Beautifully said Chance.
I'm not quite sure of the place others in this discussion are coming from,
though I feel the desire to contend with these lost individuals who would
rather be considered severely mentally ill or disabled than to be healthy,
which has been replaced with a vague sense of being "normal" that has been
brought to derogatory connotations in a similar manner to being "cisgender"
but much much more negative.
I work with individuals of topic in this discussion every day, and while I
think everyone here has brought up valid points and identified the major
sociocultural and generational contingencies that apparently govern what I
have called the Identity Crisis. We must be careful to not pathologize
these individuals, as the tone of most of these conversations tend to go.
Let them identify how they want, take the path of least resistance here
because resisting will only further entrench and reinforce the victim
mentality, let them be victims if they want to be.
As for whether or not we are talking about trauma or extremist postmodern
fallout, it's both. But make no mistake, postmodernism is only as much to
blame as its modernist counterpart, and we can see this overidetification
with suffering as a compensation for the equally disturbed modernist
tendency to "suck it up" and not talk about your problems. This is the
dialectic to metamodernism and it should not be regarded as a problem, but
moreso a difficulty that will be transcended in due time.
We, nor they, nor anyone else is in control of this emergent unfolding, but
we are all participants in the unfolding. Stay to your values and your
roots, treat others as humans and be genuine and critical without social
judgement (which feels apparent in some responses in this thread). If you
really want it to stop so badly then leave it alone, if you push, they
pull.
If your fear is social judgement for berating the ludicrous nature of some
of these false identifications, then you're in the same boat as they are,
for you are merely acting in accordance with a modernist principle of
resentfully holding back how you really feel because it would be taboo to
discuss it and you risk losing social status if retaliated against.
Sorry the tables have turned, but keep turning them and the flow will be
smooth. Wu Wei here people, wu wei.
I dont pretend to fully understand how all of this is happening ing, but
I've worked with enough of these people in question to know that they have
pain and suffering as valid as anyone else's in a world where everyone
complains about everything. To overdramaticize in that sense is an adaptive
mechanism because it gets them the attention, the acceptance from others,
the feeling of control, and all the other human needs we have discussed in
this thread. When you don't make the conversation about how one labels
their suffering then you can move past this without incident, it's on you
how much you want to pick this battle as if you have a better idea for
younger generations, you might think you do, but that's your own
subjectivity and inherent biases. If they don't want to fit into your boxes
they shouldn't have to.
Wu wei.
Regards,
Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.
On Fri, Aug 6, 2021, 6:26 PM Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> *CAUTION: *This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links
> or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is
> safe.
> ------------------------------
> We seem to be experiencing the continued accelerated fragmentation of
> cultural worldviews (justification systems) and their rapid splinter-based
> development along the “grow lights” of digital media. Evaluations of
> social phenomena and prioritizing behavior is likely to become more
> difficult in the near future.
>
> As I believe Zak Stein has pointed out, these digital platforms have
> contributed to a drastic interruption of generational transmission.
> Further, Social survival is now contrived to feel dependent on the
> disavowal and destruction of our current social system, which is viewed
> through the lens of the system’s corrupt and confining historical aspects
> and origins. Because this contrivance is magnified through instantaneous
> transmission of Omni-sensorial recording devices, the contrivance is now
> actually an extremely precarious real social landscape in which *all* are
> guilty of and actively complicit in social crimes, and/or all are
> simultaneously the victim of massive contextual forces outside of our
> control.
>
> We must be tethered and actively engaged with the digital sensocracy to
> remain economically competitive and socially relevant. Younger generations
> are fused to these systems in ways experientially incomprehensible to
> preceding generations, and a social paradox emerges:
>
> One must be known and valued or face the agony of isolation. And yet, to
> be known is to open up near infinite lines of attack vectors across time.
>
> One of the strategies that appears to mediate the stress of being
> permanently behaviorally recorded and, at any moment, experience an exile
> from society due to a present or retrospective transgression is to be known
> by others as a survivor of disadvantaged or predatory circumstances.
> Immediate and intimate in-group identification, perceived social support
> from corporate and educational empowerment campaigns, catharsis, and a
> heroic and justifiable self-narrative (at a time when self narratives are
> in permanent flux), are just a few of the rewarding immediate benefits of
> disclosing trauma or diagnoses within digital groups.
>
> An ethological, Unified Theory perspective that Gregg has shared in the
> past is that, the problem with adopting the role of victim is not that the
> facts or narratives are not or could not be true and cause significant
> suffering and limitation, it is that positively reinforcing a self-limiting
> view of self and lessening of expectations is theorized, organically, to
> lead to feedback loops that deteriorate resiliency and reduce competency
> and effectiveness. Therefore setting increased conditions for deeper
> depression and vulnerability to further traumas. In this view, social
> media positively rewards group identification with avoidance strategies at
> the expense of strategies for adapting to traditional social norms and
> developing grit and resilience. We lose our “can do” attitude and the
> psychological sciences insight that persistence and exposure to difficulty
> is what leads to competence and maturity. Thus trigger warnings are also
> called into question.
>
> However, the problem is deeper than this. Because there is no objective
> reality *above the point of the mind-culture joint point,* all bets are
> currently off regarding a Meta orienting value system that makes sense of
> our suffering, justifies our striving, organizes our past, and orients our
> future.
>
> The narratives that many digitally developed groups adopt are powerful
> because they are, upon deep inspection, objectively plausible and
> justifiable. They are dangerous to us as individuals mostly if they lack
> adaptive pragmaticism in how events will actually unfold moving forward.
> However, there appears to be no consensus on an appropriate timeline for
> social justice and change, and so we are, in the present horizontal view,
> experiencing power pushes between factions battling for territory in the
> domain of social narrative.
>
> This dynamic of generational, tribal, national, and interpersonal
> influence vying may be old hat, but unique to our current dilemma is
> whatever the scope and effects of the digital situation really are and how
> to then prioritize behavior meaningfully.
>
> Personally, the rally-point I retreat to often appears to be a humanistic
> identity of awareness situated at the Mind-Culture joint point. We can be
> reasonably certain we are, at least, apes hallucinating a contrived social
> symbolic reality built upon more stable physical and evolutionary
> templates. Interpretations above that level of analysis seem to be
> functionally in perpetual or potential flux.
>
> Our personal phenomenological realities are being shaped by an
> irresistible funneling into digital space, and our ability to meaningfully
> evaluate the effects upon ourselves while tracking how it effects others on
> differing “grow lines” should diminish as the digital systems continue to
> expand.
>
> One person’s public act of solidarity against oppression is another
> person’s excuse to avoid work.
>
> -Chance
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 6, 2021, at 4:09 PM, Bradley H. Werrell, D.O. <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> *CAUTION: *This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click
> links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the
> content is safe.
> ------------------------------
> Thank you Dr. Bacon.
>
>
> This detail affords us an opportunity to see a certain value structure
> that is (currently) transcendent, which is subjective [to value FEELINGS
> OVER TRUTH], which is as opposed to that (intersubjectively verifiable)
> which is objective [to value TRUTH OVER FEELINGS].
>
> Perhaps it is better said as PREFERENCE over FACTS, vs FACTS over
> PREFERENCE. Any feedback on this would be appreciated.
>
> It is my impression that this is the central disturbance of the moment,
> these two dueling intuitional standpoints.
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> B
>
>
> Bradley H. Werrell, D.O. - This email is private and copyrighted by the
> author.
>
>
> On Friday, August 6, 2021, 11:34:52 AM MST, Stephen Bacon <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> *CAUTION: *This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links
> or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is
> safe.
> ------------------------------
> Hi All,
>
> The trauma trend is just the tip of the iceberg. I currently have a
> 20-year-old client who has become enamoured of receiving an Autism Spectrum
> diagnosis. As most of you are probably aware, there is a very active
> autism community with the laudable goal of reducing the stigma of that
> diagnosis. The unfortunate correlate is that many people--again like the
> trauma situation--seek the diagnosis both as a justification for why their
> life has gone poorly as well as an opportunity to join a vibrant, affirming
> community. Interestingly, one of the big hashtags is "when your therapist
> tells you you're not autistic" and variations on that theme. When my
> client had a session with another doctor, who told her she was not
> autistic, she posted her poor opinion of that doctor on the autism forum
> and received 1300 supportive responses.
>
> Another significant fact about this young woman is that she had the
> histrionic ability to manifest symptoms. After reading that some autistic
> people have trouble communicating/become mute, she had one episode where
> she was paralyzed for 6 hours unable to move her body. Her mother took her
> to the ER where movement gradually returned. A few days later, she was
> unable to use language for about 4 hours. In both of these incidents, the
> girl was undisturbed by her paralysis and later cited them as "proof" she
> had autism.
>
> There is a close connection to the groups--again mostly female--of high
> school and college age people who are embracing nonbinary and its
> variations. In these groups, having dysregulated affect is the price of
> admission. Another client of mine, a nineteen-year-old girl who is now
> nonbinary enroute to transexual, literally made up family trauma to be
> accepted by the group. I also see her parents in family therapy and they
> had access to their daughter's iphone and read all about the (made up)
> physical and sexual trauma that they had visited upon their daughter.
>
> I think that many thoughtful therapists are aware of the intersection
> between truma, nonbinary, autism diagnoses, and affective dysregulation.
> Of course, we are also aware of the price of exploring these connections:
> cancellation.
>
> At the moment, it is extremely difficult to work with these very active
> and destructive themes that are tearing up youth culture. Many of our
> colleges have taken the politically correct route of stating that gender is
> a matter of inner feelings and that our job is to create a safe space to
> explore those feelings and then affirm them. This sounds good until we
> notice that these clients of ours are not just exploring these feelings in
> therapy; the feelings are also being influenced by a remarkably strong set
> of cultural forces. Safe therapeutic exploration sounds good in theory; in
> practice, it requires us to ignore the profound influences of a certain
> aspect of "woke" culture. This creates a dilemma for those of us whose
> practice includes a significant number of these young people.
>
> I'm interested in hearing how these factors are affecting other's
> practices.
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Stephen Bacon, Ph.D.
> 351 S. Hitchcock Way #B110
> Santa Barbara, CA 93105
> website: drstephenbacon.com
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__drstephenbacon.com&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=A_FPvJDsSGMtJkV5g-lCEeI-fSEFgSGQNKgn4cdc0oM&s=CxGFqij8OErU_OFr3cRPoR9qAIb7G0Dk09EMhWiC5oI&e=>
> (805) 563-2820
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 7:47 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Deep thanks for this note, Zak.
>
>
>
> I am going to send it to my three kids (22, 20, 17) and ask once again
> that they be reflective about their social media usage.
>
>
>
> Best,
> G
>
>
>
> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <
> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *Zachary Stein
> *Sent:* Friday, August 6, 2021 9:40 AM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Trauma or postmodernism gone mad
>
>
>
> *CAUTION: *This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links
> or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is
> safe.
> ------------------------------
>
> Hi Lene,
>
>
>
> This is only one of many disturbing trends on TikTok (which is
> ultimately owned, operated and disseminated by the CCP). The platform
> itself works as a content delivery system that algorithmically sequences
> videos of a minute or less, making it arguably the most well designed
> addictive/attention capture/brainwashing app available. Usage statistics
> among adolescents are disturbingly high, especially when a 3 hour session
> consists of something like 180 distinct videos. Attention fragmentation and
> related susceptibility for suggestion are off the charts. The data analytic
> back end is shady enough that the US military banned it from all phones of
> service members. TikTok is maybe the simplest case of a social media
> technology that should simply be shut down.
>
>
>
> zak
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 12:27 AM Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> *CAUTION: *This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links
> or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is
> safe.
> ------------------------------
>
> Hello TOK'ers,
>
> I just ran into this article about trauma being the new trend on TikTok:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__unherd.com_thepost_tiktoks-2Dlatest-2Dfad-2Dconfessions-2Dof-2Dtrauma_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Op5Df2LKYe1fj1TMqwTFFSG94lUw2luTZmDWJol-48M&s=norV-d5uxRx7BIo0kMopJOvl4HcKDovkp7xYhcaIqtI&e=
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__unherd.com_thepost_tiktoks-2Dlatest-2Dfad-2Dconfessions-2Dof-2Dtrauma_&d=DwMCaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=gLyftn51bGPAXlHX382hnbnwLUkpqRQRK3BYAF_t1Ck&s=F13aRJ7M9doapmbddOdXWgsj4b9Cl_kXVgmMl6QS2Wc&e=>
>
> Is this well known?
>
> / Lene
>
> --
>
> *Lene Rachel Andersen*
> Futurist, economist, author & keynote speaker
> President of Nordic Bildung and co-founder of the European Bildung Network
> Full member of the Club of Rome
> *Nordic Bildung*
> Vermlandsgade 51, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
> www.nordicbildung.org
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nordicbildung.org&d=DwMCaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=gLyftn51bGPAXlHX382hnbnwLUkpqRQRK3BYAF_t1Ck&s=CPp9MuwleohI1aoUcAU-lxJYkANsCpwIsgNnQuTSdrM&e=>
> +45 28 96 42 40
>
> ############################
>
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>
>
> --
>
> Zachary Stein, Ed.D.
>
> www.zakstein.org
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.zakstein.org&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=BrxUJMFF-1PhzkOdR_fUZTH1M4R7a2dt_YDy3PXvO5w&s=jfY9SSP97U7eiYSGMpR_zzDtdGpW5YooGgrq5bmcd4U&e=>
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