I try. I guess trying to make people think differently doesn’t count as “trying” to practical real-world folks like yourself. Then again, if you care only for deeds not words, shouldn’t you get the hell off the Dope youself?
About tough love: I don’t really care what you think of it as a concept, but I thought I left a window open for it when a loved one is really far gone:
Not good enough for you?
I’m having trouble seeing how stubbornness and brutality are anywhere near equivalent.
I suspect most people would see the utter uselessness of hyperanalyzing clichés.
I’m somewhat confused, but I can state with absolute certainty that you have too much weed and too many thesauruses at your immediate disposal.
I don’t smoke weed. I prefer vodka and red wine, sometimes mixed.
I analyze clichés because so many people live by them, and I have to deal with these people and it sucks.
You aren’t reaching me, and I’m genuinely trying to hear you out. You often talk about the meanness, unfairness, and the brutality of life, and you direct it outwards, in an accusatory, holier-than-thou fashion. Just look at the way you’re addressing me. Was I mean to you? Rude to you? Sarcastic or caustic? No, I don’t think I was. My questions were honest and I simply asked for concrete examples of what you would have us do. Not to play gotcha or to debate, but because I’m not understanding what you’re communicating, besides you sensing meanness in society. I was even being self-deprecating by telling you that I’m not a philosophical person, thereby explaining my confusion with the words coming out of your mouth. I’m asking for clarity, not trying to start a heated argument.
You can’t change anything by preaching to the choir, which I think you’d rather do. But you have to actually engage chumps like me. And no, convincing anonymous people to be nice, especially by insulting their intelligence or conscientiousness, is not changing anything. You know how you can make people be nicer? Doing nice things for them, in a real-world, active way. Like volunteering your services to the unemployed, poor, and immigrant people you sympathize with. Developing a career in social activism. Teaching people, in real life. Simply being kind and generous to people you meet on the street.
Do you do these things in addition to scolding people on message boards?
If not, what’s holding you back?
This is not an example of how you would handle a situation that requires tough love. In other words, you’re not telling us, the mean people, what exactly you would have us do. I’m not talking about how to handle criminality; I’m talking about situations like an 18-year-old who does not show any interest in finding work, doing housechores, or going to school. How would you handle that situation, using the framework of lovingkindness “tough” love that you wish for the world to adopt? I’m asking because I don’t know what picture the words “tough love” develop in your mind. I shared my picture. What is yours?
A teacher uses examples when discussing the abstract. I’m your student who does not do well with the abstract. Teach me.
I’m having trouble seeing how stubbornness and brutality are anywhere near equivalent.
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Why would you assume I was saying they were equivalent? Why does it matter that they aren’t equivalent? Do you not get my point at all? All the words that you’ve been using–“mean”, “brutal”, “strong”, etc.–paint different pictures for different people, depending on the situation. A slap in the face of a seven-year-old who steals a cookie is harsh and brutal, in my opinion. A slap in the face of a seventeen-year-old who yells at his mother “fuck you” is a well-deserved form of humiliation, in my opinion. I’m sure another person would disagree and say that BOTH are cruel and hateful, because all violence is hateful (I’ve been an attender at a Quaker meeting for more than a year now, so I know some people who would take this stance). Who’s right and who’s wrong? What would you do if your seventeen-year-old child yelled “fuck you” at you? I’m asking with absolutely NO hostility, but curiousity.
I repeat: I’m asking with absolutely NO hostility. Just curiousity. I’d appreciate a similar level of respect.
That’s one hell of a call-out, bud. I’m gonna have to let that wait till morning. Maybe afternoon. But I will get back to you, point by point.
Ironically one of the most important things to have during hard times is a social environment made up of other people who are struggling who will not judge, condemn or in any other way make you feel inferior or inadequate because you are falling short of your goals and ideals. A big part of dealing with trouble is the illusion that your problems make you more vulnerable, inferior or inadequate to other people, which just adds to stress and alienation.
Most of the advice about ‘being tough’ comes from people whose lives are better than yours telling you to fight against something they themselves do not have to fight against. Very few of the people calling for an end to unemployment benefits need them as an example. And the psychological mire of personal problems usually isn’t something a person who isn’t currently going through them can unerstand.
Another problem with toughness is it neglects the real causes and solutions to problems. It makes complex problems out to be simple issues of lack of willpower and moral fiber while neglecting the dozens of endless factors in and out of the individual’s control which factor into their behavior.
So to a large degree it is a simplistic answer to a complex question presented in a condescending, alienating fashion by people who aren’t currently suffering from it (more than one person who would probably give advice to the long term unemployed to be tough sank into depression when they ended up part of the long term unemployed).
A better approach is ‘meaningful, forgiving community helps you weather a storm’ over ‘tough times don’t last, but tough people do’.
I don’t think ‘tough’ has a ‘be evil’ connotation to it though. I think that is a side effect of stress (rates of abuse go up with stress, generally speaking), but I don’t think anyone is saying ‘be evil and callous’ to those who are struggling. I think they are just giving advice that isn’t realistic and that will only add to alienation by adding another layer of blame onto the recipient, who now has to beat themselves up for not being ‘tough’ enough. And the level of alienation and failure gets worse.
Why, you disgusting commie humanist weakling. How dare you assume the moniker of a general in our nation’s army. You ought to have your teeth pulled out with a hydraulic lug wrench.
Because you put my point into better language than even I could. 
I get what you’re saying, Doug. But I think the turn of phrase and the behavior is unrelated.
I think people in America are trained to almost worship succeeders and ostracize losers. Rather than admit that what happened to the unemployed person could happen to us, we prefer to scapegoat the unemployed. We assume they must be inherently flawed rather than look firmly at our own insecurity in the workforce, perhaps with an eye to doing something about that.
We are trained to look for only individual solutions to social problems, and this is symptomatic of that.
I also think it’s because we really are competing, rather viciously, for jobs. The unemployed mean the employers can get away with no raises, or pay and benefit cuts, for the employed.
People are generally willing to be magnanimous with plenty, but take that away and they will turn vicious.
And you, BayouHazard, get me so well you really ought to be sunk by the Coast Guard as a danger to navigation.