Hello Philosophy Society!
Philosophy Academy: Distortion Review
This week we began with a review of David Burns Cognitive Distortions. It is important to know these patterns of thought so that we can detect them in ourselves and others if they ever come up. We can then make an effort to understand our feelings and modify the way we are thinking about them or how we are perceiving the situation so that it is balanced and more realistic. It does not help us if we fall into patterns of distorted thinking.
Discussion 1: Passion Monetization
In our growth and development as people, we will have certain inclinations towards specific activities that we find enjoyable. We may also have certain goals or values that we are passionate about. If we can find what kinds of activities that we love to do everyday because of the peace that they bring us, we can build a lifestyle around those activities. Learning to become an entrepreneur or finding a job that allows us to do what we love will create well being for us as we participate in the economic system and gain income for ourselves.
As we grow as people, usually in our late adolescence, we are forced to find a way to meet our basic needs and develop a means to survive in the world. In most cases, this takes the form of people ‘entering the workforce’ or attending post secondary education. In the group that goes to college or university, the motivation is most often a means to an end; they enter school to become educated to have a higher paying job than those that simply went into the workforce.
Meeting our financial needs is not necessarily contingent with living a good life. We do need money to live well but how we get that money matters. Many workplaces become a cause of stress as a cost of gaining income. The people we work with, the ones we see and have relationships with multiple days a week, have a large impact on our psychological health. Some personalities or individuals will not be complementary and it will be difficult for them to get along. In these cases, we can have boundaries and simply ‘not talk or engage’ with the person, but that is equivalent to basically not having a relationship. It is better to be silent than to have a context of abrasiveness or bullying. A dysfunctional relationship that is ongoing will be very taxing on our mental health.
Some things to keep in mind:
1) What tasks or activities create the most meaning for you?
We must remember that we are doing this 5 days a week on average. If you get visceral negative emotions from the work you are doing, it is not the best place for you because you will have to do some other activity to counter those negative feelings. They will accumulate and manifest themselves into some other problem for you. If you get no emotion from what your activity is, it may not be causing harm but it is a lost opportunity. You are wasting time doing something you are apathetic about when you could be doing something that gives you a sense of meaning or purpose.
For example, if someone displays a passion for styling their hair and puts more meaningful effort into it than others, this could be something that they would excel at as a job. This same person also loves to design their own clothing just for fun. They will buy a piece as a template then add or edit parts of the piece so that it is equivalent to a designer piece. Their natural tendency to display artistic effort in their hair and how they look is an example of a task they are naturally passionate about. Developing this inclination by going to hairdressing school and taking courses in fashion will give them more skills in the area they are already gaining meaning from. They will also be given the opportunity to meet new people who they share similar values with and increase their social network in a very healthy way.
2) What is the relationship between you and the people you work with?
Even if the task is meaningless, maybe there is meaning to be had with the social group. Our need for belonging and a place within the group is very important. The relationships with the people we work with is something that meets the close social needs akin to a family. Spending so much time with colleagues, dealing with problems together and having the opportunity to stand out in situations or circumstances to make a difference for others and the group can be very meaningful. In the context of others, a social group provides a role and a sense of interconnectedness with others. We gain value from the uniqueness of our strengths that we bring to the group. These strengths can be physical, like being tall, or drawn from our personality, some being very emotionally stable and dealing with stress or conflicting situations well.
Participating in a group that is focused on a task collectively is a great context for our personal growth. As we ‘work’ with others, we learn to deal with our own emotions and find a place for ourselves in challenging situations. We learn to deal with other people that we have developed relationships with and complement their weaknesses. Over time, all of the variability in these situations and our states will give us the environment to shape and develop our character. We will learn to develop certain parts of ourselves to compliment the situations we are faced with and be the person others need us to be within those situations.
Academic Reflections: Institutional Corruption
Institutions are built on policies that are facilitated by the members of that institution. These policies are established for many reasons; proactive legal defense, meeting the ends of the organizational mandate, facilitating situations that occur most often within the organization, etc. As institutions grow, they become compartmentalized in the delegation of tasks and duties. Different departments are created to deal with different kinds of problems and ‘experts’ are assigned responsibility to their department so that each category of problem is dealt with by the best person or group of people.
As this compartmentalization occurs, individuals within the organization stay the same. Individuals are a single unit that, if they come into confrontation with the institution as a whole, is faced with an extreme power imbalance. This power imbalance creates areas of corruption because single units of people who are biased can create a cascade of bias in other members of the institution, in the form of groupthink for example. A case is not understood fully by any specific member but tasks are dispersed among many people who may only have partial information. The members of the institution use information from other members instead of investigating and determining ‘what is the case’ on their own. This means that if one person in the situation is biased, they will simply pass their bias along to other members.
Policies are developed on case by case situations that extrapolate a general procedure to account for all past similar cases and any future similar cases to prevent problems that have occured in past cases. The policy is established as a rule or guideline that any interchangeable member can follow with the hopes that past failures are not repeated by the institution. If a situation or a case does not follow a specific policy, the members are stuck with what to do. They are not trained to create solutions on their own but are habituated to following the rules set out by a committee.
If a member has executed a policy but is determined after the fact that it was a mistake, it is very difficult for the institution to retract the application of some policy. Members have a vested interest to be right in their application of policy for their jobs are dependent on it. A member can mislead other members of the organization that their error does not exist and use the biases embedded within an organizational context to cover up their mistake. This natural tendency is difficult to counterbalance and ultimately is a serious drawback for large social organizations and institutions. It is most damaging to individuals who are faced up against organizations and the people that represent them.
To fight back against an organization, a person must become stronger than all of the individual members that are involved in the specific case at hand. This means the person must learn all the policies relevant to their case, learn the job descriptions and roles of all the members who are working on the case to ensure that they are doing their jobs correctly, explain and defend themselves against bias and misinterpretation to all the members of the organization that are involved and gain the support of any advocacy group that exists internally or externally to support individuals in the process.
There is a learning curve to deal with organizations as a single person and even if the organization means well by its policy implementation and compartmentalization of tasks and duties, this kind of social structure necessarily makes room for corruption. Power that is unchecked can be abused. People are self-interested and when they learn where others do not look, how people are biased, and how one mistake can compromise their career, they have a motivation to ‘cover it up.’ We understand this motivation but it comes at the cost of the Hobbesian Leviathan of the corporate world. What does a person do?
Become stronger. Learn to fly and defeat the dragons in the sky.
If you base your case on facts and evidence, learn what cognitive and social biases are and how to identify them, you can navigate the policies, meetings and protocol of organizations. The organization is a collection of directions and people following those directions. It is not a self-aware agent even though it may be composed of them. If you can learn to deal with your own limitations of being frustrated and angry that something happened or an ignorance of how this specific institution works, you can overcome the power imbalance. The power imbalance shifts when you know more than each individual member, know how psychology works and are able to explain it in a constructive and healthy way.
Reality exists and we all have a perception of it. Through discussion and an effort to understand what it is, we can come to agreement and let go of our misperceptions. We can take responsibility for our actions and expect others to do the same. We can create fair social rules and reinforce the application of those rules in social situations by following the rules ourselves as an objective standard. When others deviate from them, like misrepresenting information, we can identify how no social practice will function with misrepresentation as a standard of practice. We can use the methods of critical thinking and reasoning to understand the perspectives of others so that we have a fuller picture of what is going on.
You will feel the strength of your own will when you defend yourself. If you have been mistreated, characterized or misrepresented, this is a moment of growth and maturity for you to stand up for yourself. You are the one present in your life at all times and it is unwise to rely on others to do this for you. When you take these circumstances as moments of growth in a chapter in the book of your life, you will be victorious in the sense that you did not back down.
Fight with honour and accept where you made your mistakes. This is the kind of behaviour that others will respect and follow. Use emails to track communications and if the members of the institution are committing social fouls in reasoning, being biased or not understanding the fact on hand, communicate clearly what is wrong. There will be a history of evidence that you can cite by reference to this correspondence. You can show how to manage the situation better than all of the members combined, you will be developing a skill that is very useful and valuable in the organizational environment.
Philosophical Consulting: Workplace Autonomy and Growth
As we are growing in the workplace, our autonomy and independence is important for us to feel meaning from our place within the organization and group we work with. Sometimes, if we show that we are growing, others within the organization can make an effort to stifle our growth by imposing restrictions on our freedom and autonomy: they don’t want us to shine brighter than them for it may make them look bad. This can take away our feeling and sense of meaning in the workplace. One can feel that they want to give up and move on.
This specific workplace context can be seen as a case study. If you feel like leaving you can gain advantage in your career by making notes on all the things you disagree with that those around you are doing. If you believe that your superiors or colleagues are making mistakes and they do not value your input, you can write down the situation in a case study file showing both options and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
Even though in practice you do not have the autonomy to do what you think is best, you can still learn in theory by making notes and compiling them together. Over time you will be building an understanding of best practices based on specific cases. You will be building the necessary information to build a better company by designing it as you work for one that is not functioning correctly. Even though you may not have decision making power due to limitations of your role within the company, you can exercise your freedom by making observations and providing solutions to the problems that the organization faces.
Be sure to not be specific in some contexts if you have signed a nondisclosure agreement. There are ways to communicate and make notes on what you observe generally, that apply to the case you are observing and all similar cases. Names and products are not necessary to mention if it could get you in trouble. The situation is what matters.
You can use this understanding in the workplace if there is a time when people are open and receptive to your input. You will have a full understanding of what is going on and can prepare in advance solutions by doing research on your own time. This will prepare you for the situation where the opportunity presents itself for you to explain why alternatives are better.
The main point is retaining autonomy and a sense of growth within the workplace. This is one option.
Philosophical Counseling: Need for a Society
We may enter into a relationship where we are helping a person with a serious mental health problem. We can learn that they need social support and discussion to help them through negative thoughts. We can make time to be present for them in difficult situations so that they do not relapse or engage in other modes of self-harm. But ultimately, all of this help is contingent on your relationship with them. If something happens to the relationship, all the benefits you brought to that person can be lost. How do we solve this problem?
What we want is for people who are suffering from a mental health issue to have access to the social support they need to grow out of the condition. This means that there needs to be more than one person in their life who is competent and capable to provide that support. The only way this is possible, to transcend the limitation of dyadic relationships is to have a larger social network where everyone is trained in how to give the necessary support and that there is enough of them that multiple people care about the person to be motivated to provide that support.
This is why it is fundamental for the members of the Philosophy Society to be trained in the minimum skills to help people with mental health issues so people who are in need have access to a group that can help. At the beginning, we want every member of the Philosophy Society to know that no matter what there is a whole group, not just one person, that can provide the necessary support that is in line with the empirical best practices for treatment to help them. It may seem like a lot but when you love someone it is not enough.
We can use the natural feelings of love for those in our lives to take care of them. Assuming that if everyone loves someone, then most people will have at least one person that loves them. We can work together by creating an organization that provides the support based on the natural relationships between people to help treat mental health problems as they occur.
The good life means that you have a group of people who care about you and know what to do when you are not well. The good life is wellbeing. A group of people who are wise necessarily know the value of the good life which means that they understand why a minimum level of learning is required to create a strong and stable social group. We have already begun this training by studying Feeling Good by David Burns and doing a 5 deep breath meditation.
The Philosophy Society has great potential to create an environment of meaning and support. This is the foundation of the group which can give us the stability and cohesion to stand on for even greater philosophical understanding and awareness. First we must take care of ourselves that are at our lowest points. Thomas Reid said, “the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.” Mental illness is the weak link of society so if the Philosophy Society can learn to make it a strength, it will transcend other social groups towards greatness.
I am sorry I can't be there for you. This is why I created this group.
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