There's a pretty good video from HealthyGamerGGG (think I got his name right) on YouTube titled something like: Is ADHD A Superpower for Meditating? It sounds click-baity but I find him quite appealing. As a lifelong ADHDer, meditation has been more beneficial to me than any medicine or other practice.
May I suggest "Man And His Symbols" by Car Jung? It was his final writing and, I believe, his only one that focused on the common(ish) reader as the audience. The basis of the book (and generally his studies and beliefs) is that the subconscious is as meaningful as the conscious, it just communicates in ways that are harder to access in modern society, and therefore it's been pushed away and ignored.
Right, it won't change the fact that the finger injury is sending pain signals to your brain. But it just might change what you do in reaction to that signal.
There have been so many studies as to why... I mean basically the entire social safety net in the United States, back to front, doesn't work at all for any of it's stated goals, that anyone who still believes this is the way it should be run, just wants poor people to suffer. Or they're too lazy to read.
There is deep, culturally entrenched ideas here about how wealth is equated to goodness and righteousness, signs of $diety's blessings on you, etc. etc. and nobody, absolutely nobody is trying to unwind that. It's as American as Apple Pie and Baseball.
It's way too simple to categorize behavior like this into good/evil. It's a worthwhile thought experiment (and habit) to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing, and try to understand how they might come to a different viewpoint than you.
OK, so you endorse a policy which not only creates human suffering now but harms society and creates more human suffering in the future. The cost of fixing it is minuscule and outweighed by the future benefits.
What are the good faith arguments in favor of this?
I absolutely don't endorse it. I just find it counterproductive to say things like "malice is the point".
I do have trouble finding good faith arguments in favor of this policy. It is cruel. But the people who decided to implement it aren't "other". They're humans who think they're good people (aside from a small minority of people who really don't care) and much as we'd like to think so we're not that different than them. If we can understand their justification, that's a step toward actually convincing them there is another way. And yes, I have changed many people's viewpoints with this level of patience, not everyone is too stupid/mean/insult of your choice to change their minds.
assuming good will is the only way to get others to listen and eventually change their mind. because only if we have good will in common we are able to come to a solution that satisfies both sides.
it's the continuous assumption of malice that prevents people from listening to each other. and that is still the case even if there is actual malice. almost by definition, if you do not present the assumption for good will to the other side, they will have difficulty attributing good will to you, no matter whether they themselves are acting are maliciously or not.
The people who decided to implement the policy believe that cruelty will create deterrence.
Persisting in this line of thinking despite centuries of cruelty and no end to the undesired behavior is what leads to sayings like “the cruelty is the point.” Psychologically, it’s well understood there are those who really get a kick out of making people suffer.
Sorry, but my imagination is clearly not robust enough to even begin to steelman a policy that puts children into debt over near zero-cost food at school, often publicly humiliating the child at the same time, without just sounding like a cruel cartoon villain.
I don't believe any of this, but I'll try. Please note that the below is not my personal belief, just an attempt to understand the "other side":
The attempt to steelman the policy probably comes down to encouraging personal responsibility (the libertarian way). Forgiving debts without consequence promote a culture of non-payment, undermining the sustainability of school meal programs.
The steelmanned version of why lunches require payment is likely down to sustainability of the program in general (ie: school budgets are already stretched to the limit, so parent contributions are necessary).
Now, this could obviously be solved by just budgeting for the entire thing to be included in the overall taxes of the state, but then you've got to surpass the hurdle of tax raises being insanely difficult in the states.
Honestly, this exercise kind of makes me see (yet again) how broken the whole USAmerican system is. "I've got mine and I don't want to give any more away for something I don't need"
I really wish people would exercise more imagination while applying the adage.
A cafeteria worker is likely doing what they're told to do from the principal and board of education. They're doing what they're told because of laws that have been passed. At any point along this chain of human beings, someone could be relying on their job to keep one of them family members alive.
I know I'm throwing out a random scenario, and that doesn't make it true, but there IS a story here, and it is one that none of us will ever know. There are so many human things that happen that people attribute directly to malice, especially when they have very little information.
Anyways. Point is. I really have a hard time blaming any individual here (except perhaps lawmakers) no matter how depressing the whole fiasco is. It is simply another unfortunate consequence of rigid policies that have serious impact.
>I really wish people would exercise more imagination while applying the adage.
It will never happen because additional analyzing would pretty quickly make it obvious that the problems are systemic and cannot be easily described by the kind of partisan quips and advocacy for "obvious" or "easy" solutions that dominate discussion of topics like this.
Basically any serious effort to understand and solve these problems precludes general audience participation and will therefore not be popular.
Have you started a local movement to pay for kids schools lunches?
If not, should we assume its due to malice as you know there is a problem and "don't do anything"?
> If you were cynical you might think that is precisely why some favor that solution.
On the contrary. Many people favor individually managed efforts because they disagree with your premise, and believe that such efforts scale better than centrally managed ones.
> I think we need to recognize the constant striving for happiness, and the inevitable disappointment when we don't reach it, as the unhealthy behavior that it is. It's okay, normal, even necessary to feel sad and pissed off at the world sometimes. It doesn't automatically mean something is wrong with you.
No, it doesn't mean something is wrong with you. But repeating that vicious cycle over and over and over and over again is a problem. I had a conversation with my wife the other night about seemingly inane and harmless complaining. "If we counted the number of these kinds of complaints coming from our mouths daily it would be in the dozens, perhaps more." This is death (via discontentment) by a thousand self-administered cuts. Once you see this clearly, when the veil is pulled back, you can't unsee it. It's an epidemic. The fact that it's unrecognizable to most and it is considered "natural" is guaranteeing the problem will never be solved.
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