isn't good enough) to stop effective organizing and protest.
I didn't want to read this article which is the reason why I had to read it. I completely agree there is a lot of 'self-help' out there that is just another version of the age-old snake-oil salesman schtik.
The monopoly experiment is a microcosm of how our economy is not working, and how the privildeged see the problem vs how the rest of the world sees the problem. Our current global economy is not working. At the root of the problem is unrestrained, unregulated capitalism.
I set the date of the complete takeover of the political system by corporations as 1987, the year Wall Street (the movie) was released and "Greed is Good" made its way into corporate polticial thinking. The roots were much earlier, and Regean's presidency accelerated the 'unfettering' or de-regulation of business (and the process of underminig worker rights in the form of safety legislation and unionization).
There is hope, of a kind, out there despite how dismal the world is looking right now, if we have the courage to grasp it. I commend the Club of Rome's initiative Earth4All https://www.earth4all.life/
The Club of Rome has modelled two scenarios: a "too little, too late" model which is the track we are on now, that results in global climate destruction and collapse of the biosystems necessary for human life, or the "giant leap" in which there is... hope. The call to action has five parts:
1. eliminating global poverty through economic transfers from the high icome world to the low income world
2. reversing/reducing income inequality through what it refers to as "commons dividend" programs more commonly referred to as Universal Basic Income
3. Empowering women. This is both a global initiative and a right here, right now necessity. How different would our current political economy look if women were in charge? Monopoly experiements aside, we would be putting an emphasis on universal health care, and increase expenditures on public education for a start.
4. Transform food systems: production through distribution--there is so much waste! We can feed the world but we need to transform the way we grow and distribute food (with choices on what food to grow as well).
5. The energy turnaround: we need to get off of all oil and gas--all fossil fuels--for energy, as fast as we possibly can.
This is going to seem like a radical agenda to many, but that is what it is going to take to avoid catastrophe.
...seems to me this would even be fun to work on for quite a few people, especially the ones not thrilled with most current work situations.
I push everywhere I can for UBI and a real plan for the climate emergency we are in. I have been thinking about how to work with EarthEAll--what to do.
Love this. This mindset starts in schools -- we moved from pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to grit to resilience to grown mindset, but it's all the same story, and it's so damaging to the kids. We once had a PD event featuring work by Paul Gorski, who HATES all the grit-speak because people most marginalizes are often models of grit, but they can't pull their bootstraps any higher! I was excited that we might turn a corner on this, but it was just one presentation that went nowhere. It's too scary for schools to suggest that if you're struggling, it might not be your own fault because they they might have to accept some of the blame. Here's a bit on Gorski and that PD day: https://apuffofabsurdity.blogspot.com/2019/11/paul-gorski-on-education-and-inequity.html
I'm one of the ghostwriters who gets paid to write self-help nonsense that gets churned out to the masses. I absolutely *hate* it, but it's still the biggest part of my income and I can't afford to quit until I replace it, which is hard to do right now, given that I'm limited to working from hope to avoid dying from covid but I'm working on it. Almost all of the self-help stuff is nonsense, much of it is actively harmful, and almost all of it is regurgitated from other authors and resold with different packaging.
Overheard in a book store...
Customer: Can you tell me where the self help section is?
Sales Rep: That would defeat the purpose.
This expressed very clearly something I got frustrated about, because I couldn’t find the words to say what I felt. The self-help industry is a species of supremacy masquerading as something benign. This analysis was just great.
There are older, wiser cultures that believe and behave otherwise. Ubuntu is one. The local First Nations in Canada also share whatever they have. They are admirable people.
https://olivenetwork.org/Issue/ubuntu-i-am-because-we-are/24347
In the Victorian era, poverty was your own fault and riches were God Given. I read Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL in a new way, this year. It is not about the reformation of one man. Dickens was writing an indictment of the entire smug society that believed people chose to be poor.
The most important section is the first Stave, Marley's Ghost, in the scene where the wailing damned, chained to their money, are revealed to Scrooge. They, the formerly oblivious, entitled rich, are made aware of others' suffering, after death, and are forever unable to help. Their knowledge is their punishment.
Most readers still think the story is about one individual, rather than an entire society's attitude. Judging from the Monopoly experiment, the Victorian attitude that selfishness is good and poverty is deserved, is back with a vengeance, and sadly, is admired now just as it was then. Evil people are attempting and sometimes succeeding in rolling back all of the advantages won in the 20th century. I am unable to understand why anyone would want to do this. But that is probably why I am not rich.
This is one of my favorite articles you have done on this platform. Cheers.
Norms have broken to the point where about 20-30% of the country knowingly support institutionalized sociopathy, voting for the very people who keep them bitter, disadvantaged, and hungry. I agree with Jessica that elitism and entitle-ism spreads across the political spectrum. The CDC leadership has stopped role modeling mask wearing: ableism at it’s finest. We can strive to keep beating the drum, influence others, and share love and kindness with our immediate family and friends.
A modern philosophical view of a social-cultural treatise. Thank you.
[INTERNAL SCREAMS OF SOLIDARITY]
Jessica, I appreciate this article very much - weaving together several threads I had noticed but had not recognized the emergent pattern of (sorry for the awkward syntax).
Quick question - the age of unraveling - is that your phrase, if I want to credit someone when I use it?
Compliments of the season to you and yours…