I used to work with Soldiers a lot (I helped build training simulations) and was often amazed by their perspectives. I remember theoretical discussions (Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is) alongside powerful raw emotions (Dutch peacekeepers unable to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre). On one project, where things were technically crashing around our ears, I was staggered by the emotional and practical support from soldiers who understood that I was on their side, more than I’ve ever experienced from civvie project managers. It's the closest I've come to crying with gratitude. That and the attitude: when you fall down, we will laugh, but we will help you up.
The Stoics were giving salvation for tough times. It’s a great philosophy for tough times, I’m not sure it’s a great philosophy for everyday living. It’s always good to feel more in control, but it’s not good to think that luck and the vicissitudes of the world can’t touch you or that you can’t show moral outrage, love, grief, and so on.
If someone said this about Stoicism on HN (not a professional philosopher) they would get corrected by the Stoic practitioners/dabblers: that it’s about skillfully managing circumstances and your reaction to them. Not about cutting off your emotional life.
Anyway I don’t see the connection between the vicissitudes of life and travelling half-way across the world and then getting blown up by an IDE^W IED. What part of that fits into the Reinhold Nieburh quote?
> God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.
The preceding paragraphs are terse and add further insight about the limits of Stoicism (or perhaps the little-s version that one might commonly adopt if under stress) and its effects on curtailing emotions.
Hmm, I may be a stoic by accident then (or more like coming there on my own). Emotions are great, I've fallen madly in love few times, I've cried from happiness when summiting Matterhorn, proposing to my girlfriend on top of Mont Blanc or checking some other higher peaks, I've had tears of joy when cutting umbilical cords of my kids and so on.
But I never let them run my life, and I remove them from any bigger decisions. Cold hard facts don't change, and so doesn't your perspective and decisions based on them. Any new fact just adds to the mix with at most mild alteration of the result.
Yet many folks I know have fucked up something bad in their life, by giving up to emotions in crucial moments. Lifelong regrets often afterwards, either hiding the fact in shame or living with consequences, in both cases visibly permanently less happy (not just cheating to be clear although that's of course one of main ones).
Excellent read. Original perspectives too - just drop the D from PTSD
and get with the idea that this is normal and the hardest people are
soft on the inside.
Well, clinical psychology is oriented pretty much exclusively towards preventing “disruption” or “distress” or other synonyms for “bad”, which they call “pathological behavior”. PTSD is, obviously, very bad when compared to people who don’t have it, thus “disorder”. I do think some education around that could help, tho! You’re right that it absolutely shouldn’t imply a moral failing.
I just think that’s a bigger conversation than “this one disorder is normal if you’re in traumatic environments”; it needs to be something more like “people aren’t responsible for their mental failings”. Obviously, that’s still a controversial one in and out of the military.
It reflects our reality. Nobody outside the country stands to gain from a war with the United States, so the only remaining wars are started by those looking to, in one way or another, steal from us (the public) with invented necessities. If we find ourselves paying for another war in the Middle East, in all likelihood it will be because our government refused to accept Iran's appeasement, not the other way around.
As for the acts of war, when the justifications are so distant and the arguments from "defense of interests" so tenuous, they really do start to appear as random acts of violence.
You’re in a lethality and violence-soaked environment, increasingly in population-centric environments. There’s a lot of grey area - who’s the enemy, are they a voluntary or involuntary human-shield, and so on.
I guess she understandably doesn’t want to focus on that part, but this has to be a huge part of rising PTSD rates: it’s hard to ignore that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were ultimately immorally waged. What scientists call the “are we the baddies?-syndrome”
I used to work with Soldiers a lot (I helped build training simulations) and was often amazed by their perspectives. I remember theoretical discussions (Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is) alongside powerful raw emotions (Dutch peacekeepers unable to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre). On one project, where things were technically crashing around our ears, I was staggered by the emotional and practical support from soldiers who understood that I was on their side, more than I’ve ever experienced from civvie project managers. It's the closest I've come to crying with gratitude. That and the attitude: when you fall down, we will laugh, but we will help you up.
Respect.
> Q: when is the enemy defeated? A: when he thinks he is
Well, giving up is taboo in the military. As is fragging etc.
I think there is a big correlation between being defeated and thinking you are.
The quote seems to imply a one way causality. Like as if the realization causes the defeat.
We have 2.4 million soldiers coming home from war.
Hard to believe, but it is possible.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-...
(2014)
Interesting:
The Stoics were giving salvation for tough times. It’s a great philosophy for tough times, I’m not sure it’s a great philosophy for everyday living. It’s always good to feel more in control, but it’s not good to think that luck and the vicissitudes of the world can’t touch you or that you can’t show moral outrage, love, grief, and so on.
If someone said this about Stoicism on HN (not a professional philosopher) they would get corrected by the Stoic practitioners/dabblers: that it’s about skillfully managing circumstances and your reaction to them. Not about cutting off your emotional life.
Anyway I don’t see the connection between the vicissitudes of life and travelling half-way across the world and then getting blown up by an IDE^W IED. What part of that fits into the Reinhold Nieburh quote?
> God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.
Damn IntelliJ blowing people up
Ahh haha. Fixed now. ;)
Full agree.
The preceding paragraphs are terse and add further insight about the limits of Stoicism (or perhaps the little-s version that one might commonly adopt if under stress) and its effects on curtailing emotions.
Common misconception; Stoicism is not about curtailing or repressing emotions.
Stoicism is about not allowing your emotions to govern you.
Subtle but profound difference.
At first glance it seems related to self discipline.
Hmm, I may be a stoic by accident then (or more like coming there on my own). Emotions are great, I've fallen madly in love few times, I've cried from happiness when summiting Matterhorn, proposing to my girlfriend on top of Mont Blanc or checking some other higher peaks, I've had tears of joy when cutting umbilical cords of my kids and so on.
But I never let them run my life, and I remove them from any bigger decisions. Cold hard facts don't change, and so doesn't your perspective and decisions based on them. Any new fact just adds to the mix with at most mild alteration of the result.
Yet many folks I know have fucked up something bad in their life, by giving up to emotions in crucial moments. Lifelong regrets often afterwards, either hiding the fact in shame or living with consequences, in both cases visibly permanently less happy (not just cheating to be clear although that's of course one of main ones).
Excellent read. Original perspectives too - just drop the D from PTSD and get with the idea that this is normal and the hardest people are soft on the inside.
Well, clinical psychology is oriented pretty much exclusively towards preventing “disruption” or “distress” or other synonyms for “bad”, which they call “pathological behavior”. PTSD is, obviously, very bad when compared to people who don’t have it, thus “disorder”. I do think some education around that could help, tho! You’re right that it absolutely shouldn’t imply a moral failing.
I just think that’s a bigger conversation than “this one disorder is normal if you’re in traumatic environments”; it needs to be something more like “people aren’t responsible for their mental failings”. Obviously, that’s still a controversial one in and out of the military.
[flagged]
It reflects our reality. Nobody outside the country stands to gain from a war with the United States, so the only remaining wars are started by those looking to, in one way or another, steal from us (the public) with invented necessities. If we find ourselves paying for another war in the Middle East, in all likelihood it will be because our government refused to accept Iran's appeasement, not the other way around.
As for the acts of war, when the justifications are so distant and the arguments from "defense of interests" so tenuous, they really do start to appear as random acts of violence.