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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by pseudoname on February 9, 2006, at 15:52:51
"Help: the Original Human Dilemma" by Garret Keizer (2004) is a thoughtful stroll through ideas and conflicts about helping other people.
It turns out that helping is not necessarily an undiluted good. It can be a dicey business, and is very often more about the helper than the helpee.
The book is built around the the parable of the Good Samaritan, and Keizer really freshens up the perspectives on this over-used reference.
He also talks about his personal experiences with giving more help than he could afford, more help than was wanted, and less help than was effective. He talks about what "help" really means and what it means to be helpless. Keizer is some kind of ordained Christian minister, and he writes essays for Harper's Magazine.
One idea I thought pertinent to Babblers: Keizer suggests that to be effective in a helping profession, it's necessary for people to be able to keep in mind that people are (always) doing the best that they can. He suggests that people in helping professions use this as a rule of thumb to see if they are currently suited to their occupations: "If you can sustain the insight that people are doing the best they can—if you can maintain some faith that this *is* an insight—you're solid. If not, maybe you should pack it in."
I can't always believe that, but I can believe in it as a guideline.
I think it could be useful in some of the tense discussions on Babble, too: maybe some of those that end up as Admin debates, LOL. People are doing the best they can; if you can't believe it in a given discussion, maybe you should leave that thread for a while...
Posted by sleepygirl on February 9, 2006, at 22:41:40
In reply to for all Babblers: “Help” by Garret Keizer, posted by pseudoname on February 9, 2006, at 15:52:51
this sounds intriguing
people are doing the best they can....can you say more about this?
Posted by pseudoname on February 10, 2006, at 10:01:30
In reply to Re: for all Babblers: “Help” by Garret Keizer » pseudoname, posted by sleepygirl on February 9, 2006, at 22:41:40
> people are doing the best they can....can you say more about this?
As far as its place in Keizer's book goes, I'm not sure I can add much more. But as a general principle or belief, it is pretty intriguing, as you say.
The question seems to me to be "The best they can — toward what end?" We might say that a certain drug abuser seems to be doing the best he can to ruin his health and alienate everyone he knows. But I think Keizer's principle would mean that even in the midst of his self-destructive and other-destructive behavior, he's really doing the best he can to live a productive life, use his resources efficiently, contribute to the well-being of his family and community, and so on.
I guess the idea is that somehow, at base, no one is *really* trying to harm themselves or others.
I think that idea would very often have to be accepted simply as an article of faith, because so often the commonsense evidence demands the conclusion that people are freely being deliberately horrible and ruinous.
For example, to me, a woman who continually returns to a misogynistic, physically abusive boyfriend does NOT seem to be "doing the best" she can. She seems to be freely choosing a very bad outcome. My initial reaction is, "Why on earth should anyone care or try to help you?!" But the principle Keizer brought up, which I can believe in, tells me that there must be more to the story. Given the girlfriend's genetic makeup, developmental history, biochemistry, and current circumstances, she really is behaving as productively, healthfully, and helpfully as she possibly can.
Only with that belief could I make any serious effort to help her or lessen her pain — to say nothing of the boyfriend!
I think this idea, if you believe it, can really open you up to empathy and patience.
I'd be really interested to know what you thought about it, sleepygirl. Does it seem "believable" to you?
Posted by sleepygirl on February 10, 2006, at 11:17:53
In reply to people are doing the best they can » sleepygirl, posted by pseudoname on February 10, 2006, at 10:01:30
well, I imagine such a concept would require some serious effort, whereas a "what the heck are you doing to yourself and everyone else?" type of attitude would not require as much effort.
Is it believable? depends on who you ask of course, and maybe the consideration that makes some of us more empathetic and patient. I do find it believable, but I need to understand it more.Your post raised some issues I've been thinking about for a long time - where does responsibility lie given someone's upbringing, biochemistry, limitations etc.? How do people really recognize their options, the effect of their behavior?
People do have the ability to direct the course of their lives certainly, but if you'd never seen a sunset how would you know what it was when you saw it? (or some sort of similar idea)
I'd like to do the "best I can" - I hope I'm not too limited by certain things, and I'd like to understand fully what those things might be.I just might read that book.
thanks,
all the "best",
sleepygirl
Posted by finelinebob on August 26, 2006, at 15:39:08
In reply to people are doing the best they can » sleepygirl, posted by pseudoname on February 10, 2006, at 10:01:30
Sorry, but I gotta admit that what made this thread jump out at me among the sea of blue links is that I thought it said "'Help' by Garrison Keillor"! As if it would have been a book of recipes (Powdermilk Biscuits, for one) and sheet music.
I certainly can understand this notion of "doing the best you can." When I was 8, we had a tragedy in my family that pretty much killed us all, even the ones who stayed "alive". I grew up trying to heal my mom, to make her happy again (pretty tough, particularly for an 8 year old, for someone who refused to be happy).
That grew into my family relationships, generalized to my relationships with others, affected my work ethic and attitudes towards school ... it all just mushroomed. And the driving force behind it was my failure to do what I wanted to do more than anything else.
I grew up to be so twisted -- doing the right things for the wrong reasons and doing the wrong things for the right reasons -- and as noted elsewhere in Babbleland I am such an expert at failure, that it took until my junior year of college before my last fraud -- my intelligence and academic success -- was exposed.
But all the time, I had that notion that I was doing the best that I could and, ruling out the contrary, that I had no need for help. Even when I first started taking meds, I had to fight with the idea that I was just being a copycat of a friend who had just went on them and that I really had no need for them.
I can see the flipside, too. I was a teacher, and a teacher of teachers. Perhaps the greatest mistake a teacher can make is to teach how they learned. Teachers, by definition, are good learners, but that doesn't mean a teacher knows anything about how to help someone who is NOT a good learner, or cannot learn in the same modality that the teacher excels at. So, some teachers try to force learners to see through the teacher's eyes, and some teachers take a step back and try to see the issue through their students' eyes.
And, yeah, I've seen it here in Babbleland, where issues can get so personal and the zealot comes out. I've left a couple of threads in the short time I've been back exactly because of that ... because people didn't need any more of my zealotry and I wasn't helping, maybe even hurting.
I'll have to see if the library has it... the book, not the zealotry.
This is the end of the thread.
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