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Learned Helplessness |
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Psychologists have observed a phenomenon in lab rats that is called learned helplessness:
What scientists will do is put a healthy rat in an uncontrollable situation, such as in a cylinder of water with nothing to stand on - and the rat will panic and swim and fight and fight and then, finally, when none of that works, it gives up. The rat has now learned helplessness. If you put the rat back in the water, but give it a hidden ledge to stand on, the rat won’t search for it or even try to swim, it’ll just give up and drown.
The phenomenon isn’t limited to rats, of course. It is also exhibited by human beings who are consistently exposed to life circumstances beyond their control. If someone gets beat down by an unfair system for long enough, they can lose hope that the system will ever change, and they can stop trying to fight against it. For example, listen to this comment made on reddit last week in response to a call for a grassroots movement to limit corporate power:
You can’t escape them (corporations). They own everything that you need/want/must have to live. So stop living in dreamland and come back down to reality. Yeah, it’s a good idea. But completely impossible.
Or to this one:
Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. Look around you. They’ve already won. They own everything, and right now, they’re in the process of sucking what little wealth remains in the hands of freestanding small businesses through the printing of money. It’s over. Shouldn’t have been asleep at the wheel so long. Fun ride, wasn’t it? But the piper’s come…
Or to this cheerful thought:
Free market capitalism is what allowed these companies to get that big. If at any point in the past 20 years the government had tried to sponsor legislation to limit their size, proponents of free market ideology would’ve gone berserk. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
The dominant message in all of these comments is “resistance is futile.” It is learned helplessness of the economic variety. In their own ways, each one is expressing the belief that we live under a corrupt government and an unjust economic system that cannot be changed no matter how hard we try.
This defeatist attitude is not limited to snarky bloggers and commenters. Especially in these difficult times, people everywhere seem to be expressing a sense of helplessness toward the circumstances that control their livelihoods. By and large, folks feel powerless when it comes to their current situation and their long-term futures, more powerless than I can ever remember. It’s the same type of feeling those rats must have felt when they were placed in that cylinder of water over and over again, a feeling that eventually led to them giving up and drowning.
The lab rats quit because they believed that there was no use in struggling, that they were going to drown anyway - not realizing that the platform they needed was right under their feet. We, too, are tempted to quit our struggle - or perhaps to not even get started with it - because we think there’s no hope; that another Depression is inevitable; that corporate power will never be reined in; and that the government will never work in favor of the people for a change.
Let us never forget, though, what happened to the rats that learned to be helpless and that stopped struggling. Where’s that platform, again?
These are good observations, however,in my experience, the kind of people you mention who have given up, never really attempted to struggle in the first place. They just like to moan and find lame excuses for their inaction. By telling people how hopeless everything is, they also strengthen the position of the powers they complain about, while weakening morale amongst those who, unlike them, wish to challenge the order.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Jane. I think it’s a mixed bag. As you said, some people just like to complain and will never get off their butts and do anything no matter what happens. Others, however, have become cynical and hopeless after once being passionate for change. I used to fall into the second category, but George Bush’s atrocious presidency brought me back to the playing field. Obama’s campaign reignited a lot of people, as well. And my hope is that even more people get up and see the need for the current corporate-political hegemony to be dismantled.