Mental and Emotional Slavery

A recurrent theme of this blog is: Extreme attitudes make coping with stress difficult. “Men have better judgment and executive ability than women”; “Conservatives are liars”; “Blacks are less intelligent than Whites”; “Winning is the only thing”; “Homosexuality is a choice based on being mentally ill.” These extreme attitudes will make it hard for a person to adapt to situations that require some flexibility. For instance, taking each of the opinions listed above, what if your boss is a woman, or a Black? (You will look for another job.) What if you’re on a project team at work and the other team members seem to be liberal in their views? (You will be seen as uncooperative and selfish, and jeopardize your standing at work.) What if your 8-year-old son is distraught because his baseball team finished last? (You will encourage him to quit, and undermine his self-esteem.) What if your 12-year-old son comes to you and says he thinks he’s gay? (You will show him a road of denial and his self-concept will slowly disintegrate.) In each case, holding an extreme attitude will make it nearly impossible for holders to adopt a problem-solving approach to the stressful situation. Rather, they are more likely to take an emotion-based approach, and the result will be conflict, misinterpretation, frustration, anger, and isolation – all conducive to poor coping.

There are several concepts from the discipline of psychology – confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, cognitive bias – that capture the essence of extremism: distortion of reality. Those who hold rigid extreme attitudes twist and garble information from the outside to keep it consistent with their inflexible world view. Their rationality and accuracy are compromised as they struggle to alter facts to conform to their predetermined beliefs. They harbor anxious self-doubts, low self-esteem, and little confidence. They attack others – “It’s good-me against the evil-them. What my group believes is righteous.” They construct a world of lies, alternative facts, conspiracies, and false narratives to justify their extremism. They turn to domination and violence to eliminate the enemy. Eventually they turn against their own group, and aggression implodes bringing both them and others down. Thus it is that a dysfunctional member of a family can wreak destruction on the whole family; a small-group leader can destroy the cohesion of the group; a national leader can lead millions to their deaths and destroy a country.

Gene, 38, has a high-stress job with a stock market group. The workers exist solely to make money for their clients by choosing how to invest their clients’ money in the market. Gene has a so-so record with the company – a few successes, more failures – but you would never know it. Whether at work or in public, Gene prances and struts around like the head rooster in the farmyard. He boasts to anyone who will listen about his prowess, and he’s always eager to criticize his colleagues. He wears the best clothes, drives a super expensive car, and generally lives beyond his means, which puts a lot of pressure on his wife of 12 years. He also is very opinionated, holding extreme views about virtually everything (religion, politics, and childrearing, just to name a few), and seems to enjoy arguing with others – especially his and his wife’s family members – about the error of their ways when they disagree with him. He became so argumentative at family gatherings that both his parents and his in-laws warned him that if he could not restrain himself, he would not be welcome. The warnings did not work, and Gene, his wife, and kids were essentially ostracized from the rest of the family. His wife managed to keep in contact with the family when Gene was not around, but she, Gene, and the kids no longer attended gatherings like Thanksgiving and Christmas. The family was torn asunder.

Gene’s arrogant behavior is extreme, well beyond what he could logically justify. A psychologist would look at his excessive bragging and conflicts as designed to hide and avoid facing some internal fears. A knowledge of Gene’s childhood would uncover his core insecurity: Gene was raised by an authoritarian, demanding father who could never be pleased. No matter what Gene did, Dad found a way to criticize it. He hit a homerun in Little League, but Dad reminded him he struck out twice; he got a B+ in chemistry, but Dad wondered why not an A. Dad always managed to belittle Gene’s successes, which kept his son’s self-esteem in the toilet. Gene’s adult behavior shows the ego defense of reaction formation: Inside, he is insecure and afraid of failure; his extreme overt displays of confidence are smoke screens—ego defenses—designed to hide those internal fears. His displays of competence and independence are intense and chronic, and they betray in him a desperate attempt to hide his anxieties and weaknesses from others, especially from himself and from Dad. The tragedy was that his desperation brought considerable collateral damage to his family and his wife’s family.

Extremists base their lives on emotion – “I am right! You are wrong and you are evil!” Enchained like a slave, they live in an unchanging, static world of blame, anger, and revenge. Their emotions may eventually turn inward, producing a mind divided against itself, causing more stress. It pays to remember that if you are to cope realistically and successfully with your stressors, you must be guided by facts and results, not by a gut feeling. Only then can you be accountable for your actions, less self-preoccupied, and more socially responsible.