Everything Is F*cked(70)

4. Nina Mazar, On Amir, and Dan Ariely, “The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance,” Journal of Marketing Research 45, no. 6 (December 2008): 633–44.

5. So, if you’re unfamiliar with Newton or don’t remember your high school science, Newton is the godfather of modern physics. In terms of the impact of his discoveries, he is arguably the most influential thinker in world history. Among his many discoveries, his core ideas about physics (inertia, conserved force, etc.) were described in his Three Laws of Motion. Here, I present Newton’s Three Laws of Emotion, a play on his original discoveries.

6. See Michael Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), pp. 78–81.

7. Damasio, Descartes’ Error, pp. 172–89.

8. This is why passive aggression is unhealthy for relationships: It doesn’t explicitly state where a person perceives a moral gap. Instead, it simply opens up another gap. You could say the root of interpersonal conflict comes from differing perceptions of moral gaps. You thought I was being an asshole. I thought I was being nice. Therefore, we have a conflict. But unless we openly state our values and what we each perceived, we will never be able to equalize or restore hope to the relationship.

9. This is an example of “intrinsic motivation,” when the simple pleasure of doing an activity well, rather than for an external reward, motivates you to continue doing that activity. See Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (New York: Plenum Press, 1985), pp. 5–9.

10. You could say that negative emotions are rooted in a sense of losing control, while positive emotions are rooted in a sense of having control.

11. Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Morality, pp. 13–14.

12. Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), pp. 27–54.

13. This also comes from David Hume, “Of the Association of Ideas,” section 3 in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Eric Steinberg, 2nd ed. (1748; repr. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Classics, 1993); and Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 2: Of the Passions, parts 1 and 2 (Mineola, NY: Dover Philosophical Classics, 2003).

14. He didn’t invent the term, but I have to give credit to the psychologist Jordan Peterson’s interviews and lectures, as he has greatly popularized the term value hierarchy in recent years.

15. Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, pp. 81–89.

16. See Martin E. P. Seligman, Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death (New York: Times Books, 1975).

17. There is a third alternative: you can refuse to recognize the existence of a moral gap at all. But this is incredibly difficult to do and requires a high degree of self-awareness, not to mention willingness to forgive others.

18. What’s interesting is that narcissists will even justify their pain with claims of their superiority. Ever hear the phrase “They hate me because they’re envious”? Or “They attack me because they’re afraid of me”? Or “They just don’t want to admit that I’m better than they are”? The Feeling Brain merely flips its self-worth on its head: we’re not being harmed because we suck; we’re being harmed because we’re great! So, the narcissist goes from feeling that the self deserves nothing to feeling that the self deserves everything.

19. Ironically, he was kind of right. The Treaty of Versailles decimated Germany economically and was responsible for many of the internal struggles that allowed Hitler to rise to power. His “they hate us because we’re so great” style of messaging clearly resonated with the beleaguered German population.

20. I am referring to Elliot Rodger, who uploaded his creepy YouTube video “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution” just before driving to the sorority house.

21. Self-worth is an illusion because all values are illusory and based on faith (see chapter 4 for further discussion) and because the self is itself an illusion. For a discussion of this second idea, see Sam Harris, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014), pp. 81–116.

22. David Foster Wallace talked about this “default setting” of consciousness in his wonderful speech “This Is Water.” See David F. Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009), pp. 44–45.

23. This is popularly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, named for the researchers who discovered it. See Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (1999): 1121–34.

24. Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do About It (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

25. This is known as the false consensus effect. See Thomas Gilovich, “Differential Construal and the False Consensus Effect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59, no. 4 (1990): 623–34.

26. Shout out to the late TV painter Bob Ross (RIP), who used to say, “There’s no such thing as mistakes, just happy accidents.”

27. This is known as the actor-observer bias, and it explains why everyone is an asshole. See Edward Jones and Richard Nisbett, The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior (New York: General Learning Press, 1971).