Are we a nation of weaklings? (Emotional and mental.)

Great Debates
41

First, I’ll apologize again for the tone of my first post. I was thinking I was in the pit, and would not have articulated my thoughts in nearly the same way had I actually been paying attention.

SenorBeef,

Sorry about not being more clear, but this was more directed at J248974 than it was you. He seems to be saying that stoicism is the only appropriate response to any hardship, which to me is pretty much the definition of machoism. Don’t express feelings about whatever is happening. The more tragic the experience and the more you can withold emotion the better you are.

Again, not directed at you but at J248974.

I was not suggesting that people who feel the same way that you and J248974 do don’t exist, or even are a small minority. I myself agree with a lot of what you say, but not with how you choose to deal with it. My point here is that if things have changed from where they were in J…'s childhood (when aparently men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri) then it must have been because enough people were dissatisfied about the current state of affairs that they felt they needed to do something about it.

I know what you’re saying, but I think you do need a cite. This is the core of your argument, that as a rule people are getting away with crimes because they are using illigitimate excuses. And that there are many many doctors who are supporting those false mental conditions. Prove it.

Why? The very fact that there are people on antidepressants is ridiculous? So there is no person who should be on them? I’m sure that there are doctors on the board who will tell you how silly a comment that is, so I’ll leave it to them.

Yes, it “shouldn’t” be any different. However, I shouldn’t be any more attracted to any particular person than another, most things being equal. I shouldn’t dislike foods that are good for me. I shouldn’t get angry at people at inoportune times. This doesn’t mean these things don’t happen. We are not purely logical, rational beings. People die all the time. Sometimes we’re sad about it. Sometimes we don’t care. Sometimes we’re happy. Sometimes it’s particularly frightening and traumatic (as 9/11 was for some). Not everybody is able to let logic rule their decisions all the time. Especially if they have a real chemical problem.

No, but J… did, and you did say, “For what it’s worth, I’m 19, and I happen to agree pretty much fully with this ‘bitter old man’”

So, we are turning into a nation of wussies and one indicator is that more people are going to shrinks. Do you stand by this interpretation of your opinion or not?

42

Ok, I just want to take issue with a couple of things from waaaay back in the thread…

OK, by 1917 when the USA entered the war, conscription had been running in Britain for about a year. Although the idea of the war was hugely “popular” in 1914, by 1916 the lines to enlist had petered out. Is this because Britons had become “wussified” over the previous 2 years? Or is it because the experience of the war itself, and a growing awareness of what fighting in the trenches actually entailed, had made the idea of a “scrap” less appealing? I would guess that British children were beaten about the same amount as their American cousins, so where did all the “conchies” and deserters come from? You could add that the physical impact of the war in France goes some way to accounting for that country’s apparent capitulation in 1940 - the French hadn’t suddenly become wussy because of an overabundance of luxury int he 1920s and 30s, but because they knew how devastating a war on their soil could be.

Yes, and in WW2 people sat on the Downs watching dogfights in the Surrey skies etc etc etc… And in ancient Rome people watched from a safe distance as other people were torn to pieces by animals. What level of toughness do you think is represented by each of these kinds of activities? I think you said that you weren’t making judgments about the relative desirability of particular levels of hardiness, but you seem angry that Americans are not united in supporting the current “war”, and you seem to attribute that to a lack of hardiness. BTW, I would be really interested in a cite for the war-picnic comment…

Finally, I’d like to add that any suggestions that Europeans are somehow more “tough” than Americans is frankly silly. OK, some of our homes don’t have air-conditioning, and there are those hilarious squat-down toilets on the continent, but it isn’t as if anti-depressants aren’t prescribed, or we’ve never heard of psychiatry. We don’t leap to our hill-forts at the slightest excuse either.

Do you mean that no soldiers suffered from and were treated for mental illness as a result of the Falklands conflict? Or that no civilians did? I don’t believe that you can back up this claim either way.

Erm, yes, they are.

http://www2.nio.gov.uk/990223d-nio.htm

I think that the connections you make between toughness of upbringing and willingness to go to war are misplaced: it’s too simplistic to say that when people are used to physical hardship they more readily take up arms. There are a lot of reasons why people do and don’t volunteer to go to war, and each conflict is different. Questioning the validity of a particular conflict doesn’t necessarily mean that people are morally or physically weak.

Just tuppence ha’penny from an under-evaluated European.
And BTW, when Diana died, the outpouring of public grief in London alone clogged up the streets for days. The Prime Minister’s moist eyes were seen by many as a positive expression of emotion. The “stiff upper lip” may well now only be useful as a gynaecological term…

Embra “didn’t cry for Di”

43

**

Possibly. It was probably a small minority being more and more vocal. If you hear an idea long enough, as silly as it might sound at first, eventually it starts to sink into your brain as truth. So you don’t need a large societal movement to affect change in that manner.

**

I don’t really have one specific. I might be totally off base on that, but I can recall a lot of news stories about the new psychological reason of the week, back when ‘temporary insanity’ was all the rage.

**

Sorry, I meant to say “but the number of people…”
And I don’t believe no one should be on them. But if everyone and their grandma has their own private therapist, and their own private pharmacy, something is probably wrong.

**

Well, right. Our behavior can be irrational. And I’m saying that if someone’s behavior is so irrational, to this extreme, that I personally have problems with them. And that seemingly more of our behavior is irrational in this fashion, getting back to the topic, our generation might be a bunch of “wussies”

Ah. I don’t have the attitude that all shrinks are for wussies. But a significant number (most?) are. Most people, that is, not shrinks. Some people really really need help. Others find it fashionable to drive their SUVs from starbucks to a shrinks office every thursday. I dislike THOSE people heavily.
And, to the subject matter, anyone who needs professional help because of 9/11, and didn’t personally know a victim, is seriously screwed up.

44

The funny thing is SenorBeef, that in some regards, by agreeing with the OP you are proving him wrong. If you are 19 years old and have the strength and convictions that the rest of your post shows, then we are NOT turning into a NATION OF WUSSIES. You are a member of the generation he is bitching about. But you show, that even in this day with all of our creature comforts, high technology, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, there are still young people who can look at events such as 9/11 and put them in their proper perspective.

That being said, I’m sure that there were plenty of people in the days of Pearl Harbor and JFK’s assassination etc, who would have “gone to a shrink” or taken a “happy pill” IF:

  1. Those forms of treatment were more available at the time.
  2. There wasn’t the social stigma attached to people who did seek those forms of treatment as there was at that time.
  3. Hi Opal.
  4. People were aware that the treatments were available.

Seeking treatment for something that is hampering your life(whether physical, psychological or other) isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a survival skill.

Don’t think that people were somehow BETTER in the “old days” just because they didn’t have access to our technology. During THEIR time THEIR technology was state of the art.

I believe that if the OP was born during the generation when guns were invented he would have thought that armies using guns were wussies because they didn’t have the guts for hand to hand combat. If he had seen the first bomb dropped from an airplane. “Gosh, what wussies, are they afraid to come down here and shoot at us”. If he’d seen the first military rocket fired from hundreds of miles away strike it’s target. “Gosh, what wussies, they’re afraid to even fly over us.”

And that’s just weaponry. Don’t you think that people in older times would have given their left nuts for our modern medicine? They dealt with early death from diseases as commonplace because they WERE commonplace. That doesn’t mean they were stronger people. It just means they didn’t have access to our medical technology. If they did have the access, they would have been just as bereaved over the loss of a loved one to these diseases as we are today.

I can just see somebody starting a thread like this a hundred years from now.

“Are we becoming a nation of wussies? I remember back in the 21st century when people actually died. There was no such thing as cellular regeneration therapy to keep us all in prime health. They actually used to kill animals and cut down plants in order to survive. There was no such thing as a monthly nutrition tablet. They used to use antiquated devices with buttons called keyboards in order to post to message boards instead of mentally tapping into the collective conciousness. Their computers used to get viruses and they’d have to reformat something called a hard drive and reinstall an ?operating system?. HOW have we become so weak that if our orgasmatron malfunctions we can’t even have a good time?! If some terrorist steals a di-litium crystal and shuts down our transporters so that we actually have to fly someplace then it’s like our entire world has come to an end.”

45

“We grew up playing war games, so when real wars hit, we were more prepared for it.” Bwahahahahahaha! thats funny, kind of like playing Cops&Robbers prepares you for police work.

46

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SenorBeef *
**

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Eonwe *

Sorry Senor, but I’ve got to disagree with you on this point. Although I have NOT been adversely affected by 9/11 and won’t be needing professional help, I can certainly understand why some people who “didn’t personally know a victim” would have perfectly good reasons to get help. Among these people are:

  1. People who were in the vicinity and saw the events unfold.
  2. People anywhere who watched TV footage of real people jumping to their deaths.
  3. Hi Opal.
  4. People who were on other flights at the time and found out before their planes made unscheduled landings what was going on.
  5. Emergency and rescue personnel who, though they’ve seen death and destruction before have never been exposed to something of this magnitude.

The list could go on. The point is that you don’t have to be “seriously screwed up” or a “wussy” to have been shaken to the core by these events, even if you’re not related to a victim.

47

Well, I don’t think he ever made the assertion that everyone in the entire generation was weak. Only that, assumably, the number of really weak people is significantly higher.

And that’s what I argued, anyway. I know there are lots of strong people in my generation, but tons and tons of weak ones.

**

Well, if that’s true, it would mean that we’ve always been weak, reactionary, irrational people. Which contradicts the purpose of this thread, but says bad things for our country (race?).

**

Hmm. That may be true, but if someone is so hampered by events that weren’t directly related to them like that, I still contend that they’re a bunch of ‘wussies’, survival skill or not.

**

Er. I know. And historically, things have become easier for people over time. We have supermarkets and flush toilets, ect. now.

And… I’m not necesarily of the persuasion that our modern day conveniences result in our irrational, weak minds. I think it’s more of a social problem, personally. People have learned to respond certain ways to things.

**

That makes sense.

But come on, unless you go off to war with nothing but a big stick, you’re a wussie :slight_smile:

**

Well, the idea, which I’m not necesarily agreeing with, is that you don’t have to face those specific adversities anymore, and so you don’t grow stronger as a person for having conquered them if you’ve never faced them.

**

You paint a bleak picture of a future world without Whoppers. I want an orgasmatron, though.

But I see your point. As I said, I’m more of the persuasion that a social revolution of some type has happened since then. It’s the damn liberals :)… and I think the prevailing social attitude is what accounts for the ‘wussiness’, rather than simple technology change.

48

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ShrekLookAlike *
**

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SenorBeef *
**

That’s pretty weak. Sure, it’d be startling and such, but I doubt the average (assumably non-weak) person would need psychological help. I mean, what do they need to work on?
**

You shouldn’t own a TV if that bothers you.
I understand the difference of real people, but if you can’t take THAT, then you should probably lock yourself in a room and never leave.
**

What issues do THEY need to work out? Can’t handle being a little anxious for an hour?

**

I’ll give you that one. Some might have some guilt over not saving enough people or something like that.
**

In 4 of those examples, I’d have to say anyone who needed professional help because of that is indeed a ‘wussy’.

49

Doctors in general–not just in the mental health field–are dealing with far less significant problems than they have in the past.

Back in the old days, when men were men and women were women (a darn good arrangement), you only went to the doctor when you were acutely ill. Now, people go to the doctor a lot more often, sometimes even when they’re feeling fine. Why? Because we know a lot more about the body and its mechanisms now. We recognize things like high blood pressure and diabetes, we know the sorts of problems they can lead to, and we know how to treat them. I’m sure that a long time ago, it would have seemed ridiculous to run off to the doctor just because you had a little too much sugar in your blood. (“Too much pie, that’s your problem!”)

Statistically, a lot of the people that we treat for high blood pressure probably don’t “need” the treatment; that is, it won’t directly contribute to their death or disability. They could get through their lives just fine without blood pressure meds. However, we know that a lot of them will have problems, and that we don’t know exactly who is who, and that we can treat the HTN safely and effectively. Thus, the best thing we can do is to treat everyone who needs it.

Maybe it’s the same with people who seek help dealing with small problems. Sure, a lot of these people could get by just fine without ever getting any counseling or medications, but a lot of them will have further problems, and it’s hard to tell who is who. Thus, by helping everyone who might need it, we’re preventing a lot of complications down the road. Of course, the situations differ in that the problem in hypertension is easier to define, and the long-term complications a bit more clear. The treatment of HTN is also a more exact science than the treatment of depression. However, I think it’s good to ask if we would consider someone a “wussie” just because he would run off to the doctor for something so insignificant.

Sorry if I’m rambling and not making much sense. It’s been a long day of last-minute travel preparation.

Dr. J

50

SenorBeef,

As this conversation seems to be winding down a bit, I will just say that that sentence alone I will absolutely agree with, no questions asked. I guess the thing about which I do have a difference of opinion is whether there is a quantifiable difference in the amount or quality of challenges faced by people today as opposed to those faced by folks 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc.

In other words, you seem to be saying that people brought up in the first half of the 20th century faced more challenges and so had more oportunity to become stronger. People living in the 1700s had even more oportunity, and so on and so on. It’s an interesting concept, but are you suggesting that there’s some linear progression of oportunity for “strength building”? Will there be a point when any change to routine will exert such a mental tax that people will need drugs all the time just to maintain the status quo? Was there a time when almost any stress had minimal to no effect on people?

Or could it be that maybe it’s not based on any sort of time line or generational thing, or technological progression, but on situational events. In other words, people who grew up with serious war and suffering tend to bring up children who deal well with mental stress. Then, as times become more peaceful and bucholic, people loose that “edge” until such time as society is plunged into another terrible situation, and the cycle repeats itself?

I think the thing that I take the most issue with is the concept of one generation being “weaker” than another. I think that in general each generation is idealy adapted to mental survival in its particular time. Who knows how people of today would deal with war on a world-war-type scale, but my guess is that we would do all right. Today we have certain resources available to us, as did people of the 1940s, and people of both times made full use of those resources. This is only to be expected, that as resources become available we use them. I don’t think this is weakness, just adapting to the environment in which we live.

51

My parents grew up in the 30’s and 40’s. When Mom was little she broke a front tooth fighting with her brother and never told Grandma, fearing she’d get in trouble because they couldn’t afford a trip to the dentist. And Grandma didn’t notice the broken tooth for days. This is just one example of Mom’s tolerance for pain, mental toughness, non-wussiness.

My Mom is one of the most screwed up people I know. Permanently clinicly depressed, in denial, won’t get help, and thinks I shouldn’t either, because, “It will only make things worse.” She’s still whining, 60 years later, about how unfair life was. I learned from watching her and got some of those happy pills and a therapist and that doesn’t make me a weakling.

And my German immigrant relatives weren’t all that patriotic during WWII. They kept their papers in order and their mouths shut. So on a personal level, I’m just not seeing the emotional superiority and total patriotism of my mother’s generation.

If everyone in America was in therapy this month, I’d agree that we’re wimps. But if the people who think they need it, no matter where they live, get some help, it will make the country stronger. We have so many volunteers in the military we don’t need a draft, and public approval of the war is still well above %50, I don’t see a big problem there either.

52

But, kaiju, just think! Your mom is practically guaranteed to get into StovoKor when she dies a warrior’s death and meets Kahless.