Most people struggle with vulnerability. I am one of the extremely rare public figures to have mentioned any of the abuse I experienced growing up, let alone to do it in a non-psychology, philosophy fashion. Most disclosures are “memoirs” and there is no appeal to improving parenting standards. Simply put, they’re dramas for others to consume. Whether someone takes heart in the disclosure or not is secondary, irrespective the author’s intent.
Those who are generally most opposed to my work in the world struggle with an intense need to deny the abuse they themselves experienced. They take vulnerability and lampoon it. For them, my disclosures become intensely personal and they attempt to take their projection of me down to the bottom of their personal Hell. They’d be loathe to enter into dynamic interaction with me because their projections would be shattered and their unhappiness would suddenly become very real for them. Yet, such people persist in visiting and revisiting my content because on some deep level, they yearn for the healing and clarity of thinking my philosophy inevitably catalyzes.
The way out of this cynical self-consciousness is to view oneself philosophically and judge one’s merits solely on the basis of virtue. People really struggle with this. They want to view themselves abusively, the way they were trained to in their upbringing. Such people are highly susceptible to “culture” and a self-consciousness that is forever defining what is “cool” and “uncool”. To view oneself abusively always and forever means that disclosures of abuse experienced are “uncool”. After all, this sort of awareness most certainly does not serve one’s authority figures in childhood.
Take the most common “uncool” of the paternalistic right wing: crying is “uncool” (insert a thousand different epithets here). Since the modern world is wholly unsympathetic to the plight of males, therefore the child must be bullied into not-crying. Crying is weakness and it makes one a massive liability in what is an all-out tribal warfare world.
Yet, a kid is just a kid. Bullying them is abusive (argument from morality) (superior), even if the end result (argument from effect) (sophistry) is that they put on a tough face and aren’t “little pussies” or whatever schlock is currently being peddled by “dissident right” tough guys. Wrong is wrong.
So how does one work with a child, let’s say a boy, who is crying? You ask them questions to see why they’re upset. You accurately identify the source of their upset, even if it’s you yourself, and modify the source through reason and evidence so that the child is no longer provoked. With this demonstration of agency, a child will be less and less overwhelmed by difficulties, will cry less, and will possess more confidence in sorting out for themselves that which is upsetting.
This is basic peaceful parenting and there exists no rebuttal to its inherent superiority as a parenting strategy. Derision and clever verbal bullying does not dislodge its truth value. These are simply indicative of the degree of verbal abuse the now-adult bully once went through.
The truth is that parents are cynical about their children’s crying. They’re cynical about children in a myriad of ways and will mischaracterize their child’s basic, amoral resource seeking as some kind of grand dishonesty that must be morally clubbed in order to stop dead in its tracks. People who were treated this way end up on either ends of the political spectrum as “gatekeepers of cool”. They’re the edgiest! Their ultra-clever ripostes on Twitter gain them tens of thousands likes. Dopamine rush!
To actually work through the damage that exists on the backend of the human psyche means to de-weaponize one’s language, take a chance on vulnerability with a trusted confidante, and to understand much of political sallying back and forth for what it truly is: a signal flare for how abused the person is.
It is so important that people deescalate their gossiping, name-calling, bullying, preening, and cynical language. The world needs a massive realignment along the lines of wisdom and healing. It starts with the individual.
It’s never personal when someone attacks me for having been vulnerable. It is always some indication of the agony the person is in.
A person can begin to work through their cynical self-consciousness first by self-reflecting. That is to say, they suspend sympathy for their scattershot, cruel appraisals of themselves, slow time down, and trace the etymology of these critical viewpoints. So much is to be discovered in society’s abusive verbal repression of children expressing their needs. This is the real “conspiracy” of the world: it is erected to harm children and few are courageous enough to challenge it. I am one of the few and here I will “Remain”, happy to be of service!
