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'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

theguardian.com

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Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#11

Post by croissants »

carrolldunham wrote: post #3

I find no way to phrase it and it's always taken as an attack or troll, so I wonder if anyone knows a proper framework for this argument (whether you agree with it or not): "If you know someone committed suicide, it seems ill-advised to read their thinking. Whether or not it's "advice" and whether or not you read with detachment, what we take in, comes from someone's psyche, echoes and transforms and embeds in our ow…

Not a framework, but here's an extreme "counterexample": the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm is useful. But Fulkerson eventually committed suicide.

I think we can safely say that the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm is not some cursed object that we should not learn about. So clearly there's some spectrum of creations and the imprints left on them by their creators, and at one end of it, there's pretty much no imprint at all.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#12

Post by imgabe »

carrolldunham wrote: post #3

I find no way to phrase it and it's always taken as an attack or troll, so I wonder if anyone knows a proper framework for this argument (whether you agree with it or not): "If you know someone committed suicide, it seems ill-advised to read their thinking. Whether or not it's "advice" and whether or not you read with detachment, what we take in, comes from someone's psyche, echoes and transforms and embeds in our ow…

People are not static, nor are their lives linear and moving along rails to a predetermined destination. If someone kills themselves one year, that doesn't mean that everything they did or thought in the previous year is an action or belief that causes people to kill themselves. It could be related, unrelated, maybe it was an effort that was moving them away from suicide but something else happened that pushed them the other way, who knows. It seems pretty naive to assume that every single thought and event in someone's life is directly related to the outcome.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#13

Post by xupybd »

cf-d-ycom wrote: post #6
currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

What if the advice that would really help someone just happens to be from people who are all below this person's purity test bar?

I don't know if it's a purity test. We've all failed. We've all had bad behaviour patterns. None of those things are disqualifications. In some cases it's overcoming these things that make someone worth listening to.

But if the person failed to do so perhaps something about their world view needed to change? Perhaps listening to them could lead you down the same path?

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#14

Post by Igelau »

carrolldunham wrote: post #3

I find no way to phrase it and it's always taken as an attack or troll, so I wonder if anyone knows a proper framework for this argument (whether you agree with it or not): "If you know someone committed suicide, it seems ill-advised to read their thinking. Whether or not it's "advice" and whether or not you read with detachment, what we take in, comes from someone's psyche, echoes and transforms and embeds in our ow…

I don't think there's a "proper framework" for that because it's not valid reasoning.

This viewpoint disregards the flux of the brain in favor of a vague, static "psyche". The brain is plastic, vulnerable, and swimming in a hormonal soup that it's also responsible for regulating. It can fall into feedback loops because of this.

E.g.: stress damages the hippocampus, the hippocampus loses some capacity to mitigate stress, leading to more stress that damages the hippocampus further.

In that hippocampus example, we know that SSRI drugs can reverse this damage. On the other hand, they can also lead some patients to experience increased thoughts of suicide. An anxious/depressed mind can become a suicidal mind or a healthy mind in reaction to the same stimulus. Things can happen to healthy minds that send it to those corners as well. We can't just assume that someone who died of suicide was on a fixed track to get there or that their advice from a healthy mind lead to an unhealthy mind.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#15

Post by Sophistifunk »

currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

If the ghost of Hitler tells you not to hit your sister and take her toys, it's still good advice.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#16

Post by coldtea »

currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

>truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students

So? Unless the students where kids (as opposed to 18 and above), that's a moralist, religious-derived, US-centric concern (not that such moralism hasn't made its way and infected other parts of the world)...

People that call out adults for sleeping with whoever adult they like are worse than people that sleep with their adult students...

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#17

Post by andrewem »

carrolldunham wrote: post #3

I find no way to phrase it and it's always taken as an attack or troll, so I wonder if anyone knows a proper framework for this argument (whether you agree with it or not): "If you know someone committed suicide, it seems ill-advised to read their thinking. Whether or not it's "advice" and whether or not you read with detachment, what we take in, comes from someone's psyche, echoes and transforms and embeds in our ow…

I think this is related to the contagion heuristic:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_heuristic

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#18

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

oh_sigh wrote: post #4
currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

I think if you erased the name of the author, and prefaced the post with "Here's some life advice from a man who committed suicide 3 years after giving it" - few people would give this a second glance. I'm more inclined to do the exact opposite of what he says, because clearly it didn't work for him. DFW - a great author, and a profoundly sad human. Enjoy his works but don't look to him for anything more than enterta…

I'm willing to bet there's a not insignificant fraction of society who are profoundly interested in the lives and writing of people who have done harm to themselves and / or others.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#19

Post by dumpsterdiver »

currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

Some of the greatest geniuses in history were incredibly troubled people. The fact that they were terrible messes does not change the fact that we are still standing upon their shoulders.

Re: 'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)

#20

Post by logicchains »

coldtea wrote: post #16
currymj wrote: post #2

truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students. committed serious domestic violence against one of his partners. this wasn't well-known at the time this speech was given, or after he killed himself and the speech became hugely popular. It seems like it still isn't. I think there's some kind of minimum bar where you shou…

> truly talented writer, not really the kind of guy who should be held up as a moral teacher. had a long-term pattern of sleeping with his students So? Unless the students where kids (as opposed to 18 and above), that's a moralist, religious-derived, US-centric concern (not that such moralism hasn't made its way and infected other parts of the world)... People that call out adults for sleeping with whoever adult they…

> that's a moralist, religious-derived, US-centric concern

It's a conflict of interest, like an employee sleeping with their boss. It's hard to trust somebody to fairly assess somebody they're sleeping with.

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