A Scientific American traz um artigo muito interessante sobre esta problemática. Está escrito em inglês, aqui.
Alguns excertos:
“Psychology Reveals the Comforts of the Apocalypse (…)
(…) deep down for various reasons, there’s something appealing—at least to some of us—about the end of the world.
Enjoy the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. (…)
(…) Over evolutionary history, organisms with a better-safe-than-sorry approach survive. This mechanism has had consequences for both the body and brain, where the fast-acting amygdala can activate a fearful stress response before “higher” cortical areas have a chance to assess the situation and respond more rationally. (…)
(…) Individuals with a history of traumatic experiences, for example, may be fatalistic. For these people, finding a group of like-minded fatalists is reassuring. There may also be comfort in being able to attribute doom to some larger cosmic order—such as an ancient Mayan prophecy. This kind of mythology removes any sense of individual responsibility. (…)
(…) This also means people can focus on preparing. Doomsday preppers who assemble their bunker and canned food, Lissek believes, are engaged in goal-oriented behaviors, which are a proven therapy in times of trouble. (…)
The Power of Knowledge (…)
Beyond the universal aspects of fear and our survival response to it, certain personality traits may make individuals more susceptible to believing it’s the end of the world. Social psychologist Karen Douglas at the University of Kent studies conspiracy theorists and suspects that her study subjects, in some cases, share attributes with those who believe in an impending apocalypse. She points out that, although these are essentially two different phenomena, certain apocalyptic beliefs are also at the heart of conspiracy theories—for example, the belief that government agencies know about an impending disaster and are intentionally hiding this fact to prevent panic.
“One trait I see linking the two is the feeling of powerlessness, often connected to a mistrust in authority,” Douglas says. Among conspiracy theorists, these convictions of mistrust and impotence make their conspiracies more precious—and real. “People feel like they have knowledge that others do not.”
(…) “I talk to kids in my practice and they see it as a good thing. They say, ‘life would be so simple—I’d shoot some zombies and wouldn’t have to go to school,’” Schlozman says. In both literature and in speaking with patients, Schlozman has noticed that people frequently romanticize the end times. They imagine surviving, thriving and going back to nature. (…)
(…) In today’s complicated world with terrorism, war, fiscal cliffs and climate change, people are primed for panic. (…)
“All of this uncertainty and all of this fear comes together and people think maybe life would be better” after a disaster, Schlozman says. Of course, in truth, most of their post-apocalyptic dreams are just fantasies that ignore the real hardships of pioneer life and crumbling infrastructure. He points out that, if anything, tales of apocalypse, particularly involving zombies, should ideally teach us something about the world we should avoid—and how to make necessary changes now.”
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Basicamente, pessoas com experiências traumáticas ou mais propensas ao medo, tendem a ser fatalistas. Nesse caso, procuram pessoas que lhes digam aquilo que elas querem ouvir – que o mundo vai acabar.
O conforto também vem da responsabilidade não ser deles – culpam profecias Maias e outras. Assim, este tipo de psicologia retira qualquer responsabilidade individual neles próprios para mudarem para melhor o mundo.
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Comentário principal:
Quanto a este aspecto: …retira qualquer responsabilidade individual neles próprios para mudarem para melhor o mundo…
Concordo que é uma “desculpa” para “deixar andar” que é (tristemente) muitíssimo comum…
Por exemplo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_responsibility
Media responsibility is a term for the belief that mass media have a basic responsibility to help strengthen and support democratic processes.
Although this is a subjective concept, and hard to define, arguments have been made for newspapers, television, radio, and perhaps types of Internet communication to act as a government watchdog, as a gatekeeper and instrument to disseminate necessary information, and more popularly, as a reflection of cultural interests and trends.
Para quem quiser começar a estudar o problema: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility /
Accountability is condemned by some as jargon of the political élite and referring to a mechanism for democratic good-governance that is unworkable in practice. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accountability
Será que na prática a “acountability” é mesmo “unworkable”?
Será que quando exigimos justiça total, isso é apenas http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking ?
Wishful thinking é uma expressão idiomática inglesa que por vezes se utiliza na língua portuguesa devido a ser de difícil tradução, e que significa tomar os desejos por realidades e tomar decisões, ou seguir raciocínios, baseados nesses desejos em vez de em factos ou na racionalidade. Pode ser traduzido como optimismo exagerado.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking (há mais referências bibliográficas em Inglês)
Certas “profecias” preocupam-me bastante:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profecia_autorrealiz%C3%A1vel
Uma profecia autorrealizável ou autorrealizada é um prognóstico que, ao se tornar uma crença, provoca a sua própria concretização. Quando as pessoas esperam ou acreditam que algo acontecerá, agem como se a profecia ou previsão já fosse real e assim a previsão acaba por se realizar efectivamente.
Ou seja, ao ser assumida como verdadeira – embora seja falsa – uma previsão pode influenciar o comportamento das pessoas, seja por medo ou por confusão lógica, de modo que a reacção delas acaba por tornar a profecia real.
A expressão foi cunhada pelo sociólogo Robert K. Merton, que elaborou o conceito (self-fulfilling prophecy) no seu livro Social Theory and Social Structure, publicado em 1949.
Merton estudou a corrida aos bancos, verificando que, quando se difunde o boato de que um banco está em dificuldades, os correntistas apressam-se em retirar os valores ali depositados e liquidar outros negócios, de modo que o banco acaba mesmo falindo.
Dois comentários adicionais:
1) Quanto a este aspecto:
Doomsday preppers who assemble their bunker and canned food, Lissek believes, are engaged in goal-oriented behaviors, which are a proven therapy in times of trouble.
Sugiro este link: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terapia_ocupacional / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy
Ver também;
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/basket_case / http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emotional_cripple / http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stigmatization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estigma_social
According to Goffman there are three forms of social stigma:
1) Overt or external deformations, such as scars, physical manifestations of anorexia nervosa, leprosy (leprosy stigma), or of a physical disability or social disability, such as obesity.
2) Deviations in personal traits, including mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, and criminal background are stigmatized in this way.
3) “Tribal stigmas” are traits, imagined or real, of ethnic group, nationality, or of religion that is deemed to be a deviation from the prevailing normative ethnicity, nationality or religion.
Efforts are being undertaken worldwide to eliminate the stigma of mental illness,[207] although the methods and outcomes used have sometimes been criticized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder#Perception_and_discrimination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desinstitucionaliza%C3%A7%C3%A3o
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforma_psiqui%C3%A1trica_no_Brasil
A reforma psiquiátrica pretende modificar o sistema de tratamento clínico da doença mental, eliminando gradualmente a internação como forma de exclusão social.
Este modelo seria substituído por uma rede de serviços territoriais de atenção psicossocial, visando a integração da pessoa que sofre de transtornos mentais à comunidade.
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel
Notabilizou-se por ter considerado que os seres humanos que sofriam de perturbações mentais eram doentes e que ao contrário do que acontecia na época, deviam ser tratados como doentes e não de forma violenta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_treatment
Ver bem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histeria_colectiva
Mass hysteria — other names include collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior — in sociology and psychology refers to collective delusions of threats to society that spread rapidly through rumors and fear.
Saliento a expressão “collective obsessional behaviour”…
Tudo isto me lembra a música “Mad World”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_World e o modo como foi utilizada neste filme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko
The song was influenced by the theories of Arthur Janov, author of The Primal Scream.
The lyric “the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had” suggests that dreams of intense experiences such as death will be the best at releasing tension.
A letra dessa canção:
http://www.vagalume.com.br/gary-jules/mundo-louco.html
2) Relativamente a isto:
Beyond the universal aspects of fear and our survival response to it, certain personality traits may make individuals more susceptible to believing it’s the end of the world.
Sugiro este link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show_delusion
Delusions – fixed, fallacious beliefs – are symptoms that, in the absence of organic disease, indicate psychiatric disease.
The content of delusions varies considerably (limited by the imagination of the delusional person), but certain themes have been identified, for example, persecution.
These themes have diagnostic importance in that they point to certain diagnoses.
Persecutory delusions are, for instance, classically linked to psychosis.
Mais informação:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia
Por último, sugiro uma obra que me parece interessante: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverence_for_Life
He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates / http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_da_Paz
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9dicos_Internacionais_para_a_Preven%C3%A7%C3%A3o_da_Guerra_Nuclear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Physicians_for_the_Prevention_of_Nuclear_War
http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/en/
muito bom tópico carlos
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