Hello Philosophy Society!

Discussion 1: Wellbeing

The purpose of the Philosophy Society is to work on the skills necessary to facilitate an understanding of what it means to develop wellbeing. This means we work on skills of being philosophical and learning to be scientifically minded so that we can make sense of ideas. From there we are able to work on specific areas of our mental life that affect wellbeing like emotional management, being prosocial, critical thinking, and conceptual tools from philosophers in the past and present.

Discussion 2: Narcissism

When it comes to the skill of taking feedback or criticism, narcissism is one personality problem where individuals lack the ability to integrate this kind of information into a constructive way. To avoid their sense of self being threatened, they will engage in things like interpersonal manipulation or gaslighting people to divert attention away from themselves. This technique may remove pressure away from them in the moment, but comes at the cost of preventing them from learning from others.

Discussion 3: Mental Self-Defense

The Philosophy Society is meant to be like a training dojo for martial arts of the mind. In the physical dojo, trainers will invest in matts to protect themselves and their students from injury when falling. The laboratory of the philosophy society is such a place where we want to encourage a safe space where people can be vulnerable and receive feedback from each other in a constructive way. People come to hear and share different perspectives and providing an environment where we use the principles of reasoning and critical thinking allows us to evaluate our beliefs in a healthy way.

We come to the Philosophy Society to train and practice for the real world, where others may not embrace the values or skills of compassion, understanding, patience, listening, respect or other antisocial behaviours that degrade society. We can use the Philosophy Society as a baseline to grow from in our development of our skills and be mindful of the absence of these factors when we engage with people in the workplace, our family and in public.

Discussion 4: Toxic People

If we have people who cause harm to us in our lives, ‘toxic people,’ it is important for us to establish boundaries with them to protect ourselves. This may be difficult in certain situations where these individuals are family members who have acted this way our whole lives or if they hold a position of authority in the workplace.

For family members, we can use a technique of simply “getting off the phone” when the conversation goes to a negative place. We do not have to engage with them but remove ourselves from the situation to avoid getting into conflict. In the workplace, it can be difficult to manage people in positions of authority. It may take time to assert boundaries in a respectful way and distribute positive, prosocial exchanges with them so that they see value in us and treat us with respect.

Ultimately, we cannot control others and our influence may be limited to the psychological limitations of others. It is not good to run away from problems and it is important to learn to deal with all kinds of people. However, if a situation is overwhelming and we do not feel comfortable where we are, it may be best for us to change the environment. It is important to understand our feelings and use courage when necessary to do what may feel uncomfortable but is the right thing to do. This will take skill to determine for yourself on a case by case basis.

Evaluating many factors that are relevant to the situation is important when understanding the significance of our feelings. We can choose how to interpret our emotions within situations. For example, if we feel anxious or irritated, it is not necessarily the case that escaping the situation is the right answer. It may be that we can perceive the situation as a challenge to be overcome and our emotional development is contingent on learning how to find new ways of being within the situation to not produce those emotions in the first place.

It can be difficult to criticize people in some situations and it would be deemed inappropriate to do so. It may be a circumstance where it is the wrong ‘time and place’ but the behaviour is a problem. We can make mental note of the behaviour, continue developing trust, and when the other person is most likely to be receptive to feedback, communicate our observations to them in a constructive way.

Nietzsche gave good insight on situations with toxic people,

The more we are around people who have mental health issues or act in antisocial ways, the more we can absorb those traits into ourselves. The mind is like a sponge and it is important for us to regulate what we absorb in it.

In developing boundaries with others, there is always a cost to inhibiting responses or tolerating their abusive behaviour. Our cognitive energy is being used to shield ourselves from their inability to act in a prosocial way. These circumstances restrict us from having a state of flow and cognitive efficiency by being in an unsafe psychological environment.

Discussion 5: Emotional Education

Someone addressed the value of learning the philosophy of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The program I began developing called ‘MasterMind,’ essentially is meant to certify people in all the necessary skills that would treat them of mental illnesses and provide them the skills needed for psychological optimization. This course could be taught as a 1 year program or broken up into segments taught over 4 years in highschool. The one year version would be taught in a compressed format after high school and before university, college or going into the workplace. See link for more information.

Discussion 6: Family Coercion

Some people can be put into a difficult situation when their family members use threats of suicide to force them to do what they want. Firstly, any mention of suicide is something to be taken seriously. If the person has a plan and is seriously considering the act, calling 911 is the first response. It is important for them to speak with a mental health professional about these kinds of ideas.

In the situation brought up, the family member would threaten suicide if the person would leave the situation when being psychologically abused. For example, the father or mother would be very upset at the adult child, the adult child would gesture to leave the house to escape the psychological harm and in response the family member would threaten self-harm to keep the adult child present to continue the psychological abuse. This kind of situation is very unhealthy and it is important to begin taking action so that everyone can live a life of higher wellbeing.

The first issue is that of enabling. Allowing the father or mother to act in this way, by use of false threats of self-harm and allowing them to be psychologically abusive, only perpetuates the problem. It is important to compartmentalize the issues so that each problem can be dealt with accordingly. Isolate the psychological abuse as a phenomenon, identify it and communicate how it is unacceptable. Articulate boundaries, hypothetical conditions, if you do X I will respond with Y, then follow through with your response, like leaving the room or house every time they become angry or lose control of their emotions.

If they respond with threats of self-harm, your response is to call 911 and have emergency responders speak with them. They will learn that every time they threaten self-harm they will be taken into the hospital and have to speak with a psychiatrist. Very soon, the core of the problem or issue will be identified and you can begin to move forward.

It is important to have healthy boundaries that do not overlap people’s autonomy and degree of control. Children are independent people from their parents, especially when those children are healthy functioning adults. Only you can create a context where you free yourself from any oppressive habits and behaviours of your parents. It is up to you to establish these boundaries for your own mental health.

Self-love is a fundamental priority to base this kind of action. Your heartbeat is independent of anyone else and is necessary for your existence. When people act in abusive ways, most likely your heart beat will increase in frequency, leading to other physiological and psychological health problems. Essentially, the abuser is harming you and your health at the level of your heart. In the moment of their outburst, the abuser is most likely, unless explicitly malicious, not aware of how their poor boundaries, uncontrolled negative emotions and controlling antisocial behaviour are affecting the beating of your heart. Contributing to a heart attack in another person because of our inability to deal with our own values and expectations is a serious problem. Do not allow anyone to treat you this way.

Time out’s are always a momentary technique to take space from a person who has lost sound mind. If they are in an emotional outburst, taking a 5 minute break could give them the time to pass the emotional state and regain some awareness and control of themselves. Sometimes, it may be an entire day that is necessary for you to feel comfortable enough to maintain your self-control to deal with them again. Make yourself the priority and if you cannot keep yourself calm, it is best to take space until you can.

If violence is ever an issue, call 911 immediately to have the police either press charges or communicate that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable in Canada. Remember, you always have the right to defend yourself. If you do so, proportion the use of force to the degree of threat. You do not want to be charged with assault or worse because you lost control in the heat of the moment. It is important for you to protect yourself. Judge the circumstance based on the threat in that moment and use physical force to reduce the threat. The goal is not to cause harm but to create deterrence from harm being caused to you. You can use harm towards another person who is threatening you to deter them from harming you or another person.

In this case, the members of our group came from an Indian family and their parents expected to be seen as Gods. Even if it is true that you are a God, what kind of God will you be? Brahma or Shiva, the god of creation or destruction, good or bad. This kind of worship is inappropriate. We are all human and removing narcissistic self-entitlement is very important to have healthy relationships.

It may be true that children have duties to their parents but those duties are contingent on the health of the relationship. A sense of duty can be used, as in this case, to exploit a child into doing whatever the parent wants. In an extreme situation, the adult child decided to marry someone of a different religion and placed themself in the context of honour killing.

Honour killing is immoral and unethical. It is the product of misguided religious fanaticism and is always wrong. It took great independence and courage for this person to decide to put themselves at risk to marry someone they love and gained our deepest respect. Honour killings are a prime example of the difference between objective ethics and relative morality. Ethics is what is used to determine whether a moral code is correct or not. In this case, the morality of honour killings is clearly unethical. It is a violation of the women's autonomy and misplaced value of dogmatic religion. It is clearly causing harm, violating the principle of non-maleficence.

The adult child was still troubled by the self-talk, “I am not a good daughter.” We turned to the example in Feeling Good, chapter 5, where Burns talks about Nancy who believes she is a bad mother. The married couple read the dialogue out loud and we were able to connect the relevance of the distortion labeling in the example from the book and what the adult child was engaged in.

Discussion 7: Kremlin Propaganda

We took some time to discuss the conflict between the Kremlin using the Russian people to invade Ukraine. More than one of our members lived in the soviet union in the past and communicated how Putin brought the country up from communism. The problem is that even if Putin was good in the past that does not mean he is necessarily good in the present. This would be an example of the fallacy of appeal to tradition.

Part of the misinformation issue is the Nazi narrative that Putin used to invade Ukraine. First, racism between Ukrainians and Russians is not Nazism. Nazism is an ideology put forward in world war II by Hitler to advance the aryan race. This led to the genocide of all non-aryan people; specifically causing the holocause and murder of about 65 million Jews. This is a very different phenomena than any current tension between some people who live in Ukraine and Russia.

Putin has used this false Nazi narrative to justify invading the Donbas region of Ukraine. Again, a problem here is that at the beginning of the 2022 conflict in February, Putin attempted to invade and take over the capital Kyve, not the Donbas. There was a 40 mile long convoy that was stalled from Ukrainians protecting their country. To say that Putin was liberating the Donbas region is clearly false when we look at the action Putin took throughout the conflict in 2022.

Sometimes people can become confused and default back to a ‘nothing is true, both sides disagree’ approach. This is not a philosophical path nor is it invoking critical thinking. Reality exists and our truth corresponds to it. There is a significant difference between western media, like the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, WION, DW, etc and the Kremlin propaganda machine of Russian State TV. NATO, the US and western countries allow free speech. The Kremlin imprisoned anyone who disagreed with the war. This is not freedom of speech.

There is clear evidence of people who have been tortured, murdered and raped in Ukraine by Kremlin forces. These genocidal war crimes from Putin are real. Civilian targets have been attacked in Ukraine for almost a year including hospitals, apartment and administrative buildings, play grounds, and recently energy infrastructure. To deny the existence of these facts is clearly delusional.

As difficult as it may be for Russian people who once had a reason to admire Putin, that time is long past. We now need the Russian people to stand up for themselves and break away from the Tyranny of Putin and the Kremlin. Together, the Russians, NATO and Ukraine can defeat Putin and the Kremlin bringing peace to the lands of Ukraine and Russia.

Discussion 8: Relationship Solutions

In intimate, romantic relationships, we can find ourselves deep in problems. Even though these problems exist, love can be even deeper, giving us the motivation to sort the problems out. The very first thing needed is healthy communication.

When communicating, it is best to take different roles. One person is the listener and the other is the speaker. The speaker focuses their attention on love and compassion primarily. This is to ensure that they do not become angry, aggressive or hurtful to the other person. The second priority is the content of the message. It may be appropriate to take pauses and breaks in the middle of one’s speech, to ensure one does not lose composure or sound mindedness.

Respect is essentially in the maintenance of our long term relationships. If we do not act compassionate and loving towards one another and fall into contempt and hate, we will destroy the motivation for being involved with each other at all.

The listener has two primary behaviours or actions to focus their attention on. The first is breathing to maintain a calm composure. Focusing one’s attention on slow deep breathing can center one in their body and help prevent being triggered by sensitive information from the other person. The second priority is comprehension and understanding of the content of the other person’s speech. It may be necessary to ask the speaker to repeat or clarify. As long as we keep respect for one another, repeating something we missed is not a problem. When we engage in healthy communication, we will make progress in understanding what each other needs. We can develop boundaries with each other so that we reduce the conflicts and problems that occur.

The most important element in any relationship is the relationship with ourselves. It is vital we take care of ourselves first so that we can bring the best to those in our lives we cherish the most. Relationships are best when they are an exchange of only the good things we have to offer. Our own personal problems are for us to deal with and not to dump on those we love.

Philosophy Academy: Feeling Good

Chapter 6: Verbal Judo: Learn to Talk Back When You’re Under the Fire of Criticism

In our reading of Feeling Good this week, we only went through a few pages (131-135) because most of our time was devoted to specific problems members brought up. Chapter 6 is about how we can deal with criticism and is one of the most useful techniques the book has to offer. This technique is applicable nearly every day and in most social situations we are in.

Burns begins by identifying the cause of worthlessness is one’s internal self-criticism in the form of a conversation we have with ourselves in our mind. In an unhealthy context, people will talk down to themselves in harsh, unrealistic ways that can easily be triggered by other peoples comments. This can lead to not wanting to hear criticism from others at all to avoid being put into a negative personal spiral. If we learn healthy and effective ways to deal with criticism, we can deal with verbal abuse and disapproval in a non-defensive way without losing self-esteem. (131)

Burns recognizes that it does take some practice to learn to implement the skills he shows in dealing with criticism. Once mastered, our self-esteem will never be subject to the criticism of others. Fundamentally, this is because other people and their comments don’t have the power to actually upset us. Burns says, “No matter how vicious, heartless, or cruel these comments may be, they have no power to disturb you or to create even a little bit of discomfort.” (132) The only person who has this power is you.

When others criticize us, negative automatic thoughts become triggered and we react emotionally to our own thoughts and not the comments of others. It is our own thoughts that are filled with distortions and mental errors that upset us, even if they are catalyzed by someone else’s words. (132)

The first step in this process of accepting criticism is to identify the automatic thought and use the written double column technique to enable awareness and analyze the illogical thinking pattern. Burns offers an example of the double column technique on page 134. Then, write a rational response beside the automatic thought to create a sense of empowering balance in how we process criticism. For example, we can shift catastrophizing distortions into goal-oriented, problem solving approaches. This can boost our self-confidence and help us overcome our fears of imperfections. (133)

In criticism, others can be correct or incorrect in their evaluation of us. If they are incorrect, we need not be upset. It is their mistake in evaluation or perception that is the problem. There is no need for us to be upset if someone else makes a mistake with an incorrect criticism. (134) If the criticism is accurate, we do not need to be upset about it. No one expects us to be perfect because that is completely unrealistic. Burns states, “Just acknowledge your error and take whatever steps you can to correct it.” (135) It may be difficult at first to learn how to transform other’s insight into emotional reality but if we do, we will open new doors of growth for every person who offers it to us. (135)

Sometimes, the fear of criticism can be caused by an over reliance on love and approval from others for self-esteem and happiness. This leads into an imbalance of investing energy into other’s perceptions instead of proactive motivation that we are in control of. At the end of the day, it is our thoughts that upset us and by thinking realistically, we can be less upset. If we write down our negative thoughts, identify the distortions, and create rational responses we can be less angry, threatened and upset. (135)

https://www.achillesjustice.com/post/feeling-good

Burns, David. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper Publishing. New York, 1999.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Mass Market Paperback – Dec 30 2008

PSN 2(36) - 14.12.22 - Wellbeing, Narcissism, Mental Self-Defense, Toxic People, Emotional Education, Family Coercion, Kremlin Propaganda, FG Ch 6 - Criticism

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