Insight from Cracked.com
Ha! I just read an article on Cracked that not only makes sense, but also offers a good explanation for how I operate:
Well, there are these primitive, lower parts of your brain called amygdalae that controls those base, emotional reactions. That's where things like contempt and shame come from, and stimulating it can completely shut down the analytical part of your brain. You can thank evolution for that. Way back when humans started forming groups and tribes, social status was everything. It's what guaranteed you food, protection and ladies (that is, a chance to pass on your genes). Mockery developed as a "conformity enforcer" to keep people in line.
Making a person, idea or behavior the target of mockery gave it a lower social position, and made it clear that anybody who associated with it would share that lower position, leaving them out of the hunting/eating/fucking that made life in the tribe worthwhile. Thousands of years later, a good dose of mockery can shut down critical thinking and make us fall right in line, no questions asked.
And here's another one:
Basically, we're hard-wired by evolution to form tribes. The more stress we feel, the more we feel love and attachment to those who look and sound the same as us, and the more we feel hatred to those who don't. It's just an old survival mechanism, since the ancient guys who didn't show that kind of blind loyalty were killed off by the fierce tribes formed by the ones who did. But to really make this one work, They can't just define your group, but have to define your group as the elite group, a shining beacon in a world full of weak-minded walking turds.
Not only is "Us vs Them" the first and most important one on the list, it's the culmination and end goal of all the others. Drawing you into the right tribe is what They want most, because they can accomplish nothing without tribesmen.
It's not often an actual thought-provoking article makes it onto Cracked, this was pretty surprising. Of course, I love finding the biological and evolutionary causes of my own behavior. Like how I thought that Brian smelled so good, even though no one else could smell anything on his shirt that I still have.
Man, this author's good. Funny and poignant. I'm reading another article of his, where he hits my main issue with the world right on the head:
Scientists call it the Naked Photo Test, and it works like this: say a photo turns up of you nakedly doing something that would shame you and your family for generations. Bestiality, perhaps. Ask yourself how many people in your life you would trust with that photo. If you're like the rest of us, you probably have at most two. Even more depressing, studies show that about one out of four people have no one they can confide in. The average number of close friends we say we have is dropping fast, down dramatically in just the last 20 years. Why?
According to David Wong, there are seven reasons. We have a lower tolerance for annoyance, because it's so easy to avoid people and the outside world that we can't control. This leads to our inability to deal and cooperate with incompatible people, or even people with different interests. "There's a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that's literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated by other people who aren't you. Otherwise, you turn emo. Science has proven it."
Also, texting sucks. Over 40 percent of everything gets lost in translation, apparently. So, in other words, 40 percent of your personality doesn't come across, or comes across wrong. Furthermore, only 7 percent of the meaning of a conversation is in the words. The rest is all body language and tone. Apparently sarcasm is simply mismatching words and tone, which is completely lost in texting. Heh, never thought of it that way. And without these other cues, bad things can happen: "Absent a sense of the other person's mood, every line we read gets filtered through our own mood instead. The reason I read my friend's chili message as sarcastic was because I was in an irritable mood. In that state of mind, I was eager to be offended." So that's why I get more easily offended when I'm feeling depressed. And this is so true it made my breath catch: "That human ability to absorb the moods of others through that kind of subconscious osmosis is crucial. Kids born without it are considered mentally handicapped. People who have lots of it are called "charismatic" and become movie stars and politicians. It's not what they say; it's this energy they put off that makes us feel good about ourselves."
Apparently we don't get enough criticism from close friends. This seems like a roundabout explanation for why we don't have close friends to begin with, but I'll read on... ah, I see. He means we don't get enough real criticism, so we never work on improving ourselves. He says most of what we get are insults, which are meaningless. "An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing." I guess this means that I have do have close friendships, as I know exactly what he's talking about when he says "Those horrible, awkward, wrenchingly uncomfortable sessions that you can only have with someone who sees right to the center of you."
And, back to texting: "E-mail and texting are awesome tools for avoiding that level of honesty. With text, you can respond when you feel like it. You can measure your words. You can pick and choose which questions to answer. The person on the other end can't see your face, can't see you get nervous, can't detect when you're lying. You have almost total control and as a result that other person never sees past your armor, never sees you at your worst, never knows the embarrassing little things about yourself that you can't control. Gone are the common quirks, humiliations and vulnerabilities that real friendships are built on."
Well, there are these primitive, lower parts of your brain called amygdalae that controls those base, emotional reactions. That's where things like contempt and shame come from, and stimulating it can completely shut down the analytical part of your brain. You can thank evolution for that. Way back when humans started forming groups and tribes, social status was everything. It's what guaranteed you food, protection and ladies (that is, a chance to pass on your genes). Mockery developed as a "conformity enforcer" to keep people in line.
Making a person, idea or behavior the target of mockery gave it a lower social position, and made it clear that anybody who associated with it would share that lower position, leaving them out of the hunting/eating/fucking that made life in the tribe worthwhile. Thousands of years later, a good dose of mockery can shut down critical thinking and make us fall right in line, no questions asked.
And here's another one:
Basically, we're hard-wired by evolution to form tribes. The more stress we feel, the more we feel love and attachment to those who look and sound the same as us, and the more we feel hatred to those who don't. It's just an old survival mechanism, since the ancient guys who didn't show that kind of blind loyalty were killed off by the fierce tribes formed by the ones who did. But to really make this one work, They can't just define your group, but have to define your group as the elite group, a shining beacon in a world full of weak-minded walking turds.
Not only is "Us vs Them" the first and most important one on the list, it's the culmination and end goal of all the others. Drawing you into the right tribe is what They want most, because they can accomplish nothing without tribesmen.
It's not often an actual thought-provoking article makes it onto Cracked, this was pretty surprising. Of course, I love finding the biological and evolutionary causes of my own behavior. Like how I thought that Brian smelled so good, even though no one else could smell anything on his shirt that I still have.
Man, this author's good. Funny and poignant. I'm reading another article of his, where he hits my main issue with the world right on the head:
Scientists call it the Naked Photo Test, and it works like this: say a photo turns up of you nakedly doing something that would shame you and your family for generations. Bestiality, perhaps. Ask yourself how many people in your life you would trust with that photo. If you're like the rest of us, you probably have at most two. Even more depressing, studies show that about one out of four people have no one they can confide in. The average number of close friends we say we have is dropping fast, down dramatically in just the last 20 years. Why?
According to David Wong, there are seven reasons. We have a lower tolerance for annoyance, because it's so easy to avoid people and the outside world that we can't control. This leads to our inability to deal and cooperate with incompatible people, or even people with different interests. "There's a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that's literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated by other people who aren't you. Otherwise, you turn emo. Science has proven it."
Also, texting sucks. Over 40 percent of everything gets lost in translation, apparently. So, in other words, 40 percent of your personality doesn't come across, or comes across wrong. Furthermore, only 7 percent of the meaning of a conversation is in the words. The rest is all body language and tone. Apparently sarcasm is simply mismatching words and tone, which is completely lost in texting. Heh, never thought of it that way. And without these other cues, bad things can happen: "Absent a sense of the other person's mood, every line we read gets filtered through our own mood instead. The reason I read my friend's chili message as sarcastic was because I was in an irritable mood. In that state of mind, I was eager to be offended." So that's why I get more easily offended when I'm feeling depressed. And this is so true it made my breath catch: "That human ability to absorb the moods of others through that kind of subconscious osmosis is crucial. Kids born without it are considered mentally handicapped. People who have lots of it are called "charismatic" and become movie stars and politicians. It's not what they say; it's this energy they put off that makes us feel good about ourselves."
Apparently we don't get enough criticism from close friends. This seems like a roundabout explanation for why we don't have close friends to begin with, but I'll read on... ah, I see. He means we don't get enough real criticism, so we never work on improving ourselves. He says most of what we get are insults, which are meaningless. "An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing." I guess this means that I have do have close friendships, as I know exactly what he's talking about when he says "Those horrible, awkward, wrenchingly uncomfortable sessions that you can only have with someone who sees right to the center of you."
And, back to texting: "E-mail and texting are awesome tools for avoiding that level of honesty. With text, you can respond when you feel like it. You can measure your words. You can pick and choose which questions to answer. The person on the other end can't see your face, can't see you get nervous, can't detect when you're lying. You have almost total control and as a result that other person never sees past your armor, never sees you at your worst, never knows the embarrassing little things about yourself that you can't control. Gone are the common quirks, humiliations and vulnerabilities that real friendships are built on."