When Willpower Becomes Toxic Repression

On the world of toxic self-help, plato, and when reason goes bad.

We're all divided against ourselves. That's why we suffer. And it's this very inner conflict that leads to self-deception. Plato arrived at this insight. In this article, we're going to speak on how we can use this insight to live a more meaningful life.

The very adaptive machinery that keeps us alive is the same machinery that makes us susceptible to self-deception. This affords compassion because it helps us recognize that the people that are the most ideological are the ones that suffer the most.

Plato & The Fragmentation of the Psyche

In The Republic, Plato puts forth his Tripartite Soul Theory. In it he described the three different parts of the soul. I believe his theory can help us develop towards less internal division.

First, there's the Reason Part which has to do with knowledge and truth. As stated in the Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy "It is also, however, concerned to guide and regulate the life that it is, or anyhow should be, in charge of, ideally in a way that is informed by wisdom and that takes into consideration the concerns both of each of the three parts separately and of the soul as a whole." Furthermore, reason can deal with abstract concepts and goals. It can plan long-term, eat healthily, meditate and engage in what modern self-help circles epouse, delayed gratification.

Secondly, there's the Spirit Part which is focused on garnering the esteem of others. We can think of this part as the social part. It's motivated by self-assertion and ambition in the worldly sense. We can think of this as the socio-cultural domain, the interpersonal part.

Finally, we have the Appetite Part, which is primarily concerned with food, drink, and sex. In short, everything that keeps us alive. It's the impulsive survivalistic part that moves towards pleasure and avoids pain.

Each of these parts are motivated by different things and when their desires are in opposition with one another, we suffer. Or, as Socrates put it, the person whose soul is just is a happy person and whose soul is unjust is wretched.

John Vervaeke in Awakening From the Meaning Crisis further connects Plato's insights in saying that this Platonic Division of Three Souls keeps resurfacing in modern society. A few examples being Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego, and modern Neuroscience's Reptilian Brain, Mammalian brain and the Neocortex. Which I believe further makes a case for the benefit of gaining a deep understanding of the philosophical roots of western culture.

According to Vervaeke, this key insight of the higher, middle, and lower part is something that keeps showing up in our society today. He calls it the platonic division. For example, Freud introduced the idea of the Id, Ego, and Superego. Yeah you guessed it. The id is the lower part, ego is the middle part, and superego is the higher part. The idea isn't to repress the id and the ego but to subordinate them in service of the higher part. Another platonic division in modern culture is Neuroscience's reptilian brain (lower part), mammalian brain (middle part), and the Neocortex (higher part).

Toxic Self-Help Culture

Plato arrives at the solution that to resolve this internal division is to bring these parts into harmony with each other. Which is contrary to the common approach of trying to force the reason part to win above all else. Think of David Goggins, Jocko Willink, Gary Vaynerchuk and the entire short term-pain, long term gain self-help craze. The

Upon taking the perspective of Plato we can start to poke holes in the root of why hustle culture, and willpower-focused self-help is so toxic. Hustle culture tells us that even if our Appetite and Spirit parts are needing to be taken accounted for, we should just repress them and only act based on logic and reason. Addittionaly, I'm sure many psychologists would back up this claim saying that repressing emotion in service of logic and rationality always leads to negative consequences later down the line.

A Holonic Approach to Self-Harmonization

The best mental model that I've come across as an approach to harmonization of our parts is a holonic approach. We must never forget that the Appetite Part will never go away. It will always be present. So the question that we must ask ourselves is "How do we ensure that this part acts in service of the higher parts?"

I'd argue that the best approach would be to start with the Reason part and to figure out what it is you're shooting for in life. What are your long term goals? Is it happiness, health, inner peace, wisdom? If so, then we must consider how we can satisfy the appetite and social part in service of those goals. After all, we're all social creatures and we need human connection as well as our basic needs taken care off. So maybe there are ways to craft a social circle in support of our higher goals, ensuring that the people we surround ourselves with are also aligned with similar reason part ideals.

In other words, how can we support the Spirit Part so that it can effectively mediate between the higher ideals and the impulsive drives that we experience in every moment.

Survival In It's Many Forms

In another way, the reason part is focused on our survival too, just in a different way. In a highly complex world, a successful career, being healthy, and focusing on long-term goals is a way to approach surviving in the long term. They're more preventative survival tactics -- but survival nonetheless.

All the parts share one thing in common. They're all oriented towards survival, just in different forms. Where the lower part is focused on physical survival and making sure that you don't run up against threats. The middle part is focused on social survival and that you can maintain your standing in the culture so that you don't get thrown out of the tribe, so to speak. And the higher part is focused on long-term survival.

The Reason Part Produces a Combinatorial Explosion of Choices & Massive Anxiety

But then again Vervaeke makes a very present point. The more that we focus on survival in the long-term, the more combinatorially explosive our choices become -- meaning the further we get away from the present, the more infinite the potential choices/risks become. We've likely heard this framed in everyday speak as too many choices are crippling. It seems to me that modern society is built on the idea that more choices is better. When we base our society on individual freedom, then we put all of the burdens on the individual to make the most agentic choice that is in alignment with its own self-interest. The problem develops when there are millions of choices and too little time to judge what is best for one's self-interest and what's harmful. The choices become crippling, and the anxiety increases. Furthermore, not to make matters worse, but then there are countless agents, each acting based on their own agendas in a technosphere where anyone can acquire an increasing amount of power. Just think of modern advertising and how psychologically manipulative it can become. See Daniel Schmactenberger's awe-inspiring piece called "It's a MAD Information War" for more on psychological warfare and propaganda.