Analytics

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Control

Humans have a deep-seated psychological need to feel in control of their lives. In Daniel Gilbert's great book, Stumbling Upon Happiness, he describes our lives as a boat in the ocean. We feel better having our hand on the oars, even if our efforts are drowned out by the currents underneath. This is of course illogical, but as many illogical things are, deeply human.

Besides the illogical thinking, there's a more harmful side-effect for the need to control. When faced with tragedy, we always think that it can somehow be brought under control. If only Bob was more careful, he wouldn't have lost control of his car in the ice, killing himself. If only Janet was a better mother, her son wouldn't have robbed that bank. These are things we find ourselves thinking when hearing about misfortunes that really are pretty random. If helps us assure ourselves that events are controllable, and understandable. This is a persistent error in human thought, and has brought a lot of misery. To take just one example, autism was thought to be a defect in parenting, so perfectly fine parents found themselves not only having an autistic child, but also being accused of having caused it as well. The habit of blaming the victim must be as old as human nature.

Blaming the victim comes across in subtle ways, one of which is the "positive thinking" meme. Many people say you must be positive during adversity. Especially with medical issues. But, as a recent New York Times article points out, this is a myth. Studies have shown that personality or positive thinking has no outcome on illnesses. There are things you can do to help yourself, such as take your medicine regularly and be informed about your sickness, but ultimately, you have little other control over how your illness will go.

Stoicism is more clear headed. You don't have to control your life. In fact, you have no control, as the Stoics repeatedly point out. What you need to do is to behave correctly. That's it. You don't have to have a positive outlook if you are sick. In fact, that would be wrong, since the Stoics always insight on knowing a true accounting of things. Instead, you just have to behave correctly. It isn't easy, but it is possible in all circumstances.

This isn't a letting go of control, of course. It just shifts it. We don't control others, or nature, or anything else external to us. We can only control how we handle things. So we trade off the notion of a sweeping but illusory control with a self-contained but true control. With true control, perhaps, we might get true happiness. Others will benefit too, as we stop blaming the victims.

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