April 12, 2006

Massachussetts digs another big hole

Bruce sums up RomneyCare's lunacy rather nicely. I especially like his use of bold text to drive home the points that ought to be obvious to the people of Massachussetts (but aren't).

How terribly sad it is that the people in that once (I'm talking a looooooooooooooooong time ago, c. 1700's'ish?) great state don't realize they're voluntarily living in a dictatorship. Behaviorists could have a field day studying their psychology. I'm guessing they'd call it Learned Helplessness:

Learned helplessness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Learned helplessness is a well-established principle in psychology, a description of the effect of inescapable punishment (such as electrical shock) on animal (and by extension, human) behavior. The theory was developed by Martin Seligman through experiments going back to 1965.

"Learned helplessness" offered a model to explain human depression, in which apathy and submission prevail, causing the individual to rely fully on others for help. This can result when life circumstances cause the individual to experience life choices as irrelevant. Chemical dependence may also foster such a condition.

Environments in which people feel they have no control over what happens to them, such as prison, [the state of Massachussetts], war, disability, famine, and drought may tend to foster learned helplessness. An example involves concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust, when some prisoners, called Mussulmen, refused to care or fend for themselves. Present-day examples can be found in state-run mental institutions, orphanages, or long-term care facilities.

Not all people become depressed as a result of being in a situation where they appear not to have control; in what Seligman called "explanatory style," people in a state of learned helplessness view problems as personal, pervasive, or permanent. That is,

Personal - They may see themselves as the problem; that is, they have internalized the problem.

Pervasive - They may see the problem affecting all aspects of life.

Permanent - They may see the problem as unchangeable.
[Added by me of course]


Who needs shrinks? I've got those poor bastards figured out already haven't I?

Posted by insomnomaniac at April 12, 2006 2:33 PM | TrackBack
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