Suffering Defined and Cataloged

This unfinished piece was originally intended to appear in my first book attempt from over a decade ago, the book I would have called Diary of a Person Confused About the Relief of Suffering.

I was inspired to post this here by seeing the on-line book, About Suffering: Our Evolving Action Plan, wherein the section called "What is Suffering?" is currently blank.

WHAT SUFFERING IS

There exists an emotional experience so terrible, so urgently unbearable that people kill themselves and/or others to escape it, an experience so intolerable that even Buddhists seek relief from it, an experience so horribly panic-evoking that nations go to war over differences in beliefs about how to relieve it.

For this experience I have chosen the popular word "suffering".

My selection of the word suffering for this terrible experience has its problems, the biggest of which is that people sometimes use that word to indicate an experience that, while unpleasant, can be willingly tolerated and embraced. People often say that suffering must be willingly accepted and even embraced as part of a well-rounded and fully satisfying life. This is called the "romantic view" of suffering, a harmless ideation about suffering that often even helps relieve it.

But I'm not here to take the romantic view of suffering. I'm here to take the view of suffering as too horrible to tolerate. I speak of "hard-core" suffering, the kind that nobody willingly tolerates or embraces. When I use the word "suffering" I mean precisely that experience so terrible that it cannot be willingly endured, tolerated or embraced. If I ever refer to the romantic view of suffering, I'll use that phrase "romantic view". Otherwise I'm talking about the real, hard-core suffering that nobody can willingly tolerate.

As for people who claim that suffering is tolerable, I maintain that such people have suffering confused with pain. Pain is different from suffering. Pain is tolerable, but suffering is not. People who claim that suffering is tolerable are really talking about pain. Again, true suffering is intolerable.

Etymologists will object to my insistence that suffering is intolerable because the word "suffering" has a history of meaning an experience that, while unpleasant, one is disposed to "put up with," implying that it is tolerable. So I must apologize to the etymological purists. But I remain committed to my hortatory definition of suffering as intolerable. I believe it is the more common understanding of the word as it is used today.

I define suffering as any experience that automatically causes the experiencing subject to strongly desire that the experience stop (strong aversion against the experience). If, for example, one experiences some kind of pain, but somehow welcomes the pain as a part of life or some other romantic view of it, then one is not suffering.

SUFFERING AND DESIRE

First I'll explain the relation between suffering and desire and pain.

Buddhists tell us that desire is suffering. And if desire literally is suffering, we can, by the reflexive property of logic, reverse the terms and say that suffering is desire. And there would be our Buddhist definition for suffering: Suffering is desire.

Of course the terms aren't really literally equivalent. Desire isn't literally suffering. What Buddhists really mean is that frustrated desires cause suffering, and that our desires must ultimately be frustrated.

So the Buddhist-based definition for suffering should then be: Suffering is the experience caused by frustrated desires.

Although technically incomplete, I believe this definition starts us off on the right track for our present discussion.

SUFFERING VERSUS PAIN

What's most insightful about the Buddhist-based definition is the observation that suffering is caused by frustrated desire. But it does not mention pain. It doesn't say suffering is pain, or is caused by pain. It specifically relies on frustrated desire instead of pain.

This is because while frustrated desire necessarily causes suffering, pain need not cause suffering. One can be in pain, yet not suffer. This observation is expressed by a popular truism that states: "Pain is inevitable (or mandatory), but suffering is optional." (I actually saw a T-shirt with this expression printed on it.) (And although it is common to say that one suffers pain, this use of the term "suffer" is just a sloppy misuse.)

Indeed, the possibility of experiencing pain without suffering is illustrated in the story often told about G. Gordon Liddy, who is said to have held his hand above a candle flame for quite awhile. When asked how he managed to do so, he replied "The secret is not to care." The word "care" here is equivalent to desire. The secret is not to desire an end to the pain. Without the desire to end the pain, there is no desire present to be frustrated, and hence no suffering.

Given all this, it stands to reason that the way to end suffering, the most fundamental way that is, is to end the frustration of desire that causes suffering.

But I still recognize that pain does cause suffering. Pain does indeed cause suffering, but it only does so by generating a frustrated desire to end the pain. It is still the frustrated desire that more fundamentally causes suffering.

MOTIVATION IS EVEN MORE ACCURATE

But I would first like to clear up a technical issue of terminology. It is technically imprecise to say that frustrated desire causes suffering. It is more precise and correct to say that frustrated motivation causes suffering. So what's the difference between desire and motivation, and why does it matter?

Motivation is the broader concept that includes both desire and its opposite, aversion. Where desire is like a magnet's attraction to certain metals, aversion is like a magnet's repulsion against another magnet with parallel polar orientation. Both of these magnetic forces are motive forces of physics. Likewise, desire and aversion are both motivational forces of the mental realm.

Suffering is caused both by frustrated desires and frustrated aversions. And this is why it is more precise to say that suffering is caused by frustrated motivations.

The leading cause of frustrated desires is the fact that we desire more than reality can provide.

The leading cause of frustrated aversion is pain.

And to complicate things a little, frustrated desires can be painful and the relief of pain can be what we desire and a frustrated desire at that. Rarely do we experience just pure desire or pure aversion about a situation. It's usually a mix of the two feeding off one another. This is why we need a term to cover this complicated mixture of frustrations, namely, frustrated motivations.

To update our current understanding of the issue, we now say that the most fundamental cause of suffering is frustrated motivations.

Now that we bring aversion into the picture, I want to establish a practice for writing about it in this book. Writing about aversion can be annoying because there is no verb form of the noun "aversion." Whereas the word "desire" is both a noun and a verb, aversion is only a noun. I can sensibly write "He desired ice cream." But I can't write "He aversed ice cream." I have to instead write "He had an aversion against ice cream." - which is often fairly convoluted and annoying to have to write out that way.

Most of the time I will try to write it out the proper convoluted way. But I will sometimes invent the verb forms "to averse" and "aversed" and "aversing."

CONCEPT OF SUFFERING SO FAR

I have so far presented two defining aspects of suffering, which can be summarized as a definition, as follows:

Suffering is that experience which:

1. the sufferer necessarily has a strong and unconflicted aversion against. (If one wants it, it is not suffering.) The aversion is strong enough to make the sufferer obsessively hope to escape the experience.

and

2. is caused by frustrated motivations.

But there is a problem with the second clause of this definition. The problem is that there may exist causes for suffering other than frustrated motivations. Specifically, having one's moral rights violated (frustrated) may cause one suffering. Maybe even having one's moral obligations violated could cause one suffering. And I suspect most people would affirm that moral violations do indeed cause suffering.

To handle this we would have to adjust the second clause of my definition for suffering to include these moral violations as causes. Instead of just frustrated motivations, we need a larger category that includes both motivations and moral values too. I regard the category "value" as precisely this wider category. Values can be either motivations (desires and aversions) or moral values (rights and obligations).

And even beyond moral values, there may be other values that are neither motivation nor moral. There can be a sense of how things were "meant to be," but which, for some reason, have no claim to our moral choices (they are morally irrelevant). I would call these "non-moral intrinsic values." And maybe frustrating them can cause suffering too. (As for the "reason" these non-moral intrinsic values" have no claim to our moral choices, I can't really think of any confirmed examples of this at this time. But I can imagine someone not believing in morality and yet believing in "ways things were meant to be." So I simply wish to leave this category available for such possibilities.)

And so moral values and non-moral intrinsic values together comprise a category I call "motivation-void values" or just "intrinsic values." And I call belief in such values "teleological intrinsicism." The belief in morality is probably the most popular teleological intrinsicism.

MY PROBLEM WITH MOTIVATION-VOID VALUES

Now here's the problem with expanding the cause of suffering to include motivation-void values:

The problem is a personal one, having to do with my personal view of values. I don't believe in motivation-void values. I'm not a teleological intrinsicist. The only values I believe in are motivations (desire and aversion).

It's not that I'm certain that motivation-void values don't exist. I'm actually agnostic about it. Maybe motivation-void values do exist, but I am simply unable to experience them and remain unconvinced by arguments for their existence.

Well, if I can't be certain whether motivation-void values exist, how do I study the causes of suffering? If they exist and frustrating them causes suffering, I may fail to consider and grasp the methods for relieving such suffering.

Well, my answer is that I do the best I can with the unique and maybe impoverished perspective I've got. This is, after all, a diary, a collection of personal reflections on suffering. So I'll do the best I can, and admit that I'm confused about some things. One confusion I'll be covering is basically whether motivation-void values exist (particularly moral values), and whether frustrating them can cause suffering. My chapter on morality and suffering begins with this very issue, expressed as the question "do rights violations hurt?"

However, I don't intend to adjust my analysis of suffering to accommodate motivation-void values at every point. In most cases, this would amount to me writing something like: "and as for motivation-void values, if they exist, I suppose there could be something going on here that is analogous to what happens in the case of motivations – maybe." I think this would be tedious to keep repeating. For brevity's sake I'd prefer to stick to what seems likely from my personal perspective, which means limiting my analysis of suffering to issues of motivations.

My policy on this issue for the rest of this diary is therefore, most of the time, to write as if I assume that suffering is caused by frustrated motivations only – to ignore the implications that motivation-void values would have if they exist. There will be exceptions, of course. The chapter on morality and suffering is the most glaring of such exceptions, where I labor extensively over the relevance that moral values, the major share of motivation-void values, have on suffering.

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Establishing the importance of understanding the essence of suffering and the ability to recognize cryptic discussions about suffering.

Now I want to address the importance of recognizing when people are actually talking about suffering. People talk about suffering all the time without using the actual word "suffering". They use words like "poverty" and "scarcity" instead. I think it is crucially important to be able to recognize that discussions of poverty and scarcity are essentially discussions about suffering.

People talk about suffering cryptically, in code. You need to be able to decipher the code. Once you can decipher the code, you can reduce such cryptic talk down to its core issue. And that core issue is always, I believe, what to do about the problem of suffering. Almost all substantive ideological talk revolves around this core issue, be it economics, politics, theology, psychology, and much of philosophy.

Decoding such discussions is much easier now that we understand what suffering essentially is, particularly in relation to several other phenomena, such as pain, desire, aversion, and motivation, as explained above.

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Establishing that economic discussions about the distribution of scarce resources are cryptic discussions of the relief of suffering.

CRYPTIC TALK OF SUFFERING

Now that we do understand the essence of suffering, i.e., that it is essentially frustrated motivations, let's decode some of the cryptic ways people talk about suffering.

People don't always use the word "suffering" when talking about suffering.

People often talk about suffering implicitly, in a sort of code, in terms of two closely related concepts, poverty and scarcity.

Poverty and scarcity relate to suffering as follows:

Poverty and scarcity indicate a lacking of something. What's lacking are what I call "significant gratification and relief objects," objects that would gratify intense desire or relieve intense aversion. The lack of gratification objects, such as intimacy with others, causes the frustration of intense desire, which in turn causes suffering. Lack of some relief objects, such as food, can also cause hunger pain, which in turn causes intense aversion and therefore more suffering. Also, lack of other relief objects such as shelter can cause exposure to painful objects like cold temperatures, which obviously cause pain, and which in turn causes intense aversion and therefore suffering.

Therefore, when people talk about poverty and scarcity, they are indirectly talking about suffering. They are talking about a lacking that causes suffering. To wipe out poverty is to wipe out the lacking that causes suffering. To move from scarcity to abundance is to move from what causes suffering to what relieves it.

Of particular interest presently is the term "scarcity," because some key political conflicts over suffering specifically use the word "scarcity." Progressives especially rely on that word in such statements as "Scarcity is an illusion." Or "Scarcity is a social construct." and the like. The words "poverty" or even "suffering" would technically do just as well, but for some reason the word "scarcity" has dominated these particular discussions. Perhaps the term is simply referencing the textbook definition of "economics", which is "the science of the distribution of scarce resources."

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TYPES OF SUFFERING

Now I want to offer a taxonomy of the types of suffering.

Observe that a taxonomy of the types of suffering is basically a categorized list of the things that tend to cause strong aversions against them. Any random thing that causes strong aversion against it creates a type of suffering. There is shark attack suffering and divorce suffering and tooth-ache suffering and cancer suffering and so on. But I want to organize the types of suffering into categories that people may find useful when thinking of ways to relieve suffering. The following is my categorized taxonomy to that end.

NATURAL SUFFERING

Suffering caused by forces of nature, as opposed to suffering willingly inflicted by conscious creatures upon one another, is what I call "natural suffering."

Injuries and losses caused by natural disasters, or caused by mishaps and accidents from human error, or caused by diseases or growing decrepit, or caused by natural scarcity of natural relief objects such as food and shelter, and so on, are examples of natural suffering.

ACCIDENTALLY INFLICTED SUFFERING

Accidentally inflicted suffering is when conscious creatures accidentally cause one another's suffering. I regard it as a type of natural suffering, for no other reason than that it's accidental, not intended. The mishaps and accidents from human error that I listed among the causes of natural suffering above are examples of accidentally inflicted suffering.

Although the infliction of this suffering is accidental, once it has been discovered by the inflictor, the inflictor may have various emotional states about having accidentally inflicted suffering on another. These emotional states generate sub-categories of accidentally inflicted suffering, such as:

ACCIDENTALLY INFLICTED SUFFERING, APATHETICALLY DISCOVERED

Accidentally inflicted suffering, apathetically discovered, is when, after the inflictor discovers he or she has accidentally inflicted the suffering, the inflictor does not care whether he or she has done so. "I did not mean to inflict the suffering. But I don't care that I did."

A sub-category of accidentally inflicted suffering, apathetically discovered, is called apathetically inflicted subsequential generation suffering, which will be described further down the text.

ACCIDENTALLY INFLICTED SUFFERING, REMORSEFULLY DISCOVERED

Accidentally inflicted suffering, remorsefully discovered, is when, after the inflictor discovers he or she has accidentally inflicted the suffering, the inflictor feels remorse for having done so. "I did not mean to inflict the suffering. And I wish I had not."

A sub-category of accidentally inflicted suffering, remorsefully discovered, is called ironic subsequential generation suffering, which will be described further down the text.

ACCIDENTALLY INFLICTED SUFFERING, MALEVOLENTLY DISCOVERED

Accidentally inflicted suffering, malevolently discovered, is when, after the inflictor discovers he or she has accidentally inflicted the suffering, the inflictor feels joy for having done so. "I did not mean to inflict the suffering. But I'm glad I did."

PANETIC SUFFERING

Suffering willingly inflicted by conscious creatures upon one another, as opposed to suffering caused by forces of nature, is what I call "panetic suffering."

If it's not willingly inflicted, it is accidental.

War, fighting (except maybe sport fighting), bullying, mugging, insulting, oppressing, hunting, abusing, degrading, slandering, torturing, infecting others with diseases, robbery, theft, conning, swindling, preying on the ignorant, raping, threatening, raising conscious creatures to kill them for food, deliberately refusing to prevent the easily preventable suffering of others, and so on, are typical examples of the causes of panetic suffering.

The term "panetic" comes from the writings of Ralph Gun Hoy Siu, who is probably the first person to undertake a focussed, serious, and comprehensive study of the suffering that people inflict upon one another. He coined the term "panetics" to mean the study of such inflicted suffering. It is a contraction of "pan-ethics" or "pan-ethical." And even though the term "ethics" usually equates to "morality," thereby associating the term "panetics" with motivation-void values, I overlook this etymological technicality. Maybe it's because Siu himself is the only other person I've ever heard of who expressed skepticism about morality's power to relieve suffering, and to even worry that morality might aggravate suffering – not just the wrong morality, but morality qua morality. I suppose I adopt his term as a kind of homage to him on this account.

Anyway, panetic suffering is deliberately inflicted.

Once again, the inflictor's emotional states of apathy, remorse and malevolence produce sub-categories of panetic suffering.

APATHETICALLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUFFERING

Apathetically inflicted panetic suffering is any suffering that is deliberately inflicted by any conscious creature upon another, wherein the inflicting creature does not care whether it creates such suffering. "I know I'm making you suffer, but I don't care whether or not you suffer." The goal of the inflictor is not really to inflict. The inflictor is actually after some other goal, and inflicting suffering on others is just a means to achieving that other goal. If their goal could be achieved by some other means that don't involve inflicting suffering on others, they'd be just as likely to use those other means. Many creatures who hunt other creatures for food may be apathetic inflictors. So too are many authorities who imprison others.

When the ultimate goal of the inflictor is actually the relief of, or prevention of, some other instances of suffering, then this kind of suffering is more precisely what I call apathetically inflicted panetic subsequential generation suffering, which I describe further down this text.

REMORSEFULLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUFFERING

Remorsefully inflicted panetic suffering is any suffering that is deliberately inflicted by any conscious creature upon another, wherein the inflicting creature feels remorse about inflicting such suffering. "I know I'm making you suffer, and I feel remorse about doing so." Again, the ultimate goal of the inflictor is not to inflict suffering. There is some other goal for which inflicting suffering is just a means. And if that other goal could be achieved by means that don't require inflicting suffering, the inflictor would definitely opt for those other means. A typical example is parents who punish their children to deter them against harmful behaviors. Parents typically feel remorse when they dispense such punishment. Another example would be someone who defends himself from an attack initiated by another, knowing that his acts of self-defense inflict suffering on his attacker, and thus feels remorse for inflicting such suffering on his attacker. But also, one can even initiate an attack and still feel remorse for the suffering one inflicts, as is perhaps the case for some people who need to kill and eat animals to survive. Authorities who imprison others may also feel remorse.

When the ultimate goal of the inflictor is actually the relief of, or prevention of, some other instances of suffering, then this kind of suffering is more precisely what I call remorsefully inflicted panetic subsequential generation suffering, which I describe further down this text.

MALEVOLENTLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUFFERING

Malevolently inflicted panetic suffering is any suffering that is deliberately inflicted by any conscious creature upon another, wherein the inflicting creature enjoys inflicting such suffering. "I know I'm making you suffer, and I enjoy doing so." Here the inflictor's goal truly is to inflict suffering. There may or may not be some other goal that is also achieved by inflicting this suffering, but the inflictor would still inflict this suffering regardless, as it is still a satisfying enough goal on its own. Sadistic creatures are among these inflictors, as well as those seeking revenge.

FIRST GENERATION, or ORIGINAL SUFFERING

First generation suffering, or original suffering, is any suffering that is not caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other prior instance of suffering. Most, if not all, natural suffering is first generation, original suffering. Injury from earthquakes, for example, are natural causes of suffering, and also not caused by anyone's attempt to relieve some prior instances of suffering.

SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering.

Here are some sub-categories of subsequential generation suffering,

IRONIC SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Ironic subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, wherein that creature hoped to avoid creating such suffering.

Ironic subsequential generation suffering is also a sub-category of accidentally inflicted suffering, remorsefully discovered. "I didn't mean to inflict suffering on you. And I feel remorse about doing so. I was only trying to relieve or prevent some other instance of suffering."

PANETIC SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Panetic subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, wherein that creature at some point intended to create such suffering, and enjoys doing so or feels no remorse about doing so. "To relieve my own suffering (or the suffering of my loved ones), I need to inflict suffering on you (or your loved ones). And tough shit for you."

APATHETICALLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Apathetically inflicted panetic subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, wherein that creature at some point intended to create such suffering, but does not care about doing so. "To relieve my own suffering (or the suffering of my loved ones), I need to inflict suffering on you (or your loved ones). But I don't care whether or not you suffer."

I suspect most instances of apathetically inflicted panetic suffering are really of this subsequential generation type, as the real ultimate goal of inflicting such suffering is likely to be in order to relieve of avoid some other instance of suffering.

REMORSEFULLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Remorsefully inflicted panetic subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, wherein that creature at some point intended to create such suffering, but feels remorse about doing so. "To relieve my own suffering (or the suffering of my loved ones), I need to inflict suffering on you (or your loved ones). But I feel remorse about it."

I suspect most instances of remorsefully inflicted panetic suffering are really of this subsequential generation type, as the real ultimate goal of inflicting such suffering is likely to be in order to relieve of avoid some other instance of suffering.

MALEVOLENTLY INFLICTED PANETIC SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Malevolently inflicted panetic subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, wherein that creature at some point intended to create such suffering, and enjoys doing so. "To relieve my own suffering (or the suffering of my loved ones), I need to inflict suffering on you (or your loved ones). And I will enjoy making you suffer."

Although it seems counterintuitive at first thought, I suspect many, if not most instances of malevolently inflicted panetic suffering are really of this subsequential generation type, as the real ultimate goal of inflicting such suffering might be in order to relieve of avoid some other instance of suffering. What I mean here is that the inflictor may suffer if he can't inflict. If inflicting happens to be a particularly intense desire for him, preventing him from inflicting may cause his significant suffering. People who have had suffering inflicted upon them, and intensely desire revenge, are some good examples of this.

APATHETICALLY INFLICTED SUBSEQUENTIAL GENERATION SUFFERING

Apathetically inflicted subsequential generation suffering is any suffering that is caused by any conscious creature's attempt to relieve or avoid some other instance of suffering, and while the creature never intended to create such suffering, the creature does not care whether it creates such suffering.

Apathetically inflicted subsequential generation suffering is also a sub-category of accidentally inflicted suffering, apathetically discovered. "I didn't mean to inflict suffering on you. But I don't care whether I did. I was trying to relieve or prevent some other instance of suffering."

PHYSICALLY CAUSED SUFFERING

Physically caused suffering is suffering that arises from pain caused by physical states or events. The pains could be natural, such as from injuries to the body or diseases of the body, or panetic, such as from assaults or torture and so on.

EMOTIONALLY CAUSED SUFFERING

Emotionally caused suffering is suffering that arises from painful emotional states or events. The painful emotions could in turn be caused by natural events, like the natural suffering of loved ones or a lover falling out of love with the sufferer, or caused by panetic events such as the panetic suffering of loved ones or a lover turning down right spiteful or the taunting of bullies.

The list of causes I just presented in the preceding paragraph could serve as a list of some sub-categories of emotionally caused suffering, each sub-category defined by its cause. There is, however, one glaring cause and corresponding sub-category of emotionally caused suffering that includes some of the examples in that preceding paragraph, and that I find most useful to analyze quite a bit: social rejection suffering.

SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

Social rejection suffering is a kind of emotionally caused suffering created when the following three criteria are met:

Criteria 1: REJECTORS WHO MATTER: One is rejected by those one wants not to be rejected by. Or, in my more precise manner of writing, one is aversed by those one averses being aversed by. "I'm hurt because none of the cool and beautiful people like me." "I'm hurt because my family hates me."

Criteria 2: REASONS AND CONTEXTS THAT MATTER: One is rejected by those one wants not to be rejected by for reasons and in contexts one does not want to be rejected for. One is aversed by those one averses being aversed by, for reasons and in contexts one averses. "I'm hurt because no employer wants to hire me as a short order cook." "I'm hurt because she only wants me as a friend, not a sex partner."

Criteria 3: MATTERING A LOT: One's aversion against this rejection is strong enough to create suffering, that is, to be an experience one obsessively hopes to escape.

And now for the sub-categories of social rejection suffering:

GENERAL SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

General social rejection suffering is when others have a general aversion against the person they reject. The rejectors can be said to just "hate everything" about the person they reject – they just hate the person as a whole. Although general rejection does not specify any reason or context for the rejection, this kind of rejection is almost guaranteed to cover Criteria 2, since a generalized rejection will likely include every reason and context for rejecting that could possibly matter to the rejected.

SPECIFIC SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

Specific social rejection suffering is when others have an aversion against some specific things about the person they reject, or an aversion about the person in certain specific contexts. "I like his personality, but he smells foul." "I like her as a friend, but I would not hire her to fill the position my firm needs filled."

TERMINAL SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

Terminal social rejection suffering is when the rejectors' aversions against the rejected cannot be analyzed into other aversions.

Suppose George rejects Tanya as a sex partner because George averses the size of Tanya's breasts. (And suppose Tanya averses being rejected this way and therefore suffers.) (And notice also that this happens to be a form of specific social rejection suffering, rejecting Tanya for a specific attribute in a specific context.)

Suppose we ask George why he averses the size of Tanya's breasts.

George can give two types of answers.

Answer type 1: George says Tanya's breasts won't fit snugly into a wine glass. And, in a sexual context, he averses breasts that don't fit snugly into wine glasses precisely because they don't fit snugly into wine glasses. Here George's aversion against the size of Tanya's breasts has been analyzed into some other, more fundamental aversion, namely an aversion against breasts not fitting snugly into wine glasses. When one aversion can be analyzed in terms of some other, more fundamental aversion(s), the analyzed aversion is called an instrumental aversion. George's aversion against the size of Tanya's breasts is an instrumental aversion, as it can be seen as instrumental in serving George's more fundamental aversion against breasts that don't fit snugly into wine glasses.

Answer type 2: George says he can't think of any other, more fundamental aversions of his that could explain his aversion against the size of Tanya's breasts. He does not care at all whether Tanya's breasts fit snugly into wine glasses, or do summersaults, or whatever. Maybe he coincidentally likes breasts that happen to fit snugly into wine glasses. But fitting as such is not the reason he likes that size. When one aversion can not be analyzed in terms of some other, more fundamental aversion(s), the un-analyzable aversion is called a terminal aversion. George's aversion against the size of Tanya's breasts is a terminal aversion, as it can not be seen as instrumental in serving George's more fundamental aversion against breasts in some other context. The chain of aversions terminates here.

George can offer an explanation for his aversion in terms of his brain chemistry, evolution, and other physical or physiological causes for aversions. But he can't explain it in terms of other, more fundamental aversions.

So anyway, if George honestly and truthfully gives answer type 2, then Tanya's corresponding suffering is of the terminal social rejection type.

INSTRUMENTAL SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

Instrumental social rejection suffering is when the rejectors' aversions against the rejected, can be analyzed into other aversions.

Staying with our example of George and Tanya, if George honestly and truthfully gives answer type 1, then Tanya's corresponding suffering is of the instrumental social rejection type.

Of course Tanya may never hear of George's type 1 answer. But this could be irrelevant to her. She may still feel hurt whether or not she knows George's aversion is intrumental. On the other hand, hearing that George only averses her breast size because they don't fit snugly into wine glasses may change her feelings. "Huh? What a bizarre reason to averse my breast size. I'm not sure I'd be flattered knowing that George instead likes my breast size only because they'd fit snugly into wine glasses."

The judgment as to whether the aversions of the rejectors involved in social rejection are instrumental or terminal is often debatable. Motivations surrounding erotic beauty, such as desires for and aversions against certain breast sizes and so on, are considered terminal by those who say they are products of evolution and so on, but considered instrumental by those who say they are products of social conditioning, wherein we are programmed to have these erotic motivations by subtly associating them as means to gratify more fundamental motivations, such as the desire for social acceptance. ("Having breasts of a certain size, or a lover with such, shows social power, which will get you more social acceptance.")

Observe that terminal social rejection suffering is not likely to be panetic, that is, nobody inflicts this kind of suffering on anyone. If the terminal aversions of the rejectors are the product of natural forces like evolution and brain chemistry, then nobody can be said to have caused these aversions, nor the resulting suffering of the rejected. On the other hand, a penetic plot could be in play, wherein "mad scientists" manipulate our brain chemistry to give us specific terminal aversions against one another, so as to create social rejection suffering. But I've never seen any evidence for such a panetic plot, not even among conspiracy fanatics. Maybe in a pinch, Terence McKenna's idea that getting high on mushrooms will make us all less likely to have aversions against one another, combined with the realization that getting high on mushrooms is prohibited by authorities, could suggest such a panetic plot perpetrated by such authorities. I would not be surprised to see this argument put forth somewhere.

By contrast, I get the impression that instrumental social rejection suffering is often considered panetic, inflicted by malevolent conspirators. The notion that there is such a thing as hurtful "fascist beauty standards" programmed into us by such malevolent conspirators seems to exemplify a panetic plot – provided that the aversions against deviations from that fascist beauty standard are believed to be instrumental – analyzable in terms of more fundamental motivations that got deceptively associated with the rejection aversions, more fundamental motivations such as the desire for social acceptance and so on, as just described.

PREVALENCE OF SOCIAL REJECTION SUFFERING

Apparently, social rejection suffering is real and quite common.

I suspect most people, if not most creatures generally, have a strong aversion against social rejection. And this may be a feature selected for by evolution. Being socially accepted has survival benefits, and social rejection can reduce the survival chances of the rejected. I've heard of studies that associate social rejection with shorter life spans (in humans at least). This is so, I gather, because our survival chances go from slim to fair by cooperating with others to obtain the material requirements of survival. No social acceptance, no survival. (Well, reduced survival at least.) So anyway, it makes sense that an aversion against being socially rejected would be selected for in the process of natural selection.

COMMONALITY OF SOCIAL REJECTION CAUSES

Also, the causes for people rejecting one another tend to be statistically common, rather than randomly varied. Many properties a person might have (property X), and many behaviors a person might do (behavior Y), are such that 98% of people will reject such a person for a reason or in a context the person averses being rejected for. X and/or Y are therefore statistically common causes for being rejected. X and/or Y are also statistically likely causes of social rejection suffering, as 98% of everyone is likely to include many people the rejected averses being rejected by. X and/or Y are common rejection suffering causes. ("98%" is just an illustrative example of a high percentage. It could be any high percentage. The higher it is, the more common the rejection cause is. The lower it is, the less common the rejection cause is.)

Most of us are either born with, or acquire, an awareness of what properties and behaviors are common rejection suffering causes, and to what degree they are. Most of us know that obesity, asymmetry of body, skin blemishes and wrinkles, for example, are common property causes for social rejection suffering. Likewise, most of us know that kleptomania, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome and depression are common behavior causes for social rejection suffering.

The evolutionary process of natural selection may be the reason many causes for social rejection are highly common. There may be survival benefits in rejecting people whose bodies or behaviors show signs of permanent sickness or permanent dependency on others. Such people may "slow down the tribe" or put the tribe in danger when emergencies strike, or so on. Evolution may have, therefore, favored those who reject such survival threatening people. (Evolution isn't egalitarian or kind or fair. It literally doesn't give a rat's ass about who it hurts. It doesn't care about anything. It's just a "dumb" process based on being fit for survival, not our feelings about it.)

Evolution also continues some traits randomly. That is, the continued trait has no impact on survival, and never did. (There's some official name for this, but I forgot it. In the meantime I'd just call it "superfluous selection.") And maybe some causes of social rejection are made common through superfluous selection, wherein the causes cannot be traced to any historical survival advantages.

Finally, the commonality of some social rejection causes may be attributable to constructs/programming by our cultures.

In many cases, disagreements persist as to whether a given social rejection cause is made highly common by evolution or social construct programming.

But anyway, our awareness of the highly common causes for social rejection suffering gives us the power to express social rejection in the grammatical form of a value-void judgment, as opposed to an aversive value-declaring judgment. Here's what I mean by this:

Aversive Value-Declaring Judgment: "I have a sexual aversion against your obesity."

Value-Void Judgment: "You are obese."

Imagine both as replies to an obese person's proposal for sex.

If obesity were not a highly common cause for social rejection suffering, the value-void cognitive judgment "You are obese." would have no power to create rejection suffering. It would be like making the value-void cognitive judgment "You are a person with short hair." Upon receiving such a judgment, one could not discern whether one was getting rejected. Since obesity would not be understood as a likely cause for social rejection, the statement would be identified as nothing more than an observation of trivial fact. If it were a reason for rejection, the rejector would have to make this clear: "Oh, and I happen to be one of those few people who averse obesity in sexual partners. Sorry, I'm rejecting sex with you." – just as a rejector who aversed short hair would have to do.

But, since obesity is a highly common cause for social rejection, such declarations of motivation aren't necessary to express rejection. In fact, one would have to make a motivational declaration only in the case of accepting the proposal, as in: "You are obese. Oh, and I happen to be one of those few people who desire obesity in sexual partners. I'm gratefully accepting sex with you."

AVERSED SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE SUFFERING

Another type emotionally caused suffering occurs when someone is socially accepted or desired by others, and that someone has a strong aversion against such acceptance/desire. This tends to happen when either the acceptance/desire comes from people one averses associating with, or the acceptance/desire is for specific reasons, or in contexts, that one strongly averses.

 [To be continued - hypothetically]