[I’m not sure how to productively engage here, because it seems like it’s hard to do more than throw our differing impressions at each other, and we should expect to have wildly differing experiences depending on the details of our own psychologies, which are both putting a lot of selection on what social and psychological observations we make of others, and also how we interpret those observations. It’s a bit like discussing shapes in clouds, except with more of an annoying insistence that the shapes we’re seeing correspond to something real in the territory and not just our projections.]
People who have a very strong “will-to-Goodness” don’t necessarily have very strong/extreme shadows, but often do, because they created the very strong will-to-Goodness by strongly suppressing their antisocial desires, which then strongly polarized those desires.
My impression is that this is mostly wrong, or at least least wrong with regard to what I meant by “will-to-Goodness”, though I agree that there are some dynamics like this in play around these topics.
A lot of particularly scrupulous people’s moral behavior routes through social or parental acceptance (who behave in some approved pattern of behavior out of an insecurity). I think that often does involve suppressing their shadow, maybe even in the typical case.
I’ve never known a person with vibrant will-to-Goodness (as I mean it, and as I am able to detect it) who was, to my knowledge, motivated that way.[1]
Further, those people have various issues (from poor emotional regulation, to social-epistemic confidence-anxiety, to various blindspots), but they definitely don’t read to me to be repressing socially-disapproved shadow parts more than most people. Almost the opposite.
However, almost 100% of the cases I’m thinking of are people who are unusually disembodied, which is at least suggestive of repressing something, but not suppression of antisocial desires. That might be a kind of shadow, but it’s not a central example of what comes to mind when people talk about shadow work, and it’s not the kind of thing that is sated by BDSM.
I’m on weaker ground here, but I speculate that the thing that I’m detecting is a morality that is grounded in their own desires for the world, or for how to be, instead of a morality that’s motivationally grounded in a social acceptance desire.
My model of the psychology of BDSM has a lot of overlap with Richard’s, but I think there are other dynamics that are probably as important as ‘renouncing antisocial desires’ — in particular, something like ‘blocks to perceiving aspects of vanilla sex/sexuality’ (which can contribute to a desire for kink as nearest-unblocked-strategy). It makes sense to me that disembodiment could be correlated with such blocks.
I can also imagine other plausible-to-me ways that repression of embodiment (and by extension sexuality, but not because it’s seen as antisocial) could contribute to BDSM-orientation, e.g. less integration of sexuality & more influence by developmental [not exactly noise, but things that would be less influential with more consciousness].
I think there are other dynamics that are probably as important as ‘renouncing antisocial desires’ — in particular, something like ‘blocks to perceiving aspects of vanilla sex/sexuality’ (which can contribute to a desire for kink as nearest-unblocked-strategy)
Can you give some examples of people with vibrant will-to-Goodness?
My guess is that the people who are unusually disembodied that you’re thinking of probably suppress a kind of contempt and/or anger at other people who don’t have so much will-to-Goodness.
Uh, I think I don’t want to leave a list of people, who didn’t opt in to being a topic of discussion. But Eliezer has already been mentioned, as an example. We could talk privately about other specific cases.
My guess is that the people who are unusually disembodied that you’re thinking of probably suppress a kind of contempt and/or anger at other people who don’t have so much will-to-Goodness.
I think...maybe yes, of all the men that I’m thinking of, but no of all the women that I’m thinking of? Modulo, it doesn’t seem very suppressed.
[I’m not sure how to productively engage here, because it seems like it’s hard to do more than throw our differing impressions at each other, and we should expect to have wildly differing experiences depending on the details of our own psychologies, which are both putting a lot of selection on what social and psychological observations we make of others, and also how we interpret those observations. It’s a bit like discussing shapes in clouds, except with more of an annoying insistence that the shapes we’re seeing correspond to something real in the territory and not just our projections.]
My impression is that this is mostly wrong, or at least least wrong with regard to what I meant by “will-to-Goodness”, though I agree that there are some dynamics like this in play around these topics.
A lot of particularly scrupulous people’s moral behavior routes through social or parental acceptance (who behave in some approved pattern of behavior out of an insecurity). I think that often does involve suppressing their shadow, maybe even in the typical case.
I’ve never known a person with vibrant will-to-Goodness (as I mean it, and as I am able to detect it) who was, to my knowledge, motivated that way.[1]
Further, those people have various issues (from poor emotional regulation, to social-epistemic confidence-anxiety, to various blindspots), but they definitely don’t read to me to be repressing socially-disapproved shadow parts more than most people. Almost the opposite.
However, almost 100% of the cases I’m thinking of are people who are unusually disembodied, which is at least suggestive of repressing something, but not suppression of antisocial desires. That might be a kind of shadow, but it’s not a central example of what comes to mind when people talk about shadow work, and it’s not the kind of thing that is sated by BDSM.
I’m on weaker ground here, but I speculate that the thing that I’m detecting is a morality that is grounded in their own desires for the world, or for how to be, instead of a morality that’s motivationally grounded in a social acceptance desire.
I’m not sure this is true.
My model of the psychology of BDSM has a lot of overlap with Richard’s, but I think there are other dynamics that are probably as important as ‘renouncing antisocial desires’ — in particular, something like ‘blocks to perceiving aspects of vanilla sex/sexuality’ (which can contribute to a desire for kink as nearest-unblocked-strategy). It makes sense to me that disembodiment could be correlated with such blocks.
I can also imagine other plausible-to-me ways that repression of embodiment (and by extension sexuality, but not because it’s seen as antisocial) could contribute to BDSM-orientation, e.g. less integration of sexuality & more influence by developmental [not exactly noise, but things that would be less influential with more consciousness].
This seems insightful and important!
Can you give some examples of people with vibrant will-to-Goodness?
My guess is that the people who are unusually disembodied that you’re thinking of probably suppress a kind of contempt and/or anger at other people who don’t have so much will-to-Goodness.
Uh, I think I don’t want to leave a list of people, who didn’t opt in to being a topic of discussion. But Eliezer has already been mentioned, as an example. We could talk privately about other specific cases.
I think...maybe yes, of all the men that I’m thinking of, but no of all the women that I’m thinking of? Modulo, it doesn’t seem very suppressed.