[bminor13]

> but if we changed the culture to become more emotions-aware, people would know how to help each other and themselves far better.

> Fixing psychological and emotional problems through cultural change just doesn't solve anything.

By my reading, the two quotes are in direct opposition to one other. It sounds like you are advocating for cultural change - just a different type/approach than is currently used?

[concinds]

It's more profound than that, I'll restate:

Cultural change that addresses behaviors or focuses on other external factors can't work; that's outside-in cultural change.

But if you want to fix issues on a systemic, national, or worldwide level (which is the goal here), you do need some kind of cultural change.

Cultural change that focuses on inside-out psychology (not the movie) is what I call "psychological change"; the cultural element is just the "trojan horse" through which any systemic change must happen.

Example:

- banning magazines that show excessively thin models, because girls "become insecure when they look at them", is the thinking I denounce. If they had high self-esteem they couldn't be affected by a magazine cover. If they have low self-esteem, they will be. But the magazine is blamed, and legislation and activist momentum focuses on that. The self-esteem problem doesn't get solved, just displaced. Exactly the same with the "Instagram harms teen girls' mental health" viewpoints. That's only a problem because 80% of the population has low self-esteem and is unaware of it. Shouldn't that be fixed?

Implement a culture where people, for example:

- know the signs of low self-esteem

- know exactly how to address it in themselves, without pop-psych quakery or needing to pay for therapy sessions

- know how to address it in others

- know what assertiveness looks like, and how to do it

- know how to problem-solve personal or relationship problems

- know how to effectively interact to defensiveness, depression, argumentativeness, egotism, insincerity, power struggles, irresponsibility, prejudice, whatever; without getting upset at the other person; how to assert boundaries when faced with people like that, and how to help them

- how to evaluate others' emotional health, so people can make more informed choices in mates and spouses

- know how to evaluate if their relationships are healthy, and what to do about it if they're not

- how to grieve effectively

- could go on, and on.

So many of society's problems come from psychological illiteracy. Again, people's obsession with pop-psychology proves that people see a big need in learning more. Sadly, the pop-psychology craze mostly focuses on superficial things like self-talk, or on trying to, for example, "spot" signs of Narcissism or psychopathy in other people, to try to "protect oneself" from these people; it's not deep enough and doesn't get people to actually understand themselves and each other better; just to project various medical labels onto others and themselves (self-diagnose). What I'm proposing is outside that framework of "mentally ill vs normal" and focuses on empathically learning more about oneself and others and ultimately being able to help each other.

The cultural change is just meant to address that; it's a change in awareness and knowledge, not in behavior.