There's a downside to this logic, one of the enabling sort. I consider myself fairly empathetic, but with a very pragmatic tint. I find many, many people take on complaining and a victim/underdog status with an almost hobby-like approach. And I watch how others react, which is exactly as expected: sympathy, attention, allowing those complainers a way out of personal responsibility or true introspection (specifically into their role in managing reactions to external events). It's a never ending cycle. And it hardly ever promotes growth. And almost never results in true happiness (happiness is probably the wrong word...maybe contentedness is better, tho maybe not).
So, the same way you wonder about those people who "dismiss others' concerns," I wonder about those who kowtow to others' words and fail to consider the reality (perceived, of course) behind them. It often feels lazy to me. And short-term thinking. Truly caring about another person sometimes means forsaking short-term "feel goods" for long term growth.
But the idea that what's best for people is always tough love and a job is just as reductionistic and oversimplified.
And at scale, neither blanket solution is perfectly effective, but one at least leans towards kindness.
Very kind of you :)
Eudaimonia is the word you're looking for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia
There are a lot of arguments against it. I think there are good points in these counter arguments, but come down on the side of Eudaimonia, personally.
Counter arguments:
https://bigthink.com/the-moral-sciences-club/eudaimonism-is-...
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/646/is-virtue...
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004395794/BP000003.xm...
Pragmatism is relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters. (That's a dictionary definition.) But yeah, in war for example, you are very much not thinking about taking active steps to manage your mind, or managing the way your mind works, or anything of that nature. You just become very pragmatic. Your desires become almost the only thing you consider at the pragmatic extreme represented by combat for instance.
I think you're speaking more on a certain type of idealism maybe? The practice of following ideals, or living under their influence. But romanticism works too.
That's the definition. What I outlined - granted, without the specific action steps - is sensible and realistic. And it distinctly is not about happiness. Romantic would be "just be happy." Would you consider behavioral therapy romantic?
Edit: I'm really hoping you guys aren't saying that anything involving a person managing their mind/emotions is romantic and impractical.
I think pragmatism fits least because of your clarification. Managing one's mind, or ridding oneself of desire, and especially dealing with reality without bias or judgement, are just not terribly realistic in nature. We should certainly strive to deal with reality without bias or judgement for instance, but, I mean, we obviously don't do that in practice. None of us do. Despite the protestations of the number among us who would claim to be completely non-judgemental. Especially not when we find ourselves at a pragmatic extreme. In combat for instance, there is a whole lot of bias and judgement because people start to become almost too pragmatic.
But we can just agree to disagree. No worries man. Just wanted to explain my thinking.
> Managing one's mind, or ridding oneself of desire, and especially dealing with reality without bias or judgement, are just not terribly realistic in nature. We should certainly strive to deal with reality without bias or judgement for instance, but, I mean, we obviously don't do that in practice.
From that point of view, I get how you're looking at this. You're certainly not wrong. I'm likely letting my own bias color my thoughts here because I practice this more aggressively (and actively) than most. So I've seen how realistic it can be. But generally speaking it's not very realistic, you're right.
To try and fix that by understanding your mind might not be a bad idea, but it remains a theoretical solution until you can presume some success rate. Going to therapy might give you that if you have the means, social stability and trust to do so. Which might then result in you leaving the pool of people having problems.
But if you don't have the conditions to go to therapy successfully, or don't end up succeeding anyway, that solution also remains theoretical. The further down this rabbit hole we go the harder it gets the solve the problem and the less pragmatic understanding your own mind becomes. Instead pragmatism would be to get people in a position where they can realistically work on implementing that, or another, solution successfully.
In that sense I could agree that your position could be considered idealistic rather than romantic. As my objection isn't that it isn't pragmatic because it couldn't work, but that it isn't pragmatic because it wouldn't work in many situations that would also required other things.
Professional therapists often fail in this, which is one way that people can see a therapist for years and never make progress on their issue.
Now this, to me, would have made a much more interesting subject of investigation.
I consider genuinely listening to merely be good manners. I have had to learn to be more stand-off-ish because this is apparently not some universal standard of good manners.
In fact, it's apparently some bizarre aberration that signals "use me" or something. All manner of people imagine I am the solution to their problem and I am required to fix their problem, all completely for free while they don't do anything whatsoever for me.
This was true even when I was literally homeless and going hungry.
I don't get it. At all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like, don't you have a conscience? A sense of social obligation? A sense of quid pro quo? The tiniest inkling that simply using me up and never ever giving back is likely to either alienate me or kill me and, either way, I will stop being a resource for you?
> All manner of people imagine I am the solution to their problem and I am required to fix their problem, all completely for free while they don't do anything whatsoever for me.
It's also been my experience that if you don't then suddenly you're being selfish, a jerk, etc. It's as if you're being judged by an entirely different metric of social acceptability.
My two adult sons are the only people who have gotten it through their heads that if they value what I bring to the table, they need to be good to me and give me reason to stick around.
Everyone else seems to have some broken social concept of pecking order where being nice to them means you're their bitch and they are important, you are nothing and you are required to keep catering to them, no matter how badly they treat you. Like how when humans feed certain kinds of animals and now those animals think you owe them tribute forevermore.
Actually, this might explain a whole lot about ugly human history.
Meanwhile, in my life, my sons are the only people still close to me. Everyone else keeps being given their walking papers because, no, I'm not your bitch.
Another aphorism is, "some people are givers, others are takers". It's a function of personality, not resources or circumstances.
People tell me I'm a wonderful listener due to my lack of judgement on their problems (more than once, people, including my therapist, tell me I'd make a great therapist), but really I've internalized the idea that everyone is living a life less than what they hoped their life would be to various extents and that there is also a near infinite combination of ways to achieve this effect such that no one can be dismissed for their misery in any respect without also dismissing the "legitimate" misery of a wide swath of people.
When I come across people who are willing to dismiss others' concerns, either by dismissing them as oversensitive, or dismissing them as evil, I wonder if they've internalized this logic too. And if they have, what their experiences are to cause them to conclude that dismissal is the reasonable choice.