Re:Why kids are afraid to ask for help
by mlyle on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @12:17AM
(#32907602)
> ("rape culture", i.e. trivializing sexual assault, is just a symptom of emotionally unhealthy people, not a cause)
It can be. But you can also be completely emotionally healthy and lack understanding of another person's perspective (or lack the cultural context to care) and cause tremendous harm.
We don't have the mental or emotional bandwidth to put ourselves in everyone else's shoes. The cultural norms we have are shortcuts to respect people's interests without that cognitive load.
Thinking and emoting is slow and fallible -- as Whitehead said, "It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."
It can be. But you can also be completely emotionally healthy and lack understanding of another person's perspective (or lack the cultural context to care) and cause tremendous harm.
We don't have the mental or emotional bandwidth to put ourselves in everyone else's shoes. The cultural norms we have are shortcuts to respect people's interests without that cognitive load.
Thinking and emoting is slow and fallible -- as Whitehead said, "It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."