The other weird thing about the post traumatic growth stuff, is that the growth doesn’t come from the trauma. It comes from the things people have to do to heal trauma, it comes from things like hope, peace, safety, and being connected with others and the world around you. Trauma can motivate people to put effort into those things (because you learn it’s necessary to ease your immediate suffering) but you don’t have to be traumatised to put effort into them, we can all benefit from that
Also I’d hate to work directly for a rich person. Firstly working for someone who believes they can use money to get whatever they want and buy people out sounds extremely unsafe. And also I used to work for a non-profit and I had to deal with some of our funders, it really put me off. I could easily write an essay on why
As a young carer/orphan the idea that I can use my trauma to succeed is so infuriating because trauma effects me everyday & whilst people employers/schools scream from the rooftops about so called 'positive dicrimination' it is always so superficial because the moment something goes wrong you'll be treated like a liability.
Yeah, i would assume that it would be about customizing the environment to allow different people to work efficiently as well, but no, it's just about not assuming anyone to be different.
My Adopted Sister from St Petersburg russia , had her father murdered... Our father died of cancer, my mom's house burned in her final year of school... her second house was destroyed in hurricane Ida a year later... after all of that she keeps going. She adopts horses 🐎 and works with animals... I can understand, she doesn't always trust people after two decades of trauma... she's tough, her attitude made me stop drinking and smoking... we don't get along all that well, However Iam so Proud of her Fight and Independent Spirt!!!
Yeah, I'm getting the vibe that people are getting over the tortured artist myth but still want ways to narritivize their lives but this time it's just manifesting in an even more pro-capitalist way... like many things
Pretty much. Post-traumatic growth is literally recovering from a debilitating mental illness. It's not a particularly romantic experience, although like everything in life, it has it's transcendent moments. I wish we could all stop mystifying these aspects of humanity
You can find this concept unrelated to art in Aeschylus, with the old concept "pathei mathos" (learning through pain). Probably tortured artist is post-traumatic growth 2.0 -
What if you were born working class but you read books on how to retire rich and then you followed their instructions and end up with multiple properties and a bunch of money in the bank like me.
@@jmecklenborgSo I often think about Antonio Gramsci's idea of Hegemony, the idea that the dominant ideas in a society reflect and justify how wealth/power is distributed in that society. In that sense I'd say that it's not exactly "true" or "untrue" to say that anyone can become rich through hard work, but I do think that it's a *narrative* that we choose to employ, which currently functions to uphold a deeply unequal society.
@jmecklenborg starting by the fact I hardly believe "following instructions" on a "book" on how to get rich actually works, given that even proper economists die poor and that this kind of "literature" is an overt, well known, meme-worthy fraud machine, respectively: 1-good for you, now stop acting like a child and cease your passive aggressive behaviour (we can read your older comments) and start "reading books" on how to be a better person for this world (definitely calling simps other people here and there ain't the path) 2- understand that the reasons you got rich are also founded on a privilege, just like every other kind of power imbalance. Reifying it: you got rich because you had the moneys and the time to buy a book, because you lived in a country where you were teached to read, because you had the time and the possibility to actually developing the process (this goes from the presence of permissive political institutions, political opportunities and market conditions to mere physical and mental ability), because your material conditions were good enough to start with, because you didn't have to choose between "tryna get rich" and dinner (and if you did, ask yourself if that's sane), because you got a decent job that allowed you to save money, because you didn't die young due malaria in an african region and so on. Reality is that, even in the Us, inequality is growing fast and social and economic mobility is getting lower and lower. But the one's on "merit" is another kind of discours. I'm successful at school and at work, but I recognize that's up to an incredible amount of privileges and situations that I cannot even count. Hard work is just the last component of mundane success. And a lot of times it's also pretty toxic. There would be an essay to write on. Luckily, many are the sources you could find with a small google research, to begin with. 3- use your fresh money to help the people who were in your situation 4-possibly, do not perpetuate anti-scientific, aporophobic stereotypes (you were implying the classic "poors are just rich that can't manage their money", by posing that dumb [not genuine] question. Yes, this may as well be the case even if that wasn't your purpose. Ignoring the principles vehiculated by our words won't make them to do no harm). Adieu
One thing rich people need the poor struggling kid also, is to justify that the capitalist system is fair. See that kid could build some status, so everyone can do it. My privileges are okay.
There will always be poor people in whatever economic system you choose. Anti-Capitalism is nothing special in this regard. The only question is: how do you want your poverty, welfare sustained or workhouse sustained?
hi disco elysium profile pic :) that game is good at showing that "trauma growth" is bullshit. Harry, Kim, Cuno, Cunoesse, Plaisance, Dros, and so many others are all traumatised and all it did was break them and make them worse. they can still heal, but they would have been better off without it
@@elpito9326Question is if it really can be eradicated in other systems than capitalism. Theoretically yes, but it doesn't seem like it's really achievable on a big scale. In an anonymous society, some people will always manage to acquire more resources than someone else. Either you need total supervision, which sounds very dystopian, or you need smaller groups of people where everyone knows each other. But with 8 billion people on Earth that sounds quite unrealistic to achieve apart from a few model communities that in my limited experience with them sometimes or often turn a bit sect-like. On the other hand, for decades post WWII most people managed to get richer with capitalism as their country's economy grew. My family experienced that first hand in the German Wirtschaftswunder. A lot of Germans were starving/malnourished in the 40s post war, and then in the 50s the Big Eating began when suddenly people and the economy were so well off again that people could finally eat as much as they wanted. A lot subsequently became overweight in that time. Just at some point, there was a decoupling between the growth of the economy and the wages, meaning only the top whatever percent (1? 2?) usually get richer while everyone else gets rather poorer as inflation goes on. Maybe this trend can be reversed, in the sense that also the majority of a population can benefit from economic growth again.
the lady she was talking about though does give oppurtunities to people so it can work for them too right? People should definitely be held accountable for their success to a certain point obviously, I don't understand the mentality of not affording people that independence.
And a large amount of deluded solipsism. Because randomness and determinism are dead, we can only have "free will and personal responsibility" as a society. Because inderstanding societal habitus and constructs and their dynamics is too complicated.
I had a poor friend who, as an adult going thru college, started a small pool cleaning business. His primary customers were multi-millionaires. He told me the most obnoxious abusive employers were the nouveau riche. Those who were "old money" treated him quite well but were completely out of touch and had no idea how the average middle-class person lived (much less low income).
A friend of mine used to work as a mover, and he would tell the same thing. I used to work retail in a "good" part of town and can subscribe to that as well
Barbara is a saleswoman through and through. I don't doubt for a second that saying all that stuff about overcoming trauma wasn't purposely planned out for myth building around her name.
You're absolutely right, I think that like most people she learn to sell herself and her story, doesn't matter if she believes in it or ever think that when she was going through it.
Eh I think it can be a useful perspective to process and integrate certain experiences. I also think it’s probably a good thing rich folks specifically give some opportunities to people who are struggling. Then again sometimes it can turn a little weird with some of the examples Alice gives…
Yeah, especially since, interpersonally, when I talk about my trauma as an individual in any other sense external to concocting ways I can "turn it around" to make money off it, I'm usually met with all types of blank silences, empty, bored stares, all types of topic/conversation changes, and the like, so clearly the reality is people DON'T care about trauma, even as a form of character development, unless there's some way you can get over it financially or emotionally, usually via numbing out and pretending like it doesn't still hurt as much as it does. And not to sound completely doomerist about it, but it's usually only a matter of concern when somebody can either make money off of you for it or when they're tryna convince you to uphold capitalist hegemony by telling you that you can learn how to use it to do that yourself! Honestly, I sometimes wish people would stop pretending like they care about the trauma conversation since, aside from this video, even most Breadtube/Leftubers don't mention it at all since they likely weren't raised in it and only mention it in the context of how a boss doesn't let you control more of your life, which is indeed ONE TYPE of trauma, but failing to connect that to the whole in terms of oppression as trauma and what that looks like on a more everyday level for real poor people, not just people with a bunch of office jobs and degrees they don't use, would be helpful, but I'm ranting lol. I'm not confident at times that some of them have the range how Alice does on this channel. There's only a couple of other people I've seen have the range, like Kat Blaque, Bryony Claire, Thought Slime, ItHadToBeSaid, and Pernicious Chattel, but they can't do all the work for all the other channels alone, but anyway. ******** *TL;DR:* More conversations on how people's pain shouldn't be seen as just another commodity to capitalize off of in the Sigma Grindset Industrial Complex of life need to be had, and I'm glad this video exists and speaks to this in a great way. I wish other channels did more of the same! 😄
1:51 It’s giving “Hey, I suffered for 30 years and ensure that you wouldn’t have to so why aren’t you suffering like I am? Hardship and grit are your friends. You are so spoiled.”
Right. Having had my share of trauma from an early age it mostly made me unable to connect with people. And incredibly insecure and lacking drive. No point in trying, we´ll all die anyway.
I am automatically skeptical of anyone sitting in a place of wealth and influence who claims they're versed in hardships. I've heard a lot of rags-to-riches stories from people who actually grew up further from the poverty line than me. Too many to just take their stories at face value.
You cannot make a horse work itself to death with just a carrot in front of its face. You have to starve it, whip it, make it think it is in mortal danger, and then it will literally run until it dies. And people suffering from ptsd, you could say, never feel safe, even if they literally are. Greed alone can do horrors, but the foot soldiers that make it happen aren't doing what they do because of simple avarice.
Paternalistic, aren't they? No one will allow a system to be changed if they benefit from that system, so they find ways to justify its worst offences. By the way, Alice, I love how you make friends with your subject before pulling out the knife.
I think you could have spent much longer in this on the self-justification here. The fact is that wealthy people become wealthy by abusing others. In order to reckon with that contradiction it is helpful to the mental health of the rich to tell themselves that their over-working of poor people is a gift which will help the poor to succeed. Without this narrative they would have to acknowledge at least some part of their villainy.
Right?! Like when I saw all them butlers standing there like a bunch of AI robots waiting for their next task, I holleredt!!! This is slavery, love!!! What is glorified about this? Dignified, even? Do they not see this???? If I see it, I know they have to see but can't say anything until they get home, unless they're forced to live on the property in the guest house. The gag is, being around rich people and celebrities doesn't immediately confer opportunities to you, and I know this from personal experience. You, as the poor person, are still doing all of the work, especially the ideological legwork of assuming responsibility for every aspect of the dynamic, because if you say anything or take issue with any one thing, you come off as ungrateful and not worth working with, and then you may become blackballed (not saying that happened to me but just saying for the topic), and then you go back to right where you started: struggling through life alone by yourself so you never really have the freedom to speak up and do what you want frfr when around them. Maybe this is painting it with too broad a brush stroke, but yeah. Like some of them are actually nice as people, but you can really only appreciate that when you ignore the very large, very loud, bright pink elephant in the room of their wealth compared to yours and the existential dilemma of why you have to do so much more for the same sh!t they have by virtue of most, if not all of them, having got into their industries wayyy before you when they were at a much earlier stage (less saturated/standardized/tech- and location-dependent) and before the tanked economy we have today, the people they were lucky to meet (nepotism), what they already started off with (nepo babies specifically), etc.
Depends on how the wealth was made. I'm not seeing how, say, an NBA or NFL draft pick, abused others (off-the-sports-field) en route to his newfound pro career.....
I mean i sort of see where they are coming from. I had a pretty traumatic and neglectful childhood and the feeling of never being “enough” and the background anxiety of my day to day being has driven me and drives me daily to have quite a successful career. Theres a lot of survivors bias in that though. This hasnt been the case for the majority of other people I knew that grew up in similar circumstances. Most of them ended up dependent on substances and having other struggles. and these rich people sound positively vampiric looking to capitalise on the trauma of others.
Indeed it's well known and statistically proven that the more 'adverse childhood experiences' someone experiences, the more likely they are to abuse drugs, be obese, go to jail, etc etc. Not surprising really. People living with ACEs score lower on measures of resilience and emotion regulation as well, so this idea of 'the right amount of trauma' - the right amount seems to be as little as possible.
Thanks, I came here to write essentially this. This video is interesting, and I'm happy to see this topic discussed, but I would have liked to see some discussion of the survivorship bias (exactly as you said) going on here. For every traumatized kid who goes on to be successful and gets to go on podcasts to talk about how their hardship forged them, how many others in similar situations fared far worse? For that matter, we don't get to find out what would have happened to those successful people if they hadn't experienced hardship. Best case, it feels like a coping mechanism to make sense of terrible experiences. At worst, it feels very apologetic for the many systems that exist to create these conditions, like saying "see? poverty, neglect and abuse are good, actually!" Not to mention the lasting harmful effects that exist for even those that do succeed despite bad conditions. It's not exactly a perk, y'all.
I’ve worked for rich ppl in the Seattle golf club, this is like the 1% of old money in the city, generational wealth that will never go away. And the amount of bs and actual abuse I had to take because of how entitled rich snobs are was insane. I was also A MINOR, 16 years old. Money burns holes into peoples brains.
I once hear from a friend that she overheard the wealthy One percent old money ppl she was around talking about how the poor/even middle class "don't deserve to breathe the same air as them". That statement changed my life. I couldn't believe a fellow human could say such words about their own. Money truly is the root of all evil.
@@iamdisgustedNah money isn't evil, humans are just evil, 99% of people think the same, you'd be suprised how most of us will change, including yourself, if a billion dollars suddenly drops in your acc. The only difference between poor and rich poeple is that they get away w actually doing their evil thoughts and acts. Rich people steal, cheat, rob, kill, kidnap, blackmail, do drugs, bribe, have intrusive thoughts, are filled with hatred & jealousy and so does the poor man. I know poor/middle class people with the giant egos, "better than you" mentality and narcissim bigger than actual rich/powerful people. If they get rich, they would be actual "monsters" too, like the ones you mentioned, but remember, they aren't even rich yet. Infact we see this power craze in play when non wealthy people get a position of authorithy were they "get to tell you what to do" e.g police, security, teacher, even frickin mods on social media apps. If you don't still get my overall ideology, here's a little story. I recently read that an heir of the DuPont company, a generationally wealthy family r@ped his 3 year old daughter, that really boiled my blood, and I'm sure it will make yours too. People easily blamed his generational wealth, evil money and evil family, meanwhile poor men are r@ping underaged girls every day (especially in 3rd world countries) with nobody seeming to care enough. Even if people get mad at the poor pedo, no one seems to blame their financial situation, meanwhile for the rich man, its the money people only seem to think about. I know this because a man r@ped his 2 year old daughter at my town. He is not rich. He was poor, but people cared lees, let that been a wealthy known man, even the aliens in the moon would have heard of the news and indirectly blamed wealth. On average poor people do very despicable things to get money than rich people do on a day to day basis. There's a reason why the "ghetto" or the "streets" is a thing. Like I said, it's not the money, money is merely a key for most humans to act on how they truly want to act, and get away with it. If money was evil, then you're guranteeing you would turn to a bad person if you get rich, do you believe that about yourself? No You are a good non-rich person, so you might be a good rich person. Most people use their truama to hurt others (they continue the cycle) Most people their riches to hurt others. Some people use their riches to help others, some people use their trauma to help others ( to break the cycle). So if you think about it, Poverty is the root of all evil as much as wealth is. To round that up, both poverty and wealth are mostly just an after math or tool used by the real problem: people. People are evil.
Rich people ARE obsessed with poor kids. So true. I remember an evening I spent talking to a lawyer years ago about the worrying fact that studies showed poor children heard “x number fewer words” than richer children, or something. My take was that IF there were such a thing as a “culture of poverty”, then that was a culture too…?
Yeah, a rich culture where they enjoy the dehumanizing fantasy of poorer people just having *ZERO DESIRE* *how they do* of, idk, *READING* , or *HAVING NEW EXPERIENCES* , or *TRAVELING* or *TRYING NEW FOOD* , or *LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE FOR JOY NOT NECESSITY* , but silly us for not being rich like them to be able to fully appreciate all of life's juicy, wealthy, and abundant luxuries like learning since our brains aren't built Ford tough in the same way! Our sheaths aren't myelinated like theirs, so we're unable to comprehend any and all language *other than what they bark at us in the workplace* when we earn our meager peasant wages! 😄😄😄😄(/s)
I had a traumatic event happen when i was 14 which has resulted in PTSD, Night terrors, SH, ED and Sleep paralysis. I think that I would be better off without it tbh. I am 26, i always wanted to be a scientist but in school i was struggling too much with my mental health and my teachers told me that they didn’t think that i would cope with the stress of a-level science. I now work in a creative industry, which i do enjoy, but i think that the notion that trauma makes you stronger is bollucks. Trauma makes you exhausted, yes i work hard and I have a lot of drive but I had that prior to my trauma. My trauma has made life harder. So dumb
1:42 the problem here is that if you experienced this kind of trauma and become a "high achiever", you subconsciously think that you are only worthy of love/care/attention if you achieve and do things. I developed a chronic illness due to stress because I could not relax or take time off, always afraid I'm not doing enough.
100% agree with you. As a person who survived childhood abuse, you feel like you need to constantly prove to everyone and to yourself that you are worthy. Worthiness = money, success, perfectionism. My brother became very successful, makes really good money and is very respected in his field. Is he happy? No . Did he receive the approval of our parents that he needed? No. I am finally accepting that I won’t be successful the way the society wants me and I’m okay with that.
I feel deeply mistrustful of those who broadcast they're doing good. We should do good because it's the right thing to do, not because people see us doing it.
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," Matthew 6:3
That then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We only see the people that are virtue signaling and those that aren't we won't see giving us the perception that world is even worse than it really is. Also, without that virtue signaling we would have even less wealthy people at least attempt to spend their money on beneficial things and hoard it for even longer. It's not the best solution, but it's at least a start of a solution we can hopefully build of and do consistently good things with
@@balajiraju4157 You only know it from the outside. You can't know what the trauma did to them inside. This is a dangerous way of thinking. It's pro-trauma when you think about it.
This kinda reminds me of the Good Damage episode in Bojack Horseman, where Diane feels like she HAS to turn her trauma into something useful to others, in her book of essays. She felt pressured to turn all her past trauma and damage into something that people can feel comfort from, especially for young girls similar to her past self
Barbara is the type of person that since she didn't get any sympathy or help while she was growing, she refuses to give it to other. If i didnt have it, nobody will.
Yeah I had some hardcore trauma as a kid and it didn't make me stronger or help me in any way, it actually really makes everything a struggle, even in a good situation.
I feel like this relates to Lauren Berlant's idea of Cruel Optimism: "when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing." By saying that people can "use" their trauma to gain success, they're spending time trying to justify that whilst losing the ability to come to terms with their trauma
@@userabn214 I'm actually not familiar with her, I learnt about Berlant's Cruel Optimism through a lecture on the relation between neoliberalism and the rise of sports culture among young white men :)
@@wildcatJK She was like a perfect complement to Michael Moore's work imo, and has recently since passed away. She wrote often on the experiences of the working class poor before much of today's political discourse in its current form stepped onto the scene, and has also written books about religiously-tinged toxic positivity during cancer and other diseases people experience, where they're supposed to be thankful for their conditions and not pissed off, and she wrote a couple other ones, but that's all I know off the top of my head. She's good, you should check her out if you're looking for a rec.
Well a lot of people dont realise the simple economic fact that you need poor people to have rich people. If everybody became a millionaire overnight, guess what would happen to the price of everything and inflation? I.e if everybody has millions, producers wont sell bread for its current price, they want a proportionate piece of those millions
Rich people love a “Cinderella story” because it reinforces their delusion that hard work always equals their idea of success. But capitalism is a beast that thrives on inequality.
It's funny because this also doesn't just apply to rich people but institutions and organisations, such as employers and universities. When applying and writing your personal statement / essay for university, you're encouraged to write about any hardships you've faced and how that has helped you to grow / overcome those challenges. I understand where it comes from because like you said Alice, people want to know or feel like you've earned your successes and / or social standing and deserve an opportunity. But it invalidates how hard life can be generally and further encourages the idea of having the "right amount of trauma", it goes past identifying privilege. Very interesting video, particularly when you talked about how people's trauma doesn't necessarily make them more empathetic / driven but more so makes them THINK they are.
In the USA, there’s a big labor movement for domestic workers called National Domestic Workers Alliance NDWA. I suggest you share this video and this organization with people if you know anyone who’s dealing with these issues
I feel like this is ultimately a justification for subjecting people to greater and greater income inequality and poor conditions because, at face value, "the correct amount of trauma" could mean not too much or not too little, but, practically, I think, it will ultimately resolve in society to mean "you haven't suffered enough". It also seems to suggest that if we're neglectful of those in need, we're actually helping them somehow, by moving them towards the correct amount of trauma. It's exists to justify growing income inequality.
And it's such a circular issue at that point, since who gets to decide when another person has had enough pain for "growth"??? That's literally why the entirety of Breadtube exists!!! 😆
@@axeslinger94 those who have been fortunate to succeed will decide and the decision will always be "you haven't suffered enough", because there will always be a story about someone going through more adversity, true or not, to throw around when it's convenient.
One of my childhood trauma is that achieving something didn't bring any reward and even brought hate towards me. For more than a decade, I have been unable to feel proud about my achievements
Super good! I guess my traumas were major seat backs and I had this slogan on my forehead for a long time: to be successful or die trying. Nowadays, after having achieved a college degree, lived abroad, three languages under my belt, I'm tired. Tired to try to impress who doesn't give a f* for what I do. I still like to cultivate my hustle side. Makes me feel empowered, but my idea of success is definitely changing and I'm trying to be happy with who I am and what I have today. Thanks for your video. You are getting my critical thinking way better. ❤
This reminds me of the System justification theory from Jost and Banaji. „People are motivated to rationalize and justify instances of inequality in order to preserve and defend the legitimacy of the system.”
I think one important point to make here is that we all experience hardship in one way or another but hardship is not trauma. There are some guidelines as to what is considered traumatic- ie. Big T's and little t's, although I know this list could be expanded upon. I also think it's highly important to point out, outside of one's own tenacity, there are many missing social supports and structures that help one to truly overcome trauma. This can range from lack of financial access, the overwhelming lack of truly good doctors and therapists (because certifications aside they are not equal), access to affordable housing and healthy food…. The list is large. If the ceiling of your life is crumbling around you it does little good for rich people to cheer you on in your struggle, claiming that it will build character. I might make a video response to this topic. Thank you Alice for opening the conversation.
There's a quote from a queer rights activist in the 70s, USA, about being a battering ram to take down the obstacles that they'd had to face. I heard one person describe their politics as coming from a place of being tired of watching people suffer. I think I like Guardians 3 so much because it has a theme of never letting anyone else go through the same things you went through.
There an old PBS documentary that discuses a similar topic and they described the concept as the “Dandelion” and the “Orchid”. Some people are resilient and adaptable, they can thrive in any environment, while others need a lot of care and attention.
Having seen several interviews with Barbara, most very favorable to her, she is definitely more about having someone "grateful" and subservient to her. These arguments are so disingenuous. Yes, trauma shapes people. Rich and poor are traumatized and often in the same ways, or incredibly similar. There is zero way to know how a person would have turned out if their circumstances growing up were different. I do think that people that grew up poor should have people specifically on the look out for them to help them. There are so many things rich kids see, hear, and have access to that poor people have zero idea about. Just Barbara is not that kind of person. That kind of person, you will likely never hear about them. They know how easy it is for the establishment to get pissed and push an avalanche on them. How tenuous life and comfort can be, and how incredibly lucky they were at key moments. They definitely took advantage of the opportunities, worked hard for what they have, and were intelligent about things, but chance also plays a big role.
In psychology there are two distinct concepts about this. One about the tortured kid being an achiever is about the coping mechanism a child develops to survive childhood, much like becoming a people pleaser or doing drugs. The concept of post traumatic growth is about the growth and maturity that happens one you've started healing your trauma in therapy,so not every traumatized person experiences it. The thing is, these things are not necessarily tied to earning a lot of money, it could be about plenty of other things, tangible or not.
Putting aside the class politics, trauma for me was definitely an impetus for growth. Initially, it was hampering for my growth, as I was too shaken by anxiety and doubt to venture far outside of my comfort zone. Then, upon reaching self-awareness and a cathartic conclusion, I was swelled with a relentless energy to find meaning and purpose in life. Similar to how Nietzsche described the sensation of one laughing at obstacles once one has ascended a mountain.
I also want to say that this was the exact mindset of Diane Nguyen from Bojack Horseman. She was desperately trying to find her purpose in great big meaning through her work. She said that she hoped all of the things that she went through would eventually mean something and that she didn't suffer for no reason. Because she would look back and think, "what was it all for?" and not realize that, in life, sometimes you just go through things, sometimes things just happen to you, and you have to move on. There's no runner's tape at the end with everyone waiting to congratulate you for getting past the pain. There is no reward for all that you've endured. The only satisfaction you have sometimes is the fact that you're still here. Yes, if the events are traumatic enough it can ignite a certain fighting spirit to not be trampled over and to soar to new heights. But the reason why people like Diane "fizzle out" and don't become super amazing is because they just needed to save themselves and live what they consider to be a normal life. Just the feeling of normality is good enough for some people.
To be honest rich people give poor people money and resources not because they want to help them but because they want to feel big and better also its good advertising
I don't know if anybody remembers the show Mr. Show with Bob and David. They had a sketch about this that has always stuck with me. Parents being taught how to be mean to their children so that they will grow up to be great artists or writers or whatever. I realized then that I would rather be a happy nobody than a traumatized rich person.
I could tell in the first 15 or 20 seconds you were gonna turn this thing around, and O thank you for that. Post traumatic growth is the psycho babble equivalent of an MD telling you the leg you lost in the war will grow back some day if you work hard enough at it. 🙄
This idea that we need struggle to motivate ourself makes me also think about the emerging debate around minimal revenue and stuff like that. This idea that if you struggle enough, you would be motivated enough to get a job (event tho apparently studies tend to show that it has no effects.
If you live in developed countries it may have no effect ...but in a developing country you have to struggle to succeed....you guys are very ignorant and no idea how real world works
Yeah the post traumatic growth thing just sounds ridiculous to me. know I am in a period of personal growth, but that only came not as a result of trauma but of working in therapy to heal and improve myself, and by having the means (time, space, funds) to be able to do so. And im still dealing with the reprecussions of that trauma and its not something that I will really ever want to look at as good for me. Like I have learned lessons and its defined how I grow and move through the world sure, but a good thing for me? Fuck no its a thing that happened and I can understand why some would rather frame it positively, but for me I would rather accept it forgive myself for the hurt and move toward being a caring person. Like being caring takes consistent and persistent effort its not something you get by following a life recipe of 1/2 cups trauma and a quart false positivity or whatever these people are selling. (i had a lot more to say than I thought, hope this makes sense)
they think if you are starving it will make you work harder. in reality it just makes you starve to death while dealing with compounding health issues that cripple
PTG is why i dropkick happy kids on the streets… give them abit of trauma for a better future. There is quite a difference between the effects of trauma and the concept of how exposure to daily challenges/difficulties help shape psychological resilience. The later is a prominent theory in development psychology and the former is a recognized clinical pattern of sickness. One helps you assimilate new observations of the world into your world view, the other shatters the very basic understanding of reality… using the word „trauma“ in their speech just shows how shallow the level of depth they reach in their analysis. Having gone through a downward social mobility from middle/high to the brinks of poverty i got to experience firsthand the effects of economic status and how it can curb your development. Statements that claim otherwise normally all come from a place that inherently wants to assert certain power structures in society, and affirm their self perception.
Maybe it's true that having an hard childood makes you face reality sooner. But this doesn't mean that who experienced trauma it's atuomatically a better person. In fact, this kind of narrative serves to deprive of responsability trauma affected people, making them more difficult to understand their emotional immaturity.
the notion of post-traumatic growth exists to soothe the consciences of those who commit or overlook abuse. the victim gets something positive from their abuse so it's almost good for them? getting a lot of christian martyr vibes from it tbh. along the lines of mother theresa's insistence that poverty and suffering are holy.
Please stop misrepresenting Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa told the poor that they're suffering could be transformed into something great if they saw at as an opportunity to come close to Christ. Suffering by itself is not good and is a misrepresentation of what she thought.
I think the Tale of "post traumatic growth" is a narrative we have to tell ourselves to make sense of the world after hardships. It is psychologically helpful but not necessarily an objective truth.
I don’t think my trauma made me strong. For some people, I think saying so might be a coping mechanism like “i suffered a lot but at least I got something positive out of it”
Post traumatic growth is a real phenomenon reported by many people across all cultures in the world. But as many psychological concepts today it is often misrepresented and misunderstood by people and media. As Tedeshi & Calhoun put it “Growth does not occur as a direct result of trauma; rather, it is the individual's struggle with the new reality in the aftermath of trauma that is crucial in determining the extent to which posttraumatic growth occurs.” Trauma is not a requirement for growth. And thus should not be sought after or celebrated. But growth despite trauma is a phenomenon that does happen. And is a testament to the resilience of the human will. Also, growth and psychological distress can and most often do occur concurrently. So, even if individuals who experience trauma report significant growth they also suffer significantly.
The phrase "Survivor's bias" comes to mind. Yes, it can be used as a motivator, but the "right amount of trauma" idea implies that anyone who experiences trauma and then struggles emotionally or financially is inherently bad or lazy. I work with children with disabilities in a deprived part of Dublin and the idea that a lack of toughness or discipline is the reason people are in a bad financial situation makes my blood boil. It is a 7 year wait in our area to access public disability services due to lack of staffing and nothing is being done at a national level to solve the crisis. The parents of these kids are the toughest people i know and don't have the time or opportunity to become an entrepreneur because they want their child to reach their full potential. Theyve been left behind by a system that only values economic productivity.
Thank you for this video! Highly thoughtful thesis. I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology and was just doing critical work on PTG -- you may be interested in exploring the concept of post-traumatic depreciation (PTD) too. Some studies look at how they go together, which begs the question: after trauma, what "grows" in value? What depreciates?
Not quite. This is ten percent luck Twenty percent skill Fifteen percent concentrated power of will Five percent pleasure Fifty percent pain And a hundred percent reason to remember the name. Sorry, I’ll see myself out now
Mexico has a really bad case of this. We are told that if we suffer and work hard, very very hard, we will become like the rich people, and thus we have some of the lowest number of vacation days in the world and a minimum wage that is still really really low. We are living a reality of "you'll own nothing and be thankful for it" and I hate it.
As a Greek person living in poverty, I too have intense financial insecurity and I'm a great slave. I'm the best slave, I can't wait to immigrate to Netherlands to be the best slave for the least money they can offer just because I can rent a house which is something I can't do in my country. Can I get a goldstar for being an amazing slave please? That's how I've learned to survive!
I also think she’s overcompensating too she might be rich and successful but she might also feel unsatisfied and want “more” thus she wants to help “poor people” as a way to feel better. I thought that way with helping people struggling emotionally in life but in the end I ended up drained, unfulfilled, and unsatisfied and now working on myself and not doing all that; I hardly felt fulfilled sometimes I felt used tbh
Thank you for another essay Alice, you sometimes remind me of Adam ruins everything and I am loving it What I thought listening to you was that we already know our brains have a hard time abandoning a project we have invested a lot on, especially if you had precarious resources to begin with. We just want to feel we made the right choice, and our minds crave that cognitive coherence. That is partly why we love the underdog trope so much, because we can see bits of ourselves in them (since life always brings a relative dose of suffering), and they give us the opportunity to see what it is like when everything ends well, when a person makes the right choices in spite of early suffering. "Oh boy do I wish I was like that, maybe I will try again!" But this narrative is a double-edged sword, of course. The problematic edge is the one brought by the hegemonic narrative of the poor-to-rich trope, "You too can become rich! Just keep on working your ass off and have faith!" And there is no guarantee the trope will come through. But because of that same craving for cognitive coherence, we avoid the stories where the choices people made didn't compensate the suffering they went through; we hate to see resources wasted, mistakes made, homes in bankrupcy, morals broken and cut losses. It is a reminder that we do not have as much control in the consequences of our actions as we want to believe. And that causes stress. So the underdog/poor-to-rich tropes are wishful and optimistic archetypes of a lifestyle in a very specific society obsessed with sum-zero games, market competitiveness, capital accumulation and so on. I am traumatized too, where is my growth?? :ccc
As someone who suffers from symptoms of ptsd, it honnestly pisses me off when i have to hear rich people tell me that i have a "gift". When i hear about post traumatic growth it just makes me feel more like a failure.
Lukewarm take: Barbara says these things on a TV show primarily because its viewership is poor/working people who like to see a rich person denied something for once which brings viewership. (not that it isn’t satisfying, but actually empowering poor people would look v different as many other commenters have expanded upon)
Thank you so much for this video. I really needed this. As someone who has experienced almost every Adverse Childhood Experience and living with chronic PTSD I felt suspicious of this concept and now I understand why.
Love the video! Such a fascinating analysis. One thing I was thinking about as I watched: This relabeling of trauma as an advantage that motivates people to success is often used as an excuse to not feel empathy towards them. By describing trauma as an advantage that rich kids don't have access to, the dynamic of who the "real" disadvantaged kids are shifts away from the poor kids and towards the rich kids. And it gives people license to not bother to feel bad or have any responsibility to address the often systemic causes of that trauma. It makes me think of situations in which I was that relatively "trauma motivated" person and being in situations where I felt pressured to view it as good for me and to feel bad for ore advantaged people who didn't have to go through that. It was an uncomfortable situation that drove home an unhealthy power differential.
The Maid's Daughter by Mary Romero is one of my favorite books and it is about this specific issue. The sociologist author conducted extensive interviews with the daughter of a maid for a rich family and wrote about her life. The rich family put a lot of pressure on the maid's daughter (often in the form of financial or networking opportunities) to become part of the family and essentially take the place of their actual children who were poorly behaved and much less successful than they had hoped. This caused the maid's daughter to question her identity as she did not want to be part of the rich family, but the opportunities were difficult to pass up. It is a highly engaging read with great sociological analysis throughout.
When people say that with conservatives, the cruelty is the point - the idea of "the right amount of trauma" is a perfect example of a justification for this kind of belief system. Just because we learn from difficult experiences, it doesn't actually follow that people are better when we harm them - but it's a plausible excuse if you secretly just want to hurt people.
Idk how to feel about Post Traumatic Cope On one hand there are people that take bad experiences and use that to drive themselves. And other people the same bad experiences crush them and in both cases it might not be their fault how they react to trauma. You can make a system supportive for people not having to rely as much on willpower and having to take big risks to help get them a lift up in life But at the same time we are confused about what outcomes we want as a society. Is it economics, is it wellbeing? Is it addressing inequality ?What if people have wildly dramatically different views of wellbeing? Secondly on nepotism. I think this is normal and natural at any class level. People favour those who they are more familiar with or related too. The question is why does society have to rely on rich peoples decisions in re allocation of resources versus making a system that allows for systemic decisions that don't require shaming to enforce
I’ve known this for years and I’m counting on it for the success of my business. Rich people absolutely LOVE a rags to riches story. I think it’s because
Diane Nguyen : Because if I don't, that means that all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing.-Bojack Horseman
Grande vidéo! I think that phenomenon stems from American optimism. Americans have to believe suffering will lead to something good or they would have to confront the fact that they needlessly suffered. It also shifts the focus away from the elites who actually cause people to suffer.
I tell fellow poor kids to frame their school/scholarship application essays in terms of inviting the reader on a "hero's journey" because people with money love that shit and they don't understand much else.
As someone with clinical depression, anxiety, bpd and abusive alcoholic parent, sure I have a masters degree in art (during wich I have worked through all of my uni experience and did not make as much connections and have half assed it in order to work) sure I make money, sure I have a strong work ethic bordering on workoholism. But I'm just a high functioning husk, high on antidepressants, surpressing everything that has happend to me. Sometimes projects I do are pretty cool and Id love to appreciate them, but as someone from low income family living in a world of rich people my achievements are mundane. My workoholism that helps me escape makes me constantly work, without letting me appreciate my sucesses. My trauma has shaped me, but I would not wish it on anyone else. These are some of the reasons people are antinatalist (apart from economic and enviromental reasons) I would never want to pass on the anguish of pushing through deadlines on anyone. There is no way to measure trauma, stop putting people into boxes.
I hate this over-use of the word traumatic. A trauma is an overwhelming expirience that gives you PTSD, a dianosable PTSD. It doesn't make you stronger. It afflicts you in serious, deeply harmfull ways. It means you will spend a good part of your live to even get to a place where you can live with it. It eats away a good portion of your live into something at least more-painfull then otherwise and your ability to grow is impacted (that is litteraly part of it). I have been and I know from others who actually have to fight w trauma. It has nothing to do with a challenge. It is hard, yes. But in a way that is exclusily hurtfull, exclusily hard. There is NOTHING good about it and this bs is just wrong. 'Post-traumatic growth' is growth after an ego-death maybe, or what she expirenced are challenges that also had negative affects on her (and might for someone else be genuinly traumatic - that can varry). It is not a trauma. It is a challenge. And yes, people grow more from challenge then just a nice live.
Not true. The word trauma describes a lot of things. It doesnt have to result in PTSD either. A break up can be traumatic to an individual. We are all individuals, some people are more sensitive naturally and can have things like a divorce being traumatic. You are gatekeeping pain at this point.
I think it’s important to point out that trauma is about what’s happening AFTER the incident not always the incident itself. My partner almost died not once but twice as a child but he grew up in a family that made him feel safe and cared for. He doesn’t feel traumatised at all and it doesn’t affect him as an adult. Maybe the break up could trigger some deeper wounding, maybe the person was neglected as a child therefore it can be more traumatic.
Well, I certainly do believe that hardship up to a point can create personal strength and individual growth. However, too much hardship without any hope can break a person and cause them to give up and stop trying. Also, there is something about people online saying that "hardship can help you" is also exactly what a person who experienced hardship wants to hear. Also it's preaching to the choir. Plus, I've heard other big investors say they heard a poor immigrant taking a Google job instead of likely going big by running their startup. And alternatively he met a rich kid work super hard at his startup. Also, I wouldn't use the logic of "hardship creates personal growth" as a justification to intentionally creating hardship in people's life. 11:18 That's a good point. She thinks people need trauma to grow, but she's helping her kids a lot.
Barbara saying her kids deserve their immense inherited wealth because they earned it by being dyslexic is hilarious
They will go to any lenght to excuse their nepotism and priviledge. But like go off, queen!
I’m not into that part of the video yet but by golly did that just make my face twist with cringe
No literally! Does she think being born into poverty means it’s impossible to be dyslexic???😂
that's such a distorted idea of care, too
I deserve to be rich because i am depressed and myopic.
The other weird thing about the post traumatic growth stuff, is that the growth doesn’t come from the trauma. It comes from the things people have to do to heal trauma, it comes from things like hope, peace, safety, and being connected with others and the world around you. Trauma can motivate people to put effort into those things (because you learn it’s necessary to ease your immediate suffering) but you don’t have to be traumatised to put effort into them, we can all benefit from that
Also I’d hate to work directly for a rich person. Firstly working for someone who believes they can use money to get whatever they want and buy people out sounds extremely unsafe. And also I used to work for a non-profit and I had to deal with some of our funders, it really put me off. I could easily write an essay on why
True but some people gotta learn the hard way, and some never learn.
I didn't recognize this. Thank you.
As a young carer/orphan the idea that I can use my trauma to succeed is so infuriating because trauma effects me everyday & whilst people employers/schools scream from the rooftops about so called 'positive dicrimination' it is always so superficial because the moment something goes wrong you'll be treated like a liability.
Liability is my middle name.
I’m sorry to hear that! 😢 All the best for you!
Yeah, i would assume that it would be about customizing the environment to allow different people to work efficiently as well, but no, it's just about not assuming anyone to be different.
My Adopted Sister from St Petersburg russia , had her father murdered... Our father died of cancer, my mom's house burned in her final year of school... her second house was destroyed in hurricane Ida a year later... after all of that she keeps going. She adopts horses 🐎 and works with animals... I can understand, she doesn't always trust people after two decades of trauma... she's tough, her attitude made me stop drinking and smoking... we don't get along all that well, However Iam so Proud of her Fight and Independent Spirt!!!
Im a basketcase yet people dont take me serious😂
Honestly, the concept of post-traumatic growth sounds basically like tortured artist myth 2.0...
Now with 100% more bootstraps!
Pick them up today!@@BB-te8tc
Yeah, I'm getting the vibe that people are getting over the tortured artist myth but still want ways to narritivize their lives but this time it's just manifesting in an even more pro-capitalist way... like many things
Pretty much. Post-traumatic growth is literally recovering from a debilitating mental illness. It's not a particularly romantic experience, although like everything in life, it has it's transcendent moments. I wish we could all stop mystifying these aspects of humanity
You can find this concept unrelated to art in Aeschylus, with the old concept "pathei mathos" (learning through pain). Probably tortured artist is post-traumatic growth 2.0 -
I think 'post traumatic growth' is used to sustain the myth that rich people deserve their wealth
And lends credence to bootstrappin' it. Don't you know you'll come out the other end stronger if you just keep going long enough?
@@rickyspeopleExactly! It's just a false consciousness in the end
What if you were born working class but you read books on how to retire rich and then you followed their instructions and end up with multiple properties and a bunch of money in the bank like me.
@@jmecklenborgSo I often think about Antonio Gramsci's idea of Hegemony, the idea that the dominant ideas in a society reflect and justify how wealth/power is distributed in that society. In that sense I'd say that it's not exactly "true" or "untrue" to say that anyone can become rich through hard work, but I do think that it's a *narrative* that we choose to employ, which currently functions to uphold a deeply unequal society.
@jmecklenborg starting by the fact I hardly believe "following instructions" on a "book" on how to get rich actually works, given that even proper economists die poor and that this kind of "literature" is an overt, well known, meme-worthy fraud machine, respectively:
1-good for you, now stop acting like a child and cease your passive aggressive behaviour (we can read your older comments) and start "reading books" on how to be a better person for this world (definitely calling simps other people here and there ain't the path)
2- understand that the reasons you got rich are also founded on a privilege, just like every other kind of power imbalance. Reifying it: you got rich because you had the moneys and the time to buy a book, because you lived in a country where you were teached to read, because you had the time and the possibility to actually developing the process (this goes from the presence of permissive political institutions, political opportunities and market conditions to mere physical and mental ability), because your material conditions were good enough to start with, because you didn't have to choose between "tryna get rich" and dinner (and if you did, ask yourself if that's sane), because you got a decent job that allowed you to save money, because you didn't die young due malaria in an african region and so on. Reality is that, even in the Us, inequality is growing fast and social and economic mobility is getting lower and lower. But the one's on "merit" is another kind of discours. I'm successful at school and at work, but I recognize that's up to an incredible amount of privileges and situations that I cannot even count. Hard work is just the last component of mundane success. And a lot of times it's also pretty toxic. There would be an essay to write on. Luckily, many are the sources you could find with a small google research, to begin with.
3- use your fresh money to help the people who were in your situation
4-possibly, do not perpetuate anti-scientific, aporophobic stereotypes (you were implying the classic "poors are just rich that can't manage their money", by posing that dumb [not genuine] question. Yes, this may as well be the case even if that wasn't your purpose. Ignoring the principles vehiculated by our words won't make them to do no harm).
Adieu
Poverty as a moral problem instead of a material problem. It always seems to be seen in that way
It's called just-world fallacy
the number of people suffering trauma and the number of billionaires somehow...
doesn't add up.
Great Point!
Honestly, I bet that the people who suffer trauma actually end up worse of than before. Go figure!
People keep giving "success" (whatever that is) and personal development a capitalist flair.
Hahahaha hilarious comment.laughed out loud
LOL good one 😂
One thing rich people need the poor struggling kid also, is to justify that the capitalist system is fair.
See that kid could build some status, so everyone can do it. My privileges are okay.
This!
There will always be poor people in whatever economic system you choose. Anti-Capitalism is nothing special in this regard. The only question is: how do you want your poverty, welfare sustained or workhouse sustained?
hi disco elysium profile pic :)
that game is good at showing that "trauma growth" is bullshit. Harry, Kim, Cuno, Cunoesse, Plaisance, Dros, and so many others are all traumatised and all it did was break them and make them worse. they can still heal, but they would have been better off without it
@@ManoverSupermanthat's just false. Poverty can be erradicated, just not under capitalism.
@@elpito9326Question is if it really can be eradicated in other systems than capitalism. Theoretically yes, but it doesn't seem like it's really achievable on a big scale. In an anonymous society, some people will always manage to acquire more resources than someone else. Either you need total supervision, which sounds very dystopian, or you need smaller groups of people where everyone knows each other. But with 8 billion people on Earth that sounds quite unrealistic to achieve apart from a few model communities that in my limited experience with them sometimes or often turn a bit sect-like.
On the other hand, for decades post WWII most people managed to get richer with capitalism as their country's economy grew. My family experienced that first hand in the German Wirtschaftswunder. A lot of Germans were starving/malnourished in the 40s post war, and then in the 50s the Big Eating began when suddenly people and the economy were so well off again that people could finally eat as much as they wanted. A lot subsequently became overweight in that time.
Just at some point, there was a decoupling between the growth of the economy and the wages, meaning only the top whatever percent (1? 2?) usually get richer while everyone else gets rather poorer as inflation goes on. Maybe this trend can be reversed, in the sense that also the majority of a population can benefit from economic growth again.
To a very large degree the behavior of this people is based on survivorship bias.... "It worked for me, so is it doesen't its the other persons fault"
the lady she was talking about though does give oppurtunities to people so it can work for them too right? People should definitely be held accountable for their success to a certain point obviously, I don't understand the mentality of not affording people that independence.
And a large amount of deluded solipsism. Because randomness and determinism are dead, we can only have "free will and personal responsibility" as a society. Because inderstanding societal habitus and constructs and their dynamics is too complicated.
I had a poor friend who, as an adult going thru college, started a small pool cleaning business. His primary customers were multi-millionaires. He told me the most obnoxious abusive employers were the nouveau riche. Those who were "old money" treated him quite well but were completely out of touch and had no idea how the average middle-class person lived (much less low income).
A friend of mine used to work as a mover, and he would tell the same thing. I used to work retail in a "good" part of town and can subscribe to that as well
Barbara is a saleswoman through and through. I don't doubt for a second that saying all that stuff about overcoming trauma wasn't purposely planned out for myth building around her name.
You're absolutely right, I think that like most people she learn to sell herself and her story, doesn't matter if she believes in it or ever think that when she was going through it.
She comes of as narcissistic
Seeing trauma as character development is crazyyyy
Eh I think it can be a useful perspective to process and integrate certain experiences. I also think it’s probably a good thing rich folks specifically give some opportunities to people who are struggling. Then again sometimes it can turn a little weird with some of the examples Alice gives…
Yeah, especially since, interpersonally, when I talk about my trauma as an individual in any other sense external to concocting ways I can "turn it around" to make money off it, I'm usually met with all types of blank silences, empty, bored stares, all types of topic/conversation changes, and the like, so clearly the reality is people DON'T care about trauma, even as a form of character development, unless there's some way you can get over it financially or emotionally, usually via numbing out and pretending like it doesn't still hurt as much as it does. And not to sound completely doomerist about it, but it's usually only a matter of concern when somebody can either make money off of you for it or when they're tryna convince you to uphold capitalist hegemony by telling you that you can learn how to use it to do that yourself!
Honestly, I sometimes wish people would stop pretending like they care about the trauma conversation since, aside from this video, even most Breadtube/Leftubers don't mention it at all since they likely weren't raised in it and only mention it in the context of how a boss doesn't let you control more of your life, which is indeed ONE TYPE of trauma, but failing to connect that to the whole in terms of oppression as trauma and what that looks like on a more everyday level for real poor people, not just people with a bunch of office jobs and degrees they don't use, would be helpful, but I'm ranting lol. I'm not confident at times that some of them have the range how Alice does on this channel. There's only a couple of other people I've seen have the range, like Kat Blaque, Bryony Claire, Thought Slime, ItHadToBeSaid, and Pernicious Chattel, but they can't do all the work for all the other channels alone, but anyway.
******** *TL;DR:* More conversations on how people's pain shouldn't be seen as just another commodity to capitalize off of in the Sigma Grindset Industrial Complex of life need to be had, and I'm glad this video exists and speaks to this in a great way. I wish other channels did more of the same! 😄
Good or bad, character is gonna develop
@StillGamingTM yes great copium, it's either that or religious delusion. Anything but reality
They literally think they're y/n
1:51 It’s giving “Hey, I suffered for 30 years and ensure that you wouldn’t have to so why aren’t you suffering like I am? Hardship and grit are your friends. You are so spoiled.”
Right. Having had my share of trauma from an early age it mostly made me unable to connect with people. And incredibly insecure and lacking drive. No point in trying, we´ll all die anyway.
I am automatically skeptical of anyone sitting in a place of wealth and influence who claims they're versed in hardships. I've heard a lot of rags-to-riches stories from people who actually grew up further from the poverty line than me. Too many to just take their stories at face value.
You cannot make a horse work itself to death with just a carrot in front of its face. You have to starve it, whip it, make it think it is in mortal danger, and then it will literally run until it dies. And people suffering from ptsd, you could say, never feel safe, even if they literally are. Greed alone can do horrors, but the foot soldiers that make it happen aren't doing what they do because of simple avarice.
Me only getting into yoga after almost dying from being run over (In a good way, though. I'll do yoga till I die)
Paternalistic, aren't they?
No one will allow a system to be changed if they benefit from that system, so they find ways to justify its worst offences.
By the way, Alice, I love how you make friends with your subject before pulling out the knife.
I think you could have spent much longer in this on the self-justification here. The fact is that wealthy people become wealthy by abusing others. In order to reckon with that contradiction it is helpful to the mental health of the rich to tell themselves that their over-working of poor people is a gift which will help the poor to succeed. Without this narrative they would have to acknowledge at least some part of their villainy.
Intellectuals always like to think they're more virtuous than the "wealthy", but if we were to shine a light on their behavior, they're just as bad.
This.
Right?! Like when I saw all them butlers standing there like a bunch of AI robots waiting for their next task, I holleredt!!! This is slavery, love!!! What is glorified about this? Dignified, even? Do they not see this???? If I see it, I know they have to see but can't say anything until they get home, unless they're forced to live on the property in the guest house.
The gag is, being around rich people and celebrities doesn't immediately confer opportunities to you, and I know this from personal experience. You, as the poor person, are still doing all of the work, especially the ideological legwork of assuming responsibility for every aspect of the dynamic, because if you say anything or take issue with any one thing, you come off as ungrateful and not worth working with, and then you may become blackballed (not saying that happened to me but just saying for the topic), and then you go back to right where you started: struggling through life alone by yourself so you never really have the freedom to speak up and do what you want frfr when around them. Maybe this is painting it with too broad a brush stroke, but yeah.
Like some of them are actually nice as people, but you can really only appreciate that when you ignore the very large, very loud, bright pink elephant in the room of their wealth compared to yours and the existential dilemma of why you have to do so much more for the same sh!t they have by virtue of most, if not all of them, having got into their industries wayyy before you when they were at a much earlier stage (less saturated/standardized/tech- and location-dependent) and before the tanked economy we have today, the people they were lucky to meet (nepotism), what they already started off with (nepo babies specifically), etc.
This is so true omg
Depends on how the wealth was made. I'm not seeing how, say, an NBA or NFL draft pick, abused others (off-the-sports-field) en route to his newfound pro career.....
Be carefull kids if you experience just a bit too much trauma you may not want to work or exist. It's very important! Suffer in moderation!
*chef's kiss* ah, just a tasteful amount of pain and suffering 😆
Too late?
I mean i sort of see where they are coming from. I had a pretty traumatic and neglectful childhood and the feeling of never being “enough” and the background anxiety of my day to day being has driven me and drives me daily to have quite a successful career. Theres a lot of survivors bias in that though. This hasnt been the case for the majority of other people I knew that grew up in similar circumstances. Most of them ended up dependent on substances and having other struggles. and these rich people sound positively vampiric looking to capitalise on the trauma of others.
Indeed it's well known and statistically proven that the more 'adverse childhood experiences' someone experiences, the more likely they are to abuse drugs, be obese, go to jail, etc etc. Not surprising really. People living with ACEs score lower on measures of resilience and emotion regulation as well, so this idea of 'the right amount of trauma' - the right amount seems to be as little as possible.
Thanks, I came here to write essentially this. This video is interesting, and I'm happy to see this topic discussed, but I would have liked to see some discussion of the survivorship bias (exactly as you said) going on here. For every traumatized kid who goes on to be successful and gets to go on podcasts to talk about how their hardship forged them, how many others in similar situations fared far worse? For that matter, we don't get to find out what would have happened to those successful people if they hadn't experienced hardship. Best case, it feels like a coping mechanism to make sense of terrible experiences. At worst, it feels very apologetic for the many systems that exist to create these conditions, like saying "see? poverty, neglect and abuse are good, actually!"
Not to mention the lasting harmful effects that exist for even those that do succeed despite bad conditions. It's not exactly a perk, y'all.
I’ve worked for rich ppl in the Seattle golf club, this is like the 1% of old money in the city, generational wealth that will never go away. And the amount of bs and actual abuse I had to take because of how entitled rich snobs are was insane. I was also A MINOR, 16 years old. Money burns holes into peoples brains.
Which club? I’m from Seattle so I’m curious!
@@kammyyedor4225 The Seattle Golf Club. Memberships (if I can recall, don't quote me) are like 50k to get in and the yearly cost is like 10k.
Perhaps the trauma rich people should worry about, is the dehumanizing effect their own piles of money have on them
I once hear from a friend that she overheard the wealthy One percent old money ppl she was around talking about how the poor/even middle class "don't deserve to breathe the same air as them". That statement changed my life. I couldn't believe a fellow human could say such words about their own. Money truly is the root of all evil.
@@iamdisgustedNah money isn't evil, humans are just evil, 99% of people think the same, you'd be suprised how most of us will change, including yourself, if a billion dollars suddenly drops in your acc.
The only difference between poor and rich poeple is that they get away w actually doing their evil thoughts and acts.
Rich people steal, cheat, rob, kill, kidnap, blackmail, do drugs, bribe, have intrusive thoughts, are filled with hatred & jealousy and so does the poor man.
I know poor/middle class people with the giant egos, "better than you" mentality and narcissim bigger than actual rich/powerful people.
If they get rich, they would be actual "monsters" too, like the ones you mentioned, but remember, they aren't even rich yet.
Infact we see this power craze in play when non wealthy people get a position of authorithy were they "get to tell you what to do" e.g police, security, teacher, even frickin mods on social media apps.
If you don't still get my overall ideology, here's a little story.
I recently read that an heir of the DuPont company, a generationally wealthy family r@ped his 3 year old daughter, that really boiled my blood, and I'm sure it will make yours too.
People easily blamed his generational wealth, evil money and evil family, meanwhile poor men are r@ping underaged girls every day (especially in 3rd world countries) with nobody seeming to care enough.
Even if people get mad at the poor pedo, no one seems to blame their financial situation, meanwhile for the rich man, its the money people only seem to think about.
I know this because a man r@ped his 2 year old daughter at my town. He is not rich. He was poor, but people cared lees, let that been a wealthy known man, even the aliens in the moon would have heard of the news and indirectly blamed wealth.
On average poor people do very despicable things to get money than rich people do on a day to day basis.
There's a reason why the "ghetto" or the "streets" is a thing.
Like I said, it's not the money, money is merely a key for most humans to act on how they truly want to act, and get away with it.
If money was evil, then you're guranteeing you would turn to a bad person if you get rich, do you believe that about yourself? No
You are a good non-rich person, so you might be a good rich person.
Most people use their truama to hurt others (they continue the cycle) Most people their riches to hurt others. Some people use their riches to help others, some people use their trauma to help others ( to break the cycle).
So if you think about it,
Poverty is the root of all evil as much as wealth is. To round that up, both poverty and wealth are mostly just an after math or tool used by the real problem: people.
People are evil.
Yes, people with money have the best intentions for the world. We should take their word as gospel 🙄
Rich people ARE obsessed with poor kids. So true. I remember an evening I spent talking to a lawyer years ago about the worrying fact that studies showed poor children heard “x number fewer words” than richer children, or something. My take was that IF there were such a thing as a “culture of poverty”, then that was a culture too…?
Yeah, a rich culture where they enjoy the dehumanizing fantasy of poorer people just having *ZERO DESIRE* *how they do* of, idk, *READING* , or *HAVING NEW EXPERIENCES* , or *TRAVELING* or *TRYING NEW FOOD* , or *LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE FOR JOY NOT NECESSITY* , but silly us for not being rich like them to be able to fully appreciate all of life's juicy, wealthy, and abundant luxuries like learning since our brains aren't built Ford tough in the same way! Our sheaths aren't myelinated like theirs, so we're unable to comprehend any and all language *other than what they bark at us in the workplace* when we earn our meager peasant wages! 😄😄😄😄(/s)
I had a traumatic event happen when i was 14 which has resulted in PTSD, Night terrors, SH, ED and Sleep paralysis. I think that I would be better off without it tbh. I am 26, i always wanted to be a scientist but in school i was struggling too much with my mental health and my teachers told me that they didn’t think that i would cope with the stress of a-level science. I now work in a creative industry, which i do enjoy, but i think that the notion that trauma makes you stronger is bollucks. Trauma makes you exhausted, yes i work hard and I have a lot of drive but I had that prior to my trauma. My trauma has made life harder. So dumb
1:42 the problem here is that if you experienced this kind of trauma and become a "high achiever", you subconsciously think that you are only worthy of love/care/attention if you achieve and do things. I developed a chronic illness due to stress because I could not relax or take time off, always afraid I'm not doing enough.
100% agree with you. As a person who survived childhood abuse, you feel like you need to constantly prove to everyone and to yourself that you are worthy. Worthiness = money, success, perfectionism. My brother became very successful, makes really good money and is very respected in his field. Is he happy? No . Did he receive the approval of our parents that he needed? No.
I am finally accepting that I won’t be successful the way the society wants me and I’m okay with that.
I can only recall what Viktor Frankl once said "he must live BESIDES trauma, not THROUGH trauma"
I feel deeply mistrustful of those who broadcast they're doing good. We should do good because it's the right thing to do, not because people see us doing it.
HELLO!?! Someone gets it!
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,"
Matthew 6:3
That then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We only see the people that are virtue signaling and those that aren't we won't see giving us the perception that world is even worse than it really is.
Also, without that virtue signaling we would have even less wealthy people at least attempt to spend their money on beneficial things and hoard it for even longer. It's not the best solution, but it's at least a start of a solution we can hopefully build of and do consistently good things with
All trauma ever caused for me was incessant self-doubt and low self-esteem
Trauma can make or break a person....my friend life changed to better after suffering trauma...so I think it all depend on the individual
@@balajiraju4157 You only know it from the outside. You can't know what the trauma did to them inside. This is a dangerous way of thinking. It's pro-trauma when you think about it.
This kinda reminds me of the Good Damage episode in Bojack Horseman, where Diane feels like she HAS to turn her trauma into something useful to others, in her book of essays. She felt pressured to turn all her past trauma and damage into something that people can feel comfort from, especially for young girls similar to her past self
So I watched the show and forgot about that. Wish I didn't because I made it my job for a hot minute to do so. Oof
Barbara is the type of person that since she didn't get any sympathy or help while she was growing, she refuses to give it to other. If i didnt have it, nobody will.
She actually refuses to grow as a person.
Good video. The doctrine discussed here sounds like just another version of, "Your hardships are no excuse, you're just not working hard enough."
Yeah I had some hardcore trauma as a kid and it didn't make me stronger or help me in any way, it actually really makes everything a struggle, even in a good situation.
I feel like this relates to Lauren Berlant's idea of Cruel Optimism: "when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing." By saying that people can "use" their trauma to gain success, they're spending time trying to justify that whilst losing the ability to come to terms with their trauma
Is that Barbara Ehrenreich? she wrote similar thing
@@userabn214 I'm actually not familiar with her, I learnt about Berlant's Cruel Optimism through a lecture on the relation between neoliberalism and the rise of sports culture among young white men :)
@@wildcatJK She was like a perfect complement to Michael Moore's work imo, and has recently since passed away. She wrote often on the experiences of the working class poor before much of today's political discourse in its current form stepped onto the scene, and has also written books about religiously-tinged toxic positivity during cancer and other diseases people experience, where they're supposed to be thankful for their conditions and not pissed off, and she wrote a couple other ones, but that's all I know off the top of my head. She's good, you should check her out if you're looking for a rec.
@@axeslinger94 Wow, thank you!
The key takeaway here is that the rich love the poor so much, they'll invest whatever they have to keep them there.
Well a lot of people dont realise the simple economic fact that you need poor people to have rich people. If everybody became a millionaire overnight, guess what would happen to the price of everything and inflation? I.e if everybody has millions, producers wont sell bread for its current price, they want a proportionate piece of those millions
Rich people love a “Cinderella story” because it reinforces their delusion that hard work always equals their idea of success. But capitalism is a beast that thrives on inequality.
Communist sure love talking bad about capitalism they seem to everyone to be equal but most people don’t work hard
Yet capitalism is actually meritocratic
But you lazy bums refyse to work
and even Cinderella's didn't have their reward for hardwork, instead for her beauty, and also, she had a rich father, so...
It's funny because this also doesn't just apply to rich people but institutions and organisations, such as employers and universities. When applying and writing your personal statement / essay for university, you're encouraged to write about any hardships you've faced and how that has helped you to grow / overcome those challenges. I understand where it comes from because like you said Alice, people want to know or feel like you've earned your successes and / or social standing and deserve an opportunity. But it invalidates how hard life can be generally and further encourages the idea of having the "right amount of trauma", it goes past identifying privilege. Very interesting video, particularly when you talked about how people's trauma doesn't necessarily make them more empathetic / driven but more so makes them THINK they are.
In the USA, there’s a big labor movement for domestic workers called National Domestic Workers Alliance NDWA. I suggest you share this video and this organization with people if you know anyone who’s dealing with these issues
It's not the trauma that makes us better, it's the coping techniques we learn to deal with it.
I feel like this is ultimately a justification for subjecting people to greater and greater income inequality and poor conditions because, at face value, "the correct amount of trauma" could mean not too much or not too little, but, practically, I think, it will ultimately resolve in society to mean "you haven't suffered enough". It also seems to suggest that if we're neglectful of those in need, we're actually helping them somehow, by moving them towards the correct amount of trauma.
It's exists to justify growing income inequality.
And it's such a circular issue at that point, since who gets to decide when another person has had enough pain for "growth"??? That's literally why the entirety of Breadtube exists!!! 😆
@@axeslinger94 those who have been fortunate to succeed will decide and the decision will always be "you haven't suffered enough", because there will always be a story about someone going through more adversity, true or not, to throw around when it's convenient.
One of my childhood trauma is that achieving something didn't bring any reward and even brought hate towards me. For more than a decade, I have been unable to feel proud about my achievements
I hate to say this, but from what I've heard you might be a perfect fit for academia
Super good! I guess my traumas were major seat backs and I had this slogan on my forehead for a long time: to be successful or die trying. Nowadays, after having achieved a college degree, lived abroad, three languages under my belt, I'm tired. Tired to try to impress who doesn't give a f* for what I do. I still like to cultivate my hustle side. Makes me feel empowered, but my idea of success is definitely changing and I'm trying to be happy with who I am and what I have today.
Thanks for your video. You are getting my critical thinking way better. ❤
This reminds me of the System justification theory from Jost and Banaji.
„People are motivated to rationalize and justify instances of inequality in order to preserve and defend the legitimacy of the system.”
I think one important point to make here is that we all experience hardship in one way or another but hardship is not trauma. There are some guidelines as to what is considered traumatic- ie. Big T's and little t's, although I know this list could be expanded upon.
I also think it's highly important to point out, outside of one's own tenacity, there are many missing social supports and structures that help one to truly overcome trauma. This can range from lack of financial access, the overwhelming lack of truly good doctors and therapists (because certifications aside they are not equal), access to affordable housing and healthy food…. The list is large. If the ceiling of your life is crumbling around you it does little good for rich people to cheer you on in your struggle, claiming that it will build character.
I might make a video response to this topic. Thank you Alice for opening the conversation.
There's a quote from a queer rights activist in the 70s, USA, about being a battering ram to take down the obstacles that they'd had to face.
I heard one person describe their politics as coming from a place of being tired of watching people suffer.
I think I like Guardians 3 so much because it has a theme of never letting anyone else go through the same things you went through.
There an old PBS documentary that discuses a similar topic and they described the concept as the “Dandelion” and the “Orchid”. Some people are resilient and adaptable, they can thrive in any environment, while others need a lot of care and attention.
Post-Traumatic Growth sounds like the inevitable spinoff of the long-running series called Pulling Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps
People succeed in spite of their trauma, not because of it.
Def trauma make you unable to function
You sissies see everything as trauma
The second clip about how trauma can make you a high achiever: this is exactly how you get perfectionism which is counter productive.
Having seen several interviews with Barbara, most very favorable to her, she is definitely more about having someone "grateful" and subservient to her.
These arguments are so disingenuous. Yes, trauma shapes people. Rich and poor are traumatized and often in the same ways, or incredibly similar. There is zero way to know how a person would have turned out if their circumstances growing up were different.
I do think that people that grew up poor should have people specifically on the look out for them to help them. There are so many things rich kids see, hear, and have access to that poor people have zero idea about. Just Barbara is not that kind of person. That kind of person, you will likely never hear about them. They know how easy it is for the establishment to get pissed and push an avalanche on them. How tenuous life and comfort can be, and how incredibly lucky they were at key moments. They definitely took advantage of the opportunities, worked hard for what they have, and were intelligent about things, but chance also plays a big role.
In psychology there are two distinct concepts about this. One about the tortured kid being an achiever is about the coping mechanism a child develops to survive childhood, much like becoming a people pleaser or doing drugs. The concept of post traumatic growth is about the growth and maturity that happens one you've started healing your trauma in therapy,so not every traumatized person experiences it. The thing is, these things are not necessarily tied to earning a lot of money, it could be about plenty of other things, tangible or not.
Putting aside the class politics, trauma for me was definitely an impetus for growth. Initially, it was hampering for my growth, as I was too shaken by anxiety and doubt to venture far outside of my comfort zone. Then, upon reaching self-awareness and a cathartic conclusion, I was swelled with a relentless energy to find meaning and purpose in life. Similar to how Nietzsche described the sensation of one laughing at obstacles once one has ascended a mountain.
For every poor person that makes it 100 rich people also do.
I also want to say that this was the exact mindset of Diane Nguyen from Bojack Horseman. She was desperately trying to find her purpose in great big meaning through her work. She said that she hoped all of the things that she went through would eventually mean something and that she didn't suffer for no reason. Because she would look back and think, "what was it all for?" and not realize that, in life, sometimes you just go through things, sometimes things just happen to you, and you have to move on. There's no runner's tape at the end with everyone waiting to congratulate you for getting past the pain. There is no reward for all that you've endured. The only satisfaction you have sometimes is the fact that you're still here.
Yes, if the events are traumatic enough it can ignite a certain fighting spirit to not be trampled over and to soar to new heights. But the reason why people like Diane "fizzle out" and don't become super amazing is because they just needed to save themselves and live what they consider to be a normal life. Just the feeling of normality is good enough for some people.
To be honest rich people give poor people money and resources not because they want to help them but because they want to feel big and better also its good advertising
I don't know if anybody remembers the show Mr. Show with Bob and David. They had a sketch about this that has always stuck with me. Parents being taught how to be mean to their children so that they will grow up to be great artists or writers or whatever. I realized then that I would rather be a happy nobody than a traumatized rich person.
I could tell in the first 15 or 20 seconds you were gonna turn this thing around, and O thank you for that. Post traumatic growth is the psycho babble equivalent of an MD telling you the leg you lost in the war will grow back some day if you work hard enough at it. 🙄
This idea that we need struggle to motivate ourself makes me also think about the emerging debate around minimal revenue and stuff like that. This idea that if you struggle enough, you would be motivated enough to get a job (event tho apparently studies tend to show that it has no effects.
If you live in developed countries it may have no effect ...but in a developing country you have to struggle to succeed....you guys are very ignorant and no idea how real world works
Yeah the post traumatic growth thing just sounds ridiculous to me. know I am in a period of personal growth, but that only came not as a result of trauma but of working in therapy to heal and improve myself, and by having the means (time, space, funds) to be able to do so. And im still dealing with the reprecussions of that trauma and its not something that I will really ever want to look at as good for me. Like I have learned lessons and its defined how I grow and move through the world sure, but a good thing for me? Fuck no its a thing that happened and I can understand why some would rather frame it positively, but for me I would rather accept it forgive myself for the hurt and move toward being a caring person. Like being caring takes consistent and persistent effort its not something you get by following a life recipe of 1/2 cups trauma and a quart false positivity or whatever these people are selling. (i had a lot more to say than I thought, hope this makes sense)
they think if you are starving it will make you work harder. in reality it just makes you starve to death while dealing with compounding health issues that cripple
PTG is why i dropkick happy kids on the streets… give them abit of trauma for a better future.
There is quite a difference between the effects of trauma and the concept of how exposure to daily challenges/difficulties help shape psychological resilience.
The later is a prominent theory in development psychology and the former is a recognized clinical pattern of sickness. One helps you assimilate new observations of the world into your world view, the other shatters the very basic understanding of reality… using the word „trauma“ in their speech just shows how shallow the level of depth they reach in their analysis.
Having gone through a downward social mobility from middle/high to the brinks of poverty i got to experience firsthand the effects of economic status and how it can curb your development.
Statements that claim otherwise normally all come from a place that inherently wants to assert certain power structures in society, and affirm their self perception.
Maybe it's true that having an hard childood makes you face reality sooner. But this doesn't mean that who experienced trauma it's atuomatically a better person. In fact, this kind of narrative serves to deprive of responsability trauma affected people, making them more difficult to understand their emotional immaturity.
Thanks for sharing such illuminating posts about what makes our world tick 😊 Keep up the awesome work 💯💯💯
This trauma as a currency is precisely why I struggle to enjoy any form of success, or even feel safe/comfortable in work environments.
Finally, a video addressing real inequality!
Keep up the good work.
the notion of post-traumatic growth exists to soothe the consciences of those who commit or overlook abuse. the victim gets something positive from their abuse so it's almost good for them? getting a lot of christian martyr vibes from it tbh. along the lines of mother theresa's insistence that poverty and suffering are holy.
Gotta include the christian bashing
Jewish propaganda at his finest glad you guys sre falling
Please stop misrepresenting Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa told the poor that they're suffering could be transformed into something great if they saw at as an opportunity to come close to Christ. Suffering by itself is not good and is a misrepresentation of what she thought.
how is an opportunity to become closer to christ not something holy? this is a bad pitch; i'd rather get closer to some ketamine
that ending; longest built up slap in the video essay format
Literally every homeless person had a traumatic upbringing. Literally zero CEOs were raised homeless
I think the Tale of "post traumatic growth" is a narrative we have to tell ourselves to make sense of the world after hardships. It is psychologically helpful but not necessarily an objective truth.
I don’t think my trauma made me strong. For some people, I think saying so might be a coping mechanism like “i suffered a lot but at least I got something positive out of it”
Notice how literally everyone here brags on how traumatized they are😂
Feminism is the word for basket case
Post traumatic growth is a real phenomenon reported by many people across all cultures in the world. But as many psychological concepts today it is often misrepresented and misunderstood by people and media.
As Tedeshi & Calhoun put it “Growth does not occur as a direct result of trauma; rather, it is the individual's struggle with the new reality in the aftermath of trauma that is crucial in determining the extent to which posttraumatic growth occurs.”
Trauma is not a requirement for growth. And thus should not be sought after or celebrated. But growth despite trauma is a phenomenon that does happen. And is a testament to the resilience of the human will. Also, growth and psychological distress can and most often do occur concurrently. So, even if individuals who experience trauma report significant growth they also suffer significantly.
The phrase "Survivor's bias" comes to mind. Yes, it can be used as a motivator, but the "right amount of trauma" idea implies that anyone who experiences trauma and then struggles emotionally or financially is inherently bad or lazy.
I work with children with disabilities in a deprived part of Dublin and the idea that a lack of toughness or discipline is the reason people are in a bad financial situation makes my blood boil. It is a 7 year wait in our area to access public disability services due to lack of staffing and nothing is being done at a national level to solve the crisis. The parents of these kids are the toughest people i know and don't have the time or opportunity to become an entrepreneur because they want their child to reach their full potential. Theyve been left behind by a system that only values economic productivity.
Thank you for this video! Highly thoughtful thesis. I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology and was just doing critical work on PTG -- you may be interested in exploring the concept of post-traumatic depreciation (PTD) too. Some studies look at how they go together, which begs the question: after trauma, what "grows" in value? What depreciates?
Success is 20% hard work, 80% luck (being born rich).
Not quite.
This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name.
Sorry, I’ll see myself out now
Think you added a 0 to that 2 by accident
Mexico has a really bad case of this.
We are told that if we suffer and work hard, very very hard, we will become like the rich people, and thus we have some of the lowest number of vacation days in the world and a minimum wage that is still really really low.
We are living a reality of "you'll own nothing and be thankful for it" and I hate it.
From the copium of religion to the copium of liberalism. People have lost reality completely.
As a Greek person living in poverty, I too have intense financial insecurity and I'm a great slave. I'm the best slave, I can't wait to immigrate to Netherlands to be the best slave for the least money they can offer just because I can rent a house which is something I can't do in my country. Can I get a goldstar for being an amazing slave please? That's how I've learned to survive!
It is astonishing how good your commentary is structured, youre a star at this alice
Yeah especially all the facts she leaves out on purpose so brilliant
I also think she’s overcompensating too she might be rich and successful but she might also feel unsatisfied and want “more” thus she wants to help “poor people” as a way to feel better. I thought that way with helping people struggling emotionally in life but in the end I ended up drained, unfulfilled, and unsatisfied and now working on myself and not doing all that; I hardly felt fulfilled sometimes I felt used tbh
Thank you for another essay Alice, you sometimes remind me of Adam ruins everything and I am loving it
What I thought listening to you was that we already know our brains have a hard time abandoning a project we have invested a lot on, especially if you had precarious resources to begin with. We just want to feel we made the right choice, and our minds crave that cognitive coherence. That is partly why we love the underdog trope so much, because we can see bits of ourselves in them (since life always brings a relative dose of suffering), and they give us the opportunity to see what it is like when everything ends well, when a person makes the right choices in spite of early suffering. "Oh boy do I wish I was like that, maybe I will try again!" But this narrative is a double-edged sword, of course. The problematic edge is the one brought by the hegemonic narrative of the poor-to-rich trope, "You too can become rich! Just keep on working your ass off and have faith!" And there is no guarantee the trope will come through. But because of that same craving for cognitive coherence, we avoid the stories where the choices people made didn't compensate the suffering they went through; we hate to see resources wasted, mistakes made, homes in bankrupcy, morals broken and cut losses. It is a reminder that we do not have as much control in the consequences of our actions as we want to believe. And that causes stress. So the underdog/poor-to-rich tropes are wishful and optimistic archetypes of a lifestyle in a very specific society obsessed with sum-zero games, market competitiveness, capital accumulation and so on. I am traumatized too, where is my growth?? :ccc
As someone who suffers from symptoms of ptsd, it honnestly pisses me off when i have to hear rich people tell me that i have a "gift". When i hear about post traumatic growth it just makes me feel more like a failure.
It has to be exactly the right type of trauma to benefit you. The neglected stay neglected.
Lukewarm take: Barbara says these things on a TV show primarily because its viewership is poor/working people who like to see a rich person denied something for once which brings viewership. (not that it isn’t satisfying, but actually empowering poor people would look v different as many other commenters have expanded upon)
Thank you so much for this video. I really needed this. As someone who has experienced almost every Adverse Childhood Experience and living with chronic PTSD I felt suspicious of this concept and now I understand why.
Jesus Christ is everyone here a fucking basket case
Chronic PTSD😂
Makes sebse because you have to be delusional to believe the crap she spees
Love the video! Such a fascinating analysis. One thing I was thinking about as I watched: This relabeling of trauma as an advantage that motivates people to success is often used as an excuse to not feel empathy towards them. By describing trauma as an advantage that rich kids don't have access to, the dynamic of who the "real" disadvantaged kids are shifts away from the poor kids and towards the rich kids. And it gives people license to not bother to feel bad or have any responsibility to address the often systemic causes of that trauma. It makes me think of situations in which I was that relatively "trauma motivated" person and being in situations where I felt pressured to view it as good for me and to feel bad for ore advantaged people who didn't have to go through that. It was an uncomfortable situation that drove home an unhealthy power differential.
The Maid's Daughter by Mary Romero is one of my favorite books and it is about this specific issue. The sociologist author conducted extensive interviews with the daughter of a maid for a rich family and wrote about her life. The rich family put a lot of pressure on the maid's daughter (often in the form of financial or networking opportunities) to become part of the family and essentially take the place of their actual children who were poorly behaved and much less successful than they had hoped. This caused the maid's daughter to question her identity as she did not want to be part of the rich family, but the opportunities were difficult to pass up. It is a highly engaging read with great sociological analysis throughout.
When people say that with conservatives, the cruelty is the point - the idea of "the right amount of trauma" is a perfect example of a justification for this kind of belief system. Just because we learn from difficult experiences, it doesn't actually follow that people are better when we harm them - but it's a plausible excuse if you secretly just want to hurt people.
This reminds me of daine in bojack horse man when she speak about her trauma having to mean something or it's useless
Idk how to feel about Post Traumatic Cope
On one hand there are people that take bad experiences and use that to drive themselves. And other people the same bad experiences crush them and in both cases it might not be their fault how they react to trauma.
You can make a system supportive for people not having to rely as much on willpower and having to take big risks to help get them a lift up in life
But at the same time we are confused about what outcomes we want as a society. Is it economics, is it wellbeing? Is it addressing inequality ?What if people have wildly dramatically different views of wellbeing?
Secondly on nepotism. I think this is normal and natural at any class level. People favour those who they are more familiar with or related too.
The question is why does society have to rely on rich peoples decisions in re allocation of resources versus making a system that allows for systemic decisions that don't require shaming to enforce
These people have never owned a house plant. Trauma and neglect did not make my plant grow better.
It might motivate you to success but probably not in a very healthy way. Great video, Alice!
The idea that effort is always rewarded is the greatest bullshit of our age.
singalling virtue is a vice. is your hustle that you are socially concious??
I’ve known this for years and I’m counting on it for the success of my business. Rich people absolutely LOVE a rags to riches story.
I think it’s because
Diane Nguyen : Because if I don't, that means that all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing.-Bojack Horseman
Grande vidéo! I think that phenomenon stems from American optimism. Americans have to believe suffering will lead to something good or they would have to confront the fact that they needlessly suffered. It also shifts the focus away from the elites who actually cause people to suffer.
I tell fellow poor kids to frame their school/scholarship application essays in terms of inviting the reader on a "hero's journey" because people with money love that shit and they don't understand much else.
🇨🇦 Thanks for all you’ve done for us. I do agree with you how image & illusion doesn’t mean coins, bills 💵 or money
Shark Tank is the perfect show to watch if you are looking to die a little inside
As someone with clinical depression, anxiety, bpd and abusive alcoholic parent, sure I have a masters degree in art (during wich I have worked through all of my uni experience and did not make as much connections and have half assed it in order to work) sure I make money, sure I have a strong work ethic bordering on workoholism. But I'm just a high functioning husk, high on antidepressants, surpressing everything that has happend to me.
Sometimes projects I do are pretty cool and Id love to appreciate them, but as someone from low income family living in a world of rich people my achievements are mundane. My workoholism that helps me escape makes me constantly work, without letting me appreciate my sucesses.
My trauma has shaped me, but I would not wish it on anyone else. These are some of the reasons people are antinatalist (apart from economic and enviromental reasons) I would never want to pass on the anguish of pushing through deadlines on anyone.
There is no way to measure trauma, stop putting people into boxes.
I hate this over-use of the word traumatic. A trauma is an overwhelming expirience that gives you PTSD, a dianosable PTSD. It doesn't make you stronger. It afflicts you in serious, deeply harmfull ways. It means you will spend a good part of your live to even get to a place where you can live with it. It eats away a good portion of your live into something at least more-painfull then otherwise and your ability to grow is impacted (that is litteraly part of it). I have been and I know from others who actually have to fight w trauma. It has nothing to do with a challenge. It is hard, yes. But in a way that is exclusily hurtfull, exclusily hard. There is NOTHING good about it and this bs is just wrong.
'Post-traumatic growth' is growth after an ego-death maybe, or what she expirenced are challenges that also had negative affects on her (and might for someone else be genuinly traumatic - that can varry). It is not a trauma. It is a challenge. And yes, people grow more from challenge then just a nice live.
Not true. The word trauma describes a lot of things. It doesnt have to result in PTSD either. A break up can be traumatic to an individual. We are all individuals, some people are more sensitive naturally and can have things like a divorce being traumatic. You are gatekeeping pain at this point.
@@michalovesanime I am not gatekeeping pain. Pain and trauma are not the same, that's the entire point.
I think it’s important to point out that trauma is about what’s happening AFTER the incident not always the incident itself. My partner almost died not once but twice as a child but he grew up in a family that made him feel safe and cared for. He doesn’t feel traumatised at all and it doesn’t affect him as an adult.
Maybe the break up could trigger some deeper wounding, maybe the person was neglected as a child therefore it can be more traumatic.
@@rosex93 I haven't tried to define what truma causes, and I am not trying to. I was saying truma means you have PTSD.
Well, I certainly do believe that hardship up to a point can create personal strength and individual growth.
However, too much hardship without any hope can break a person and cause them to give up and stop trying.
Also, there is something about people online saying that "hardship can help you" is also exactly what a person who experienced hardship wants to hear.
Also it's preaching to the choir.
Plus, I've heard other big investors say they heard a poor immigrant taking a Google job instead of likely going big by running their startup.
And alternatively he met a rich kid work super hard at his startup.
Also, I wouldn't use the logic of "hardship creates personal growth" as a justification to intentionally creating hardship in people's life.
11:18 That's a good point.
She thinks people need trauma to grow, but she's helping her kids a lot.