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Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
111–120 of 268 posts
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#112Ah, propaganda 101: "If you want to influence your enemy, make sure he/she sympathizes with you". I also read an interesting article about this, that conservatives do care about the environment if you give it the correct emotional cue. E.g. instead of saying they have to save the environment for the future generation (which perhaps generates a guilty feeling), we want to preserve nature to keep it as it is (which the…
I don't really get this obsession with preserving the status quo. It is not universally good and by doing so we may prevent good things from happening.
Just like how changing things is not universally good. Let's not get into that discussion ^_^ I am a mixed bag on that anyway, sometimes change is good and sometimes preserving things is better.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting point. Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed. Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts. QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many…
And I must say, though this thought is controversial. If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being. Not personal guilt, as few even living today are directly responsible for the systems that came before. But guilt from being born into privilege in a society built entirely to benefit you, from the net worth of your parents, to the quiet mono-racial neighborhoo…
To quote a song, I'm not going to spend my life being a color.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting point. Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed. Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts. QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many…
And I must say, though this thought is controversial. If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being. Not personal guilt, as few even living today are directly responsible for the systems that came before. But guilt from being born into privilege in a society built entirely to benefit you, from the net worth of your parents, to the quiet mono-racial neighborhoo…
Slavery and racial oppression is not unique to America or White people. It's a small cross-section of the entire history of the world, spanning millennia and across the entire globe.
But to further your point, if you extend your comment to all groups of people (and not just White people), and the moment you use the term "gratitude" and "appreciate" instead of guilt, is when I can agree with you and we can collectively move forward as a society.
We need to appreciate and be grateful for the society, technology, stability and civilization that was built by our ancestors, through a lot of adversity, suffering, poverty and war. And as a corollary to that, we need to preserve, adjust and build on top of that instead of throwing it out entirely because "historic injustice" that at this point seems to be inescapable and ever present with no path to redemption. It almost seem like original sin, and I will have no part in paying penance and reparations for something I had absolutely no part in.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#115Ah, propaganda 101: "If you want to influence your enemy, make sure he/she sympathizes with you". I also read an interesting article about this, that conservatives do care about the environment if you give it the correct emotional cue. E.g. instead of saying they have to save the environment for the future generation (which perhaps generates a guilty feeling), we want to preserve nature to keep it as it is (which the…
In the corporate world we learn to take everything we can get and are rewarded for it. For our direct benefit like compensation. Not saying understatement isn't something a good image of a leader requires today, but most people know it is dishonest in practice and are just fine with keeping up appearances. Why should I not apply that to the resources of our environment? Future generations? Right, they will be okay as…
>Conservatives were the original environment protectors in the US. Probably politics that drove them away from it. In the current political climate dogmatism is spread pretty evenly.
I like this observation. We should drive them back again though. I think they are not that hard to move if you bring the message in the correct way.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#116Guilt-tripping isn't morally neutral. It's manipulation, exploitation, getting people to do what you want without giving them what they want. Doing it is evil and makes you evil.
In my late teens and early twenties I constantly guilt-tripped people close to me. It was my "thing". It hurt everyone a lot. Then one day I realized how sick it was, and stopped completely. Now I never do it to anyone for any reason, and push back whenever someone does it to me for any reason. I recommend this approach to everyone.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#117The carrot and stick ... it's complicated. Some people will respond better to one or the other. Also, the carrot of 'feeling good about yourself' has many nuances. An anecdote: We used to live in a village that had a few kilometers of semi-rural 2 lane road leading to it. Even though this road was outside city limits, it had many driveways and side streets on it so the speed limit was 50 km/h. At the time we had 2 ca…
I think the best approach is usually a combined one. Think about drinking and driving.
Just shaming/punishing people for it isn't going to solve it, if there aren't e.g. pull factors like practical solutions to avoid driving when drunk, recognition for people who don't drink when driving needs to be done etc.
I think often the worst thing is existing culture. So things like: "It is not manly/cool to wear a seatbelt." Would a Hollywood action hero wear a seatbelt? Certainly not!
Things like these are very hard to get rid off and take time and maturity. Endangering yourself and others is neither cool nor manly, it is a mechanism to show others how invincible you feel you are: the modern day equivalent of banging on your chest. Ironically people who are actually strong and secure rarely ever need to do all that chest banging.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#118"you're wrong" - Best way to win over someone you disagree with
I've been trying really hard to replace all my usage of "you're wrong" with "yes and". Another good one I'm trying recently is: "You're right to think that given the information you know, and here's some more information you should consider." Oh and: "That's a great hypothesis, here's another one."
I prefer "Hmm I don't think that's correct" and go on as to why. To me it feels less like an attack.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should you self-flagellate for being born in the situation you are in? How would that benefit anyone? Guilt is a negative emotion, and in my opinion you shouldn't have to do penance for things you have no control over. Instead, you can use your position of privilege to do good in whatever way fits. My small contribution, I run an online community (~1000 members in our Discord server) with a zero tolerance policy on r…
> you have no control over Faulty assumption here. You do have control over maintaining the system of privilege that you were born into. That's how it continues from generation to generation, by white people holding on to their money and power instead of working on ways to distribute it.
I’ve got bad news. Wealth isn't a number in your bank account that you can carve up and redistribute. Its the output of a properly managed system of assets and liabilities. If you just seize the outputs and give them away it will turn to ashes in the mouths of the recipients. They’ll have nothing after it’s spent while those who produce the wealth will have taken their knowledge and capabilities with them. All this has been tried before and it always fails because it’s the wrong way to solve the problem.
Re: Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
#120The carrot and stick ... it's complicated. Some people will respond better to one or the other. Also, the carrot of 'feeling good about yourself' has many nuances. An anecdote: We used to live in a village that had a few kilometers of semi-rural 2 lane road leading to it. Even though this road was outside city limits, it had many driveways and side streets on it so the speed limit was 50 km/h. At the time we had 2 ca…
I think the best approach is usually a combined one. Think about drinking and driving. Just shaming/punishing people for it isn't going to solve it, if there aren't e.g. pull factors like practical solutions to avoid driving when drunk, recognition for people who don't drink when driving needs to be done etc. I think often the worst thing is existing culture. So things like: "It is not manly/cool to wear a seatbelt."…
> people who are actually strong and secure rarely ever need to do all that chest banging.
Something Orwell observed in Down and Out is that the worst snobs are not to be found among a restaurant's clientele, but among its waitstaff.