There’s an explosion of new movements and techniques to fight procrastination, from Pomodoro (which gives you timed breaks when your tomato-shaped kitchen timer runs out) to self-help books and subreddits...
The highlight of my early 20s was embracing the hedonism treadmill as a rejection of "imposed morals", only to spend countless hours trying tons of self help books and listening to podcasts about discipline and grit and motivation and positive thinking, etc.
At some point, no matter which path you take, you'll find good secular justification for limiting your exposure to toxic people in life and limiting your swearing to improve your vocabulary and avoiding processed food, short term hookups, sleeping well, helping others, meditating, saying affirmations, thinking positively(using faith to counteract "rational evidence" that something will fail or wont work) and so on.
You're following so many rules (self developed through experience and knowledge) that it gives you more appreciation for how the different religions were themselves using heuristics developed over thousands of years of trial and error to give you an optimal set of rules that would more than likely produce the best outcome for your life, given the environmental constraints and lack of scientific knowledge at the time. It was not simply "sky daddy made rulebook"
Your response reminds me of the quote:
“Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was.”
― Donald Kingsbury
Watching our politics speed-run the 60s-80s again reminds me of this every day.
Hopefully we hit the 90s soon, those were pretty rad.
However, the environmental constraints change and the amount of scientific knowledge also changes(and hopefully improves) over time.
Therefore the heuristics turned into rule book will inevitably become harmful eventually.
Also keep in mind that the rulebooks did not produce anything close to any ideal personal outcome. They always produced the ideal societal outcome that would preserve the existing structure of society. If said structure meant you were inherently harmed, your personal ideal was subordinated to that.
Beautifully said. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant and condescending that so-called rational, educated people today will gleefully throw out centuries (if not millennia) of knowledge because they (justifiably) take issues with some of it. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater comes to mind. I'm not particularly religious, but there have always been aspects of religion that I've admired and aspects that I've disliked.
Your local Crossfit gym and book club, I promise you, are not adequate replacements for traditional recurring weekly gatherings, where it's normal (and expected!) to share what's on your mind, what's troubling you, what you are grieving over, what you are celebrating, etc. I've found that the quality of discourse here is much higher than the standard, "Did you watch Succession last week?", surface-level discourse at many of these alleged replacements.
And then, like you mentioned, they embark on a decades-long quest, only to end up at more or less the place they would've ended up otherwise. Or they find themselves completely lost and wayward.
I don't have a prescription here, but complete rejection of something seems almost as dull and narrow-minded as total dogmatic acceptance of it.
> heuristics developed over thousands of years of trial and error to give you an optimal set of rules that would more than likely produce the best outcome for your life
Unless you're cherry picking rules from the set, the outcome would be far from best.
My point is that thousands of years of trial and error may include some valuable insight but also some pretty outdated approaches.
People should not say “processed food” when they mean “a specific kind of bad for you processed foods”. Running society off “unprocessed food” would mean returning to the hunter-gatherer state where having twins means killing one of them so your family doesn’t starve. (Kind of like “plant-based diet”, which actually means “plants but not, like, unhealthy plants”)
Encouraging people to try meditation with no other qualifications is a bit dangerous too - the original purpose of meditation is to become a monk, which is the opposite of having a family.
From what I’ve read, of all the post-Reformation Christian denominations in the West, the Puritans seemed the closest to Orthodox Christianity, not necessarily in every dogmatic theological detail but in their approach to repentance as self-knowledge and taking an active role in improving the state of their soul. The sola fide notion that came out of the Reformation has resulted in a “set it and forget it” set of beliefs where it is hard to see much in the way of self-control or self-knowledge.
I am Orthodox, but it isn't limited to Orthodox thought. A common way by which people come to Orthodoxy is through Buddhism or related easter mysticism, and then realize that Christian thinking combined with true mysticism is the way for them.
Self-knowledge is really the core of a good life, and I'll happily die on that hill.
“make conscience of the idle rovings of our braines” and “enter… those darke closets of thy heart”
I've been battling a few addictions recently. None so severe that they impacted my health or relationships in any major way, and so I lived with these habits very functionally for most of my adult life.
It's incredible the kind of grip a habit can have on you. Despite how much I tried to change, that grip only grew tighter. It wasn't until I joined a 12 step program and met people who were like me that I started the process of unwinding. Making conscience every thought that led to my negative behaviors was the first step. The next giant hurdle was de-identifying with those thoughts and behaviors, which for me was probably the hardest part.
Probably the best tool for me right now is like the quote says, to just really examine your thoughts and honestly tell yourself why you're having the craving/urge. If you can really be honest about it and recognize your addiction is only going to make the situation worse, I find you can start to "dampen" the craving. It suddenly isn't as appealing.
It's not easy though, for every time I can successfully introspect and tell myself an honest, hard truth, there's 10 times I tell a self-lie and let myself believe it simply because to know otherwise would be too big a burden to bear in that moment
I didn't last long in the 12 step program, maybe it's not exactly for me. But a lot of what's talked about in this article is also part of 12 step: self-awareness, daily journaling and gratitude, spiritualizing others, having a community to go through the process with, etc. Even though I didn't continue with it, the few meetings I attended were honestly life changing and I highly recommend anyone who thinks they may have an addiction problem (pro tip: if you arent sure but a specific behavior came to mind, you probably do) to try one out. There's plenty for all kinds of addictions, turns out you're not alone
The author is drawing comparisons (playfully, I admit) with Buddhism, but the Puritans were following a tradition that goes back to late antiquity in the west. Books like the ones being described, in which the "psychology of sin" (so to speak) is dissected and various remedies put forth goes back at least to Evagrius (4th century), and likely far further than that.
The Reformers sought to change many aspects of the "old religion," but a basic asceticism was not among them.
I think drawing inspiration on temperance from "puritans" based on their own writings is possible only going to tell you how they wanted to be perceived.
Also, as the colonies that were founded on religion were based on social regulation, by people reporting, or falling out with others for not following convention.
in short, its more playground than useable self discipline example.
I’m starting to think the Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson may end up being prophetic. In a culture overloaded with things trying to addict you, Puritanism becomes in fact an act of protest and transgression.
I mean I grew up leftist, punk rocker, etc and all my formerly niche opinions are now in the mainstream. On the other hand, I also grew up Muslim and I can say that being a practicing Muslim right now can feel very counter- cultural. Dealing with constantly waves of anti- religious criticism from atheists(which for some reason liberals seem okay with, so I have to deal with this everywhere online), views that the government doesn't approve of in their current idea of what is acceptable, fighting to make me and my communities voice heard when neither party in power is really interested in listening to our complaints-- this all feels very rebellious to me as someone who grew up rebelling. I'm not even interested in rebelling anymore, but at this point the system does not even try to represent us.
The 17th century is what Dutch refer to as "the golden century".
It was an age in which modern capitalism and banking was invented, religious tolerance was practiced and everyone was spending money like "the great Gatsby" on paintings and exotic food.
It was a remarkably "un-Puritan" age. What was preached was rarely practiced. There's a reason why Puritans sought a new home.
I appreciate the content provided, but I'm a bit confused about who the target audience is in this piece. The methodologies employed by the Puritans in regard to soul care were dependent on accepting the fact that Christ is alive and active in us, working through His Spirit. Attempting these techniques from a purely secular standpoint is likely to not result in much value.
"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Phil 2:12-13)
I prefer self-control to government legislation or peer pressure.
There was an article here on HN about a spying app that lets your church community make sure you're not watching porn. So bizarre. Either you believe in what you're doing or you don't.
Is the reason you view it that way due to having anti-anti-porn sentiments?
Suppose instead of a app where a church community can see whether the person who has installed the application has viewed pornography, you instead consider someone who has suffered from alcoholism and is trying to stay away from alcohol, and wishes to be held accountable to others for their decisions.
(Now, of course, one difference between these scenarios is that alcoholism is like, a medical condition? but the analogy is about the type of intervention, not saying that the two scenarios exactly correspond.)
What one might call a "revealed preference" might not be a preference that the person who has it, endorses.
Suppose someone is finding that they keep distracting themself with some diversion (perhaps a videogame) when the course of action they endorse for themself is to complete some other task first. They might turn to their friend, hand them the (e.g.) video game console or whatever, and tell their friend to hold on to it until they've demonstrated to the friend that they've accomplished the task.
Of course, if someone doesn't choose such an arrangement, and it is foisted on them by others, then that can be more questionable,
but the general mechanism of using others, and the judgement of others, to guide one's actions towards what one wants one's future actions to be like, is legitimate, and can be useful.
To be fair, enlisting peer pressure to help you keep your resolutions is a perfectly legitimate tactic if you're the sort of person that works for. The reason apps like are bad and should be felony-illegal is that they're mostly used to force victims to obey someone else's resolutions, to the point that the whole class of software is named after the fact that the typical intended victims are children: "parental controls" or "nannyware".
The Puritan method of avoiding temptation by invading neighboring communities that did not share their austere and guilt-riddled lifestyle choice, driving them from their homes, taking them prisoner, and/or outright murder in the name of their self-proclaimed righteousness.
There’s a reason they got chased out of wherever they showed up…history should rightfully remember them as a bunch of self-important no-fun assclowns.
> If life coaches make their living by pushing us to do what we know we ought to, for a Puritan, the whole community of brethren was the coach.
Has this person even heard of "The Scarlet Letter"? Or know anything about Puritans using stocks, whips or brands on sinners? Or mutilating them by cutting off ears or boring holes in their tongues.
When I think of "life coach" I don't envision someone branding me or cutting off an ear if I don't meet this weeks "life goal"
This completely misses the point. It's almost like you didn't even read the article. He makes clear they were by no means perfect, nor did they genuinely see themselves that way. Where the Buddhists' self-reflection was to accept reality, the puritans strove to change the self. This doesn't mean they all succeeded. You just want to denounce everyone else as imperfect (which is easy to do). You might try the Puritans' advice and look at your own failings first.
Now do... the entirety of human endeavor. Whenever we discover a way we think is good, some of us decide we should impose it on others by force. The Puritans were nothing special in that regard, though high school reading lists tend to focus on them.
I assume you are thinking of America, but what makes you think that's to do with Puritanism? Catholics did very much the same in the Americas. In fact, didn't people of all religions, including Native Americans, often fight with and attack their neighbours, throughout human history?
Actually, the Puritans left England for Holland because they were at the receiving end of violent imprisonment for holding religious convictions that differed with the Anglican church and authorities. Then they left the Netherlands because they felt that their children were becoming too Dutch.
After the Puritans founded Plymouth Bay colony, they let William Rogers (if I have his name correct) leave when he disagreed with them, and he went and founded Rhode Island... where he eventually excommunicated his own wife (so maybe he just had issues getting on with folks).
So I'm not sure what episodes of violently attacking neighbors you're speaking of.
Additionally, according to American feminist history researcher Mardi Keyes in a lecture I heard years ago, Puritan New England was the first society in the world where legally women had the full right to bring divorce suites in cases of abuse, infidelity, or neglect; 50% of the cases were brought by women (she said if you look of the court records one can see this evidence) and it was the closeness of their communities that enabled neighbors and friends to provide testimonial evidence, which often enabled women to leave dreadful marriages. This stands in stark contrast to the pejorative caricaturing of Puritans as anti-women.
In case you're tempted to fall for this rough classification of modern sins and a revival of old ones, think again and discover how awfully biased this article is toward a certain moral. If you sleep with dogs...
[+] [-] neither_color|3 years ago|reply
The highlight of my early 20s was embracing the hedonism treadmill as a rejection of "imposed morals", only to spend countless hours trying tons of self help books and listening to podcasts about discipline and grit and motivation and positive thinking, etc.
At some point, no matter which path you take, you'll find good secular justification for limiting your exposure to toxic people in life and limiting your swearing to improve your vocabulary and avoiding processed food, short term hookups, sleeping well, helping others, meditating, saying affirmations, thinking positively(using faith to counteract "rational evidence" that something will fail or wont work) and so on.
You're following so many rules (self developed through experience and knowledge) that it gives you more appreciation for how the different religions were themselves using heuristics developed over thousands of years of trial and error to give you an optimal set of rules that would more than likely produce the best outcome for your life, given the environmental constraints and lack of scientific knowledge at the time. It was not simply "sky daddy made rulebook"
[+] [-] steveBK123|3 years ago|reply
Watching our politics speed-run the 60s-80s again reminds me of this every day. Hopefully we hit the 90s soon, those were pretty rad.
[+] [-] alexvoda|3 years ago|reply
Therefore the heuristics turned into rule book will inevitably become harmful eventually.
Also keep in mind that the rulebooks did not produce anything close to any ideal personal outcome. They always produced the ideal societal outcome that would preserve the existing structure of society. If said structure meant you were inherently harmed, your personal ideal was subordinated to that.
[+] [-] BigHatLogan|3 years ago|reply
Your local Crossfit gym and book club, I promise you, are not adequate replacements for traditional recurring weekly gatherings, where it's normal (and expected!) to share what's on your mind, what's troubling you, what you are grieving over, what you are celebrating, etc. I've found that the quality of discourse here is much higher than the standard, "Did you watch Succession last week?", surface-level discourse at many of these alleged replacements.
And then, like you mentioned, they embark on a decades-long quest, only to end up at more or less the place they would've ended up otherwise. Or they find themselves completely lost and wayward.
I don't have a prescription here, but complete rejection of something seems almost as dull and narrow-minded as total dogmatic acceptance of it.
[+] [-] thih9|3 years ago|reply
Unless you're cherry picking rules from the set, the outcome would be far from best.
My point is that thousands of years of trial and error may include some valuable insight but also some pretty outdated approaches.
[+] [-] astrange|3 years ago|reply
Encouraging people to try meditation with no other qualifications is a bit dangerous too - the original purpose of meditation is to become a monk, which is the opposite of having a family.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erganemic|3 years ago|reply
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."
- Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, KJV
[+] [-] thrown_22|3 years ago|reply
It's just that godhood is not evenly distributed yet.
[+] [-] rgrieselhuber|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpmisms|3 years ago|reply
Self-knowledge is really the core of a good life, and I'll happily die on that hill.
[+] [-] _emacsomancer_|3 years ago|reply
I find this suggestion very hard to square with the prominence of Predestination in Puritan theology.
[+] [-] jkcorrea|3 years ago|reply
I've been battling a few addictions recently. None so severe that they impacted my health or relationships in any major way, and so I lived with these habits very functionally for most of my adult life.
It's incredible the kind of grip a habit can have on you. Despite how much I tried to change, that grip only grew tighter. It wasn't until I joined a 12 step program and met people who were like me that I started the process of unwinding. Making conscience every thought that led to my negative behaviors was the first step. The next giant hurdle was de-identifying with those thoughts and behaviors, which for me was probably the hardest part.
Probably the best tool for me right now is like the quote says, to just really examine your thoughts and honestly tell yourself why you're having the craving/urge. If you can really be honest about it and recognize your addiction is only going to make the situation worse, I find you can start to "dampen" the craving. It suddenly isn't as appealing.
It's not easy though, for every time I can successfully introspect and tell myself an honest, hard truth, there's 10 times I tell a self-lie and let myself believe it simply because to know otherwise would be too big a burden to bear in that moment
I didn't last long in the 12 step program, maybe it's not exactly for me. But a lot of what's talked about in this article is also part of 12 step: self-awareness, daily journaling and gratitude, spiritualizing others, having a community to go through the process with, etc. Even though I didn't continue with it, the few meetings I attended were honestly life changing and I highly recommend anyone who thinks they may have an addiction problem (pro tip: if you arent sure but a specific behavior came to mind, you probably do) to try one out. There's plenty for all kinds of addictions, turns out you're not alone
[+] [-] sramsay|3 years ago|reply
The Reformers sought to change many aspects of the "old religion," but a basic asceticism was not among them.
[+] [-] dash2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KaiserPro|3 years ago|reply
"puritanism" and thats a wide term isn't overly specific. the mayflower lot were "the Leiden congregation" or something similar. You can see the range of opinion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Dissenters#/media/File...
Also, as the colonies that were founded on religion were based on social regulation, by people reporting, or falling out with others for not following convention.
in short, its more playground than useable self discipline example.
[+] [-] api|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsol|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trasz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MomoXenosaga|3 years ago|reply
It was an age in which modern capitalism and banking was invented, religious tolerance was practiced and everyone was spending money like "the great Gatsby" on paintings and exotic food. It was a remarkably "un-Puritan" age. What was preached was rarely practiced. There's a reason why Puritans sought a new home.
[+] [-] swayvil|3 years ago|reply
Just like today, 99.99% did the latter. Trusting the narrative of the hour, conforming to the hivemind, etc. That's people for you.
And all this fine discipline and self-control was guided by this broken perspective.
Like a fine Lamborghini driven into a tree by a drunk. Don't blame the Lamborghini, blame the drunk.
[+] [-] aliasxneo|3 years ago|reply
"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Phil 2:12-13)
[+] [-] tluyben2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MomoXenosaga|3 years ago|reply
There was an article here on HN about a spying app that lets your church community make sure you're not watching porn. So bizarre. Either you believe in what you're doing or you don't.
[+] [-] drdeca|3 years ago|reply
Suppose instead of a app where a church community can see whether the person who has installed the application has viewed pornography, you instead consider someone who has suffered from alcoholism and is trying to stay away from alcohol, and wishes to be held accountable to others for their decisions.
(Now, of course, one difference between these scenarios is that alcoholism is like, a medical condition? but the analogy is about the type of intervention, not saying that the two scenarios exactly correspond.)
What one might call a "revealed preference" might not be a preference that the person who has it, endorses.
Suppose someone is finding that they keep distracting themself with some diversion (perhaps a videogame) when the course of action they endorse for themself is to complete some other task first. They might turn to their friend, hand them the (e.g.) video game console or whatever, and tell their friend to hold on to it until they've demonstrated to the friend that they've accomplished the task.
Of course, if someone doesn't choose such an arrangement, and it is foisted on them by others, then that can be more questionable,
but the general mechanism of using others, and the judgement of others, to guide one's actions towards what one wants one's future actions to be like, is legitimate, and can be useful.
[+] [-] a1369209993|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seizethecheese|3 years ago|reply
This article was interesting enough but I couldn’t find any of the cited texts online. Is anyone aware or examples that you can actually access?
[+] [-] otikik|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|3 years ago|reply
The Puritan method of avoiding temptation by invading neighboring communities that did not share their austere and guilt-riddled lifestyle choice, driving them from their homes, taking them prisoner, and/or outright murder in the name of their self-proclaimed righteousness.
There’s a reason they got chased out of wherever they showed up…history should rightfully remember them as a bunch of self-important no-fun assclowns.
[+] [-] Ensorceled|3 years ago|reply
> If life coaches make their living by pushing us to do what we know we ought to, for a Puritan, the whole community of brethren was the coach.
Has this person even heard of "The Scarlet Letter"? Or know anything about Puritans using stocks, whips or brands on sinners? Or mutilating them by cutting off ears or boring holes in their tongues.
When I think of "life coach" I don't envision someone branding me or cutting off an ear if I don't meet this weeks "life goal"
[+] [-] starkd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JasonFruit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dash2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkepler|3 years ago|reply
After the Puritans founded Plymouth Bay colony, they let William Rogers (if I have his name correct) leave when he disagreed with them, and he went and founded Rhode Island... where he eventually excommunicated his own wife (so maybe he just had issues getting on with folks).
So I'm not sure what episodes of violently attacking neighbors you're speaking of.
Additionally, according to American feminist history researcher Mardi Keyes in a lecture I heard years ago, Puritan New England was the first society in the world where legally women had the full right to bring divorce suites in cases of abuse, infidelity, or neglect; 50% of the cases were brought by women (she said if you look of the court records one can see this evidence) and it was the closeness of their communities that enabled neighbors and friends to provide testimonial evidence, which often enabled women to leave dreadful marriages. This stands in stark contrast to the pejorative caricaturing of Puritans as anti-women.
[+] [-] Ntrails|3 years ago|reply
Let us all remember everyone as only their worst things, and learn nothing from their best eh?
[+] [-] swayvil|3 years ago|reply
Surely they did what was only right and necessary. Put their faith in good authorities and sensible arguments.
Just like us.
[+] [-] sposeray|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] thrown_22|3 years ago|reply
Skeuomorphism at least looked attractive if incredibly gaudy, this is just terrible.
[+] [-] fedeb95|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ensorceled|3 years ago|reply
Or, do a basic google search on Puritans and their punishments ...
[+] [-] teddyh|3 years ago|reply
(I read the whole article assuming that the images were real historical images, until I saw the last image, which was obviously generated.)
I feel somewhat decieved. If you’re going to use fake images, why not go all the way and generate the whole article text as well?
[+] [-] dash2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DennisP|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anothernewdude|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starkd|3 years ago|reply
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