I got a chance to speak with Joshua Slocum of the Disaffected Podcast. You can read his substack here: Disaffected Newsletter. In this article, I wanted to give links for people to personally research more about the things I discussed with him. If you found the discussion interesting and want to learn more, please read on. The following video is the full podcast episode.
The Drama Triangle
I started out explaining the Karpman Drama Triangle. Stephen Karpman described the dramatic unhealthy ways in which we interact with each other. The 3 roles are Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer/Savior. People take on these roles like actors in order to extract sympathy, social credit, or narcissistic supply. People can switch from one role to another quickly and it’s often those who think they’re trying to be the good guys and “saving” people who turn into the worst authoritarians. We had some good discussions on that.
Forced Masking
One of the most recent examples of trying to “save” people who never asked for it is all of the mandates for masks and vaccines. The clearest example is masking because after the mask mandate went away for airlines most people decided to not wear them. This clearly shows that if there was never a mandate then people wouldn’t have voluntarily worn masks. You can extrapolate that most (if not all) of those people never appreciated the mandates. They never asked for or desired other people to wear masks to protect them. They were taking personal responsibility for their own health and didn’t need to shift the responsibility for their health to other people.
As I discussed with Josh, when someone tries to “save” another who never asked for saving, they often become the “persecutor.” If you have not read what it was like for people with glasses, and people who couldn’t hear, to be in an environment in which they were forced to wear masks, you should read this story from Holly.
It had to be an absolutely terrifying position to be in. Dr. Mark Changizi also talked about how the risk of falls increased with masks.
People tried to “save” others by forcing masks on everyone, but those people never realized they were acting like the “persecutors” making life much more difficult for everyone and not really helping much either.
Abortion
I mentioned abortion on the show and the dehumanization of the fetus that some people do and I have written about how it relates to the drama triangle here where I compared it to the mandatory-vaccine issues. When people dehumanize others into insects, like parasites or MAGAts, it shows that they have placed those people into the “persecutor” role.
The Way Out of the Drama Triangle
To exit the drama triangle you must take personal responsibility for yourself and allow other people to take responsibility for themselves. To try to get somebody else out of the drama triangle, would be to jump back in yourself to try to “save” them. They have to make that decision on their own, willingly. Feel free to help people when they ask for help. But sometimes you have to just back away and let other people deal with things themselves when they clearly don’t want your help. When they do finally hit rock bottom, they will start to take personal responsibility and become free also.
The Woke Religion
In the conversation, I also discussed Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian’s chart called Woke Religion: A Taxonomy. This chart is a fantastic resource. You can download the PDF I shared from the following substack article:
Miswanting
Besides speaking about the Drama Triangle, and how it relates to “the woke,” I also discussed miswanting. You can download this PDF on Miswanting from Harvard Library for more information on that. Miswanting: Some Problems in the Forecasting of Future Affective States
A while back, I took a free online course from Yale at Coursera. The course is called The Science of Well-Being and it explains why we become unhappy and gives proven tips on how to increase happiness (called well-being). There were a couple of studies and charts in the course I found particularly interesting concerning the discussion on “gender-affirming” surgeries. I wanted to discuss those studies on the show and link to them below. When I took the course, no one was suggesting that we should theorize that the same results would be found in those who identify as transgender. And I agree with Josh, I don’t think those studies would be allowed. But these studies were, so here they are.
Life Satisfaction Study
The first study was about life satisfaction increasing when in the engaged-to-be-married phase. During the time before marriage, everyone is celebrating. There is so much excitement in planning a new life and a lot of attention is being given to the engaged couple, it’s a bit like they’re being love bombed. But after the marriage and honeymoon, the couple has to get back to the real world without that extra attention and planning and they have to execute their plans now rather than simply dream about the future. When that happens, in the average person life satisfaction goes back to the baseline again.
Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: reactions to changes in marital status
From the abstract of the above study: “According to adaptation theory, individuals react to events but quickly adapt back to baseline levels of subjective well-being. To test this idea, the authors used data from a 15-year longitudinal study of over 24.000 individuals to examine the effects of marital transitions on life satisfaction. On average, individuals reacted to events and then adapted back toward baseline levels.”
There were some people who had some extra-lasting satisfaction, but that was not the average result. My theory is that people are enjoying the planning and love bombing and when that goes away most people go back to baseline. There is even more love bombing and celebration today with people who announce they will be having “gender affirmation” surgery. The results of a new study (if allowed) could prove to have an even higher high before surgery, and perhaps a lower low after surgery.
Cosmetic Surgery
The next study that I discussed was about the results on mental health that cosmetic surgery had.
Predictors of cosmetic surgery and its effects on psychological factors and mental health: a population-based follow-up study among Norwegian females
The conclusion of the study was, “A series of mental health symptoms predict cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery does not in turn seem to alleviate such mental health problems.”
Too often we think something is going to make us feel better in the long run but we are miswanting. I think we can extrapolate that those who think they want “gender-affirmation” surgeries may be more likely to be those people with mental health symptoms, to begin with, and that actually having the surgeries can be harmful to their mental health. So I believe they are miswanting the surgery. I think it’s very dangerous that people in our government (like Rachel Levine) are likely mistaken (miswanting) in the same way.
My Previous Work On These Subjects
I have previously written about miswanting and how the belief in gendered souls is basically a gnostic religion, including the belief in being born again. I don’t mind that people have different religions and belief systems, but I don’t believe we should be teaching children in public schools the idea of “gendered souls” as if it was fact, rather than part of a belief system.
If you’re interested in the subject of responsibility shifting and how it relates to the topic of transgenderism, you may also enjoy my article about using “preferred pronouns.”
Thanks for watching my appearance on the Disaffected Podcast and thanks for looking more into these subjects. I feel the world would be much better off if people understood these Drama Triangle dynamics and understood how important it is to question beliefs.
BTC Donation Address: bc1q4s6h8rhyqawqlz46ppc3zc5v43duycp8m57h9p
Discussing The Drama Triangle on The Disaffected Podcast