Month: March 2023

Why Kropotkin gives me hope.

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Long story short…he reminds me that:

“Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.”

(Above image courtesy Nadar – NYPL, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7604176)

This is a very brief fanboy review of Pyotr Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902).

Reading Kropotkin right now helps calm my occasionally stressed parental brain that can’t help but worry about the coming storms. He utilizes evolutionary biology to understand the human condition, while taking a vital stance against the (still ongoing) norms of social Darwinism that mire our political and economic thought.

Kropotkin highlights an important oversight in the way Darwin is read, namely the over-emphasis on struggle and the narrow-minded corruption of the same. This is something Darwin, both, warned about and succumbed to. Negativity bias is after all, very, very real.

Citing documented evidence from the animal kingdom as well as our species’ ancient and more recent ancestors, Kropotkin shows that mutual aid is indeed just as much a part of our nature as mutual struggle is; But very importantly, he doesn’t want mutual aid to be confused with love – “It is a feeling infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy – an instinct that has been slowly developed among animals and men in the course of an extremely long evolution, and which has taught animals and men alike the force they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and support, and the joys they can find in social life.”

He makes this distinction to depart from any unnecessary romanticization of mutual aid and social cooperation, while simultaneously disabusing us of the (corrupted) Darwinist notion that competition and struggle is the norm.

This is why it gives me hope. It feels plainly common sensical. Cooperation is who we are, not just as a species, but a larger global biome. This is not to suggest that competition or struggle are non-existent. Far from it in fact.

“That life in societies is the most powerful weapon in the struggle for life, taken in its widest sense, has been illustrated… [and] could be illustrated by any amount of evidence.”

In other words, stating that life is a struggle is, essentially, a lazy truism.

“Life in societies enables the feeblest of insects, the feeblest of birds, and the feeblest mammals to resist, or to protect themselves from, the most terrible birds and beasts of prey; it permits longevity; it enables the species to rear its progeny with the least waste of energy and to maintain its numbers albeit a very slow birth-rate; it enables the gregarious animals to migrate in search of new abodes. Therefore while fully admitting that force, swiftness, protective colours, cunningness, and endurance to hunger and cold, which are mentioned by Darwin and Wallace, are so many qualities making the individual, or the species, the fittest under certain circumstances, we maintain that under any circumstances sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life.” (emphasis mine)

They who think themselves individualists be mired in delusion. The only reason we live, Kropotkin reminds us, is because others live with us.

“In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race.”

Links to referenced text:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution

https://libcom.org/article/mutual-aid-factor-evolution-peter-kropotkin

Negativity Bias – a very brief lit review and dialectic reflection

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It’s clear there’s significant negativity bias in our news media and pop culture in general. Fear and indignation sell. With good reason too. Rozin et. al (2001) “suggest that [one] feature of negative events that make them dominant is that negative entities are more contagious than positive entities.”(emphasis mine)

Media is interested in going viral, and thus contagion is key. Negativity is a pretty surefire way of getting there. It’s been that way for a while now, but has probably been hyper-accelerated in our new click-bait social media culture. Katsyri et. al. (2016) in their research on the effects of negativity in social media messaging and attention to news broadcasts confirmed this. They found that “as expected, negative tweets drew longer viewing times and elicited more attention to themselves than positive tweets.”

I know that in my own daily life as a stay-at-home parent, I deal with much fear-ridden anxiety around my children’s future, safety, and stability. Toxic positivity is one character flaw that I cannot be accused of.

This negative bias in my life, however, likely didn’t start when I became a parent. Indeed, Vaish et. al. (2008) “argue for the existence of the negativity bias in early development, evident especially in research on infant social refencing” suggesting that what is seen as commonplace in adults is rooted in our development from inception.

It’s important, as a general rule, to refrain from value judgements when trying to understand something, anything, better. It seems particularly pertinent when reflecting on our inherent negativity bias naturally being seen as a “bad” thing – with the semantic “negative” generally indicating something we want to avoid.

Our negativity bias is an evolutionary trait, one that has immense benefits towards long term physical survival. There is nothing inherently good or bad about an evolutionary trait. It just is. Molins et. al. (2022) – in their research on implicit negativity bias – argue very importantly for the casting away of value judgments when analyzing biases. In their trials they found that while participants indeed “displayed negativity bias” it was only at the “implicit level.” They suggest that “this bias was associated with loss aversion in risky decisions, and with greater performance through the ambiguous decisional task [highlighting] the need to contextualize biases, rather than draw general conclusions about whether they are inherently good or bad.” (emphasis mine).

When analyzing our negativity bias, it’s important to bear in mind this question: Is negativity bias really as powerful as we might think it is?

Taking a strong stance in favor of disabusing us from any a priori primacy afforded to negativity bias, Corns (2018) argues that “[t]he negativity bias – despite its wide acceptance in affective science and recent affirming introduction into philosophy – is nonetheless ill-informed.” She further suggests “[t]he broad claim that bad is stronger than good should be rejected” and predicates her analysis with the ontological premise that “‘Good’, ‘bad’, and ‘strong’ are all unclear in ways that matter for evaluating the hypothesis.”

In other words, we have to ask ourselves if our negativity bias is actually a more powerful force, evolutionary or otherwise, than our positivity bias? The Pollyanna Principle – our tendency at a subconscious level to focus on pleasant experiences – is just as much a part of our lives as is any inclination towards negativity, even with such strong rationales for it as survival and evolution.

Corns goes on to suggest that there are many “alternative hedonic hypotheses” that can offer “plausible alternative explanations for many of the results offered as supposed evidence for the negativity bias that remain worthy of investigation” – a suggestion we cannot ignore.

For don’t we also constantly seek pleasure as organisms? We are constantly desirous of feeling good. Hedonic motivation simply cannot be denied as a primary source of decision-making, both consciously and subconsciously.

It really is for each of us to empirically identify what motivates us and when, as we go about our daily lives. The pursuit of pleasure. The avoidance of pain. The pursuit of pain in order to access the pleasure at the end of said pain. The avoidance of pleasure to prevent the pain that comes from the ending of said pleasure. The dialectic of life experiences that are pleasurable pains and painful pleasures.

As with any reading, reflection, or train of thought, I am left with one acute realization at the end of it:

The more I know, the dumber I feel.

Salud.

Cited works:

Molins F, Martínez-Tomás C, Serrano MÁ. Implicit Negativity Bias Leads to Greater Loss Aversion and Learning during Decision-Making. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(24):17037. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192417037

Kätsyri J, Kinnunen T, Kusumoto K, Oittinen P, Ravaja N (2016) Negativity Bias in Media Multitasking: The Effects of Negative Social Media Messages on Attention to Television News Broadcasts. PLOS ONE 11(5): e0153712. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153712

Corns, J. Rethinking the Negativity Bias. Rev.Phil.Psych. 9, 607–625 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-018-0382-7

Vaish A, Grossmann T, Woodward A. Not all emotions are created equal: the negativity bias in social-emotional development. Psychol Bull. 2008 May;134(3):383-403. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.383. PMID: 18444702; PMCID: PMC3652533.

Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296–320. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle

The toughest lesson I’ve had to learn as a parent…

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My ego is often really, really unnecessary.

This is easy enough to digest as a pithy maxim, but harder to internalize when the ego has been so reliable during times of past struggle.

I have long stopped looking at one’s ego as good or bad. It just is. An unmistakable part of the self.

A part that needs constant reigning in and many times complete abandonment.

Letting go of that ego is useful for resiliency in general, but especially true when nurturing kids.

Whether one likes it or not, that bloody ego will get reigned in.

These little rascals will keep me on my toes for life now.

With good reason too.

For my children know who the real brat of the house is.

Indeed, I think deep down, he hopes they never stop being naughty.

(Cos then he has to stop too.)

I’m a parent, ultimately, because I’m selfish.

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Addicted to the love and meaning my kids provide me…

***

Yesterday was my daughter’s 7th birthday and the day before that was my 5 year old son’s adoption day.

A family completed we were, the day my son officially became a part of our family. (Thank you to Judge Amy Johnson, our attorney Kaye Mcleod, and our social worker Michelle Oglesby – all from Arkansas, the state my son was born in, a state we will forever be connected to now. This post is in partial honor of all these amazing women.)

Amidst all the joy, celebration, and relief of the past couple of days…a feeling really stood out for me personally:

I am extremely imperfect as a parent. (Yes, I’m making this about me. Did you not read the title of the post my dear friend?)

I think I’m always in the process of becoming a good parent, but just falling short. I take shortcuts, often don’t know what I’m doing, and half-ass it many a time.

(Hell, the laptop is more of a co-parent than I’d like to admit…probably better at it too from time to time.)

And yet, I feel perfectly confident in continuing to do it. Perhaps a bit too confident. Choicelessness in nurturing, no matter how bad a job one does, is ultimately very liberating.

Monumental blunders notwithstanding, parenting doesn’t feel unnatural. Indeed, it feels like for the first time in my life, I have something in my life to get out of bed for that’s beyond the self and my suffering significant other whom I’m probably more co-dependent on than I’d care to admit.

It feels good to be needed. After all these many years of reveling in that feeling, it’s important to admit it, now more than ever.

Never have I had more love, more purpose, or indeed more meaning, in my life.

Never have I also had more structure, repetition, timeliness, and propping semblances of arbitrary order (that I’m honestly only able to rationalize half the time).

Most soberingly though, never have I ever felt more like a hypocrite. I know I’m a parent for very, very selfish reasons.

I became a fan of Irvin Yalom a few years back when I read his brilliant 1980 treatise, Existential Psychotherapy. It helped immeasurably in my own explorations around thanatology.

It was reassuring to me that an acute internalization of one’s brutal finitude helped immeasurably in intentional living

“Death and life are interdependent: though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death saves us.”

Yalom’s word provided comfort in the fact that I was not batshit insane for my lifelong obsession with death.

It shone a spotlight on how we as humans seek immortality, despite very clearly being mortal beings…whether that be through artistic creation, amassing wealth and power, or having children.

It’s intrinsic to who we are.

But while reveling in what parenting provides me, I feel like the only way I can half-ass it less and be more present, is by reminding myself of the inherent selfishness in the endeavor.

***

“It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one’s germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!” ― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

***

This post is in partial honor of Dr. Irvin Yalom, still kicking it to this day at the age of 91! Thank you kindly, good sir.

(Below image courtesy Wikimedia User: Masangina – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36268159)

Books referred:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21032.Existential_Psychotherapy

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21031.When_Nietzsche_Wept

The best burger I’ve made (and *ahem* had).

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Notice the space in the plate…a result of burger inhalation.

Organic minced beef, finely diced onion, seasoning salt, honey.

Mix, mash, and mould into patties.

Pan fry in olive oil until medium well.

Use the left over caramelized onions (that will inevitably fall off as burgers are being cooked) in a mixed veggie dish or as garnish.

Delish.

Cooking is love.

For family and self.