Amerika

The difference between individualism and transcendentalism baffles most people, but it is the most fundamental part of human thinking. Similarly the division between ends-over-means and means-over-ends thinking is fundamental, like the split between supply-side and demand-side economics.

The idea behind ends-over-means thinking is parallel to that of the transcendental: using realism, you find out what is possible, and applying transcendental thinking, you find out what will produce the greatest beauty, realism, and goodness from among those options.

Ends-over-means thinking is “by any means necessary” without the nasty edge, but it is fanatical. If you find the Buddha on the path to your objective, kill him, as the old saying goes. The ends are more important than the means.

George Washington understood this approach and in fact, based his family motto upon it:

The bookplate features the Washington family coat of arms and the motto “exitus acta probat,” which translates to “the result is the test of the actions.”

“The result is the test of the actions” means that the ends (results) matter more than means (actions). It includes consequentialism, or the idea that results in reality matter more than intentions or procedure, but that is naturally consistent with ends-over-means.

The other way of thinking, means-over-ends, values following procedure, compromise with the committee, staying within the letter of the law, and avoiding offense more than it cares about achieving the goal or avoiding negative side effects. This is similar to how individualism deprecates goals in favor of the preferences and mental state of the individual. In individualism, reality is a distant second to the most important thing, which is the individual and its mental state.

Interestingly, the two parallel the divide between emotion regulation and emotion dysregulation, which seem to break down along political lines:

There are two types of emotional regulation: self-regulation, or managing your own emotions, and co-regulation, which involves helping others manage their emotions. Both are important in romantic relationships, at work and in parenting.

We psychologists can’t talk about emotional regulation without talking about its opposite state — emotional dysregulation. That’s when you are unable to successfully use coping skills to deal with tough feelings, and those feelings then interfere with your ability to function.

Yet it isn’t the emotion itself that’s the problem. Rather, it’s how you interpret the emotion, the story you tell yourself about it, and how you respond to it. When emotions become difficult to manage and begin interfering with how you think, act or function, that’s emotion dysregulation.

An individualist by definition rejects the idea of regulating his emotions; he wants to feel what he wants to feel, and since this is determined by his external environment because he refuses to change his thinking, he must modify his environment to make him feel better.

The individualist is in the grips of emotion dysregulation. He rejects the idea of regulating his emotions entirely because he does not want to change; like a drug addict or gambler, he needs another shot of external reality seeming to mirror what he feels inside. He does not want to change his thinking because that entails risk to his fiction-absolute and through it, his self-esteem.

We can see an interesting case study in the analysis of sugar lovers and time preferences:

New research finds that people who genuinely love very sweet flavors tend to be more cautious about risk in lottery-style choices, and they show a stronger preference for rewards available right now, though only when an immediate option is actually on the table. The reason may have less to do with impulsiveness than with a heightened sensitivity to uncertainty.

Sweet-liking was not tied to the size of the rewards or the length of the wait times. It was tied specifically to whether something was available immediately. As the authors note in their discussion, this pattern may mean that reward sensitivity plays a specific role in steering attention toward the most noticeable and tangible option, rather than raising the overall value a person places on larger rewards.

People with “heightened sensitivity to uncertainty” tend to have higher time preference, meaning that it is more important to them to have something now than the promise of something else later, probably because they view life as uncertain and have no faith in the inevitability of “later.”

This reflections emotion dysregulation. The emotionally regulated are self-confident without needing external stimulus to constantly build up that image, so they are more comfortable taking (calculated) risks. But the emotionally dysregulated are fragile because they need a constant flow of affirmation, validation, and symbolic “meaning” or “morality” from life in order to maintain their mental states.

A division like ends-over-means versus means-over-ends starts to make sense in this light. Those who are confident and do not need constant affirmation are not threatened by any methods, but pick whichever methods will achieve the goal best and with the least side effect damage. But those who are dysregulated want to ban any methods that upset them, like violence or capitalism, because the very existence of these things threatens their mental state.

Tags: emotion dysregulation, emotion regulation, ends-over-means, fiction absolute, individualism, means over ends, transcendentalism