Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Conservation of Fear



I have mentioned before that something like a conservation of mood seems to be embedded in the human personality.  If we are anxious people, when a problem is resolved we just switch to something else to be anxious about. If we are effervescent, we retain that through hard times and if gloomy, sustain even when events go our way.  “When the big ones are gone, the big ones remain,” a friend of mine says.

I will note as an aside that it is irritating when people claim that their naturally upbeat disposition is actually some spiritually leveraged position. They usually attribute this to some trick or cliché, implying that the same trick or cliché would work for you, too.  But then, I’m an irritable person, and if it wasn’t them I’d just go find someone else to be irritated with.

I don’t mean to push this too far and call it an absolute.  I once believed the story that lottery winners and those who had been physically disabled both reverted to their approximate baseline mood within two years, but it turns out to be only somewhat true.  Circumstances are not irrelevant.  Extra dollars above a comfortable minimum are reported to be unrelated to happiness, but they do matter below that level, and sudden losses mean most of all. No longer being beaten likely results in improved outlook, as does better health, more friends, better sleep, and other treasures.

Still, I think there is something to this idea of conservation.  Older literature, including the Bible, refers to people in such ways, that they are timid or brave or anxious or loyal by nature. Some are light and bob up above the waves no matter how high, others seem to be waterlogged from birth and gasping for breath throughout life. Buoyancy and sinking are in fact the metaphorical words we use for moods. So – mood, anxiety, energy, anger  – how about fear?  Might some of us be naturally fearful and when one threat is removed, find another to be worried about?  This occurs to me in the context of the election, and the number of people who stress that they are fearful of what Trump will do. I’m seeing a whole lot that might prove irritating or infuriating about a Trump presidency (there’s my irritability again), but the fear claims just don’t seem to have much behind them.  There was a quote here, an insensitivity there.  Someone over the mountain knew a guy who heard about a speech that Trump had made…

Can’t you understand the fear that POC feel about this? How am I going to explain this to my children?  What do I say to my gay friends? Well, you could start by telling them that there’s no evidence that they are in any danger.  Would that be a start?

Even his treating (his own) rude or even criminal acts lightly doesn’t explain people’s sense that this means that somehow all restrictions are going to be off, gropers and mean-speakers running wild.  Society doesn't really act that way. If it did it would have started long ago, under the cultural influence of uh, other people.

8 comments:

Christopher B said...

I'm going to be one note Charlie on the Trump part of this post. Projection. They *know* people were harrassed, publicly shamed, doxxed, subjected to lawfare, civilly sanctioned, fired for speaking or acting in ways that the now-fearful didn't like. It wasn't all fake news. It was reported in the respectable media. They cheered it on in their FaceBook feeds. Some of them, possibly, even took small parts in it. They are now reduced to trusting that those assuming the reins of power won't do the same. And they don't like it.

james said...

Temporary spasms are always possible, given enough emoting in the media. "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Assistant Village Idiot said...

@ Christopher B - I think that does enter into it. One of the things that makes me nervous about gun regulators talking about guns is that I think they are talking about what they would be like if they had a gun in their hands. they worry about others having the whip hand because they know what they do with the whip hand.

David Foster said...

There was a meme circulating on FB along the lines of "Proof that the Democrats aren't really rigging elections: If we were, then we'd have single-payer healthcare, solar cars, and no Fox News."

Pretty much a direct admission of totalitarian tendencies (along with a pretty strange view of physics and engineering)

Retriever said...

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

jaed said...

If we are anxious people, when a problem is resolved we just switch to something else to be anxious about.

There's an idea I have about depression (which probably applies to a lot of other mood things): we like to have explanations for things, including our own moods. Say you're feeling guilty for no external reason—neurotransmitter glitch, whatever. You will immediately begin searching for reasons why you should feel guilty, and being human you will find some. If you can't find any, you'll make some up. ("Maybe my aunt thought I didn't like her because I spent so much time talking to other people at the table. Oh God, she hates me now." "I slept with a young man who's now treating me like he owes me money... maybe he feels traumatized because I was so forward. Oh God, I'm the emotional equivalent of a rapist.") You now have a very nice cycle of self-hatred going: your ideas lead to more guilt which leads to a more frantic search for the reasons you're guilty which....

The cycle starts with the emotion, which may be causeless or have no one cause. It goes into a downward spiral when you try to find a plausible cause for this emotion.

It seems the same thing applies to this sort of fear. Perhaps the herd behavior (angsting from your Facebook friends, celebrities weeping on TV, etc.) starts it. Then you start almost-unconsciously doing the process of analysis, in order to make sense of the fearful feeling. A few times through the rinse cycle and you'll be thinking Trump will almost certainly start a nuclear war. A few more times, and this will actually seem logical and reasonable despite the fact that it's an insane train of thought. What we think over and over becomes part of our mental furniture.

Sam L. said...

It doesn't help that the media plays up Trump as a combination Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine. And HITLER! Can't leave out Hitler.

Grim said...

That's an interesting proposition, that people inclined to be nervous will just find something else to be nervous about. I'm going to think about that.