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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think "multiple realities" should take a lot of the blame for young people's MH problems?

7 replies

GarlicGrace · 28/09/2023 23:26

Long late-night post alert ...
I think it goes without saying that there is an objectively factual world, with many near-inviolate truths, and then there's everyone's individual perceptions of the factual world. Younger people are learning that facts don't necessarily exist outside a person's perception; reality is created in the mind.

Example:
When you & I look at a colour, we can never be sure we're really "seeing" the same thing. We might not even agree on whether it's green, blue or teal. You might find the colour horrible and I might love it. All the same, it has a Pantone reference which identifies the precise wavelengths of light it reflects: it's an unchanging reality despite our differing perceptions and opinions.

Another, with apologies to Buddhism:
A tree falls in the forest. If nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound? It does set off a chain of percussive reactions that, if you could hear it, would constitute a sound. I say this means it makes a sound. You might say a percussive reaction isn't a "sound" unless someone hears it.

This has all been a jolly interesting debate for philosophers down the ages. It encompasses the nature of the world, human experience, social movements and religion, among other things. Current philosophy considers four types of reality: personal, social, objective and shared objective. (Different philosophers may use different terms, I just like the way this author wrote it.)

For reasons that still escape me, young people are being taught in schools that their sex is more a matter of personal experience than a material fact and that, further, there's a spectrum of sexes to choose from. The idea that there are four realities - three of which are created in the minds of individuals and groups - is gradually infecting all areas of life and thought.

I've had some extremely frustrating talks with twenty-somethings whose take on everything, including basic science, is "It it what I say it is!" Resorting to proof gets nowhere, because it's my perception of the evidence and my perception's no more valid than anyone else's.

A really common manifestation of this type of thinking is "Literal Violence". Speech can be hurtful, that's why we have expressions like "sharp words". The hurt a multi-reality thinker feels is the exact same as a physical pain, therefore a rude or upsetting comment is actually violent.

I can't help thinking that believing you live in a sort of Matrix must be destabilising. If your thoughts & feelings create the reality around you, that's a hell of a responsibility. Your creations then have to be validated by other people in order to exist a bit more definitely, so your entire world genuinely depends on sharing the mental perceptions of people around you.

It would drive me fucking nuts, and I'm not a young person still learning how the world works! I'd love to know what happens when material facts slap these kids in the face, but I imagine it can't be pleasant.

The Four Types of Reality

We foolishly use only one word to describe what confronts our senses. “Reality.” This is what is “real,” it is “what we know,”  that which is “true,”…

https://sociologyisascience.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-four-types-of-reality/

OP posts:
RandomButtons · 28/09/2023 23:43

I think the rise of the internet needs to take most the blame to be honest. Strange ideas spread like wildfires and no one knows their own identity anymore. No wonder so many of them feel the need to identify as something extravagant and flamboyant. It’s impossible to feel validated unless you’re getting likes and accolades, and coming out as non-binary etc will bring that validation. No different to those of us who were punks or goths back in the day. We felt different and got validated by demonstrating it.

Grimchmas · 28/09/2023 23:53

I think the belief that words are "literal violence" is part of the problem with a lack of resilience and a sharp rise in anxiety and other MH difficulties in young people these days. I think all this hand wringing over gender identity is another facet of the same problems.

Teenagers have always struggled struggled and experimented with their identity, it's part of coming of age, but I'm not sure that any other generations' identity struggled have come with the chance that they may be medicated and started on a path to major surgery and/or cross sex hormones for life. Certainly no other generation has had access to quite so much information (and disinformation).

It's undoubtedly all multifaceted and complex.

GarlicGrace · 29/09/2023 02:03

This just came up on my FB feed 😂 I'm sure you're both right that normal exploration of ideas and identity has been complicated, even intensified, by the constant deluge of information/bullshit emanating from our screens. It's disturbing to me that kids aren't being given more robust critical skills.

Really agree with your first paragraph, @Grimchmas!

To think "multiple realities" should take a lot of the blame for young people's MH problems?
OP posts:
Catsmere · 29/09/2023 02:04

Totally agree, OP.

Justifiedcheese · 29/09/2023 02:50

Oh look, everything is the fault of trans people. Quelle surprise. 😒

Justifiedcheese · 29/09/2023 02:53

More likely it's the constant criticism of anyone who dares to suggest there isn't one correct way to be that is rigidly determined by someone who knows them better than they do and has decided they are just a dangerous pervert.
Now where did we hear that before? Oh yeah gay people in the 50s 🙄

GarlicGrace · 29/09/2023 03:45

Lovely demonstration of inability to read what is written instead of what you think it says, arguing against a point that wasn't raised, and false equivalence.

"Your reality" seems to be that I think all that guff about one correct way to be (congratulations on your mind-reading skills). I've learned there's no mileage in trying to talk sense with anyone's "personal reality", so I'll just thank you for sharing.

OP posts:
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