# I feel like some of this material is covered in transactional psychology,
though my understanding…

You can kick somebody down from object- or meta-level discourse (third circuit
thinking, in Wilson’s terms) to tribal-level (second…

* * *

I feel like some of this material is covered in transactional psychology,
though my understanding of transactional psychology is heavily influenced by
Robert Anton Wilson so this might not be canon.

You can kick somebody down from object- or meta-level discourse (third circuit
thinking, in Wilson’s terms) to tribal-level (second circuit) or stroking-
level (first circuit) by being percieved as a threat to identity or to
survival, respectively: isolation is treated as an existential threat, and so
social strokes are treated as a proxy for being fed and protected by a
community. It’s only when someone has bodily comfort that they are able to
fully immerse themselves in anything other than stroking-level thinking (and
so, people with severe anxiety or with chronic pain often end up alternating
between being needy & being standoffish — which makes their situation worse —
because the effort it takes to jump up to the meta level and think clearly
about how to effectively manage their need for social interaction is much more
difficult for them to achieve); it’s only when someone feels like their sense
of identity is not under threat from outside that they can be flexible about
questioning, changing, or violating it from the inside.

In other words, when life is shitty, everyone operates with less mental
capacity for abstraction, leading to life becoming even more shitty. (There
are other variances in individual capability, of course, which means that just
because you’re in pain doesn’t necessarily mean you’re completely screwed.)

This makes for a clear but difficult route toward improving the state of
dialogue. Improving general quality of life globally will make clear thinking
easier (and though it will not make for rosier topics, it will make it easier
to retain emotional distance and avoid engaging in behaviors that are globally
counterproductive), but pretty much every existing social or economic system
is pinned against an across-the-board increase in quality of life. On the
other hand, temporarily excluding the most toxic actors from conversations via
shadowbans & similar mechanisms — probably the most reliable method short of
improving quality of life — is already done.

By [John Ohno](https://medium.com/@enkiv2) on [December 21,
2016](https://medium.com/p/aa25c94ca795).

[Canonical link](https://medium.com/@enkiv2/i-feel-like-some-of-this-material-
is-covered-in-transactional-psychology-though-my-understanding-aa25c94ca795)

Exported from [Medium](https://medium.com) on September 18, 2020.