November 20, 2008

• vulnerability and strength

  It occurs to me that some people are naturally more inclined to find people who appear vulnerable and/or defenseless on the surface but possess an underlying hidden strength more appealing whereas others prefer just the opposite.

  We see this all the time in stories. There’s the strong tough guy who supports people and saves the day but who deep down is more sensitive and vulnerable than he ever lets anyone see. And there’s the heroine who seems like she’s going to break down in the face of the challenges thrust upon her only to when the crises is at its worst display a kind of unexpected strength that saves the day. 

  Generally those are the standard gender portrayals. The first is the valiant Knight. The second is the magical Princess. They are classic stereotypes in stories but they manifest just as commonly in real life too. You need only open your eyes and look at people and it becomes clear which character someone is trying to be or perceiving someone else as.

  There are cases where the gender roles reverse too. More modern stories do this more often and it seems to be a very conscious choice of the authors. For older stories we only see the roles reversed in children, most commonly you see the coming of age stories usually of young boys who develop their inner strength while learning to block and suppress their emotions.  This is a very common story arc even in most modern stories.

  We can see this as a kind of cultural engineering and manipulation suggesting that males should discard and abandon any sense of vulnerability or sensitivity in their childhood and become more “manly” as they grow older. The opposite trend exists in stories too, where women are meant to discard “tomboyishness” of their childhood and abandon doing things on their own in favor of relying on the nearby males but it’s less common in stories in recent years since women’s rights movements have taken off.

  If we take a step back we have to ask two important questions.

  1. Is it true that everyone has or can develop both a vulnerable side and a strong side?

  2. Is it the case that one side must be dominant and another hidden?

  To the first, it’s hard to say with a certainty but it seems highly likely that the answer is yes. Most people we know who we get to know well we start to see that they have both a forceful, aggressive side and a passive sensitive side. And although we can certainly imagine a kind of butch person who never has a moment of weakness, who shows no emotions and who’s emotional awareness is virtually nonexistent,  we are hard pressed to find any examples of that whom we know well enough to declare it to be so.  Likewise we can imagine a person who is incapable of standing up for themselves, always needs others and is incapable of achieving anything on his or her own, who is destroyed by hardship, breaks down and collapses frequently and has no aggressive dominant tendencies whatsoever. It just seems highly unlikely.

  So we can say I think with confidence than the normal state of people is to have both a vulnerable and a strong side. And if those stereotypical extreme alternates exist, we can naturally relegate those to psychological disorders that should be treated if possible.

  So that leaves question 2. Is it true that everyone is has one side suppressed? It sometimes *seems* that way in stories and in life. Go ahead and try to categorize the people you know, and it quickly becomes easy to throw them into one or the other of the two buckets, those whose strong side is beneath the surface and those whose vulnerable side is hidden below.  That’s not to say that for any of those people you might not personally have seen the other side of these people. Rather it simple means that there’s a default orientation in most people toward one trend or the other.

  Why would this be we might ask?  Perhaps there is as I suggested early simply a historical cultural engineering that we see manifest in our stories and tales. People are taught to be one way or the other and so they are.  Alternatively perhaps there is an evolutionary causal trend. That is to say, perhaps as I said in my first line, people are attracted to one or the other of these types. We are attracted to the vulnerable because of a desire to be the catalyst to draw out and inspire them to manifest their hidden strength (I’m more this way. attracted to hidden strength, btw). Or we are attracted to the strong out of a desire to be the one that delves into the depths of that person’s soul and uncovers their sweat vulnerable side they can’t show anyone else. These two trends being well known would naturally encourage people to hide one or the other side of themselves in an attempt to attract intimate partners and close friends.

  Yet another explanation might be that it’s just too hard to for most people to utilize both aspects of their nature at once. It’s much easier to ignore our sensitivity or our aggression than to be both at the same time. What’s more when someone seems to be both at once others might find that person confusing and unpredictable. Hence their might be a risk of being an unintentional social outcast by trying to be all of yourself all the time and shaking people out of their content expectations of a simple life of predictable entities. We might suppress one side of ourselves simply because it makes our lives heck of a lot easier.

  Whichever the case, I believe it would behoove us to attempt to break out of these molds and expectations and start to behave in a manner that demonstrates all aspects of our personality and does not hide any. This is more honest and true, will prevent confusion and will enable us to understand one another much easier going forward.
   

  • 1:58 pm
  • 3 Comments