Rethinking Everything by Neil Bright

Author:Neil Bright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

Yes but

Said to be the “most common game played at social gatherings, committee meetings, and psychotherapy groups,” (Berne 1964, Games People Play, 58) Yes But is launched by people who ask for advice but don’t really want it. The game begins when a player as victim requests help in solving a problem. This plea hooks the target’s nurturing Parent, who responds “Why don’t you . . .?” Yet, whatever suggestion or solution is offered, the insinuating-its-inadequacy response is always “Yes but” followed by a fill-in-the-blank nonactionable reason. Indeed, over time an accomplished player can hold off advice-givers with why-suggestions-won’t-work rationalizations longer than the three hundred Spartans held off the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Interestingly, virtually every parent has been baited into playing a version of this game by their young children, who despite endless suggestions of amusement possibilities continue to wander aimlessly and zombie-like through the house complaining that there’s “Nothing to do.” But whatever variation of the game is played, while the initial request for assistance is seemingly plausible, players of Yes But have a far more ulterior agenda. And that is to remain chronically infected with a case of “It’s not my faultism.”

In addition to leveling advice-offering rescuers with “It won’t work” rejections, Yes But enthusiasts want to “prove” that since there is no solution to their “issue,” they can continue to do nothing other than to persist in feeling sorry for themselves. In this way, the self-generated evidence that “no one can help me” or “I guess there’s no solving my problem” is overwhelming and secure. Moreover, since “we are driven more strongly to avoid loses than to achieve gains” (Kahneman 2013, 302), Yes But offers players the preferred option of failing to try than trying and failing.

But whatever rationalizations such manipulated evidence provides, the end result is inaction, self-pity, and the added benefit of “proving” that the unable-to-help patsy hooked into offering suggestions is just as inadequate as oneself. And the silence following the rejection of all advice signals the game player’s triumph of that “going nowhere fast” leveling strategy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.