Unlearning Helplessness

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Dave Pollard

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an extraordinary piece in the New Yorker on Learned Helplessness a couple of years ago, and it remains one of his most important articles. What is Learned Helplessness? It’s the exaggerated feeling of lack of control, of enormous danger, of inability to respond to danger, that comes from repeated exposure to actual or apparent threats.

It’s the syndrome that afflicts battered spouses and children, and citizens who have given up on the apparent inadequacy of law enforcement and, armed to the teeth with weapons, taken the law into their own hands. It’s what causes people to buy SUVs in the fear-driven and utterly mistaken idea that they will be in less peril on the road in them than they would be in smaller vehicles. It’s what causes us to slaughter tens of millions of farmed, domestic and wild animals in the hysterical belief that that’s the most sensible way to reduce exposure to poultry flu and BSE. It’s what caused the US to be able to divert trillions of dollars from needed social programs to the lunatic extravagance and cruel, arbitrary and idiotic policies of ‘homeland security’, sold as somehow making people’s lives ‘safer’. The war in Iraq was sold on the same fraudulent basis. Firestone was almost bankrupted when a few faulty tires resulted in deaths and spread panic among buyers, despite data showing that tires as a whole are remarkably safe and Firestone’s tires were no worse than most competitors’.

While conservatives are especially prone to this syndrome (it fits better with their crime-obsessed worldview), liberals are far from immune to it. It’s easy to whip up by those with a political agenda or ulterior commercial motives, because most of us are unable to put risks, dangers and fears in proper perspective, especially when they hit close to home.

So what can we do to avoid this syndrome, and to unlearn helplessness if we’re already afflicted with it?

Well, first, we can get our facts straight. Gladwell’s article shows data, taken from reliable and extensive studies, that show that you’re safer off in a convertible than an SUV, for example. If we think the best way to prepare for and handle an emergency is to wait helplessly for the authorities to look after it and tells us what to do, we should read about FEMA’s track record and compare it to that of Central American countries like El Salvador whose preparedness is local and community-based. Data on rare/unlikely but devastating and uncontrollable catastrophes (like being deliberately murdered by a stranger) can be easy to misinterpret, and must be compared to data on far more common, less disastrous and preventable occurrences (like dying from common influenza, or an accident on the job). Only by comparing risks objectively can perspective be achieved and learned helplessness over the uncontrollable averted.

Secondly, we can empower ourselves to be less helpless. Get rid of debts that make you paranoid about job loss, illness or injury. Learn to live on a smaller salary (the average low six-figure income earner would be in financial crisis within a month if that income suddenly ceased). Become less dependent on the electrical grid and on heavily-subsidized oil and food prices. Take charge of your own health so you’re not dependent on your doctor for every little thing that happens (and so that fewer little things do happen). Build up your critical technical and social and thinking skills (see the mindmap above), and build reciprocal relationships with handy friends and neighbours, so you don’t have to run to the yellow pages or the store every time something breaks down, wears out or falls apart. Buy fewer and more durable things, so they don’t break down as often. Learn to ‘make your own’. Have fewer possessions that need huge amounts of space and maintenance. In general, make yourself more self-sufficient and resilient and less dependent on others and on infrastructure that can break or break down.

Third, we can learn how the world really works. Don’t believe those who tell you that someone is in control, or should be in control. Don’t believe those who tell you crime and risks and danger are rampant, because in most places they aren’t, in where they are the perpetrators are usually well-known to the victims. Involve yourself in the political process enough to realize that it doesn’t take much to get the attention of those in power, and that those in power don’t have much power anyway. The more you know about the systems that govern much of our lives, the more you will realize that it’s less harmful than you feared and less in control (especially in a crisis) than you might hope. Learn especially about the power of communities working in common cause.

By doing these things, you change how you see the world in two important and positive ways: You fear the unknown and uncontrollable less, because you realize how unlikely itis. And you increase your control over what is controllable, which, for the most part, is things that are far more likely to occur.

Categories: Consumer Power, Our Culture and Let-Self-Change

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4 Responses to Unlearning Helplessness

lugon says:

January 26, 2007 at 03:56

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8J8b9e4MXY is all about learned helplessness. Not [at all, just] about government employees, I think.
patrick says:

January 26, 2007 at 21:59

these are all rational ways that people can try and change their behaviour but the intellect is notoriously incapable of the kind of deep change needed. helplessness is a very real feeling that develops in many different ways, many in childhood and they get played out later in life. getting the right facts isn’t the problem, its a deep rooted fear that needs to be addressed on an emotional/bodily level.
Keith says:

January 28, 2007 at 09:29

It is strange that you lambast Conservatives and then set out action items to make people more conservative; afterall, self-sufficiency is defining characteristic of conservatism.
Louis Tobochman says:

January 29, 2007 at 00:46

Although the are some incongruent thoughts on the subjuect of learned helplessness, it is the fact that you brought this subject up and have shown how important it is in our cultural system that I have to rise up and give you applause. I do feel that the answer to resolving the learned helplessness disease relies on many factors that wouldn’t be as lucent as to be able to utilize straight-forward cures for our society. Like Love, Hate, Sex, War etc., these cultural “motions” are representations of something that is very complex and hits hard on the surface of our civilization’s soul. When I first read your article, I am filled with enthusiasm of changing the world through self-sufficient and mollifying my fears of the unknown. But then as time goes by, one has to understand that there are six billion people interacting trillions of times, and not all of these interactions are positive. Since there is always grouping mechanisms (culture, educational structures, government etc.) and survival mechanisms (police, weapons, military, profiling etc.), the interactions in these and other cultural features exaggerate exponentially the modes of protection and resistance to the unknown and uncomfortable. I feel that most of this can be understood when one understands “How The World Works”. The thing that I am worried about is that this then becomes a question that reciprocates on itself because the interactions of the billions vary so differently and so liberally that one’s valued perception of this system can be the total opposite of another, and yet they would both be correct. It is in that issue that it is imperative that someone has to create a positive prevailing perception of the system and the culture. Yet seldom in history does a fish in water ever clearly described its habitiat. I think because where are inside the system, it is hard to define its makeup that allows it to prosper or incites its collapse. My whole point is :1. There needs to be a movement away from the system itself (even the word “local community” has its roots in the current system; I am not subtracting it as a logical future need, but more of its mainstream perception of how it existz).2. There needs to be experimental values (that are positive) that pull people together in “extra”ordinary ways (eg: have a community be built in which the elite are the people that can build the best treehouse for children3. Compare the comfort, protection, education, economic, social, & sexual (underrated sustainability issue) of these experimental neo-communities with that of the current sustainable and unsustainable communities. 4. Utilize the experimental neo-communities intellectual system to bring about their definition of the mainstream world system.5. Compare it to the perception of the people still inside the system.- I know this may be the most convoluted post you may have ever seen, but I do feel that one of our greatest failure in modern civilization was to never embrace the positive radical minority view of socio-psychological invention. When people discuss the future, their templates are always static around the times that were good for them or for someone else. When one talks of sustainable living, one thinks of intensive farming, vegetarian living, local communities, bartering in cohesiveness with business venture, ethics over religion etc. No one ever thinks of a great world where everyone lives in electric cars, and people can have local communities but their housing would be their vehicles. It doesn’t add up to the schemas of our current society. But if you think about it hard enough, it can make sense. I am not criticizing your feature; I find it to be very strong and revealing an issue that is never brought up in the terms of world politics and culture. I am only saying that the truth lies in leaving the system long enough that the answer will be found when oe returns and smells something new; the smell of our current system that had been under our nose all of this time.An example of a neo-community would be Gaviotas.