Cultures of Sadness (first in an intermittent series)

[drwex]

I'm posting this here in part to remind myself to write it more fully later. However, commentary is open and welcome.

Adults repress joy. Children have the freedom to express it, but we try to repress it, in part to protect ourselves from being hurt. We fear the consequences of expressing anger, or sexual feelings. We are afraid that if we let ourselves love freely we'll be opening ourselves up for tremendous hurt. Joy and expressions of love are therefore repressed.

LJ creates/enables/encourages (I'm not sure which, maybe all) a culture of sadness. Observation: when a friend posts about her illness or depression or unhappiness, she receives many encouraging comments. The readers chime in, and participate in the expression, validating the feelings of sadness or depression. Observation: when a friend posts about his happiness, his readers complain and even stop reading his journal. Observation: when a friend posts about her sexual feelings, she is expected to label it "TMI" and put it behind a cut, lest someone be offended.

The social norm is that feelings of sadness or depression are supported; feelings of joy, sexuality, happiness are ignored, trivialized, or even draw negative feedback. I do not think this is unique to LJ; I think there are many Cultures of Sadness in modern life. I just happen to be participating in this one with roughly 120 of my closest friends.

Comments

[drwex]

Your experience with people in life, or your experience with LJ?

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Both.

[drwex]

OK, I'm at a bit of a quandry here. I'm interested in your experiences and viewpoint, but one-word answers give me the sense that you don't wish to discuss it. Yet you were kind enough to post at all. So, if you felt like elaborating I'd be interested. If not, no offense taken.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I thought my point was obvious in context. I'll expand:

Although I agree that adults repress their joy, I don't think it's necessarily because of social pressure to do so. Typically, when I reserve my stronger emotions, including joy, it's because they're too personal for the crowd with which I'm spending time. It's a very personal glimpse into something I don't want to share, so I don't. This may be an introvert thing.

I hear that you've observed people on your friends lists getting the responses you describe, but I can say that I get similar support when I'm happy and glowing about it as when I'm sad and deflated about it. And I think that general traffic on my journal has increased since The Big Changes, and I would describe it (my journal in general) as even more upbeat now than it was then, if that's possible.

I have never observed anyone on my flist being told to keep his/her happiness to him/herself, and I would be unimpressed if I did see that. First, I think people's journals are their own and they should be able to post whatever they like -- if people reading it don't like it, they shouldn't read it -- and second, scolding someone for being happy is, frankly, absurd.

I do stop reading people's journals if there's too much down/sadness, but I can't imagine doing the same for a journal that's all sunshine and roses. In fact, I've had a few people comment outside of ljlandia that reading my posts always brightens their day because of my general cheer.

As for sexual stuff, I agree with some people that cutting or filtering it makes sense, and I think it reflects our society's mixed up ideas about sex more than any culture of supporting sadness.

Finally, I think that more than a general, broad culture of sadness, we have a subcircle of angst. Many of "us" had difficult years leading up to adulthood, which did two things: First, it influenced the type of people they hung out with. Second, it influenced their mood-orientation. I think my experience is different from yours at least in part because my general mood-orientation is to the positive. My default is contentment, and I view the world through rose-colored glasses. This no doubt results in very different observations of the same phenomena from people who view through grey.

I'm sure there are people who find they get more attention by posting sadness and angst than happiness and contentment, but, as I said, that doesn't reflect my experience.

Finally, all of this raises an interesting point, which is this: Do comments on an lj post necessarily indicate support and encouragement? Ie, if I post something that gets no comments, does that imply that no one is supporting me or caring? I think that looking to comments for validation, while common, is already setting onesself up for disappointment.

[drwex]

First, thanks for expanding. I think that it helps me to go beyond the obvious points and into peoples' experiences and impressions. As I noted way back there, this is very much a "think piece" for me, rather than some settled group of conclusions.

I take your point about privacy - it's similar to my own. I still find myself wondering, in general, about people who repress their emotions. Is it because they're private? Shy? Afraid of consequences of expressing them? Feel pressure to do so now? Are responding to learned pressures from childhood?

Another real-world aside: last week at the Media Lab reunion I was discussing schooling with another alum and she indicated she had removed her child from a Montessori school because the child had been disciplined for, apparently, laughing too loudly. This was not old history - this was a year or so ago. Will this child also grow up to regard her emotions as "private" or worse "shameful?"

I think being a parent and dealing now with a child who's just learning to express and think about his emotions is really foregrounding this kind of issue for me.

I think [hiding sexual expression] reflects our society's mixed up ideas about sex more than any culture of supporting sadness.

Perhaps I'm mushing up too many ideas. The "Culture of Sadness" notion comes from observation that these are the kinds of emotions that receive support, where expressions of sexual feelings and anger (particularly those two) don't get the same response.

Do comments on an lj post necessarily indicate support and encouragement? Ie, if I post something that gets no comments, does that imply that no one is supporting me or caring?

Indeed. I think this is along the lines I've been thinking, which is "how does the technology of LJ play into this social-cultural situation?" If one does not comment, how else is support shown? What positive or negative reinforcement is given?

All good stuff - thanks again!

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

A couple of things:

I still find myself wondering, in general, about people who repress their emotions. Is it because they're private?

Does limiting a display of emotion necessitate repressing it? Or are you talking about something else?

Will this child also grow up to regard her emotions as "private" or worse "shameful?"

You seem to consider the viewing of emotions as "private" or "shameful" on a scale, where both are bad, with "shameful" being the worse of the two. Is that an accurate reading of this sentence?

[drwex]

Does limiting a display of emotion necessitate repressing it? Or are you talking about something else?

I do indeed mean "repress" but I understand the word has clinical meanings. I mean "repress" in the sense of "actively work not to express." I think that people who feel strong emotions need to work not to express them. I don't mean that they're ill or pathological - simply identifying a behavior pattern.

You seem to consider the viewing of emotions as "private" or "shameful" on a scale, where both are bad, with "shameful" being the worse of the two. Is that an accurate reading of this sentence?

Halfway. I would say that both are judgements people make about emotions. They might be related, but I'd have to work at constructing a scale for them - it's not what I intended. However, yes, I agree that feeling shame for one's emotions is worse than feeling private about them.

My concern in the example cited was that the child who was publicly reprimanded for an open display of honest emotion will internalize the message that the emotions are bad or wrong, and thus be led to feel shame for having them. This is particularly difficult when working with a child too young to understand nuances of when and how one might express emotions.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Okay, in that case, I would argue, speaking only for myself, that not showing emotions does not equate, for me, feeling them less strongly.

And to the private/shameful issue, while I agree that feeling shame for one's emotions (assuming we're talking about someone healthy and not criminally dangerous, where I think the application of social shame may have a place) is "bad", but I would not agree that feeling that one's emotions are "private" is a bad thing. This is why I picked up on the "shameful is worse" formulation, because the implication of "worse" is that "(a) is bad enough, but (b) is worse!" and I don't personally see holding strong emotions as private things as necessarily being bad (though I can see how forcing someone who doesn't feel that way to take up the banner for the introvert camp would not be "good".)

[drwex]

Right. I think we're in about 90% agreement, on this part at least.

I would argue, speaking only for myself, that not showing emotions does not equate, for me, feeling them less strongly.

I agree. One of my interests is in understanding what emotions get suppressed versus expressed, and by whom, for what reasons. I feel like in childhood we have strong emotions and express them freely. In adolescence we have strong emotions but have to/learn to suppress them for various reasons. As adults, I think we have strong emotions, but have learned some bad behaviors around them. Or rather, we perpetuate (some) adolescent behaviors rather than learning new adult ones.

Personally, I'm analyzing my own (mis)behaviors in the context of seeing my friends' emotional expressions and responses to them, and trying to teach my kids good things on this topic.

"(a) is bad enough, but (b) is worse!" and I don't personally see holding strong emotions as private things as necessarily being bad

I think I can say that (b) - in this case shame - is worse but still be vague on what would be better. Part of what I need is a good formulation for what would be better.