I like your mention of how liberals are doing the exact opposite of what CBT recommends for depression. I also find that they're doing the exact opposite of what it recommends for anxiety when it comes to things that "trigger" them. In actual treatment for anxiety disorders (where the term "trigger" comes from), you treat the disorder by repeated, controlled exposure to the trigger, which lessens your anxiety response to it. You're meant to learn that you can't just expect the world to never trigger you, and learn to live with it when it does. On the contrary, left-liberalism of the 2010s tumblr variety holds that it's society's responsibility to never trigger you, and that announcing that you are triggered is an implicit demand for others to change their behavior, not for you to merely learn to live with it. This counter-theraputic attitude probably contributes a good deal to liberal misery, because it leads to being hypersensitivized to triggers and catastrophizing over every time you encounter one and aren't able to brazenly demand that it go away and stop infringing on your mental state. Liberals take the exact opposite of the advice therapy gives for both depression and anxiety, so it's no surprise they're always depressed and anxious.
The worst part is, we are being told that everything is terrible and getting worse not because of nefarious intent from media big wigs, but because negative narratives are what the public subconsciously demands.
Humans are universally addicted to negativity, so negativity is what wins in the marketplace of ideas. Even if half (or more) of what we read was extremely positive, we would still pay more attention to and better remember the negative due to negativity bias. Progress writers have been spreading the good news of incredible human progress for over a decade, yet most people couldn't care less. If we want to push back on negative narratives, the first step is recognizing our own addiction to negativity, and then working to regulate it like we would with any other addictive substance.
The first chart in the article shows depression rates amongst conservatives have also spiked 30% since 2014/15. Sure, plenty of people aren't addicted to negativity, but millions are, and it's getting worse.
Are we sure the direction is right here? What if it’s just that depressed young people (the number of which is increasing for other reasons, I’d point to social media) are becoming more attracted to liberal/left ideas?
I would say that the direction is mostly correct though. Progressives are more likely to be concerned with changing things to the better (in their mind). Which means they have to be thinking -at least on some level- that the current state of affairs is not satisfactory-whatever it is. Because we can always do better. They are less likely to think that the "old ways" of tradition are good enough. So, they are much more prone to this kind of depression. Of course, young people are also less invested in the status quo and are most affected.
Accelerated technological leaps and social media exacerbates this tendency, of course, by forcing you to compare yourself to anyone, anywhere who is doing better and making you dream of a better world brought about by Science.
I just think personal life -> depression -> politics makes more sense based on how normie people work rather than politics -> depression. But I agree that there are probably feedback loops that involve both directions
True it can work both ways. It's easy to see how someone with personal issues can find "comfort" in the fact that society itself needs to progress. The only caveat I have to that, is that depressed people who think the world is going to hell, can also become right wing extremist as we can see from many subcultures there.
Why is your god allowing all us this? It seems as if we could have been placed in a more reasonable Possible World for some Soul-Building.
Mister Bulldog, you previously wrote that god rarely interacts with Her Creations. Why isn't She choosing to intervene now on behalf of All Living creatures Big and Small?
Mister Bulldog, you call god He but have you seen His Penis? If so, how big was it? If you have not seen God's penis, please refer to God as She.
I feel like you're drawing attention to the liberal side of this because you feel that as a member of this tendency in some degree you feel like you are cleaning house and providing an inside perspective. What concerns me is that there doesn't seem to be any conservative special sauce here. Conservative depression is palpably on the rise to me, for sure, and no one has any good advice except what they already brought. Do you have any conservative versions of yourself about who have written this post?
Probably a lot of the same pieces of advice would work for reducing depression on both sides:
1. For God’s sake, log off social media!
2. Also steer clear of voices on the radio, YouTube, blogs etc which say everything’s awful and it’s all the fault of people who disagree with or are different from you
3. Spend less time reading and fretting about real and imagined attacks on your values and spend more time doing stuff in line with your values. If personal responsibility is important to you, practice it and mentor other people to practice it. If you’re worried about the decline of religion, get more involved in your church, synagogue or mosque and help make it a super beautiful place full of religious learning, kindness and tight-knit community. If you’re really into politics, work on issues you care about as a canvasser or precinct committee person or volunteer for advocacy groups instead of fretting online. And do this work with people who are kind and optimistic, not with people obsessed with conspiracy theories and full of bitterness.
4. Remember the people you may be scared of or mad if (liberals, unauthorized immigrants, Muslims, university professors etc.) are mainly good people who share a bunch of your values.
5. Take care of yourself and spend lots of time doing stuff or just hanging out with people you love and respect
6. Exercise and get plenty of sleep. That’s not really political advice but you’re probably more vulnerable to toxic political content when you’re grumpy because you didn’t get much sleep last night. I definitely am.
>They agree with Taylor Lorenz’s diagnosis that “we’re living in a late stage capitalist hellscape during an ongoing deadly pandemic w record wealth inequality, 0 social safety net/job security, as climate change cooks the world.”<
Behold the wisdom of Elite Human Capital(tm).
Predictable result of adopting a worldview that is fundamentally opposed to reality and then making it your religion. What your article doesn't mention is that yes, most conservatives are very pessimistic about the future of the country as well! I certainly am. Politically speaking, things have been getting worse continually since before I was born, and I have every reason to believe that they will continue getting worse after I am dead, until some unknowable point in the relatively distant future.
Where I'm different from libs is that politics isn't my religion. So long as I can carve a decent enough life for me and mine amidst the chaos, and continue to worship in solidarity with my fellow believers, I am happy. Instead of being taught that anything short of an absolutely perfect world is cause for misery, my religion says that the world is a fallen place which will never be perfect, and we are simply called on to do the best that we can while we are here. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out which one of these is better for one's mental and spiritual well-being.
Not really a lib but I feel that their counterpoint to "things are getting better" would be that some potential future event (climate change disaster, nuclear war, Trump, whatever) would undo all that progress and then some. Like, in the early 1930's you could correctly point out to German Jews that the overall trendline for the wellbeing of the Jewish community was pretty good for the previous century (and even correctly predict that in the long run it would get even better!) - but that would be little solace to them.
Obviously I don't think our situation is anything close to that, but I can see how a progressive who really did believe in those threats wouldn't feel optimistic about the future.
You say that factory farming isn’t the reason people are depressed.
A. Not true. Factory farming is massively economically wasteful, is a huge contributor to climate change, and protects the political interests that make people depressed.
B. So… people should be depressed, because the world is getting worse, but they’re sad over the wrong stuff which is bad? Idk man.
Vikram V. is the voice of reason in Bulldog comments section.
Also why is Mister Bulldog's God allowing such horrific abuses of animals? (I am vegan.) It seems as if no soul-building is achieved by factory farming.
Stop telling us everything is terrible and that it's our (or even ancestor's) fault for being monsters. I live with these people here in San Francisco and a significant amount of them are straight up Nihilists. A common bumper sticker in SF read "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
To think that young girls are sad because they think they are sad . Mostly because people are telling them they are sad ! They truly have lots of things to not be sad over but because they tend to give strength to what others tell them it causes them to believe others. It would be a good idea if they measured their own feelings rather than pay attention to others who have no idea what’s thoughts they really have !
Any young person females especially are more attractive when they smile .
I like your mention of how liberals are doing the exact opposite of what CBT recommends for depression. I also find that they're doing the exact opposite of what it recommends for anxiety when it comes to things that "trigger" them. In actual treatment for anxiety disorders (where the term "trigger" comes from), you treat the disorder by repeated, controlled exposure to the trigger, which lessens your anxiety response to it. You're meant to learn that you can't just expect the world to never trigger you, and learn to live with it when it does. On the contrary, left-liberalism of the 2010s tumblr variety holds that it's society's responsibility to never trigger you, and that announcing that you are triggered is an implicit demand for others to change their behavior, not for you to merely learn to live with it. This counter-theraputic attitude probably contributes a good deal to liberal misery, because it leads to being hypersensitivized to triggers and catastrophizing over every time you encounter one and aren't able to brazenly demand that it go away and stop infringing on your mental state. Liberals take the exact opposite of the advice therapy gives for both depression and anxiety, so it's no surprise they're always depressed and anxious.
That's a great point.
The worst part is, we are being told that everything is terrible and getting worse not because of nefarious intent from media big wigs, but because negative narratives are what the public subconsciously demands.
Humans are universally addicted to negativity, so negativity is what wins in the marketplace of ideas. Even if half (or more) of what we read was extremely positive, we would still pay more attention to and better remember the negative due to negativity bias. Progress writers have been spreading the good news of incredible human progress for over a decade, yet most people couldn't care less. If we want to push back on negative narratives, the first step is recognizing our own addiction to negativity, and then working to regulate it like we would with any other addictive substance.
I am not addicted to negativity. Millions of others are not addicted to negativity.
We're just not left-wing.
The first chart in the article shows depression rates amongst conservatives have also spiked 30% since 2014/15. Sure, plenty of people aren't addicted to negativity, but millions are, and it's getting worse.
It sure is. Social media is ubiquitous.
Which is why it’s so important to self-regulate our use of it
Are we sure the direction is right here? What if it’s just that depressed young people (the number of which is increasing for other reasons, I’d point to social media) are becoming more attracted to liberal/left ideas?
Could be both.
I would say that the direction is mostly correct though. Progressives are more likely to be concerned with changing things to the better (in their mind). Which means they have to be thinking -at least on some level- that the current state of affairs is not satisfactory-whatever it is. Because we can always do better. They are less likely to think that the "old ways" of tradition are good enough. So, they are much more prone to this kind of depression. Of course, young people are also less invested in the status quo and are most affected.
Accelerated technological leaps and social media exacerbates this tendency, of course, by forcing you to compare yourself to anyone, anywhere who is doing better and making you dream of a better world brought about by Science.
I just think personal life -> depression -> politics makes more sense based on how normie people work rather than politics -> depression. But I agree that there are probably feedback loops that involve both directions
True it can work both ways. It's easy to see how someone with personal issues can find "comfort" in the fact that society itself needs to progress. The only caveat I have to that, is that depressed people who think the world is going to hell, can also become right wing extremist as we can see from many subcultures there.
Mister Bulldog,
Why is your god allowing all us this? It seems as if we could have been placed in a more reasonable Possible World for some Soul-Building.
Mister Bulldog, you previously wrote that god rarely interacts with Her Creations. Why isn't She choosing to intervene now on behalf of All Living creatures Big and Small?
Mister Bulldog, you call god He but have you seen His Penis? If so, how big was it? If you have not seen God's penis, please refer to God as She.
You're right. The male gender is downstream from the female. So if there is any remote possibility of some first cause thingy it would be female.
I feel like you're drawing attention to the liberal side of this because you feel that as a member of this tendency in some degree you feel like you are cleaning house and providing an inside perspective. What concerns me is that there doesn't seem to be any conservative special sauce here. Conservative depression is palpably on the rise to me, for sure, and no one has any good advice except what they already brought. Do you have any conservative versions of yourself about who have written this post?
Probably a lot of the same pieces of advice would work for reducing depression on both sides:
1. For God’s sake, log off social media!
2. Also steer clear of voices on the radio, YouTube, blogs etc which say everything’s awful and it’s all the fault of people who disagree with or are different from you
3. Spend less time reading and fretting about real and imagined attacks on your values and spend more time doing stuff in line with your values. If personal responsibility is important to you, practice it and mentor other people to practice it. If you’re worried about the decline of religion, get more involved in your church, synagogue or mosque and help make it a super beautiful place full of religious learning, kindness and tight-knit community. If you’re really into politics, work on issues you care about as a canvasser or precinct committee person or volunteer for advocacy groups instead of fretting online. And do this work with people who are kind and optimistic, not with people obsessed with conspiracy theories and full of bitterness.
4. Remember the people you may be scared of or mad if (liberals, unauthorized immigrants, Muslims, university professors etc.) are mainly good people who share a bunch of your values.
5. Take care of yourself and spend lots of time doing stuff or just hanging out with people you love and respect
6. Exercise and get plenty of sleep. That’s not really political advice but you’re probably more vulnerable to toxic political content when you’re grumpy because you didn’t get much sleep last night. I definitely am.
>They agree with Taylor Lorenz’s diagnosis that “we’re living in a late stage capitalist hellscape during an ongoing deadly pandemic w record wealth inequality, 0 social safety net/job security, as climate change cooks the world.”<
Behold the wisdom of Elite Human Capital(tm).
Predictable result of adopting a worldview that is fundamentally opposed to reality and then making it your religion. What your article doesn't mention is that yes, most conservatives are very pessimistic about the future of the country as well! I certainly am. Politically speaking, things have been getting worse continually since before I was born, and I have every reason to believe that they will continue getting worse after I am dead, until some unknowable point in the relatively distant future.
Where I'm different from libs is that politics isn't my religion. So long as I can carve a decent enough life for me and mine amidst the chaos, and continue to worship in solidarity with my fellow believers, I am happy. Instead of being taught that anything short of an absolutely perfect world is cause for misery, my religion says that the world is a fallen place which will never be perfect, and we are simply called on to do the best that we can while we are here. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out which one of these is better for one's mental and spiritual well-being.
Not really a lib but I feel that their counterpoint to "things are getting better" would be that some potential future event (climate change disaster, nuclear war, Trump, whatever) would undo all that progress and then some. Like, in the early 1930's you could correctly point out to German Jews that the overall trendline for the wellbeing of the Jewish community was pretty good for the previous century (and even correctly predict that in the long run it would get even better!) - but that would be little solace to them.
Obviously I don't think our situation is anything close to that, but I can see how a progressive who really did believe in those threats wouldn't feel optimistic about the future.
I thought that factory farming was continiously getting worse? Isn't that far more important than all the stuff you talked about in this post?
I literally talk about that in the linked post.
You say that factory farming isn’t the reason people are depressed.
A. Not true. Factory farming is massively economically wasteful, is a huge contributor to climate change, and protects the political interests that make people depressed.
B. So… people should be depressed, because the world is getting worse, but they’re sad over the wrong stuff which is bad? Idk man.
I meant I address that in the post I linked about thing’s getting better
Vikram V. is the voice of reason in Bulldog comments section.
Also why is Mister Bulldog's God allowing such horrific abuses of animals? (I am vegan.) It seems as if no soul-building is achieved by factory farming.
Stop telling us everything is terrible and that it's our (or even ancestor's) fault for being monsters. I live with these people here in San Francisco and a significant amount of them are straight up Nihilists. A common bumper sticker in SF read "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
Stoics addressed the issue a long time ago - a virtuous life is its own reward.
Look at that Female Con line overtaking the Male Con though. Woman moment!
To think that young girls are sad because they think they are sad . Mostly because people are telling them they are sad ! They truly have lots of things to not be sad over but because they tend to give strength to what others tell them it causes them to believe others. It would be a good idea if they measured their own feelings rather than pay attention to others who have no idea what’s thoughts they really have !
Any young person females especially are more attractive when they smile .
So the secret to happiness is smile!
Have a wonderful happy day
The funny thing is that after decades of false alarms, probably now it is true.