I am this close to declaring that unless you are mentally ill, a person with a degree in psychology or a mental-health-related field, or a major part of the support network of a mentally ill person, you are not allowed to talk about mental health. The only thing that’s stopped me is that a lot of members of those groups are saying terrible things too.
General memo: if you only care about mental health care in the wake of a shooting, you seriously need to question yourself. There are far more mentally ill people who hurt themselves than mentally ill people who shoot up a school. Mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it. Only talking about mental health after a shooting implies that you don’t care about mental illness when we’re being hurt; you only care about it when we’re hurting neurotypicals.
Furthermore, there’s a certain cluster of disorders that people tend to conclude turns people into monsters: personality disorders, schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, autism, probably a couple I’m forgetting. In the wake of incidents like the Newtown shooting, people will always talk about people with these disorders as if they’re Scary Alien Monsters Without Empathy Who Will Probably Hurt You.
First of all, we don’t know what mental illness Adam Lanza had, or even if he had a mental illness at all, so it’s a bit inappropriate to be demonizing people. Second, most people with these illnesses are not violent. (In fact, even the link between psychosis and violence is muddy.) Third, does it not occur to anyone that talking about how people with certain mental illnesses are Scary Alien Monsters Without Empathy Who Will Probably Hurt You makes it more difficult for people with those illnesses to get the support and care they need? If you think being diagnosed with schizophrenia will make you a Scary Alien Monster Without Empathy Who Will Probably Hurt People, you are going to drag your feet about getting diagnosed… and that means you’re not going to get the help you need.
To talk about some specific examples of fail (warning: these are really, really horribly anti-people-with-mental-illnesses. Read at own risk)…
I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother: No, you aren’t. I understand that it can be really frustrating and occasionally terrifying to deal with a child with mental illness, particularly one as virulent as Michael’s. But seriously, who the fuck compares their child to a murderer and talks about their “evil eyes”? And then fucking includes a picture of their child and the child’s name? (For reasons of preserving my faith in humanity, I’m going to hope it’s a pseudonym.) Why would you do that? I really don’t have a hell of a lot to comment on this that hasn’t been said better by Sady Doyle and Thursday, so go read those posts instead.
Piers Morgan’s Awful Guest: Okay, look, dude, preferring to be by yourself can be a sign of Asperger’s, but it can also be a sign of everything from social phobia to Avoidant Personality Disorder to just being a fucking introvert okay. Autism does not mean that you’re “lacking empathy,” it means that you are bad at reading social cues and intuiting things about others. You can still feel bad that other people are in pain even if you’re bad at telling when people are in pain. Autistic people might be lonely and anxious and even suicidal sometimes, but that probably has something to do with gentlemen like you assuming that autism can help explain why someone shot up a school. Also, I have no idea how you leaped from suicidal depression to shooting up a fucking school, but I’ve known a lot of fucking suicidal people and it has not occurred to one of us to shoot up a school, so maybe there is a different factor here.
Gunsville, USA: Apparently, a lot of shooters are on different kinds of medication, including SSRIs, tetracyclics, tricyclics, benzodiazepines, sedatives, Benadryl, and pain medication. This is sort of like saying “look! Some of the shooters took cough syrup, some took antibiotics, some took Vitamin C, and some took Viagra! Therefore cold medications cause shootings!”
I mean, Jesus. Who would expect that a disproportionate number of mentally ill people are on meds, or that discontinuing or switching medication might cause problems for some people?
The author diagnosed Adam Lanza and Holmes with “Medication Eyes,” which combined with the I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother person above, is starting to make me wonder if the DSM-V should include Ocular Delusional Disorder, the delusion that you can figure out someone’s psychiatric history by looking at their eyeballs.
It also includes the following sentence:
He said he thinks the main problem is that “crazy” people are no longer institutionalized because all of a sudden hey have “rights” to live under bridges and be as schizoid as they want to be.
1) Does… does this guy know how expensive mental hospitals are? Who is going to pay for locking up all the mentally ill people? I thought that the conservatives were all about Fiscal Responsibility and Not Universal Healthcare, but apparently that goes out the window when there’s a possibility of locking up mentally ill people.
1a) Takimag, aren’t you supposed to be libertarian? What exactly is libertarian about lifelong imprisonment of people who have done nothing wrong?
2) How is this going to work exactly? There are shooters who never had contact with the mental health care system… are you going to give everyone a complete mental health workup at age eighteen, repeat it each decade, and lock up the people who fail? Who are you going to lock up? Just people with psychosis or schizophrenia? All mentally ill people? People with mental illnesses that you believe turn them into Scary Alien Monsters Without Empathy Who Will Probably Hurt You?
3) Of course the prospect of being involuntarily imprisoned for life will not remotely make people reluctant to seek mental health care or more willing to lie about any symptoms that might get them locked up.
4) I don’t think “care in the community” was particularly well-implemented either, but that’s not because it’s a bad idea. It’s because they kind of forgot the “care” bit and just left people to their own devices. Caring for people outside of mental hospitals whenever possible is a good plan; not caring for people at all is not.
5) WHAT THE FUCK WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS OKAY TO LOCK UP PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING WRONG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
Thing of Things 
To clarify, “we don’t know what mental illness Adam Lanza had, or even if he had a mental illness at all, so it’s a bit inappropriate to be demonizing people” is no longer true: we now know that he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and OCD.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Which just reinforces the point. Asperger’s and OCD can’t be reasonably associated with violence — if there’s any association there, it’s indirect.
Mark Ames is total shit, but he’s almost right: school and workplace shootings have more to do with the conditions the shooters are in than the conditions of the shooters themselves. Their personal defects are only relevant insofar as they push them into actually doing what others only fantasize about, probably through lowering their status to the point where they don’t think they have anything to lose and decide to go amok.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On empathy: I think there’s some real equivocation going in with these idiots. As I see it, there are really five capabilities and/or behaviors that can get lumped together as “empathy” (note that as far as I can tell, this breakdown doesn’t exactly follow the “cognitive empathy” vs. “affective empathy” breakdown, but has some similarities with it):
Ability to grasp that others might feel differently than one would in response to the same stimuli. At a higher level, ability to grasp possible reasons why.
Intuitive sense of what others are feeling and/or how they would react in a particular situation.
Appropriate sense that others’ pain or pleasure is (bar unusual circumstances) bad or good, respectively. At a higher level, desire to help as a response to others’ pain.
Mirroring of others’ emotional states, e.g. hurting as a result of the knowledge of someone else’s pain.
Performing various instinctive and/or socially approved but largely contentless rituals in response to others’ emotions, e.g. putting an arm around someone who is hurting or saying “that must be really hard for you.”
In my experience, as someone without a diagnosed (and probably without a diagnosable) ASD, but with aneurotypicality in that direction, (2) and (5) are very hard, and (4) is probably somewhat rarer than it is for most people, and is something I see as a bad thing, in cases where it involves negative emotions (how could it be good to hurt, other than as a just consequence of doing something wrong?). My imperfect understanding suggests these difficulties, or atypicalities, are fairly common for people with diagnosed ASDs, often at a greater level than mine.
“Conveniently,” (1), (4), and (5) are precisely what people who are talking about “empathy” often mean, especially when making hideous and offensive “why empathy is better than sympathy” memes. (Seriously, that fucking video. Way to dehumanize people who are aneurotypical, apparently without even realizing you’re doing so.) But then people conflate that with (1) and, especially, (3). And so, by way of an ambiguous word, “autistic people generally find it difficult to grasp what others are feeling without being told, and may not express their concern in ways that neurotypicals can easily recognize” is conflated with “autistic people don’t view others’ suffering as something they should avoid causing, and may not even recognize others as distinct people.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
[re-entered with explicit numbers, since the apparent failure of my <ol> tag probably made the original confusing]
On empathy: I think there’s some real equivocation going in with these idiots. As I see it, there are really five capabilities and/or behaviors that can get lumped together as “empathy” (note that as far as I can tell, this breakdown doesn’t exactly follow the “cognitive empathy” vs. “affective empathy” breakdown, but has some similarities with it):
1. Ability to grasp that others might feel differently than one would in response to the same stimuli. At a higher level, ability to grasp possible reasons why.
2. Intuitive sense of what others are feeling and/or how they would react in a particular situation.
3. Appropriate sense that others’ pain or pleasure is (bar unusual circumstances) bad or good, respectively. At a higher level, desire to help as a response to others’ pain.
4. Mirroring of others’ emotional states, e.g. hurting as a result of the knowledge of someone else’s pain.
5. Performing various instinctive and/or socially approved but largely contentless rituals in response to others’ emotions, e.g. putting an arm around someone who is hurting or saying “that must be really hard for you.”
In my experience, as someone without a diagnosed (and probably without a diagnosable) ASD, but with aneurotypicality in that direction, (2) and (5) are very hard, and (4) is probably somewhat rarer than it is for most people, and is something I see as a bad thing, in cases where it involves negative emotions (how could it be good to hurt, other than as a just consequence of doing something wrong?). My imperfect understanding suggests these difficulties, or atypicalities, are fairly common for people with diagnosed ASDs, often at a greater level than mine.
“Conveniently,” (1), (4), and (5) are precisely what people who are talking about “empathy” often mean, especially when making hideous and offensive “why empathy is better than sympathy” memes. (Seriously, that fucking video. Way to dehumanize people who are aneurotypical, apparently without even realizing you’re doing so.) But then people conflate that with (1) and, especially, (3). And so, by way of an ambiguous word, “autistic people generally find it difficult to grasp what others are feeling without being told, and may not express their concern in ways that neurotypicals can easily recognize” is conflated with “autistic people don’t view others’ suffering as something they should avoid causing, and may not even recognize others as distinct people.”
LikeLiked by 4 people
I liked this a lot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh god, that one video. For me personally, “sympathy” is a lot better than “empathy”. Like, if a parent dies, I don’t want someone to say “Oh, I know that feeling, my turtle once died.” I’d prefer they be like “Oh, man, that sucks. Do you want to go get ice cream?” It’s a problem when I typical-mind this to people who respond better to *trying to find emotional connection* but it is equally a problem when it’s the other way around.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@meaninglessmonicker: So much this.
They showed that video at a training for an organization I volunteer with, as a capstone to a bunch of spoken rhetoric along similar lines. My response was not something I’m proud of, even though I think my basic point was worth making, because my delivery apparently “triggered”* some people (for which I got basically dressed down by a presenter who was clearly giving no thought at all to what I was pretty obviously going through emotionally—so much for the glories of empathy!) and probably convinced no one. If they play it again this year, I’m going to do the smart thing and take advantage of the “you can leave the room if something triggers you” rule—I’m not sure if I’d consider my reaction to that shit to be rise to that level myself, but it’s certainly bad enough that my sticking around in a context where it’s not acceptable to aggressively question it is not emotionally healthy for me.
*I think the concept of triggering is valid in its original sense(s) of “causing a panic attack, clinical flashback, or episode of self-harm,” but am really bothered by the way that sense gets motte-and-baileyed by a lot of SJ folks with “upsetting someone, particularly if they count as more ‘oppressed’ than you’.” I don’t know whether anyone was actually triggered by what I said or not—I don’t see a logical connection of my comments to common traumas, but I also know that triggers aren’t always logical.
LikeLike
Mm. I actually tend to use a broader sense of “trigger” myself– like, for me, the things which cause panic attacks are not qualitatively different from the things which cause an annoying anxiety spiral which I have to CBT myself out of. A lot of times, the difference is how good a mood I’m in, whether I had to put up with other triggers that day, that sort of thing. I don’t use it for things that just make me unhappy, but I do use it for things that make me unhappy if they would have caused a panic attack if different circumstances had happened.
LikeLike
That strikes me as quite reasonable. I’ll have to think about whether I should revise my definitions (which would drastically increase the frequency with which I’d identify things as triggering me).
I think part of what bothers me about the still broader use is that it seems to me to often have an element of weaponization to it—”what you just said triggered me [and therefore you were wrong to say it]” is a more effective strategy for shutting other people down the more frequently one is able to use it.
I suspect that part of my conservatism with the term is an attempt to avoid doing this (especially, though not exclusively dishonestly)—it really bothers me to think about saying “I found that video very triggering” (although it was, by your definition), because that risks having people take my objections more (or less, if I don’t say it) seriously than they would based on their content alone.
LikeLike
Hm. For me my triggers are observably ridiculous, and so I don’t feel like it’s morally wrong for people to trigger me (unless they are doing so deliberately to cause me pain). I think deweaponizing “that triggers me” is helpful for mentally ill people– a big reason why people object to weird triggers, I think, is the assumption that if someone is triggered by spiders you are doing something morally wrong by posting pictures of your cute tarantula pet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been “triggered” during difficult conversations with this one partner about (this is awkward) our sex life. And look, I’m trans and I got baggage and talking openly can be really hard for me sometimes. And something about the way she talks to me is just, well, off. (We broke up.)
Anyway, long story short, sometimes I would literally shut down during these conversations and it’s really weird. Cuz like I’m there, fully aware, but I cannot talk. I cannot really think exactly, more like just experience this intense white fire in my mind that — it just suck and sucks and sucks and I cannot explain it. But anyway, I don’t say anything and my partner then thinks I’m ignoring her — when in fact I’m just trying to not disintegrate or — I DON’T KNOW BUT IT HURTS SO BAD. So she gets mad at me cuz she thinks I’m doing the silent treatment thing when I’m not.
This lasts a while. It’s really awful.
I call that a “trigger.”
####
Once I was in a writing group with a bunch of cis dykes and — well, I was already feeling vulnerable and kinda maybe-not-valid and then half of them literally started spouting some TERFy pro-michfest shit. Like, to each other but I WAS RIGHT THERE and it was really obvious. And so I started to feel this panic-anger-oh-no-not-this feeling, but the idea of confronting them and trying to discuss this — JUST NO! I just couldn’t. It completely broke me. So I had to leave the room and I was just so frustrated I was DONE.
Didn’t write anything else that night. Couldn’t.
Never went back. I think that was a “trigger.”
LikeLike
What video? Would someone be willing to give me a search term or link? Thanks for your time!
LikeLike
[Content warning: Dehumanization, stigmatization, and erasure of people who are neuroatypical in certain ways, all from soft and breathy-voiced narrator who doesn’t seem to even realize what she’s doing. Bigotry presented as education in how to be a better person.]
RSA Shorts – The Power of Empathy
LikeLike
I agreed until I got to this part:
“WHAT THE FUCK WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS OKAY TO LOCK UP PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING WRONG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU”
Actually, most people think involuntary commitment, i.e., hospitalizing people who haven’t hurt anyone yet but are reasonably expected to do so if not treated, is just fine. Certainly there are arguments against it, but ozy is wrong to portray support for involuntary commitment as a fringe view.
LikeLike
Involuntary commitment is probably a reasonable response to an imminent threat to others (threats to oneself are a bit more complicated, and I don’t agree with the current legal standard), but that’s perfectly permissible now. Locking people up because they might be a threat to someone some day is not, and that’s basically what the “why should crazy people have a right to be crazy!?” folks are demanding.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, if your only evidence for dangerousness is that a person has X mental illness, I don’t think that person could be committed. But an imminent threat isn’t necessarily required.
LikeLike
Involuntary commitment is usually a short-term thing, he seems to be advocating locking up crazy people for literally their/our* entire lives.
*I’m probably not the kind of crazy person he’d lock up forever. Probably.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is an important ethical difference between “three days” and “the rest of someone’s life”.
LikeLiked by 3 people
In my state, a person can be committed for 90 days (a renewable period). Still not a lifetime, of course.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You shouldn’t have any prima facie to objection locking people up who haven’t done anything wrong yet. Let’s pretend that 80% of people with Murder Eyes will commit a violent crime in their lifetime, and not stop committing violent crimes of their own accord; this is a well-studied and -replicated result. Then it might make sense to lock up everyone with Murder Eyes indefinitely.
The problem, of course, is that Murder Eyes isn’t a real thing, nor are there any real conditions that have the same strong correlation to criminality. Even if there were, the idiots who decide who to lock up might end up getting everyone with Murder Eyes but also everyone on the autism spectrum or with borderline personality disorder, which would be Bad.
LikeLike
“I am this close to declaring that unless you are mentally ill, a person with a degree in psychology or a mental-health-related field, or a major part of the support network of a mentally ill person, you are not allowed to talk about mental health. The only thing that’s stopped me is that a lot of members of those groups are saying terrible things too.”
By “mentally ill”, do you mean “with a mental illness or disorder”? I ask this because autism is, by most medical definitions, not a mental illness. (I do agree that autistics such as myself should avoid using the “autism isn’t a mental illness” statement as a defense against accusations of being a potential threat, as any reputation improvements of autistics gained by that statement are paid for with harm to the reputation of people with mental illnesses.)
I am so tired of the media immediately assuming autism or some other mental illness or disorder! In the Elliot Roger case, the LA Times reported that he had Asperger’s in the main story, and did not issue a formal retraction when they later found he was not diagnosed with Asperger’s.
Also, if I never hear “autism” used as a synonym for “doesn’t value the interests of others” (which is how most people parse “lacks empathy”), it will still be too soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s something interesting going on here that I don’t think gets pointed out often.
There seems to be an implicit assumption here that introversion/extroversion is consistent over social arrangements, which is probably false: there are variable factors that can affect the perceived desirability of social interaction or its absence. There are values of ‘low status’ where it’s better to be alone than to have low status, for example. Then there’s the cognitive effort factor: how mentally exhausting is it to interact with people? (That is, how easily can you read them and interact with them according to mutual and mutually-beneficial rules? Interacting with culturally- or psychologically-distant people is going to be more exhausting than interacting with culturally- or psychologically-similar people.)
Here’s the example that I usually give to demonstrate the point. I can’t understand accents very well, so when I go out to eat, it’s usually to an Asian place, because IME those places are more likely to employ people whose English I can easily understand. But if I keep going to the same other place, eventually I’ll get used to either the accents or the food-ordering script, so it will require less effort.
It cannot be assumed that introversion and extroversion are context-independent personality traits that reside solely in the individual: they instead arise from the interaction of the individual and his environment. I would take that further and say that most of the consistency is due to brains being bad at localizing status — it bleeds all over the place, from one context to many others.
LikeLike
Mm, I would disagree? That is, I think there is a legitimate difference between people with a very strong humans drive and a relatively weak humans drive. For instance, my social needs can entirely be met by online interactions and a single meatspace human (if the person is compatible). And I do get an experience of “aaaa, too much people” when I am around other people too much (and I have known people who got it much more intensely). This could be a reflection of status stuff, but I also get it in communities where I’m relatively high-status.
That said, you’re quite right that the *behavior* of not seeking out people is usually caused by individual-environment interactions. I’m unlikely to ever be as social as someone who craves lots of people and doesn’t crave alone time, but there’s a definite difference between my level of social participation in communities where I’m high-status and communities where I’m low-status.
LikeLike
Sure, there are things that give the appearance of general immutable factors—if there weren’t, the idea of general immutable factors being all there is probably wouldn’t exist. (Although once the idea comes into existence, it could bootstrap itself into further strength and conformance with observed reality once people start identifying consciously with their supposed general immutable factors.)
It’s entirely possible that there could be a general immutable factor, or more probably a combination of general mutable (gut bacteria, diet, exercise, sleep habits, caffeine consumption, etc.) and immutable (biologically-rooted mental disorders) factors unrelated to social dynamics.
The social-dynamics factors don’t have to all be about status—there’s also cognitive effort. If you find it mentally taxing to interact with people in general, you’ll probably interact with people less.
LikeLike
osberendsaid:December 20, 2014 at 9:11 pm
[Content warning: Dehumanization, stigmatization, and erasure of people who are neuroatypical in certain ways, all from soft and breathy-voiced narrator who doesn’t seem to even realize what she’s doing. Bigotry presented as education in how to be a better person.]
RSA Shorts – The Power of Empathy
I just watched this video, and I would genuinely like to understand why you find it dehumanizing and stigmatizing. I thought it was a good video describing how to show affective empathy to someone.
Would you be willing to share with me what it is about this video that feels wrong to you?
LikeLike
Sure. This is cut down from an email to some people I’d rather not have know that this handle is me (wouldn’t be the end of the world, but would be distinctly awkward). So I’m gonna rot13 it, to minimize Google exposure (anyone who could ID me from it can probably ID me from other comments in this thread, which is why I’m posting it at all). I apologize for the inconvenience.
V srry gung gur pbaprcg bs “rzcngul,” nf vg’f haqrefgbbq ol znal (zbfg?) crbcyr vf ernyyl n pbasyngvba bs frireny qvssrerag (nygubhtu fbzrjung pbeeryngrq) pncnpvgvrf naq orunivbef:
1. Erpbtavmvat gung bgure crbcyr unir rzbgvbany ernpgvbaf gb riragf, naq gung gurfr znl or qvssrerag sebz gur ernpgvbaf gung bar jbhyq unir gb gur fnzr riragf.
2. Vaghvgviryl haqrefgnaqvat ubj fbzrbar ryfr vf srryvat (onfrq zbfgyl ba aba-ireony phrf naq pbagrkghny vasreraprf) “jvgubhg univat gubfr srryvatf pbzzhavpngrq va n shyyl rkcyvpvg znaare” nf bar qrsvavgvba V’ir frra chgf vg.
3. Univat n trarenyyl nccebcevngr nggvghqr nobhg fbzrbar ryfr’f rzbgvbany fgngr (v.r., orvat cyrnfrq gung gurl ner srryvat fbzrguvat cbfvgvir, be erterggvat gung gurl ner srryvat fbzrguvat artngvir), bapr bar vf njner bs vg.
4. Funevat be zveebevat fbzrbar ryfr’f rzbgvbany fgngr. V jbhyq qvfgvathvfu guvf sebz (3) abg bayl ol vagrafvgl, ohg nyfb ol fcrpvsvpvgl, r.t., V zvtug or cyrnfrq gung fbzrbar vf rkpvgrq nobhg fbzrguvat (3), jvgubhg npghnyyl orvat rkpvgrq zlfrys (4).
5. Ratntvat va inevbhf pbairagvbany orunivbef gung freir gb fvtany bar bs gur nobir, r.t. fnlvat “gung fbhaq yvxr vg zhfg or uneq sbe lbh” va erfcbafr gb n qvfpybfher bs n qvssvphyg fvghngvba gung fbzrbar vf qrnyvat jvgu.
V guvax bs flzcngul nf n pbzovangvba bs (1), (3), naq n qrfver gb uryc nzryvbengr fvghngvbaf gung ner pnhfvat fbzrbar ryfr cnva.
Crbcyr inel obgu va jurgure gurl ner orggre ng tvivat rzcngul be flzcngul naq va juvpu gurl jbhyq cersre gb erprvir. Guvf inevngvba frrzf (va zl rkcrevrapr) gb or fbzrjung traqrerq, va gung zra graq (sbe jungrire pbzovangvba bs arhebybtvpny naq/be fbpvny ernfbaf) gb or orggre ng naq gb cersre flzcngul, juvyr jbzra graq gb or orggre ng naq gb cersre rzcngul, nygubhtu arvgure bs gurfr graqrapvrf vf naljurer arne nofbyhgr. Guvf unf yrq gb n curabzraba jurer fbzr crbcyr jub cersre rzcngul naq vaunovg zbfgyl-srznyr fcnprf (vapyhqvat, ohg abg yvzvgrq gb, fbzr srzvavfg- naq fbpvny-whfgvpr–bevragrq fcnprf) unir pubfra gb chfu gur vqrn gung rzcngul vf orggre guna flzcngul, naq unir unq fbzr fhpprff va qbvat fb.
Bar znwbe jnl gurl unir qbar fb vf ol pbasyngvat gur inevbhf pbzcbaragf gung znxr hc “rzcngul,” fb nf gb qrcvpg crbcyr jub ner abg tbbq ng be ner hapbzsbegnoyr jvgu (2), (4), naq/be (5) nf ynpxvat (3), be rira (1). Eryngrq gb guvf vf n qrzbavmngvba bs flzcngul, ol pbasyngvat vg jvgu snxr flzcngul gung vf qrfvtarq gb trg fbzrbar gb tb njnl naq fgbc crfgrevat bar jvgu vapbairavrag srryvatf. Guvf pna or frra va gur ivqrb, r.t., “flzcngul qevirf qvfpbaarpgvba,” be “ng yrnfg lbh unir n zneevntr.” Bs pbhefr, rzcngul pna or snxrq nf jryy (r.t., Ovyy Pyvagba’f “V srry lbhe cnva”).
Fvzvyneyl, crbcyr jub jnag gb cebzbgr gur fhcrevbevgl bs rzcngul rvgure nggnpx gur vqrn gung nalbar zvtug cersre gb erprvir flzcngul, be fvzcyl vtaber vg. Abjurer va gur ivqrb jnf gurer nal fhttrfgvba gung abg rirelbar jub vf fhssrevat unf gur fnzr cersreraprf. Vaqrrq, gur aneengbe fgngrf “eneryl pna n erfcbafr znxr fbzrbar srry orggre,” rira gubhtu n cebqhpgvir erfcbafr gung vzcebirf zl fvghngvba vf rknpgyl jung V jnag gb erprvir vs V nz uhegvat. V svaq gung gb or qruhznavmvat.
Nyy bs guvf vf znqr sne zber ceboyrzngvp ol gur snpg Nhgvfgvp crbcyr (nf jryy nf gubfr jvgu fvzvyne glcrf bs arhebqviretrapr, ohg jub qba’g unir frirer rabhtu vzcnvezragf gb dhnyvsl sbe n qvntabfvf—V’q chg zlfrys va guvf pngrtbel) trarenyyl unir erqhprq (be rira ab) novyvgl gb qb (2) naq (5), naq bsgra qba’g anghenyyl qb (4) gb gur fnzr rkgrag gung arhebglcvpnyf qb. Naq gurer vf n fgebat, cer-rkvfgvat, naq irel unezshy fgrerbglcr gung fhpu crbcyr “ynpx rzcngul,” va gur frafr bs abg univat (3). Vg’f nyfb irel pbzzba sbe crbcyr va gung pngrtbel (pregnvayl, vg’f orra zl rkcrevrapr, naq zl vzcnvezragf ner n ybg yrff frirer guna fbzr crbcyr’f) gb unir n uvfgbel bs cnvashy rkcrevraprf erfhygvat sebz bgure crbcyr’f ernpgvbaf gb gurve vanovyvgl gb qb (2) naq/be (5).
N dhvpx abgr ba grezvabybtl: Gurer qbrfa’g ernyyl frrz gb or na hanzovthbhf grez sbe gur tebhc bs abg-dhvgr-Nhgvfgvp crbcyr gung vapyhqrf zr. Rneyvre va guvf guernq, V hfrq gur grez “nhgvfz-nqwnprag,” juvpu V unq rapbhagrerq bayvar, ohg n yvggyr Tbbtyvat fubjf gung vg’f hfrq nobhg rdhnyyl serdhragyl gb zrna gung naq “pybfr eryngvir bs na Nhgvfgvp crefba,” juvpu vf irel qvssrerag. Fb V thrff V’z tbvat gb unir gb tb onpx gb rkprffvir jbeqvarff.
V guvax vg’f ceboyrzngvp, naq uhegshy, gb fnl gung rzcngul vf tbbq naq flzcngul vf onq, naq gung rirelbar jub’f uhegvat jnagf rzcngul. V guvax vg’f uhegshy gb fnl “urer ner gurfr novyvgvrf gung lbh arrq gb qrirybc [gung abg rirelbar pna], naq vs lbh qba’g, gura gung zrnaf lbh qba’g ernyyl pner, naq lbh’er ‘oerrq[vat] qvfpbaarpgvba’.”
V qba’g frr ubj gung ivqrb pna or fnyintrq; vg’f whfg gbb gbkvp, va zl ivrj. Gur oerngul, fvaprer, “urer vf nqivpr ba ubj gb or n orggre crefba” qryvirel whfg znxrf vg jbefr.
LikeLike
If you didn’t want to answer, why didn’t you just say so? This just makes you look like an ass. Thanks for nothing, jerk.
LikeLike
Erm, what?
Are you not familiar with rot13? If so, did you not consider Googling it before insulting me?
LikeLiked by 2 people
OK, I’m sorry, I thought you were having a joke at my expense or engaging in a sort of elaborate way of saying “fuck you.” I apologize. I overreacted and I was rude to you.
I’m the one who looks like an ass and a jerk.
But I have NO idea how to read that text. I’ve been on dozens of various forums for over the last 15 years and never, not once, have I come across an encrypted response before. So, I guess your explanation/opinion will remain a mystery to me. (I really don’t want to take the time to learn encryption/de-encryption, its of no interest to me.) Thanks anyway.
I still think the film (A) has good intentions AND (B) it was successful at demonstrating (via animated characters and symbols) the concept that one’s genuine, sincere empathy comes across more clearly to someone who is feeling sad, when you try to approach the sad individual as an equal instead of “from above”, so to speak. I admit I don’t totally get the “empathy vs sympathy” angle, that doesn’t make much sense to me. Unless the filmmaker is saying that sympathy is impersonal, while empathy is more personal and/or real (?)
LikeLike
I’m sorry, but this exchange was hilarious 😀
Primula, osberend used a cypher called “rot13” to hide the text from Google. In some forums, this is the usual method for hiding spoilers and such, so he forgot that most people will not understand “I’m gonna rot13 it” correctly.
(I wrote “parse” instead of “understand” at first. That probably wouldn’t be helpful either.)
So, you can use rot13.com to read osberend’s comment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I think her examples of sympathy are pretty bad. And of course successful empathy works better than failed sympathy. Whether “I know that feel, bro” is better than “wow, that’s terrible :(” remains an open question.
Also, how about we don’t shame people for their “breathy” voice, either?
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Primula: Apology accepted.
To elaborate further on Nita’s comment: ROT13 (short for “rotate/rotation by 13 places”) is cipher that replaces each letter by the letter that is 13 letters “after” it, if the alphabet is viewed as a circle; because the alphabet has 26 letters, this is the same as the letter that is letter letters “before” it. Consequently, it is its own inverse; so applying rot13 to text that has already been rot13’ed will give the original text back. Several websites (including rot13.com, as noted by Nita) will allow you to copy and paste text into a text box, then rot13 it by pressing a button. The process should take less than 20 seconds.
I admit I don’t totally get the “empathy vs sympathy” angle, that doesn’t make much sense to me.
Since that angle appears to me to be the entire point of the film, I’d say that’s probably a major source of our differing reactions.
Unless the filmmaker is saying that sympathy is impersonal, while empathy is more personal and/or real (?)
I think that is exactly what the filmmaker is saying, with a side of “sympathy is dismissive, empathy is caring.”
LikeLike
Thank you for accepting my apology.
However, I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the little animated film.
I basically liked it and thought it got the point across pretty well, regarding how to effectively show someone empathy (aka, show someone that you really do care about them and wish to comfort them).
I recognize the difference in the non-sad characters’ behaviors, in that one character (the gazelle?) is more distant: (literally) above the sad character and seems more curious than anything else (like an onlooker) and somewhat mechanical in expressing feelings of compassion, whereas the other character (the bear) gets physically closer to the sad character and expresses that he too has felt sad. I like that. It makes sense to me.
It interests me how different people will get an ENTIRELY different impression of the same thing; I saw nothing in that film, nothing that the characters or narrator were doing or saying that was off-putting or insulting. I am truly baffled by a negative interpretation, here. But, that’s me.
LikeLike
@Nita: It’s not so much “forgot that most people won’t understand ‘rot13 it’,” as “forgot that many people don’t have my ‘there’s a word I don’t know in someone’s response to me; I should Google it!’ reaction.”
I think her examples of sympathy are necessarily terrible, because the point of the video is to exalt empathy by demonizing sympathy. If she gave better examples of real sympathy, the video would be less effective propaganda.
If that voice is actually her natural one, then I regret shaming for it (albeit not much, given how much rage I have at her over the video generally). But frequently people (mostly women) use an artificially breathy voice in order to signal “closeness” or “caring,” and that’s what I’m betting this woman is doing, given the context. And the combination of trying to signal “I care about you; I want to help you be a better person” paralinguistically while saying dehumanizing, alienating shit is exceptionally ugly and enraging to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ osberend
In addition to people who pretty much always sound “breathy”, there are probably lots of people who sound that way when they do genuinely care, and people who try to be good public speakers and fit their tone to their message. Most people actually prefer that to monotone, inflectionless speech, because it makes the meaning easier to follow.
Also, I’m pretty sure she meant “try to understand how others feel and reassure them”, not “autistic and similar people are evil”.
LikeLike
On gender differences in attitudes toward sympathy/empathy, your view made me think of Deborah Tannen’s. From her /You Just Don’t Understand/, discussing videos of teenagers’ conversations:
That said, Tannen also points out:
Also, I’ve written a long reply that really belongs on the “Creepiness” thread. If I post it there and reference this thread, it might bring people from that thread to read the rot13’d comment who otherwise wouldn’t…so may I do that? Or would you rather it stayed on this thread since that’s where the rot13’d comment is? I’ll check back in a day or so and if you haven’t seen this and replied, I’ll just post it here so that it actually gets posted somewhere instead of rotting on my hard drive.
LikeLike
That’s fine. Anyone who’s reading the comments to any post on which I’ve commented heavily and knows me in meatspace probably has a decent chance of recognizing my writing style and distinctive combination of positions on various issues. The rot13’ing is just an attempt to minimize the likelihood of certain people stumbling on Thing of Things in the first place.
In general, I’m not willing to limit my conversation to the extent that would be necessary to prevent someone determined from doxing me; I’m just trying to reduce the likelihood of it happening by chance or as the result of a trivial effort.
LikeLike
osberend wrote:
” And the combination of trying to signal “I care about you; I want to help you be a better person” paralinguistically while saying dehumanizing, alienating shit is exceptionally ugly and enraging to me.:
I did not perceive that any of the dialog/narration included “I want to help you be a better person”.
(I don’t know what you mean by “paralinguistically”; I looked it up and found no entry for that word. The prefix “para” has several meanings, which one are you intending to convey?)
Would you tell me which part or parts of the film came across to you as “I want to help you be a better person”? What I got was that attempting to “make THINGS, or the situation, better” for someone who is sad, rarely helps them (which was part of the “at least” scenario, given as an example of what NOT to say.)
And, please, which parts of the film dialogue or narration are coming across as *dehumanizing* and *alienating* to you as a viewer? Thats such a strongly negative interpretation.
Its genuinely baffling the crap out of me RE why you’re perceiving this film so negatively, and I’d like to understand why you feel that way about it.
LikeLike
Pingback: A Plea To The Neurodiversity Community | Thing of Things