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NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong
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This article greatly annoyed me because of how it tells people to do the correct practical things (Develop skills! Be persistent and grind! Help people!) yet gives atrocious and shallow reasons for it - and then Wong says how if people criticize him they haven't heard the message. No, David, you can give people correct directions and still be a huge jerk promoting an awful worldview!
He basically shows NO understanding of what makes one attractive to people (especially romantically) and what gives you a feeling of self-worth and self-respect. What you "are" does in fact matter - both to yourself and to others! - outside of your actions; they just reveal and signal your qualities. If you don't do anything good, it's a sign of something being broken about you, but just mechanically bartering some product of your labour for friendship, affection and status cannot work - if your life is in a rut, it's because of some deeper issues and you've got to resolve those first and foremost.
This masochistic imperative to "Work harder and quit whining" might sound all serious and mature, but does not in fact has the power to make you a "better person"; rather, you'll know you've changed for the better when you can achieve more stuff and don't feel miserable.
I wanted to write a short comment illustrating how this article might be the mirror opposite of some unfortunate ideas in the "Seduction community" - it's "forget all else and GIVE to people, to obtain affection and self-worth" versus "forget all else and TAKE from people, to obtain affection and self-worth" - and how, for a self-actualized person, needs, one's own and others', should dictate the taking and giving, not some primitive framework of barter or conquest - but I predictably got too lazy to extend it :)
I've taken a crack at what's wrong with that article.
The problem is, there's so much wrong with it from so many different angles that it's rather a large topic.
Yep.
As with most self-help advice, it is like an eyeglass prescription - only good for one specific pathology. It may correct one person's vision, while making another's massively worse.
Also, I remember what it was like to be (mildly!) depressed, and my oh my would that article not have helped.
Yep :). I was doing a more charitable reading than the article really deserves, to be honest. It carried over from the method of political debate I am attempting these days - accept the opponent's premises (e.g. far-right ideas that they proudly call "thoughtcrime"), then show how either a modus-tollens inference from them is instrumentally/ethically preferrable, or how they just have nothing to do with the opponent being an insufferable jerk.
100% true. I often shudder when I think how miserable I could've got if I hadn't watched this at a low point in my life.
I think the only problem with the article is that it tries to otheroptimize. It seems to address a problem that the author had, as some people do. He seems to overestimate the usefulness of his advices though (he writes for anyone except if "your career is going great, you're thrilled with your life and you're happy with your relationships"). As mentioned by NancyLebovitz, the article is not for the clinical depressed, in fact it is only for a small (?) set of people who sits around all day whining, who thinks they deserve better for who they are, without actually trying to improve the situation.
That said, this over generalization is a problem that permeates most self help, and the article is not more guilty than the average.
I think I'll just quote the entirety of an angry comment on Nancy's blog. I basically can't help agreeing with the below. Although I don't think the article is entirely bad and worthless - there are a few commonplace yet forcefully asserted life instructions there, if that's your cup of tea - its downsides do outweigh its utility.
What especially pisses me off is how Wong hijacks the ostensibly altruistic intent of it as an excuse to throw a load of aggression and condescending superiority in the intended audience's face, then offers an explanation of how feeling repulsed/hurt by that tone further confirms the reader's lower status. This is, like, a textbook example of self-gratification and cruel status play.
Conclusion: a truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. And when you mix in some outright lies...
One of the comments at dreamwidth is by a therapist who said that being extremely vulnerable to shame is a distinct problem-- not everyone who's depressed has it, and not everyone who's shame-prone is depressed.
Also, I didn't say clinically depressed. I'm in the mild-to-moderate category, and that sort of talk is bad for me.
Actually the article says enough different and somewhat contradictory things that it supports multiple readings, or to put it less charitably, it's contradictory in a way that leads people to pick the bits which are most emotionally salient to them and then get angry at each other for misreading the article.
The title is "6 Harsh Truths That Will Improve Your Life"-- by implication, anyone's life. Then Wong says, "this will improve your life unless it's awesome in all respects". Then he pulls back to "this is directed at people with a particular false view of the universe".