Go Back to Roboklahoma!

[vovat]

Penn & Teller's Bullshit!: Self Esteem - The point basically seemed to be that the obsession with self-esteem has led to ridiculousness and narcissism. In a way I agree, because I'm sick of people asking each other if they're happy. Maybe they were before you forced them to THINK about it! And yes, the life coaches and hypnotherapists are obviously bullshit artists. On the other hand, I know quite a few people with truly low self-esteem that impacts their lives in negative ways. Then again, people who hate themselves can be sometimes be the worst narcissists. I don't know. It's a complex issue, but I share the distaste for people being obsessed with how they're feeling at any given moment. Unless there's an all-consuming issue to deal with, the human brain doesn't really WORK that way.


Futurama: A Clockwork Origin - This one was all right, but I think it became rather light on humor after it reached the evolving robots. The funniest part was at the beginning, with the satire on Creationism. Really, I have to suspect that Creationism will be about as popular in another thousand years as the geocentric universe is today. I kind of think the show works better when it comes up with futuristic equivalents to debates that are going on today (e.g., robot-human marriage and illegal downloading of people) than when it just takes current controversies wholesale into the future. To be fair, they DID imply the discovery of a lot more transitional fossils than we know today. Dr. Banjo's dismissal of these intermediary forms was pretty much exactly what a lot of modern Creationists do. The brief subplot of Dr. Zoidberg taking care of Cubert was pretty funny, as was the appearance of the flying spaghetti monster (who presumably evolved from flightless manicotti).

Comments

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Flying Spaghetti Monster! Yes!

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

So, how do you feel about feeling things?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I feel that feeling felt feels too touchy-feely.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I think the reason "self-esteem" gets such a bad rap is because it IS so frequently confused with narcissism, and like you said, narcissists frequently have crappy self-esteem. REAL self-esteem, not feel-good gibberish, but a concrete belief in ones own self-worth, is entirely different. As someone with crappy self-esteem, I can not only show that it DOES mess up your life, but also that the fakey-feel-good "I-love-me" stuff DOESN'T EVEN WORK.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered who actually bought into the idea that telling yourself you're great would make you feel better about yourself. I don't think you can fool yourself into liking yourself.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

There's a lot to be said for Cognitive Therapy, but the KEY to making it work is telling yourself true and specific good thoughts about yourself, not just "I'm great." Now, there's something for telling yourself you have inherent self-worth, but that's more like leveling the playing field than actually bringing yourself up.

But likewise people often mix up when other people are encouraging HEALTHY SELF-ESTEEM and when they're being everybody's-fine-and-happy-la-dee-dah. One thing I hate is when people call the cheesy fake happy self-esteem stuff "Mister Rogers talk" or the like, because people who use Mister Rogers' name in vain like that have obviously not really watched enough Mister Rogers to realize that the stuff he did was actually nothing like that-- it was REAL psychology, real emotional development techniques, and his "everybody's special" refrain was not some cheesy ignorance or excuse to misbehave, but was based in teaching kids to have realistic expectations and not give up working at things they weren't so good at, too. (It's a weird thing about Mister Rogers: he had this WAY about him, in real life and on screen. I'd never worked with him in real life, but I've worked with various people who have, and THEIR deep respect for him rubbed off on me. It's like his power gets passed ON!)