I wonder if I’ll learn that people can be deeply good while having violent sexual preferences at the same time.
I resonate with this as a question.
I have an outstanding confusion about this. Specifically, the Sequences ring with vibrant and determined will-to-Goodness, but also Eliezer apparently likes hurting people (or something like that?) in bed. To me, these would seem, if not incompatible, than at least in tension.
But, apparently, these are not in tension for at least some people.
I think that properly understanding the psychology of BDSM might provide the key to understanding psychology in general (in ways that are pretty continuous with the insights of early pioneers of psychology, e.g. Freud and particularly Jung).
My current model is:
The process of learning to be “good” typically involves renouncing and suppressing your “antisocial” desires, some of which are biologically ingrained (e.g. many aspects of male aggression) and some of which are learned idiosyncratically (e.g. having a traumatic childhood which teaches you that the world is zero-sum and you can only gain by hurting others). It also involves renouncing and suppressing parts of yourself which are “pathetic” or “weak” (e.g. the desire to not have to make any choices, the belief that you are bad and unworthy of existing).
These desires/beliefs aren’t removed from your psyche (since internal subagents have strong survival instincts, making it difficult to fully destroy them) but rather coagulate into a “shadow”: a coalition of drives and desires which mostly remains hidden from your conscious thinking, but still influences your behavior in various ways. The influence of your shadow on your behavior is typically hard for you to detect yourself, but often easy for (emotionally intelligent) others to detect in you.
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.
Many types of BDSM are a fairly straightforward manifestation of the desires in your shadow. Participating in BDSM can be good for one’s psyche in the sense that it represents a partial reconciliation with one’s shadow, reducing internal conflict. I.e. rather than having a shadow that’s fully repressed, you can have a “bargain” between your ego and your shadow that’s something like “the ego is (mostly) in charge almost all the time, while the shadow is (mostly) in charge during kinky sex”. It feels really somatically nice for parts of your psyche which are almost always repressed and shamed to be allowed to act for once.
However, BDSM can also be bad for one’s psyche in the sense that positive reinforcement during BDSM causes your shadow to grow, thereby increasing internal conflict longer-term. Also, doing BDSM with others can cause their shadow to grow too. “Healthy” BDSM probably looks more like an outlet which gradually helps you to accept and integrate your shadow then move on, rather than a lifestyle or a part of your long-term identity. My guess is that BDSM communities end up instantiating similar “crab in a bucket” dynamics as incel communities—i.e. holding people back from developing healthier psychologies.
Young children are rightly horrified by BDSM when they stumble upon it, because it’s an indication that there’s something twisted/perverse going on in the world. However, I suspect that almost all adults who feel horrified by BDSM are in part reacting to their own shadow. My guess is that the few people who have actually integrated their shadows in a healthy way are neither very interested in nor very horrified by BDSM, but rather mostly sad about it (like they’re sad about suffering more generally). When I say that they’ve “integrated” their shadows, I mean that their BDSM-like desires are cooperating strongly enough with their other desires that they’re a little bit present most of the time, rather than driving them to create simulacra of highly transgressive behavior. This might sound scary, but I expect that fully experiencing the ways in which we all have power over each other in normal life provides enough fodder to satisfy the BDSM-like desires in almost all of us. (For example, if you really allowed yourself to internalize how much power being a westerner gives you over people in developing countries, or the power dynamics in friendships where one person is more successful than the other, I expect that thought process to feel kinda like BDSM.)
Trying to evoke and deal with your shadow is a difficult and fraught process, since (by definition) it involves grappling with the parts of yourself that you’re most ashamed about and most scared of giving control to. I recommend doing so gradually and carefully. My most direct engagement with shadow work was regrettably intense (analogous to a bad psychedelic trip) and came very close to having very bad effects on my life (though I’ve now wrestled those effects into a positive direction, and find shadow work very valuable on an ongoing basis).
As you can probably infer, most of the points above are informed by my own past and ongoing experiences.
[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 resonate with this as a question.
I have an outstanding confusion about this. Specifically, the Sequences ring with vibrant and determined will-to-Goodness, but also Eliezer apparently likes hurting people (or something like that?) in bed. To me, these would seem, if not incompatible, than at least in tension.
But, apparently, these are not in tension for at least some people.
I think that properly understanding the psychology of BDSM might provide the key to understanding psychology in general (in ways that are pretty continuous with the insights of early pioneers of psychology, e.g. Freud and particularly Jung).
My current model is:
The process of learning to be “good” typically involves renouncing and suppressing your “antisocial” desires, some of which are biologically ingrained (e.g. many aspects of male aggression) and some of which are learned idiosyncratically (e.g. having a traumatic childhood which teaches you that the world is zero-sum and you can only gain by hurting others). It also involves renouncing and suppressing parts of yourself which are “pathetic” or “weak” (e.g. the desire to not have to make any choices, the belief that you are bad and unworthy of existing).
These desires/beliefs aren’t removed from your psyche (since internal subagents have strong survival instincts, making it difficult to fully destroy them) but rather coagulate into a “shadow”: a coalition of drives and desires which mostly remains hidden from your conscious thinking, but still influences your behavior in various ways. The influence of your shadow on your behavior is typically hard for you to detect yourself, but often easy for (emotionally intelligent) others to detect in you.
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.
Many types of BDSM are a fairly straightforward manifestation of the desires in your shadow. Participating in BDSM can be good for one’s psyche in the sense that it represents a partial reconciliation with one’s shadow, reducing internal conflict. I.e. rather than having a shadow that’s fully repressed, you can have a “bargain” between your ego and your shadow that’s something like “the ego is (mostly) in charge almost all the time, while the shadow is (mostly) in charge during kinky sex”. It feels really somatically nice for parts of your psyche which are almost always repressed and shamed to be allowed to act for once.
However, BDSM can also be bad for one’s psyche in the sense that positive reinforcement during BDSM causes your shadow to grow, thereby increasing internal conflict longer-term. Also, doing BDSM with others can cause their shadow to grow too. “Healthy” BDSM probably looks more like an outlet which gradually helps you to accept and integrate your shadow then move on, rather than a lifestyle or a part of your long-term identity. My guess is that BDSM communities end up instantiating similar “crab in a bucket” dynamics as incel communities—i.e. holding people back from developing healthier psychologies.
Young children are rightly horrified by BDSM when they stumble upon it, because it’s an indication that there’s something twisted/perverse going on in the world. However, I suspect that almost all adults who feel horrified by BDSM are in part reacting to their own shadow. My guess is that the few people who have actually integrated their shadows in a healthy way are neither very interested in nor very horrified by BDSM, but rather mostly sad about it (like they’re sad about suffering more generally). When I say that they’ve “integrated” their shadows, I mean that their BDSM-like desires are cooperating strongly enough with their other desires that they’re a little bit present most of the time, rather than driving them to create simulacra of highly transgressive behavior. This might sound scary, but I expect that fully experiencing the ways in which we all have power over each other in normal life provides enough fodder to satisfy the BDSM-like desires in almost all of us. (For example, if you really allowed yourself to internalize how much power being a westerner gives you over people in developing countries, or the power dynamics in friendships where one person is more successful than the other, I expect that thought process to feel kinda like BDSM.)
Trying to evoke and deal with your shadow is a difficult and fraught process, since (by definition) it involves grappling with the parts of yourself that you’re most ashamed about and most scared of giving control to. I recommend doing so gradually and carefully. My most direct engagement with shadow work was regrettably intense (analogous to a bad psychedelic trip) and came very close to having very bad effects on my life (though I’ve now wrestled those effects into a positive direction, and find shadow work very valuable on an ongoing basis).
As you can probably infer, most of the points above are informed by my own past and ongoing experiences.
[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.