Paul Bloom || The Pleasures of Suffering

we cover a lot of territory. We discuss the value of suffering in pursuit of meaning and make the distinction between unforeseen tragedy and chosen suffering. Paul elaborates on BDSM and horror as examples of benign masochism, activities that people find comfort and enjoyment in despite the experience of pain. We also touch on the topics of meditation, Buddhism, attachment, parenting, empathy, and rational compassion. This is a very juicy episode and

I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did. So, without further ado, I bring you Paul Bloom, Doctor Bloom, it is so great to chat with you today on the Psychology Podcast. It's nice to see you again, Scott. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. I was coming up with the sweet Spot by memory. That is the title of the book, right, That is exactly the title book this week. Great, Great, Now you had a prior title, which is one that I was working with in my

own head while you were writing it. I thought it was going to be called the Pleasure of Suffering or something along those lines. Is that right? That was that your work title? You have a good memory. We had a conversation, but just a while ago it was originally going to be called the Pleasures of Suffering, and it was originally going to be about that, about what Paul

Rowsen calls benign masochism. Why we get pleasure from pain, from BDSM, from hot bass, from cutting ourselves from you know, your mind may vary, but why that kind of activity gives us pleasure? And I got into the book doing a lot of that, and then I became more interest in idea to suffering could yield other things like purpose and meaning, issues that I know you're very interested in. So the book expanded and so it ended up as

a sweet Spot. Cool. Well, why did and I very cares about this a lot would be a good place to start. Why did Daniel Gilbert almost persuade you to not write this book. So, so, Daniel Gilbert, I know, you know him. He's a psychologist at Harvard, one of the nicest and one of the smartest people into business. And Dan as a hedonist. Dan will tell you that he believes that in the end, all that were after his pleasure. So and my book is very much against that.

My book could be seen as an argument against hedonism, arguing that, you know, yeah, we do seac out pleasure, we like to scratch where it dishes, but we also seek out purpose and meaning and other longer term goals. And Dan just kept pushing me on this. You know, whenever I said, you know to Dan, well, you know, certainly people choose to suffer, they choose to sacrifice for higher goals. Dan's response was always yeah, because they like it. They like it more than an alternative. And it turns

it to be hard to argue against that. So a good chunk of the book, particularly in an end, is sort of taking on Dan and talking about his views. You really did you really did? You even got to the point where you're like, look, not to beat a dead horse here, but I feel like it's important that

I tackle this. I feel like you even like, you know, broke the third wall second there at one point in the book and you're like, look, I know I've gone on three pages about this and might seem excessive, but this is really important, and I agree, I mean it

is important. This this difference of opinion. You know, he really he has this view of you know, this additive model, right, we kind of added all right, at the end of our lives and we're on their deathbed, we're like, Okay, I've had forty seven thousand positive experiences, I've had twenty four thousand shitty experiences. It's been a good wife, and then you die. Yeah, but your arguably, so maybe the additive model is not the right the right way to

think about this in your book, it's not. So let's let's dive into some of the ideas in your book and present your views now, you know. So, first of all, want to ask what is the potential value of suffering? So there's there's several answer to that question. The base that one answer, which everybody agrees on is sometimes you have to suffer to get what you want. So, you know, if you have a baby, you might wake up in

the middle of the night to feed the baby. You might not enjoy that, but you just do it because because you have to. You you might have a painful vaccine shot because you don't want to get COVID. You you know, you take the age fifteen into the city. You do work because you need money to survive. And that's the obvious answer. My book explores two less obvious answers.

One is suffering could be a source of pleasure. So sometimes, like we choose to watch movies that scare the pans off of us, that make us cry, we choose to engage in activities like you know, martial arts or endurance training or whatever that that just exhausts us and hurt us, and we love it. It gives us a certain sort

of pleasure. And then I think it may be most significantly, we are creatures that pursue meaning, like extended, purposeful activities that have often have significant ends, And you don't get that without suffering. So in this second case, it's not suffering per se that we're after. We're after what I call meaning. But suffering is a necessary part of the package. Yeah, it's not something that just comes along for the package. You're saying it's actually an essential part of the package.

And that's an interesting distinction, important distinction. You you really, if we can double clicker for a second, you're tally about chosen suffering, exactly chosen suffering. There is another very important distinction, chosen suffering versus unchosen suffering. Now I work a little bit and in the field of post traumatic growth. In fact, my next book is on post traumatic growth. Yes, believe it or not. Do you have a title? Yes, the title is called Choose Growth. At least that's the

working title. You know that we have some choice, you know, in our arsenal, about whether or not we can make that decision versus make a different decision. So this is very interesting. This this, I think we should we should have a cop We should have we should we should talk, we should talk, like right now, right now, let's have a conversation, yes about this, because you kind of take on that field of post traumatic growth and make it

clear of this that's not what you're talking about. So first of all, I would like your own voice to speak here. So can you tell a little bit about why your book is not a book about post traumatic growth. It's it's a book about chosen suffering, and I think it's an important distinction, right. My book is is fundamentally about what people want, and it take a step back. It's about why we so often choose to suffer and the sort of examples as we're talking about, and it

explores different reasons for it. And I mean the story it tells is that where it defends motivational pluralism, meaning we want different things and for many of the things, suffering is essential to getting them, for pleasure, for morality, for meaning, if you're not experiencing suffering in your life, you probably are not satisfying the goals you should as

a person. But this is chosen suffering. There's another claim, which is that unchosen suffering, the bad stuff that happens to you in some way can add value to your life, can make you more altruistic, can make you more resilient, can in some way make you better. And I'm skeptical about that. I'm not skeptical, and maybe here just going

to sketch out an agreement. I'm not skeptical that there's different ways to respond to bad stuff that happens to having your house burn down, your child die, dying, being raped, that there's ways to deal with this. In some ways are better than others. I also can understand it in some cases, some bad stuff could happen to you and you could end up getting better as a result. It just it just can't happen that way. The world is strange. But for the most part, I would argue that I've

been accused of making unintuitive claims in my career. Here's an intuitive one, which is bad things that happened to you should be avoided. Do avoid suffering, if you avoid unchosen suffering, if you can do We disagree on this, No, we don't disagree on this. And as you even say in one of your paragraphs, you said, look, I don't even need a it seems ridiculous to even put footnotes citations saying rape is bad. Yes, I thought that was clever.

I mean, you're right, you know there's some things you don't you don't need to like. In order for it to be true, you know, you have to include scientific study that shows you know that to be the case. Yeah, so yeah, we're definitely in agreement that. I would say that you mischaracterized the main thesis of the post traumatic growth literature. However, and at least, that's certainly the way

that I'm presenting it in my new book next year. Essentially, we are not making the case that suffering the event itself is good, or the event itself is what is the catalyst for growth, but we make the case that it is the cognitive structuring of the event. It is the extent to which the event causes us to see change fundamentally change our worldview, like a seismic earthquake, but a psychological earthquake. It is the meaning that we gather from the event. So in that sense, I think we're

actually quite aligned from the meaning perspective of it. And I also think we're quite aligned in the sense you talk about the word suffering as applying to a wide range of events, not just ones we stereotypically think of a suffering, but anything that's kind of challenge, lenging our worldview and shakes us up in a significant way. And well, that's exactly how the postramac growth literature thinks about suffering as well. So I think there's, you know, there's more

a line there than than not. I think that you, probably, as I do, have the certain bone in your body where I think you enjoy actually saying things that are anti established a standard. You know, like you wrote a book called against Empathy, but when you actually get into the details, you're like, hey, that's pretty reasonable. You know. You look at the title against Empathy, you're like, oh, but you read your book and I found it quite reasonable.

I found it. It's okay, rational compassion, you know, don't always rely on the gut, you know, sometimes it can lead us straight. Yeah, no, these are good points. So I think that you had a lot of good points there. I would just push back from the strong claim that there was one sentence I think in your book where you say something like post traumatic growth that's all ridiculous

or that's that's not right. Uh. But I think that when you actually get in the details of the thesis of the postermac growth literature, some researchers, including Merit, try to be very careful to say that it's not the event itself. It's it really is to what extent can that can that event create meaning? But let me first let me it's let me you've been very fair and sort of causing up my views. Let me make a distinction which I think we could agree with, and then

let me ask you a question. So distinction is actually really nicely made by C. S. Lewis. So C. S Lewis talks about fasting, and he compares it to you ran out of food. You go three days without any food because there's no food, and you wish your food was no food. And he says, you know, they're both forms of suffering, but fasting is a way of it can be wonderful, could be it could be a way of exercising your will is by choice. Running out of food is just something awful and happens to you and

doesn't carry the same sort of psychological implications. So let's now go back to So something terrible happens, you know, uh, death of a child, say the worst thing I can imagine, death of a child. And are you saying I don't doubt that death of a child can lead to psychologe, Well, definitely leads to psychological changes, can under some circumstances, lead to psychological changes that in some cases person could say

I'm better off. But are you saying that if you had one hundred people whose child died and one hundred people who didn't, there's a sense in which the first

one hundred are better than the second hundred. No, no, we're saying, given that it happened, how does one move on from there in a way where they can grow as opposed to have postromac stress become depressed, say, life's over, I think, and I think that's that's that's the important thing, and that that goes right back to Victor Frankel, who you quote, you know, luminous, Yeah, no one, what did

you say? Sorry, I quote him voluminously. He's yeah, that my subtitle part of something that search for meaning is a shout out. Yeah damn. So we're you know, this is the points he made as well. You know, it's not you know, I'm not claiming that a hundred people who went through the Holocaust it was better for them than and then if they didn't go through the Holocaust.

You know, but I can give you a quote from Rabbi Harold Kirshner, who is reflecting on the death of his son, and I think he put it quite well. He said, I am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic counselor because of Aaron's life and death. Then I would ever have been without it, and I would give up all those gains in a second, if I could have my son back, if I could choose, I would forego all of the spiritual growth and depth

which had come my way because of our experiences. But I cannot choose, and I think that's just what I try to emphasize. So I'm going to be hard boiled here. The second half of the quote I totally agree with. Nobody would choose that if it gave me super powers, made me empathic, it made me wonderful. No way, what I want is terrible thing to happen. It's the first

sentence that I want to push back. Is it really true on average for most people that we do end up more sensitive, compassion, et cetera after something terrible happens to us. It seems to me in like an empirical question about how to mine works. And I'm not sure, are you are you? Do you think he's right? I

mean you can't. And you know, somebody says, somebody says to you, you know, I got cancer and now I'm much more My life is much more, meaning, I'm much kinder, I'm more resilient, And it's simply bad manners to disagree. But are they right? I could point to a lot of people who these terrible things happen, and they get worse and no better. I've been on the search for the perfect mattress for the past few years, and let

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good point. Well, unfortunately we don't have a control group within a person, and there's not a lot of terribly great systematic studies on the topic that have a control group, even in a group of people who've undergone such a thing. So that you make a good point in your book about that. I do think that that there are ways in which, because of the way the event was processed, because of the meaning that was made from it, that

there was growth. Perhaps we should we maybe we should just stop there, as opposed to make the claim it's better than if they didn't have the event. And I think that's what you're pushing back on. And I think that's fair because they're just not enough good studies with

that control group. So maybe the best scientist you know, when I talk about I still think the field of postmac growth is important because I think that it emphasizes the fact that these kinds of ways of processing challenging events in our lives, which we're less likely to do with positive events. When there are wonderfully positive events, you don't really care much about the meaning of it. You're like,

I'll take it. Yes, Yes, When someone you know gives me a million dollars, I'm not like, let me journal about this. No, let me spend that money. Yes, I have to. I have to reassess how I'm living my life now. No I don't really, this is I'm doing well, right.

So I think that, uh, you know, let's let's let's sort of meet together and say, I think the value of that postmat growth the literature and the reason why I'm writing, you know, we're devoting so much in my own personal time to write a book about is because I think, you know, we couldn't choose to have had COVID. Now it's an open empirical question is do we have show any growth during COVID that we wouldn't have shown

if there wasn't COVID. But this I can say, during COVID, so many of us did reprioritize things in a way we probably would not. I really think we probably would not have if there wasn't COVID. Would we were going along, you know, without that violation of our expectations. And I think there's something interesting that happens psychologically when our violations about our assumptions, you know, the assumptive world theory, where

assumptions of the world are really shaken up. But there are a lot of things that can cause that kind of shaking up process, including some of the chosen suffering you talk about in your book, right, And and you know, there's a riff we could take on this, which is which means I think we might both again agree on, which is when bad things happen, people want to find meaning in them. And you know, I have a chapter in my book on religion and on the idea that

everything happens for a reason. And you know, sometimes I'm tempted to the view that One of the reasons we have religion at all is that we see it as having a promise of answering the question, you know, why, where does the suffering come from, and giving and giving us an answer that that's ennobling and positive. As an atheist,

I think it's all nonsense. But nonetheless, you know, the question wanting to find meaning in the suffering my child died, why and to hear the answer is all for the best is extremely powerful and extremely seductive, extremely powerful, and a lot of people who like lost their children to school shootings, for instance, then become strong advocates of gun you know, against against gun violence, right, And so would

they have been as ardent anti gun violence. Would they have gone out there and trying to change other people's lives and change the whole system as ardently if they didn't lose their son. Probably not? Would they Would they prefer that their son died because it made them ardent supporters? No, I mean that'd be ridiculous to make that claim. Yes, of course, you know, this is why this stuff, this

is why humans are. But you're choosing a case where a tragedy motivates people to work for a cause that I think you and I would would believe in I know, we could both easily think of cases where tragedy pushes people towards other causes. A lot of people who choose lives of violence and hatred do so in response to some tragedy in their life. Yeah, yeah, it's it's true.

I mean, it's certainly true. And and well, this is also just a fascinating question about the development of trauma and individual differences in the way it manifests its stuff in in adulthood, you know, when there was childhood trauma. I'm very interested in that question, very fascinated with that because you do see people going down different paths with the same exact experiences. Right, Some people have had experiences or they're sexually molested, and then they become they grow

up and they sectually molest others. Some are sexual molested, they grow up becoming really strong, you know, activists against sexual violence. You know, what causes that difference between the two, and then what are the moderating variables, whether individual difference

in societal variables. I mean, it's fascinating. It's such an important question, and I would never claim to have the answers to all of it, but you might by the time your book comes up, maybe by the time maybe maybe I could be your Dan Gilbert just kind of nudging you, and it ultimately else of you address me and you're just kind of move on. Well, let me

ask you a question. You know, there's something within you as well where you took Daniel's points and you said you were almost persuaded, but you didn't you obviously ahead with your own thesis in the book. There was a certain confidence, self confidence you had in your own particular thesis, which what is that individual differences variable? What is it

within you? You know? I mean, maybe you've been around the block long enough where you're like, I, you know, I earned the right to have self confidence in my own theories and ideas and the research that you amassed. But maybe someone else would have listened to Dan Gilbert. You see what I'm doing. I'm mapping on my point to asking you directly, why do you go in one

direction versus the other? You know, someone else may have listened to the great Dan Gilbert and be like, you're right, I'll just I wasted the last three years of my life working on this, you know, But you didn't. Nobody to that nobody should. Nobody should ever give up a theory just because there's a good knockdown argument against it, Because there's a good knockdown argument against anything, any any proposal you could come up with, some smart person, I

could give you ten reasons why it's wrong. And so in the end we sometimes have to go off the weight of the evidence. We have to say. I can't explain away that, I can't answer that question. I'm just gonna gonna plug ahead. Unfortunately, you know, you write your book and someone else write a book saying the opposite thing, and then you know the world will be richer as a result. I love that attitude, and I also love

the idea of you being my Dan and Gobert. Is it okay if we send you a draft over intro, I would love it, tear it to pieces, and then and then that process will cause me to have growth. We'll both we'll both grow as a result. That's a meta meta growth. That's meta growth. That's meta when you're writing a book about it. But I mean, and then there's opinions, and then there's another debate lurking behind all of this, which is I know you you talked to

page Harden recently. And as you you you more than more than most I think you've You're you're very sophisticated about the extent to which heredity plays some degree in determining what we are. And there's sort of a real complex dance between heredity and environment. And we're sort of at a stage where or somebody says, well, you know, early childhood events have a profound effect on personality. We could say, well, it seems that way. That's what Freud

taught us, That's what most people believe. It's just not clear. It does get tricky when you talk about genetics. That's you know, like what happens when you make that claim and you see the empirical evidence for it, but then you control for genes and the effect goes away. It's in those cases where it's like, holy cow, what do

we do with that finding? And a lot of people don't want to talk about some of those kind of findings, like in criminology field and sociology, they would rather you never even control for genetics because they are it's like and we don't want to know. But that does raise some interesting questions, as Page and I discussed in terms

of where are the implications for helping vulnerable people. You know, what are the implications there for making the world a better place, as opposed to just talking about those findings, as some people do in a kind of almost a mean spirited way. Do you know what I mean, Paul? Some people might raise the point of genes and be like, well, look, just deal with the truth. I'm capital t truth. Parents don't matter, And it's like, well, look, there's more of

the story than just that. They matter in a way that might be a little bit different, but they still matter. They gave you their genes. That kind of matters. That kind of matters. If you want to blame your parents, you have plenty of room to do so, right, right, I mean, they still are to blame for that. Yes, yes, they brought you into the world. You could always be like, why do you bring me into this shitty world? They are constantly responsible for our existence. And what's more, what's

a more way to act, right? Right? And also the way that and the actions they do onto you do matter in various ways as well. I always felt the discussion on that has always been a little bit weird. There's a point that people like Judith Harris and Steve Pinker make repeatedly and seem to be very true, which is some people can read into the genetic stuffed idea all parents don't matter. So and then they say, either happily or derisively, does this mean it doesn't matter how

I treat my kids? But you, as a parent have an enormous responsibility for the happiness and flourishing of your kid. A cruel parent could make a kid's life hell, and a wonderful parent could make your kid's life as good as it could possibly be. And even if this doesn't end up fixing their IQ in some direction or another personality, it's still it's still an enormous responsibility. In some way. It's like saying, if you tell me, look, how I

treat my partner won't change her personality. And then I respond so so I could treat her horribly. You'd say, it's ridiculous. You treat her kindly because you love her you want her to be happy. Yeah, I mean I couldn't agree more with that. It It does get tricky because you know someone could say, well, yes, I love

the spirit of what you're saying. However, I could show you data showing that whether they trade you horribly or good doesn't officially change their longitournal big five score, that's right, and you almost I almost want to respond to sometimes like okay, like okay, mister robot, let's let's have a you know, human point of discussion, which is like, maybe it didn't budge the big five too much, but you know, there's still a moral implication of making someone's life a

living hell, like that still matters. Do you see what I'm saying exactly? You you you know, no, no sane parent you know takes their kid for a really fun day doing something that kid loves to do, and and then says, well, I'm doing this because this will change the kid's personality if it doesn't screwed me five. I

want to budge their I want to budge the big five. Yeah, yeah, I want to lower neuroticism, you know, And I think sometimes we we actually part of the problem is we forget children, our people, and that you know, and that some of our moral obligations to them are the same as with people. Do not Einstarily projects are things to be molded. Yeah, we're a complete complete address on that. Yes, just returning to some of the ideas in your very

interesting new book. You'd argue there are multiple independent drives that normal humans possess. So we already talked a little bit about the hedonic drive that Daniel Gilbert espoused us so much. There's more. There are moral drives, as you talk about in your book, and then there's meaning and purpose. Let me add one? Can I add one? You can add one? I think I know what you're going to say it, but go for it. I'm so okay, I'm going to say it, and then tell me if this

is what you thought I was going to say. I think the exploration drive is a unique drive that contributes to what researchers are calling the psychologically rich life, which has been distinguished in rec in years from from the pleasure end end meaning. And I would say morality as well. So if I could add a candidate one of the list, it would be the psychological richal life. And is that the way you thought? I was thinking that? It's it's related.

It's I like that. There's a recent paper by I think, OHI and Westgate, Right, that's the one I'm referring to, yes, And and I think the paper opens up this other alternative. And I think I think that that's true. I think that. I think it was Mike Norton who talked about EMO diversity, which is, you know, we want to have a diversity of feelings, and then there's just broadly you want to you want to explore. Yeah, I definitely think so. I

think that. I say, I thought I would have guessed some version actually more of self actualizing and personal growth was that one? Would that be when you put on your list as an independent one or do you think it falls from the others? It falls from the others. I think you know, in fact, I would say that, uh, self actualization is really bringing your whole self to the

table in a really integrative sort of way. I would actually make the case of self actization is the real harmonious integration of all those multiple independent drives that you talk about in your book. That would be the emergent property of the of the deep integration of that in your life in a way where neither one is so outsized, where you're not a pure hedonist, but you're also not a pure meaningist. Meaning in this Yes, I invented that word.

I think I think that's I think that's that's that's clever. I think it's clever. There's price them. We're not just a set of motivations or a set of drives. There's some probably integrative principle that we want to sort of pull things together and put things in h in balance. I'll also say that that it's going to be a fairly long list. So you and I are just saying pleasure hedonism. But to drive for sex, and to drive for food, and to drive for status, and to drive

to be loved or just different things. They're different parameters. You could see them. You can imagine them on a dial where some people you know, have very little sex drive but are enormously concerned about status. Some people don't care for physical comfort, but you know, love food and so on. So I think the true story of human motivation is going to involve a lot of different things. Absolutely, and Abraham Azell would agree with you. Scottburykauffman agrees with

you too. But Abraham Aseel had this very interesting idea. He called it a hierarchy of pleasures, and he actually had the concept meta hedonism. And so his idea of meta hedonism is that there's actually a hierarchy of pleasures all way up to the fact that altruism can be pleasurable, so we make this kind of false distinction, he argued between pleasure and meaning, because a lot of things that bring us meeting in life actually bring us pleasure. So this is a He had this hierarchy of of hedonism.

I thought you might get a kick out of that concept of meta hedonism higher pleasures versus sex. You know, like just raw sex is a lower pleasure. Maybe like sex integrated with the wall is a higher pleasure, and we higher levels of integration, you have higher levels of hedonism. Does that even that makes sense to you? It does? I mean even Jeremy Bentham, who's often parodied as a sort of simple minded hedonism saying we just want what feels good, had a taxonomy of pleasures, including ones like

the pleasure of a good name. It is what we call now status, the pleasure of mastery, which is something I'm very interested in. And so so you know, a lot of a lot. There's ways to put sophisticated glosses on hedonism. Even if ultimately we end up saying that there's something more, we don't want to quickly deride it. Agreed, Okay, Now I really want to jump into this idea of benign masochism and this phrase you using your pleasurable pain.

I really like this phrase, and maybe we could start by jumping to the deep end and discussing b D s M. Yeah, because you defend b D s M as the reflection of normal appetites. That's how you put it. So I was wondering if you could do the same defense live on well, not a lot, it'll be recorded, but if you could do the same defense on my podcast right now. It's funny where a career takes you where Now I'm talking to you, and now I'm doing

a defense of BDSM. This is this is life, choices, choices, Yes, yes, And first of world, we'll do something which, as you well know, benign masochism is a term, not mine. It's thought up by a great psychologist, Paul Rosen, who sent some lovely work, lovely work on it. So so my interest in in in the book isn't so much to defend or attack certain practices, but sort of to explain them.

But I will defend BDSM from the very start, even before we get into what it's about and why people do it, by saying that the studies have been done and if BDSM was the expression of pathology, has something gone wrong, you'd expect it to come along with other mental illnesses. People who do it would be depressed or anxious or schizophrenic, or failures at life or high end bad traits. And it does not seem to be true. The people who partake in BDSM seem to be psychologically

healthy in other ways. So whatever, If you have a moral objection to this sort of consensual act, that's one thing. But to simply dismiss it, as Freud did, to say this is just expression of madness is wrong. But why do we do it? And the best theory I've come across on this is from Roy Baummeister, who's written a lot about it. Roy Boum is someone a creative mind in our field and hear in our friend it's uh,

you have good taste in friends. He's a smart, creative guy, and he talks about in terms of escape himself, which which sounds like a kind of weird, kind of crunchy, maybe mildly bullshitty term. But the idea is that is that ourselves weigh upon us, are the voices of ourselves in it? How How how am I looking physically. You're looking at me. Am I looking okay, I'm talking with my voice. Okay. I think I'm thinking about things I've

done in the past. And just as you come sick of somebody else, you come sick of yourself and want to escape it. And one meditative practices or one attempt to do so. Drugs are one attempt. But b D s M, where it's the sort of controlled, chosen experience of pain and maybe humiliation, is arguably a way to escape from yourself and so and so that's the case for it. That's that's what it might it might give you if you particularly if you're obsessed with status and

obsessed with how you appear. I mean pain. Does this forget about media? Simple simple pain. If you think of experiences where you experience sudden pain, you slammed a car door on yourself, you you stepped on a nail. You know, there's there's a lot of negative things to be said about this, but one positive thing is while that was happening, you weren't thinking about anything else. It's true. And so certain forms of you know, exercise, martial arts do this

for me. And I'm curious what you have to say for me. Actually, meditation is to opposite. So I'm very frustrated with meditation because I always want to escape from myself, and meditation evolves the way I do it as this total novice locking myself in a room and being stuck myself. Well, I would defend a meditation practice a little bit and say that when I do it in a way where I can really divorce my self from my thoughts, I really do feel like it's an escape from myself. It's

hard to get to that point. Just like you talked about flow and why flow is so hard to get to, It's one of those things I would say. It's analogous to you. The point you make about flow in your book is that, well, I love flow, and I love being in a certain as certain meditative state, but it takes a lot to get there, whereas immediate pain might get me there quicker. I think that's right. I think that's right. I think that I know enough people who

are good at meditation. It sounds like you sounds like a whipping sound in the background. It's it's my show. I don't have somebody whip me to capture my attention. I heard. I think it's just your imagination, your powerful imagination. I did read a news story once about about a guy, some sort of CEO type, spent too much time on Facebook and hired this person to stand next to him and slap him in the face when everyone on Facebook.

And then I would imagine a story would go on and they would fall in love because of all the agreandoline and everything. Yeah. Yeah, it could be the point here, the nuanced. The nuance here seems to be picking something that is less painful than what you're currently experiencing, but is painful enough that gets your attention away from it.

It seems like, you know, if we like put this into a math equation, because last night I was thinking, I was reading your book, I was finishing it, finishing it last night, and I had a splitting headache, and I went and I took a really really hot shower that felt so good and it made me forget my headache. But the hot shower, you know, it stung a little bit. It was hot, it was really hot, but it wasn't as bad as the headache. I imagine that if I went into a scolding hot shower, you know that like

that gave me third degree burns. I wouldn't be like, oh gosh, I'm so much more happy I did that than the headache than just focusing on the headache, right, because there some truth to what I'm saying. Yes, so nobody should do that and ensue me for giving like false advice. So so one one explanation from niemasochism we just talked about was escape himself. But there's a more general thing going on involving a sort of calculus of

pain and pleasure. And so sometimes what we do is we seek out pain, typically not intense pain, pain nonetheless like hot curry or a hot bath or something like that. Sauna's rigorous exercise because when we when it is relieved, there's a jolt of pleasure, and sometimes a jolt of pleasure is more is enough set it compensates for the pain.

It sounds, it sounds kind of weird. It's like this old joke my father told me about the guy banging his head against the lamp post and you ask him why he's doing it because it feels so good when I stop. But weirdly enough, I think one ingredient of benign masochism is you you experienced pain under control conditions, You feel a mastery why you're doing it, but also it feels so good when you stop. Yeah, yeah, it's all.

It seems to come back to the contrast. That's right, well, and the thesis of your whole book about the sweet spot and why you decided to write your book more about the sweet spot than what you were going to write about before, which is just the pleasure of suffering. So this, this all is real consistent, and I like it.

I like when that happens. I like when happens right, and and you know, think about along these lines, certain entertainments, like like certain movies, which are you know, the typical arc of a revenge film is terrible things happen. You know, they kill John Wick's dog. It's very sad, and then there's the satisfying vengeance at the end. And you and you be asking the wrong question if you said it, wouldn't John Wick be a better movie and prevention if

you took away the first half. But you can't have the second half of the first half. You can't have the satisfaction of seeing revenge being unleashed unless you have this sort of horrible stuff at the beginning. You can't have the satisfaction to end it a little engine that could where the little engine really succeeds if you didn't have the struggles in the first half. And I talked about it in my book, So I don't buy my book.

This data scientist did this big analysis of stories and basically it took like one hundred thousand stories plots of stories, and basically the answer is, you know, things get worse and worse and then they get better. And that's sort of a typical story arc. You know. Just to also defend meditation a little bit as well, they're a big part of that is is being able to witness non

judgmentally that arc. You know, you through a whole meditation session, you can witness you know, the catastrophizing of the brain, the stabilizing of the brain, you know, then the catastrophizing again, and then and then oh well there's a moment of peace, and and what you do is you try to get attached to any one of it. Well, that's very Buddhist of me to say this, but that's extremely Buddhist. I mean, I'm not I'll take controversial positions all day, but I'm

not going to argue against meditation. It's sacred. But but certainly you wouldn't want to be in that sort of Buddhist state, you know, while watching Rocky you don't want to be detached from it. You want to dive in great point, great point. And you make this point in your book as well, where you even rethink rational compassion a little bit. I liked that you did that. You know, there was this one, this one paragraphere you're talking about, you know, umping and fully into the stream of love,

into the stream of connection. And and you said, well, maybe I need to rethink some of my own ideas. And against empathy, so can you talk about some some of that a little bit? Do you remember that? No, this is intering, this isn't I mean, it's people read things in your books that I didn't that I didn't intend to be overt about. So tell you more so,

tell me more so. And against empathy, I I argue that our gut feelings, whatever of empathy, whatever or other benefits, are poor moral guides, and we're better off with rational compassion. And you're saying I repudiate this at one point is when I talk about the complete story? Yeah, well, I know I talk at one point about children, about having

children in relationships. And I wonder whether that said what I do talk about I'm not Google search, I'll search within your book search search search with for my last book was mistaken, you said. My last book was called Against Empathy, and I argued there that emotions such as empathy are too biased and in numerus and parochial to be good moral guides who are better off and making important decisions with a more distance approach what I call

rational compassion. And I drew upon Buddhist ideas to make this argument. In this regard, my book was quite aligned with this butte but in this book I also wrestled with challenges to my view, and one of these was the issue of close relationships. Rational compassion seems antithetical to being a loving partner, a friend or romantic partner. You're not supposed to be distant and unbiased towards those of

you love. What I just appreciated about that section of your book is that you wrestled with some of these criticisms, and I thought that was admirable. That's all I wanted to say, Well, thank you, well, thank you, I mean, just to say what the objection is and I've had discussions with people. I have so many friends who meditate, like Robert Wright and Sam Harris, and I had the same discussion in different forms of each one of them convincing neither one, which is that it is antithetical to

certain things. There's this old joke about you, if you hear about the Buddhist vacuum cleaner, it comes with no attachments that I love that. I've never heard that, so I don't even know where I got it from, but I'm totally tweeting that one. Yeah, that's that's good. I do not want to fight with the meditators. But but the idea is that I think a good morality is objective, detached, impartial. It is it is wrong for me to and I go out in the world favor people who look like me,

and favor people who are close and so on. But the exception is family, and it's complicated there. And I do wrestle with this in my in My Against Empathy book, and I'm still wrestling with it honestly, which is that I don't no. I mean, I think I think a good a good leader, a good politician. In many ways, it's fair and objective, but a good father or mother isn't fair or good. They're partial. They're they're partial to their friends, they're partial to their children, to those close

to them. I would favor my child infinitely more than over a stranger, and I don't think that that's mistaken. And I also don't think that the Buddhist model of detachment fits well with parental love, are romantic love or sexual love. I mean, what do you think You probably have thought of it as more than I have. Well, I've seen some data because I originally thought that it

seemed incompatible. I thought, for instance, I thought attachment theory like insecure attachment would be or secure attachment would be almost the opposite of non attachment in the Buddhist way of thinking. But I looked at studies that actually attempted to rationalized both constructs and showed that that secure attachment is very very strongly correlated with non attachment ideas and Buddhism.

So non attachment Buddhism is actually very very aligned with secure attachment in the literature on attachment theory, which they argue is most secure attachments very conducive to mental health and healthy relationships and strong connections. I think perhaps you're

mischaracterizing the idea of non attachment and Buddhism. I think that that Zen Buddhists, if they were on the show right now, would say, it doesn't mean we don't fully feel the emotions or we don't really appreciate the value of those experiences, but there's almost a bitter sweetness to them where we recognize the impermanence of them in such a way that we, yeah, we don't get so identity attached to them. But is that any different than what

you're saying. To some extent, recognizing in permanents of things doesn't seem to be in any way intention with love and relationships, right, but other things might. One of the things which you had actually mentioned before when we're talking about movies is seeing things as they really are, sort of stripped from our preconceptions and our biases and so on. But I don't think a good I don't think a good father sees his son or daughter as they as

they really are. They see them in a way that's sort of clouded by their love and their favoritism and their affection, not as they would see anybody else. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think that in that case, having your vision clouded is a good thing. I don't think there's anything you know, the people who love me, I imagine see me in a way that

favors me. They they, And there's there's psychological claims we can make at a level of perception to literally see me differently, And there's debate about that, but certainly, at some level it's an old psychological finding that we think the people we love look better than anybody else. Does they just look more attractive, because you know, Shakespeare would have would have told you this too, But it seems to have data for it. I'm not sure if it's

a bad thing. Maybe it's not a bad thing, And in general I could see instances where it could be a bad thing. A topic I've really become interested in lately and I'm writing an article about right now is group of narcissism. There's an extent to which when we identify someone as you know, part of us, you know it could be in a love relationship, could be in

terms of a club identity ideology. We're more likely to overlook moral transgressions in the other person that we wouldn't overlook with someone where we didn't feel that way towards them, So I could see that being a potential case of it not being so good. That's really interesting. I agree, I could imagine that. I can see that causing all sorts of damage, even for my closest friends. I don't think i'd want to overlook their moral transgressions. Overlooking implies

a sort of stupidity and obliviousness to them. But I would, I imagine I would want to think of their moral transgressions differently than if they were strangers. I mean, really, if you don't, if you didn't, if you don't treat your friend or think of your friend differently than a stranger, what makes them a friend? Yeah? What even is a friend anymore? Exactly? That's a great question. It's a great question.

I don't have a precise definition of a friend, and it seems to intuitively to me, it's you know, there's a there's an element there that seems key, which is are they there for you in times of need? Right? Are you there for them in times of needed? They're a part of a support system. Yeah, And all of that demands bias. If your friend is there for you when you need, when you need her, then that means she's not available for everyone else who's comes to her. You're on a top of her list, and this is

really treats you like everybody else. And then maybe again it hits a sort of Buddhist ideal or a sort of rational compassion impartiality ideal, but you've lost a friendship. Super interesting, Yeah, because it adds further nuanced to your book Against Empathy. It almost begs for us an extra subtitle, you know, or no asterisk, you know, against empathy overall

in a lot of cases. But look, don't take my book so seriously where you never have biased empathy towards someone else, because sometimes that can actually be some of the most beautiful experiences on earth well to that extent. So Against Empathy was always about moral choices, and I never doubted And here I guess I'm not very impartial and not very bodists. I've never doubted the importance of partiality.

It's where I sort of in some way part company with the consequentialists, which utilitarians who say we should live our life, you know, as if all pleasure and old pain are of equal currency. But I don't think I think that that's I don't think you can have a moral code that asks people to do something they simply cannot do, and ignoring the ties of family and friendship is as mammals, as primates, as creatures of our culture

and society, we cannot do that. It's asking too much. Yeah, I'm just thinking about it even I'm thinking of it at the group level, because you, on the one hand, make a great point in your book about how that can leave us strap, they can lead us astray and make us have hate for an out group when we say, you know, we have so much love for our in group, and I think that's a great point. But then we're kind of saying, there's another hand here, which is that

you can have this beautiful empathy. It doesn't have to lead to alkroup heat, you know, it can just lead to more intense and you know, love for for a friend, for a family member, for you know, for others that you identify as part of your part of yourself in some way or your identity. And there's a big difference in loving yourself more and hating others. Agreed, But but it's still in a sense zero sum, which is really I if well, if there's if I'm in if I'm yeah,

I don't know. Suppose somebody says, it's not that I hate black people, I really don't. I just like white people more. There is a difference, that really is a difference. But still it means that this individual, in either case, when choosing between one group or another, would choose the group that they belong to. Fascinating is it is a zero sum? Is every bias in one direction? Zero sum? Is what I'd ask you. I don't think so, I

don't think so. Well, it's not it's not zero s not like someone else loses in every case just because you're preferentially treating one particular making one decision. Suppose in your classes, you prefer to spend time with the male students than the female students just you feel more of an affinity or remind you of yourself and so on. Wouldn't you see in this case that the female students lose something, even if you have no animus towards them.

Look that that is a good point. But I'm saying, you know you're I'm saying I don't think this applies to all cases. So let me give you a case. What if so, it's not like when I choose the love of my life to marry. You know, I guess, in one sense, a narcissist sense, I can be like, all the ladies have lost you are you are depriving you, but they have but they have every That's not just a narcissistic point. That's actually a good point. You're saying that.

It's not just a narcissistic, cheeky comedian kind of stand up routine. But you're saying, actually it is zero sum because all those ladies have lost out on the great

Scott Berry Kaufman. No, I I accept your point. I accept your point, which is either if the resources are abundant like or they aren't in demand, you don't have to have a zero some situation suppose I love my son the best, I love everybody in the world, and i devote all my resources towards him, but I'm not in a position to help anybody else anyway, so nobody loses. It's just that in the real world often there is

this trade off. Let me ask you about this art that the group narcissism seems fascinating you against group pride. Pride is sort of a gentler word in narcissism. I'm not. And I almost don't want to give too much of a spoilert to this article, which should be coming on in the Atlantic soon, because I wanted to make a

big splash fair enough, but but but absolutely not. I I go through great pains to distinguish between healthy group love, healthy in group love versus collective narcissism, which I see is very unhealthy and even detrimental to the goals of the group itself, in the same way that an individual narcissist makes lots of decisions that are actually in the long run, detrimental to their own rational goals. In a lot of ways, is irrational a lot of the decisions

they make in the name of greater ego protection. I so much want to pursue this, but I also respect your desire to pull off and make the make a splash of this. Well. Thank you. That's ex and suggests that a lot of people might be interested by this article. I can't wait to share it with you. I'm sure it's going to cause a lot of interest. Yeah, I hope. So let's talk about imagination, the human imagination. This can kind of be our last topic today. I'm really interested

in why we suffer in our imagination? What is the value of suffering in our imagination? And you you take this up in a way that is actually a continuation of discussions me and you had over a decade ago in your round table room in the in the round table room, I remember exactly where I was sitting. I remember exactly. I can picture it so vividly. May had you standing up there, pacing around being what's the value of horror? And do you remember our discussions about this?

I remember, I remember in the room, I remember you being there. I forget exactly how that went back and forth. So remind me, Well, No, you just had these weekly laughetings that I was a part of, and and you and these were issues that were on your mind then, and when you were there just starting to wrestle with them, I was just sick. It's a while ago. I mean, it's a long time ago, but but but I was equallys captivated then and fascinated by these questions as I

am now. So it's it's so cool that there's still this continuity of interest in trying to figure out this puzzle. I've always been I've always been interested in these questions. I've always been interested in question of why are imaginations populated with such horrors, such such sadnesses, And you know we're done with horror movies and tragedies. But also, you know Dan Gilbert, who we talked about before as a lovely study of Matt Killingworth, which looks at what people

daydream about, and people's day dreams are often sad. Other studies and what people dream about most most dreams aren't so good. They're slightly below the midpoint and everything. And so it's such a a rife topic. And I explore different explanations, some which would we touched upon before, about

the rhythms of a story. One theory, which I think is deserves to be taken very seriously, is the idea that we're drawn towards negative things and imagination as a form of sort of perhaps an evolved propensity to deal with them, to prepare ourselves for them. You know, I can't help my mind wandering to the worst cases, because if I think about it, maybe I'm better prepared if

they were to happen to me in real life. To go back to your example, it's fun to fantasize about winning a great prize or a great sum of money, but you don't to steal yourself. Well, we have to say thank you. It's just great. But to think about the world going to hell, which is a common theme in horror movies and zombie movies, it is something that we dwell on, and I think we dwell on it because it's useful to sort of think about it and prepare.

It's a case for what we what we want to do, and what we want to think about isn't necessarily what's pleasant to do or pleasant to think about, for sure. How do you explain there's individual differences? You know, some people they have found certain personality traits are attracted more to horror than other personality traits. You know, people who are thrill seekers, for instance, love that they love haunted houses. They are personality traits that have to do with the

hot house. Well, so the people who don't really don't like that stuff, do they suffer in their imagination in other ways? Or is there a general individual differences variable here of a propensity towards enjoying, suffering and imagination, and there others that don't enjoy suffering imagination as much just cares from the individual differences perspective? Is that a fair question. I think it's fair. I think that's a great question.

I think one answer is the one you gave, which is, we do not that sensation seeking of a sort correlates with different forms of desire for imaginative suffering. And you know that there are age effects that if you're I think having to do with the fact that you don't want to take imagination too seriously, you have to reinsulate yourself against it. It's very pleasant for me reading, as you know, Stephen king novel about a small town with an axe murderer. But I don't want an axe murder

in my own town. And if I can't keep them apart too much, I'll have trouble. But I'll answer your big question, which is as best I know. Nobody knows to answer to that question. I certainly don't. I don't know why some people like spicy foods and others don't. I don't know why some people like b DSM and others don't. I don't know why some people like tragedies and like to cry, Other's like sad songs, other like horror movies. There are not the sex differences you would expect.

There are not. It's it's it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle in my experience. If I stand up in front of an audience and I say describe masochistic play measures and ask for a show of hands, does anybody have at least one of them? All the hands will go up, but it will be very different. There are some people that cannot bear to see a horror movie. There are other people who who love spicy foods. And it's just

it's a mystery. And I know you've done a lot of great work on personality differences and how and how the traditional measures of personality predicting. What would do you have a prediction where we could look Oh, well, I think that the sensation is seeking to me is very very relevant here. And I also think that there people really do differ in their threshold for pain. Yeah, and you know, you you just even discuss this in terms

of self injuring. A lot of people self injure say they don't even really feel it too much, and there could be a lot of reasons for that, but yeah, but a lot of people would would feel it, you know, whereas they don't tend to feel it though you know,

there's a difference. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, And as you pointed out, there's there's a debate over whether people who injured themselves who don't feel it, whether that's they choose to injure themselves because they they are to people less likely they feel pain from it, or whether this is because of their engaging in a practice.

One thing we do know, it used to be thought that a solution to the to why people like horror movies or disgusting movies is they just aren't as scared or disgusted. And it turns out it's not true. People who love scary movies are just as scared as people who hate them. They just enjoy the fear. They enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, and and enjoy And you know what does it mean to enjoy, Well, it's a certain degree. It means that

they tolerate it. They can tolerate it more than others to a certain degree where they're able to fill in the blank, They're able to what is the pleasure part of it? They're able to overcome the struggle. Maybe maybe the pleasure is in the the overcoming a child knowing that there's something that maybe other people couldn't even handle it. Yeah, and yet they can handle it. It could be the joy want to unpack that, Yeah, and it could be

the joy of mastery. That could be part of it, but it can also be And in some way here I've been influenced by some emotion researchers, including Lisa Feldman Barrett, who I disagree with in other ways, but I think has a sophisticated take on emotions. We might have to give up the idea that fear is bad. So we tend to think fear is a verse of who wants to be afraid. But I think what's bad is the things that frighten us. If a rabid dog was chasing me,

I'd be very frightened, and it's a bad experience. But the badness comes from the worry about being bitten by the dog, not the fear itself. If you could have the fear stripped of the danger, as in a horror movie or a haunted house or fantasy, that could be a lot of fun. Same with absolutely absolutely not only a lot of fun. But I'll kind of end this interview today with your point about transcendence, you know, not just for hedonistic reasons, but for transcendent reasons as well.

You know. You say in your book, you say, I'm the look you like, look, I'm the least spiritual person on earth. But but even I can you say this in your book you say this near we you say, but even I can say that. There's a lot of men's value to transcendent experiences. And as you point out in your book, a lot of these things are not

only done for hedonistic reasons. But there, you know, we make sacrifices because there's this more like, all the feeling of all the feeling of wonder, the feeling of transcending ourself in some way that can carry on after our our mere mortality. Right is a beautiful reason sometimes in itself itself, even above and beyond the hedonistic reasons. That's nice, very nicely put. I think that is a good place stand. So, Paul,

it is always such a delight chatting with you. I feel like I can always chat with you, like all day long. And this has been over a fifteen year intellectual love affair, to put it, intellectual love affair. I feel the same. And I hope this doesn't hope just makes it and it isn't cut out at the end of the when you people need to cut things out. But I really appreciate the care, very careful and very thoughtful read of my book and connecting with other works.

It's unusual and you push me in places, and this has been really, really a delight. Thank you, Paul. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thusycology podcast dot com or on our YouTube page thus Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check

that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.