$4 Gas and the Stockholm Syndrome. Are we suffering from Learned Helplessness?

[Armstead]

It was financially horrific for most consumers and businesses when gas shattered the $3 a gallon barrier. Now it's surpassed $4.

And what do we and our politicians propose to do about it?

Not one damn thing. No calls for price controls, investigations, windfall profits taxes. Nothing really beyond some political posturing.

Even our candidates during the primaries basivcally stuck to the safe script. Making vague promises about energy indepencence, and Hillary's phony gas-tax-holiday scam.

Why are we as a society so afraid to take the bull by the horns when it comes to the destruction of unfettered "free markets" oin the cost of what has become a basic public necessity?

Is it the Stockholm Syndrome where we succumb and learn to love out captors? Is it learned Helplessness over the last 30 years of being told that Markets are God, and there's nothing we can do about them?

Sure over the long run we need to develop alternative energy, reduce our dependence on gas, etc. etc. etc. blah, blah,blah.

But today and for the near term, we are hostage to the oil markets and the oil oligarchs. And it affects us as individuals and drives down the economy.

Are we ever going to wake up and realize we do not have to remain captives? Are we ever going to actually take the modest step of asserting the Greater Good over the workings of the Holy Free Markets?

[Bob Dobbs]

1. Uncivil disobedience's time has come.

Apply liberally.

[rucky]

2. Give me convenience or give me death!

[graywarrior]

3. We've become Eloi

[mdmc]

4. we love easy answers

and don't want any sacrifice.

[Bigmack]

5. Learned Helplessness....

... has taken over the country.

The majority want out of Iraq.... but even the Peace movement is paralyzed by learned Helplessness. We all ought to be in the streets, but .... "What can I do?"

The economy is in the shit, oil is sky-high, but.... "What can I do?"

My B in L is a classic case. The fucker voted for Dumbya twice, and now he says.... wait for it..... "What can I do?"

Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation. It has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances. Learned helplessness theory is the view that depression results from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation, or situations(Seligman, 1975). Examples can be found in schools, mental institutions, orphanages, or long-term care facilities where the patients have failed or been stripped of agency for long enough to cause their feelings of inadequacy to persist.

A seminal experiment by Martin Seligman and Steve Maier was done in two parts. In part one, there were three groups of dogs in harnesses. The Group One dogs were simply put in the harnesses for a period of time and later released. Groups two and three consisted of "yoked pairs." A dog in Group 2 would be intentionally subjected to pain by being given electric shocks, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. A Group 3 dog was wired in parallel with a Group 2 dog, receiving shocks of identical intensity and duration, but his lever didn't do anything. To a dog in Group 3, it seemed that the shock ended at random, because it was his paired dog in Group 2 that was causing it to stop. For Group 3 dogs the shock was apparently "inescapable." The Group 1 and Group 2 dogs quickly recovered from the experience, but the Group 3 dogs learned to be helpless, and exhibited symptoms similar to chronic clinical depression.
In part two of the Seligman and Maier experiment, these three groups of dogs were tested in a shuttle-box apparatus, in which the dogs could escape shocks by jumping over a low partition. For the most part, the Group 3 dogs, who had previously "learned" that nothing they did mattered, just lay down passively and whined. Even though they could have escaped the shocks, they didn't try.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

[NJCher]

7. question

Martin E.P. Seligman is one of my two favorite authors. He also wrote "Learned Optimism."

What, in your view, taught Americans "learned helplessness?"



Cher

[Bigmack]

15. A few different things...

1. Fear. The cynical Repub use of 9-11 to frighten the population. "They're out there... they want to kill us.... and there's nothing you can do but support us.

2. The total non-response by the government (Dems, too) to the increasing demands to end the Iraq disaster.

3. Out of control oil price and supply problems. Peak Oil is a hopeless situation, but nobody in a position of real power is even talking about alternatives to oil.

4. Climate change. Same as oil. It's a huge, seemingly hopeless situation. People are now aware of it, but nothing is being done to even try to mitigate it.

5. The economy. People are seeing a loss in earning power and standard of living, but again, nobody is doing anything about it. If government can't do anything, how are people to have much hope.

There's more.

[Progressive_In_NC]

19. It is my opinion that 13 years of being taught to stand in line, be quiet and comply

Before Ford, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan et al reshaped the American Education system in the early 1900s to produce worker drones capable of doing factory work; people thought for themselves and did something about things as they arose.

They also experienced an educational system that was less restrictive and encouraged free thinking.

For instance, John Quincy Adams was born: 11-Jul-1767, he graduated Harvard Law in 1787 at the age of 20. By 25, he was Ambassador to the Netherlands.

He was taught in the mentoring system of Education, not in the system created by corporations to create compliant assembly line workers.

[Bigmack]

22. I'd agree.... but.....

the kids who rebelled in the '60s were educated in a system at least as restrictive, but they rebelled.

I think education is part of it, but I think people look to their "leaders" to set the cultural tone. While the Repubs were preaching self-reliance, they were fostering a flock mentality to actually increase centralized power.

[FirstLight]

8. Yes, I agree this exists..BUT

Then there are those who refuse to have their spirit broken. There are those who WILL invariably stand up and shout that things need to change. (I believe our nominee may be one of them)

Each if us has the ability to stand up and help break through the resistance to forward movement as a species. We can get smart here, and really invest our energies into the wave that IS here, that things can and must shift for the better. It begins small, and it has to do with what kind of thoughts you feed your own mind, fear or hope.

I hav lived in poverty my whole adult life, but I refuse to give up...even in the face of this unraveling world. Because I won't lay down and just wait for the other shoe to drop - there IS no other choice but to keep trying to better things. I will start in my own small world, but hope to have an effect on the whole too.

...now, where did I put that pitchfork? Got your torches?

[Armstead]

13. Those dogs sound a lot like America 2.0 since 1980

[TwilightGardener]

6. Learned helplessness? There will be plenty of people who think gas prices

are wrecking us and our economy, who are on shaky financial ground, who can't find a decent-paying job in their cities, who think the war has gone on way too long and maybe shouldn't have been fought at all, who are afraid of losing their health insurance or don't have any, etc.--and will STILL vote Republican this fall. Because, you know, the Republicans are more "manly" or "religious" or "patriotic", or won't hinder you from stockpiling automatic weapons, or will work to ensure fetuses are squeezed out of anonymous wombs at nine months, or whatever.

[kentuck]

9. Kicked & Recommended !

Btw, welcome back, Armstead!

I was just going to post something along the same line. Why isn't the Congress investigating these huge run-ups in prices? That seems to be the least they could do?

Now we are being programmed to believe that any price under $4 per gallon is a gift to us all. Indeed, we are captives. The "free market" is smarter than us all.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Every time it goes from x.99 per gallon up to x.19 per gallon I feel like it went down

Anyone else notice that?

Don

[Armstead]

14. Or.....When it goes up to $4.50 and then is "lowered" to $3.75 we get grateful

I'd love to see a book on the psychology of this whole thing.

[Fumesucker]

18. There is a concept in the study of addiction called "intermittent variable reinforcement"

Essentially an addiction is made stronger when the addictive substance is not uniformly potent, cigarette manufacturers routinely manipulate the nicotine levels in their product so as to increase the addictive response from the consumer.

That is what is happening with the price swings on energy, the reward is not always the same for a given expenditure so that helps maintain our addiction.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement

[The2ndWheel]

11. You can't do both

You say...

"Sure over the long run we need to develop alternative energy, reduce our dependence on gas, etc. etc. etc. blah, blah,blah."

But then...

"But today and for the near term, we are hostage to the oil markets and the oil oligarchs. And it affects us as individuals and drives down the economy."

How do you plan on changing the long term if you continue to do the same thing in the near term?

"Are we ever going to wake up and realize we do not have to remain captives?"

Apparently not in the near term. Sounds like you'll have to wait.

[Armstead]

16. They're not mutually exclusive

Okay we were dumber than hell not to actually pursue energy conservation and green energy after the shocks of the 70's died down.

But the plain fact is that the current spike in gas prices are destructive on many levels. Calling rip-off profits a "conservation incentive" seems very Orwellian to me.

If someone is drowning, it's not helpful to do nothiong and just shout at them: "See I told you that you should hgave taken swimming lessons!"

You rescue them first, then you work on teaching them to swim.

[kestrel91316]

12. Here's all I can do:

At home - step up the efforts in the Simple Living Department. Bigtime. By the weekend I will have a recharger to connect my laptop to my one little solar panel, for free laptop electricity (minor problem: almost no sun reaches my balcony even this time of year - have to think about rigging up some device for it to stick out into the sunshine). Mostly laundering by hand (I draw the line at sheets, blankets, and towels, lol). Drying EVERYTHING but blankets and towels on my dryer rack (from Lehman's 10 yrs ago for Y2K, lol). Making virtually all my food from scratch (I had been backsliding) - though the bread will have to wait 'til fall because I can't heat this place up in the summer and then use AC to cool it back down - I'm not insane).
Have to rig up a way to secure my bicycle in my parking space so I am motivated to ride to work (it's on my balcony now and the trip up and down the stairs with the bike is NOT feasible for me).

At the office - replacing the window tinting (the old is fading) with new stuff that will reflect 70% of the solar heat (sun hits the glass Sep-Apr and makes the waiting room a sauna, necessitating central AC even when the rest of the place is perfect temps). Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday when we are closed but it's daytime we normally left all the lights on - changed to HALF the lights a year ago - now I will only leave the hall lights on (I only leave any on because of my two mascot kitties who I WILL NOT leave in the dark during the daytime - lights are off at NIGHT). If I won the lottery I would put solar panels on the roof and I am sure my fabulous landlord would let me. But it's otherwise too costly. Oh, and we recycle most of our waste stream, and I watch my purchasing for recyclable packaging and minimal packaging, though manufacturers and distributors are stepping up to the plate on their own, it appears.

Car use is at an all-time minimum for me. I ONLY run errands on the weekend, try to do all in one trip (if not one location), unless I can stop someplace right on the route home. If I need stuff during the week, I WALK to the store. It helps that I CAREFULLY chose where I live for its proximity to shopping and transit. Sadly, it is still WAAAYYYY cheaper for me to drive rather than take transit, and the time difference is huge, too. But then I only drive 5-6 miles a day most days.......

[Armstead]

17. We shouold conserve individually...But we also shouldn;t accept gouging

[Fireweed247]

20. Thank you for this post!!!!

Learned helplessness is exactly it!

I have been going crazy with everyone discussing conservation(which is great but...)
There is no shortage, these prices are not about supply and demand.

They are about RECORD PROFITS every quarter!! And Halliburton is still pumping Iraq's oil unmetered because the meters were broken at the beginning of the war and they never did get around to fixing them.

[Fireweed247]

21. K&R

We have to fight back!!

[Rambis]

23. I want to take the train so bad!

It hurts! no commuter trains in Iowa yet but I am hopeful

[Summer93]

24. Hopefulness versus Helplessness

I find it very motivational to see people doing something to affirm who they are. When someone makes a choice that is right for them there is power in it that is very noticeable.

I do think that this country will solve the energy problems by each individual doing what works best for them.

Waiting for the big windmill in the sky to deliver electricity to the entire country is laughable.

[DailyGrind51]

25. Ironically, GWB unwittingly may have provided an answer!

His modification of Presidential authority under the War Powers Act permits the president to assume control over private business during a national emergency. Therefore, President Obama could, conceivably, take control of "Big Oil" to modify prices and direct a greater percentage of their budgets to alternative fuels research.

[NJCher]

26. so what

What are we supposed to do if our fellow citizens are helpless and incapable of demanding change? I'm certainly not going to wait around for these boneheads to wake up.

And even if they did wake up and take to the streets like they have in other countries, how immediate is the benefit going to be?

There are plenty of things people can do to keep from being a slave to to the oil industry. In her post above, kestrel has some good ideas.

I'm thinking that when enough solutions are derived at the grassroots level, people will copy each other, if only out of necessity. That is not helplessness.

So what I'm saying is that if the OP had in mind demanding investigations or price controls, it may be that Americans don't have that tradition anymore. But I think they will do something on their own that will produce a real, tangible benefit and quickly, too.



Cher