25 Apr 2008, 2:48 am
Odin wrote:
ouinon wrote:
According to studies done in the 70's and 80's an external locus of control, or even a mid point on the scale, apparently correlates with depression, poor self-esteem, reactivity/passivity etc, and it counts against you in employment.
But maybe the tests are just a way of establishing if you have the "right" perspective on life, one which fits with capitalist enterprise and go-gettingness, being an independent unit, functioning autonomously, etc, the ideal in our culture.
People who don't function like that are obviously often going to be depressed, anxious, reactive, etc; they are trying to live in a society which insists that each person see themselves as divided off from their environment, actors on their environment rather than parts of it.
It is discriminatory psychobabble! which denigrates a certain way of being.
But maybe the tests are just a way of establishing if you have the "right" perspective on life, one which fits with capitalist enterprise and go-gettingness, being an independent unit, functioning autonomously, etc, the ideal in our culture.
People who don't function like that are obviously often going to be depressed, anxious, reactive, etc; they are trying to live in a society which insists that each person see themselves as divided off from their environment, actors on their environment rather than parts of it.
It is discriminatory psychobabble! which denigrates a certain way of being.
This sounds like stuff I've read on Naturalism.org.
Thank you very much for that link, Odin.
This sort of argument/attitude, ( eg: Naturalism ), didn't make much sense to me before, except as pleasant sounding idealistic burble, but am beginning to realise that free will is another one of those things which is not only taken for granted despite being "made-up"/socially constructed , but also very harmful/oppressive for many people.
I really didn't know until now that (the whole idea of ) free will could be understood as a construct, a mechanism of social control. I thought that it was just an airy fairy philosophical thing, but now I begin to seee its power and how it manoevres people.
I posted the thread on General Discussion rather than random or PPR because I think people with AS are amongst those particularly suffering from the concept of "free will", and the belief that "a healthy locus of control is an internal one". It is another example of society turning a difference, a fundamental human way of functioning, into a disability.
25 Apr 2008, 7:16 am
ouinon wrote:
Thank you very much for that link, Odin.
You're welcome! It's a great website with tons of interesting articles.
27 Apr 2008, 2:42 am
Odin wrote:
It's a great website with tons of interesting articles.
Yes, I've been reading some of them.
Something I don't get though is why the site as a whole seems to believe that belief in god is incompatible with the debunking of free will. There's a hint of atheist-evangelism in many of the articles.
I find belief in god still works, fits very well. Belief in no-contra-causal free-will actually seems like another way of expressing my belief in god; I am "fully caused", everything is fully caused. Like my saying, sort of seriously, a few months back that maybe the reason we don't know exactly what causes Aspergers/AS is because god is still writing that part.
I am wondering how much disagreement between groups in the AS community is caused by this conflict of ideas ( about free will). To those deeply attached to their belief in free will it may seem "obvious" that anyone who argues that their brain wiring makes them behave a certain way is ill/disordered/disabled; only someone ill/diseased in some way feels so "caused"/determined by their body.
In fact the reason for many of the violent reactions may be precisely because belief in free will is challenged by those with AS explaining so much of their behaviour as the result of genes ( etc). The reaction seems to be that must get rid of this condition that makes perfectly intelligent people say that their brain wiring determines who they are, and what they do.
Anyone who suggests, as many Aspies/AS do, that it is perfectly alright to be a product of relatively unavoidable things like brain wiring, of physiology, is deeply scary to a society based on 1600 years of belief in free will, ( most particularly in how we calculate responsibility) .
So scary that a century of horror films have presented such characters over and over again as the ultimate nightmare; zombies, aswell as older, more limited versions such as vampires and werewolves.
Now that I have "found" out about free will being a social construct, I realise that this is very largely what I have been struggling with for years. This is what I have been trying to work out. I'm afraid that I may find myself without a subject to think about now!
