Chapter 306 - Why Pure Willpower Is Bad[2]

Our behaviors are not based on logic or ideas. Logic and ideas can influence our decisions, but ultimately, our feelings determine what we do.

We do what feels good and avoid what feels bad. And the only way we can ever NOT do what feels good, and do what feels bad instead, is through a temporary boost of willpower—to deny ourselves our desires and feelings and instead do what was "right."

Throughout history, virtue was seen in terms of this sort of self-denial and self-negation. To be a good person, you had to not only deny yourself any pleasure, but you also had to show your willingness to hurt yourself. You had monks hitting themselves and locking themselves in rooms for days and not eating or even speaking for years on end. You had armies of men throwing themselves into battle for little or no reason. You had people abstaining from s.e.x until marriage, or even for life. Shit was not fun.

This classical approach is where our assumption that "willpower = self-discipline" originally comes from. It operates on the belief that self-discipline is achieved through denying or rejecting one's emotions. You want that taco? BAD MARK! YOU DON'T WANT SHIT! YOU ARE SHIT! YOU DESERVE TO STARVE YOU INGRATE!

The classical approach fused the concept of willpower—i.e., the ability to deny or reject one's desires and emotions—with morality. Someone who can say no to the taco is a good person. The person who can't is a failure of a human being.

THE CLASSICAL APPROACH TO SELF-DISCIPLINE

Self-Discipline = Willpower = Self-Denial = Good Person

This fusion of willpower and morality had good intentions. It recognized (correctly) that, when left to our own instinctive desires, we all become narcissistic assholes. If we could get away with it, we would eat, f.u.c.k, or kill pretty much anything or anyone within a ten-meter vicinity. So the great religious leaders and philosophers and kings throughout history preached a concept of virtue that involved suppressing our feelings in favor of rationality and denying our impulses in favor of developing willpower.

And the classic approach works! …kind of. Well, okay, while it makes a more stable society, it also totally f.u.c.ks us up individually.

The classic approach has the paradoxical effect of training us to feel bad about all the things that make us feel good. It basically seeks to teach us self-discipline through shaming us—by making us hate ourselves for simply being who we are. And the idea is that once we are saddled with a sufficient amount of shame about all the things that give us pleasure, we'll be so self-loathing and terrified of our own desires that we'll just fall in line and do what we're told.