I was recently made aware of the concept of "learned helplessness" and I immediately realized that my entire ethical framework is designed to help me cope with my learned helplessness from C-PTSD.
Since virtue ethics deals with maintaining a consistent disposition, it's something that I can accept as within my control. By contrast, consequentialist ethical theories just feel hopelessly futile to me, no doubt due to my learned helplessness, and some forms of deontology do, too.
It's also easier to justify the resulting emotional detachment and psychological numbness as "dispassion" in an effort to transform what's probably pathological apathy into something more productive.
Well, "productive" is subjective. There are some people that are convinced I've jumped from being an ice queen to being a soulless monster. I can't say that I like that, but I can't please everyone. I'm just trying to do as much good as I can with the cards I have, and those cards no longer include empathy or trust in others. It's the only way I've found to keep moving forward.
I've been considering cutting contact with everyone I know and completely abandoning my internet presence to go back to the social self-isolation I was in before I joined this forum, because I think my lack of emotion has started to become a liability to those around me and that seems like it would be the ethical choice to make. I think my presence here is probably a net negative, despite my intention to learn and spread information, because I'm pretty sure my blunted emotions can lead me to come across as harsh, blunt, condescending, and dismissive, which is not conducive to productive discourse.
I've already left several other online groups and sites. I was going to leave RF quietly, too, and good riddance to me, but I've had to take some sick leave and this is the only thing I could find that hit the sweet spot between "actively engaging" and "actually have to think." I guess my reign of terror will continue for awhile. I think this forum can probably handle another social misfit, though.
Also, I had a user DM me with an invite to a forum filled with white nationalists. I have no idea what I've been doing wrong with my posts to make anyone think that's the kind of crowd I'm interested in, but I want to state that I unequivocally denounce white supremacism, ethno-nationalism, racial realism, and all similar views. I openly apologize to anyone if I've given the impression that I support any of these ideologies or haven't spoken out against them when I should have. I get that I can be unintentionally condescending and harsh, even come across as obnoxiously arrogant and prideful, but I'm not a racist. That's a line even I won't cross.
