double bind
- Excellent article by Ken McLeod
- embedded here because we can
12 linked references
January 17th, 2023
- I think there's something messed up in how we or society at large or something thinks of wrongdoing and forgiveness. Never sin, never do wrong. But also, it's going to happen. You're going to do wrong. So hopefully, most of the time, we own up to it, apologize, atone, and they forgive.
- But that doesn't happen. If people don't forgive, then you cannot admit wrongdoing. If people keep hurting you, despite what they say, you can't forgive
- Idk exactly what's what or if I'm pointing at the thing well enough, but there's some kind of double bind there
- If you won't be forgiven, you can't feel shame
- If you can't feel shame, you can't confront those times you've done wrong and feel how what you did was wrong
- I feel like normally you still can feel shame even if you're not forgiven, which is why shame is 'high stakes', i.e shame comes from the risk of not being forgiven
- i like that you're pointing to how there's something there about how wrongdoing and shame is bound together (edited)
- or are you more pointing to the forgiveness bit?
- My take on this is that it's actually not safe to feel shame, and especially to broadcast it, if in a social environment where paths to forgiveness aren't available
- And actually, the paths to forgiveness have to be pretty flexible for it to be safe
- (flexible as in many ways to forgiveness, or ease of forgiveness?)
- There're a lot of environments where shame will be treated as evidence of wrongdoing
- Not necessarily ease but you have to work with the person to work through their shame on mutually agreeable terms
- Because e.g. people do stuff for reasons - so probably there's gonna be objections to the rule they broke
- And that should be accounted for
- There're a lot of environments where shame will be treated as evidence of wrongdoing
- Shame is evidence of wrongdoing though, and that's ok? That should be ok? Showing shame and contrition when appropriately should be viewed positively, but instead people lean on getting mad because of the wrongdoing?
- In an ideal world, when someone does something wrong, they show shame and contrition, things change to account for the wrongdoing if necessary (whether fixing things or preventing future wrongdoing or something else), people are forgiven if possible, things go back to a new normal
- I guess also one should act in such a way that others would prefer to tell you if they did something wrong and apologize than to keep it secret from you
- Hmm I dunno about that
- Shame is probably always evidence of wrongdoing according to the person feeling the shame, but they might've picked up the idea that what they did was bad from all kinds of untrustworthy sources (e.g. early childhood lol)
- Wrongdoing can also be bilateral, but if one person feels and owns up to shame, I think it requires a good amount of sophistication on the part of the people around to not default to blaming that person
Podcast summaries
- Conversation As Medium solutions are way harder than problems the importance of being able to say that you don't yet know how to solve a problem what does it mean to understand each other compromise is not what everyone wants Everyone is basically living in a dream mashup of their current external situation & old emotional meanings Dialectic Higher Dimensional Thinking, the End of Paradox, and a More Adequate Understanding of Realitywith any misunderstanding, it's possible (& usually worthwhile) to come to a place of profoundly mutually satisfying shared understanding just because someone has an articulation of a problem, doesn't mean their proposed solution is any good solutions are way harder than problems SimPol John Bunzl omniwin perspective-taking Coherence Therapy Questions Are Not Just For Asking the point of friendliness is not to avoid conflict, but to actually create contexts that allow for deeper, more intense, prolonged conflict over the long term the importance of being able to say that you don't yet know how to solve a problem double bind contradiction there's no way to communicate correctly or incorrectly - there's just what works in context and what doesn't work meaning John Vervaeke
- 10:48 - 46:10 - How to approach volatile/heated discussions? Higher Dimensional Thinking, the End of Paradox, and a More Adequate Understanding of Reality just because someone has an articulation of a problem, doesn't mean their proposed solution is any good solutions are way harder than problems compromise is not what everyone wants SimPol John Bunzl omniwin perspective-taking with any misunderstanding, it's possible (& usually worthwhile) to come to a place of profoundly mutually satisfying shared understanding Coherence Therapy Questions Are Not Just For Asking the point of friendliness is not to avoid conflict, but to actually create contexts that allow for deeper, more intense, prolonged conflict over the long term the importance of being able to say that you don't yet know how to solve a problem double bind
September 7th, 2021
- > all real problems are at least double binds because problems that aren't, you can just fucking solve
August 14th, 2021
Notes on Malcolm Ocean - Internal Trust-Dancing - interna… › Steps! › Respecting distrust › Then, to whatever extent feels possible/good/realistic, h… › M > If that didn't feel accessible, depending on why not,… › there's also I guess something somewhat more specific tha…
- S > this is also a Cognitive dissonance thing... if 2 incompatible things are trying to occupy the same space, it feels BAD... that's (I think) a main contributor to Compartmentalization in the first place. Especially if there's also a meta-level block to communication, making it a double bind
- (aside: something about, Cognitive dissonance and Compartmentalization is one side of a process, and Expanded awareness + Juxtaposition + reconsolidation is the other side)
Notes on Malcolm Ocean - Internal Trust-Dancing - interna… › Notes August 15th, 2021 on what this process is about, wh…
- S > In this ITD process, you're taking a situation that was previously a double bind, and removing the blocks to talking about it!
- removing the meta-level blocks to metacommunication!
- M > That ^ is the only problem! #koan
- S > Yeah, everything else can work itself out over time...
March 13th, 2021
- meta-communication necessary to escape double binds
- but also if metacomms limited then there may be yet further double binds that can't be escaped
- and also, can use meta-style communication to instantiate double binds