“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”
— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)
here’s an idea: notice toxic trends in your behavior and, idk, change them
the fact that people are complaining on this post that they can’t change their behaviors that hurt others because they have x mental illness and We Can’t All Be Neurotypical Karen is absolutely fucking wild. do you realize your arguments have come full circle to being indistinguishable from the most crude, generic “mentally ill people are inherently dangerous and/or abusive” ableist rhetoric? you always have the agency to address the ways in which you are hurting others (or yourself). maybe not instantly. maybe not effortlessly. but it IS within your abilities and it is something you owe to your community and yourself
