Yeah I think there’s just something about 4chan that encourages a sort of emotional automasochistic culture. I think it’s partly that the culture pushes away the healthy, but it also drives those capable of health away from it in favor of “uncomfortable truths”. I forget what Natalie Wynn called it, but it’s the philosophy of “it is true because it hurts”. And it happens all across the website. It’s the thing that ties the Nazis, the trolls, the incels, and the self hating trans people together, and it’s antithetical to happiness.
Holy shit I never heard of it put into words but jesus fucking christ does that CLICK. I’m no longer there myself but there was certainly a time when I felt in a similar way:
The truth is painful,
Therefore the more that it hurts,
The more true it is.
This rhetorical position is insidious, deranged, toxic, and most importantly: blatantly incorrect and false. Holding this belief is a diagnostic flag of fundamental cognitive stack malfunction. Suspend all non-critical executive processes and seek therapy.
So I just remembered the term she used was masochistic epistemology. It was in this video about incels.
But yeah it’s such an easy trap to fall into when you’re already unhappy. And yeah it’s a form of accepting defeat because trying is hard and the possibility of failure is scary. Sometimes the truth hurts, and if you’re generally miserable the truth you need is likely uncomfortable, but that discomfort could be anything from “you need to get your shit together” to “your expectations are unrealistic” to “you’re surrounding yourself with people and things that make you miserable because it’s easier to accept unhappiness than to change”
Incels for example think they need to accept that they’re just ugly and unable to ever be seen as attractive and thus are destined to be miserable forever, when in reality they often need to accept that getting laid won’t make them happy and their misery is part of why they can’t get laid. They need to find a happy life in which sex would be a nice plus and then be clean, groomed, and enjoyable to be around.
Yeah I think there’s just something about 4chan that encourages a sort of emotional automasochistic culture. I think it’s partly that the culture pushes away the healthy, but it also drives those capable of health away from it in favor of “uncomfortable truths”. I forget what Natalie Wynn called it, but it’s the philosophy of “it is true because it hurts”. And it happens all across the website. It’s the thing that ties the Nazis, the trolls, the incels, and the self hating trans people together, and it’s antithetical to happiness.
Holy shit I never heard of it put into words but jesus fucking christ does that CLICK. I’m no longer there myself but there was certainly a time when I felt in a similar way:
The truth is painful,
Therefore the more that it hurts,
The more true it is.
This rhetorical position is insidious, deranged, toxic, and most importantly: blatantly incorrect and false. Holding this belief is a diagnostic flag of fundamental cognitive stack malfunction. Suspend all non-critical executive processes and seek therapy.
So I just remembered the term she used was masochistic epistemology. It was in this video about incels.
But yeah it’s such an easy trap to fall into when you’re already unhappy. And yeah it’s a form of accepting defeat because trying is hard and the possibility of failure is scary. Sometimes the truth hurts, and if you’re generally miserable the truth you need is likely uncomfortable, but that discomfort could be anything from “you need to get your shit together” to “your expectations are unrealistic” to “you’re surrounding yourself with people and things that make you miserable because it’s easier to accept unhappiness than to change”
Incels for example think they need to accept that they’re just ugly and unable to ever be seen as attractive and thus are destined to be miserable forever, when in reality they often need to accept that getting laid won’t make them happy and their misery is part of why they can’t get laid. They need to find a happy life in which sex would be a nice plus and then be clean, groomed, and enjoyable to be around.