[text]

[attheclocktower]

Does anybody know what learned helplessness is? I tried looking in the library but all the books it looked like it would be in are gone.

Comments

anon text;

[duplicitousringleader]

Did you boycott the collar checkups?

text;

[attheclocktower]

[... she has to be honest here]

No, I didn't.

[She pauses for a moment, the adds the thought that helped start this whole search of hers]

But I'm starting to think that maybe I should have.

anon text;

[duplicitousringleader]

Why didn't you?

text;

[attheclocktower]

I don't know.

[There's a pause. That's... partially true. After seeing Dax's research, what he'd said, she'd thought about it, about if maybe this was what Dax had meant about information being all around them. But... then the hacking had happened, and their punishment then, and all thought of rebelling had left her mind for the time being. Take a break. Let things quiet down before trying something again.

Maybe all of that was a mistake. They had so little time left after all. And it certainly wasn't the full truth in regards to the question.]

No, that's not true. A long time ago, we didn't get our collars checked up for a month. It was like nobody was paying attention to the Tower at all. And stuff happened. We lost control of our powers. I hurt people. I didn't want it to happen again.

anon text;

[duplicitousringleader]

Look in the mirror. Or look at the people around you who are spouting off the same shit now that it's all over. That's exactly what learned helplessness is.

You get so caught up in thinking that bad things will happen if you act that you refuse to act, and then the bastards in charge win.

[ text ]

[immortalia]

[ Hope you're ready for tl;dr, Xion. ]

Learned helplessness is the condition of a human or animal that has learned to behave helplessly. The human or animal fails to respond even though there are opportunities for it to help themselves by avoiding unpleasant circumstances or by gaining positive rewards. The theory behind it is the view that clinical depression and mental illness may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

Organisms that have been ineffective and less sensitive in determining the consequences of their behavior are defined as having acquired learned helplessness.

Is this a sufficient answer for your question?

[ text ]

[attheclocktower]

[A lot of the terminology is a little beyond her, but she can get enough context clues to grasp the general meaning. Especially on top of what dear old anon said up thread.]

Yeah, it is. Thanks.

["Ineffective," huh? "perceived absence of control..." looks like she may have been subject to learned helplessness more than she ever realized.]

[ text ]

[immortalia]

You are welcome.

[...]

Sorry if it came across as harsh, though.

[ text ]

[attheclocktower]

[This reply comes a little bit later]

It wasn't harsh. Don't worry. It's what I asked for.

[And exactly what she needed to hear really, even if she didn't like it at the time.]

text

[morituramfides]

It's a psychology term.

When you take a rat and discourage it from protecting itself long enough, eventually it won't do anything even when there is a way it can help itself.

Even if it means they're all going to die.

Because they remember what it was like when they did try.

text;

[crouching_sin]

^ Basically this

It means beating you until you just accept it, or in this case forcing us into collar checkups long enough that we just go along with it.

text;

[attheclocktower]

[This reply comes a little bit later, no more than a half-hour, after she's had enough time to calm down.]

And what if we choose to not go along with it? What if what just happened with the boycott keeps happening?

If Jason's so angry that they did that, and he's calling those of us who didn't a part of this learned helplessness, there must be something to it. He has to be angry for reason.

text;

[morituramfides]

He's angry because he was wrong. He's angry because some of us are going against his expectations!

So, I guess you're right. But it takes a while to unlearn conditioning like that.

[anontext 1/2]

[bloodyashes]

[He sure did take the time to read the above replies first. Oh, replikid.]

Well, now that you know, you can get a start on fighting it. The hardest part is the first step.

[non-anon and filtered to Xion]

[bloodyashes]

[It's a direct reply to his anonymous comment, just to keep things clear.]

Unfortunately, I know from experience. ...If you want to talk, I'll be in the library, near the back.

[filtered, voice] 1/2

[attheclocktower]

[Her hands are shaking, too much to really type. In the end she enables the voice function, though her voice is only marginally better than her hands.]

Y-yeah. I'll be right there.

[action]

[attheclocktower]

[Thankfully she's in the library, so it's a simple matter of logging out of her terminal and backing away, edging her way to the back of the library and trying not to think too much on her way back. Thankfully his red hair makes him overall easy to spot, once she's started looking for him.

If he knows her well enough, he might be able to guess that there's a little more than what she just heard on the network that's bothering her. At least, it wouldn't trigger this extreme a reaction]

H-hey.

[action]

[bloodyashes]

[It's the usual spot, really - he's kind of taken over this back corner of the romance section, not far from a particularly isolated terminal. He dragged a beanbag chair up there at some point, even.

There's no novels in piles around him now, though. More important things to worry about.]

...Hey.

[He's... not really sure where to start. The whole thing has given him a lot to think about, too. Learned helplessness - he could have walked away from Van at any time, really, but it still took him seven years and the destruction of Akzeriuth to actually do so.]

[true_noir]

A curious little phenomena where you come to believe that nothing you do will ever change a situation, so you stop trying. Don't tell me this is about the collar boycott.

text;

[attheclocktower]

It is. Jason was mad about it, and he was talking about learned helplessness and the people who had it as though they kept things from being worse. It makes sense he'd be talking about those of us who didn't do it.

I wanted to know what it meant. Now I do.

Re: text;

[true_noir]

He does like to prattle on, doesn't he? Not all who refused to participate in that idiotic declaration of solidarity suffer learned helplessness you know. There was nothing to be gained in that display.

text;

[attheclocktower]

If there was really nothing to be gained, why was he so angry that they did it?

[Another person, like Jin, who seeemed to think he was angry simply because they didn't behave as predicted? Something about that didn't sit right with her.

If the whole idea of learned helplessness was people were afraid of taking actions to escape or protect themselves or change the situation, because of possible negative consequences... for Jason to have mentioned it, then there must be something in what happened that could change their situation, right?]

anon text;

[acceptedoblivion]

Of course something that could be useful isn't there. Isn't that what they do best - hide things from us?

text; private

[acceptedoblivion]

[Not long after, another text comes in--in response to his own anon response because he semi-"forgot" he left that setting on.]

Are you alright, Xion? I know at least one idiot commented here...

late response sorry

[myblueskies]

It's when bad things happen to you whenever you try and stop bad things happening and so you don't even want to try anymore because it will just hurt you lots. So then you just let things happen and don't fight them anymore.

[He frowned] I think that's what the bad people did, because I didn't want to stop doing the collar checkups because I thought lots of people would be hurt, but that's what the bad people wanted, for us to not want to fight anymore and that's bad.