#ii Negavitity

[mumpsetc]

I Think the Era of ii Being the Second Biggest Object Show Is Kind of Over... It Does Just Feel Like Its Just Getting By on Name Recognition Now

[mrburger]

An Angry Little Note

Are you 100% sure passive aggression is objectively real?

Wikipedia says PA “is the indirect expression of hostility.”  I like that just fine, and so do you.  But now let’s break it down, just in case we’re missing something.

First off, "indirect expression” can be taken to mean anything except direct expression.  Wikipedia gives us examples of indirect hostility such as, “procrastination, stubbornness, [and] sullen behavior.”  Note the trends here of noncompliance, delay, and non-verbal confrontation.  Googling “passive aggression” also gives us this cute visual summary.

There are also decades of commentary on PA, dating back to World War II and Col. Menninger’s research into what he perceived as “immaturity” among certain noncompliant cadets.  

Clinical opinion on the matter seems to have fluctuated over the past 70-odd years.  Early attempts to explain PA saw it as “stem[ming] from a childhood stimulus,” qua Freud and his nurturist framework.  Then came the behaviorist movement of the 1950s, during which the definition of PA narrowed significantly and became coupled with “passive-dependency” (today, Dependent Personality Disorder).  Later, in the age of the popular psychologist and the ensuing bevy of “new age” diagnoses, came Millon, who insisted that PA was its own personality disorder--to which I’d provide a link, but here Wikipedia just circles back to the PA article.  Eventually, passive aggression (or Millon’s “negavitism”) was relegated to the appendix of the DSM-IV, and by the DSM-V it was gone completely.

Where did it go?  Why, to that place that all scientifically unfounded theories in psychology go when they die!  Common parlance.

And now, in answer to that, here’s my take on what PA really is.

Passive aggression is entirely subjective, and rests chiefly on hostile or apathetic misinterpretations of passive (read:  conflict-averse, cooperation-oriented) attempts at communicating grievances, especially with someone who is themselves hostile or apathetic.  How often do you see belligerent assholes engage in passive aggression with sweet kindly folk?  Zero often, yes?  And now how often do you see the inverse?

If you’ll humor me for a second, let’s consider one of the chief causes of Dependent Personality Disorder, which would seem to be a pathologically high score in trait Agreeableness.  (I say “seem to” because the DSM still for whatever reason refuses to incorporate findings from explicitly pertinent FFM research.)  Agreeableness is a lovely, angelic trait, roundly appreciated in every human culture known to science.  But at too high a level, and constellated with high Neuroticism and certain socially needy facets of Extraversion, Agreeableness can begin to interfere with a person’s quality of life.  Think of the pushover, the sycophant, or the apologist.  Think of too much of a good thing.  Think of nice guys finishing last.

Now, to be clear, I’m not equating PA to DPD.  Healthy, non-disorderly people engage in PA everyday!  Instead, I’m simply trying to highlight that PA is a defining behavior of a disorder whose defining trait is Agreeableness.  Which is where we proceed at last to my main point.

I would argue that PA is actually, simply, the Agreeable person’s trademark approach to conflict, and that the label of “passive aggression” is one only ever administered by their antagonists.  PA is not in and of itself maladaptive.  In fact, it’s almost indistinguishable from the very kinds of peaceful resistance we tend historically to laud.  Rosa Parks, for instance, in refusing to get up from her seat could have easily been mislabeled as a passive aggressor.  (And indeed, she was given a $10 fine for violation of city ordinance.)

The kind are greedily and coldly misunderstood by the unkind.  Just as easily, like Dr. King and Ms. Parks, are they underestimated.   Empathy and altruism, cooperation and trust, these things look to the Disagreeable like holier-than-thou-ness and naivety, like pure foolishness, because Disagreeable people struggle for veracity when attempting to project their own self-interest onto the un-self-interested motives of others.  

To the reader, whichever way you fall, I say open your eyes and ears.  Appreciate the angsty little post-its for what they are:  invitations to peaceful debate.  Passive aggression is not pussyfooting.  It is none other than the graceful’s attempt at letting the graceless know when they have stepped out of line.