Invulnerability Syndrome
There are a great many people whom I basically like, but something about them puts me ill at ease. They may be true friends and amusing company, but some impression I get from them, at least at times, makes me feel as if I am sitting on a hedgehog. They were different enough to each other that I was disturbed by being disturbed, and puzzled enough that I devoted a good bit of thought to finding the common element. Finally, I think I have identified it, and it is something I can only call "Invulnerability Syndrome", and it affects far more than these specific people.
In essence, it is the idea that you can and should, by a sane amount of effort, be perfectly protected from some species of failure or misfortune. Sometimes you believe you already have, sometimes not--but even if you do, it isn't really the fun sort of overconfidence. Eventually, fortune or the course of your thoughts proves you wrong, and it's back to scrambling to cover the weakness that has appeared, or fearing that you can't, but you could if only... By just this process, it becomes a self-perpetuating distress, a true neurosis. It would be easy to think that this is simply a description of paranoia--but, while the two problems work together remarkably well, Invulnerability Syndrome is quite distinct. It is not the notion that everything is out to get you, but rather that, if something is, you should be perfectly assured of defeating it.
IS takes many forms, some obvious, some far less so. For a rather blatant and physical form, you need look no farther than any given gunbunny forum--"they" should just try breaking in, or that's how it would be if the poster was a slightly better shot, or as long as the law doesn't make you modify your gun so you can't shoot that one last round while changing magazines... To go to the opposite, purely emotional, end of the spectrum, haven't we all met someone who tries to limit their compassion to the people closest to them, for fear of sympathetic pain or the mere possibility someone might take advantage? The whole field of business-advice books is based on this as well; they all seem to float the promise of "how to never fail". I find it difficult, as well, not to see many people's ideas of healthy living as affected by this condition--not so much in the basic ideas, which may well be sound, but in their doctrinaire adherence and outright fear over any lapses.
Invulnerability Syndrome turns up, perhaps, even more politically than personally--it seems to be the essential mentality of the American right, the idea that we, as a country, would be truly safe if we only came down harder on crime, or the enemy of the moment, or the "undeserving". To be fair, it is not strictly their purview--the promise of safety and the fear of weakness is an easy thing to be played upon, or even cultivated, by politicians of any stripe. Perhaps I should say leaders of any stripe, because organised religion distressingly often puts forth the notion that sufficient faith will be absolute proof against misfortune.
It may be from this religious form that the United States gains its particular connection to Invulnerability Syndrome--the Puritan religion important in our colonial days certainly believed that God's predestined elect would lead successful lives, and that any insuperable troubles might prove you to be damned instead. This connection is not at all certain; it could as easily come from our situation protected between two oceans, combined with out earlier sense of vulnerability against European powers who then had colonial interests in North America, or from some unpredictable fallout of the cultural blending that shaped us. At any rate, this problem seems endemic to the USA, perhaps even the national neurosis, if one compares the outlooks shown in our politics and fiction to those of other countries.
Why am I so particularly irritated by this phenomenon? First, there is just the direct impression that it gives when it becomes apparent in someone--the fearful, often hostile defensiveness involved is just uncomfortable, as already mentioned. Second, it gives me a bit of the sense of watching someone stare down an oncoming train--as I mentioned, it is distressing and self-reinforcing, for one simple reason. Perfect safety from anything is impossible--mistakes happen, and there's always something you didn't think of. Also, armouring one's outside also often goes along with failing to develop real strength, the ability to accept defeat and loss and move onward. That is what troubles me about it.
In essence, it is the idea that you can and should, by a sane amount of effort, be perfectly protected from some species of failure or misfortune. Sometimes you believe you already have, sometimes not--but even if you do, it isn't really the fun sort of overconfidence. Eventually, fortune or the course of your thoughts proves you wrong, and it's back to scrambling to cover the weakness that has appeared, or fearing that you can't, but you could if only... By just this process, it becomes a self-perpetuating distress, a true neurosis. It would be easy to think that this is simply a description of paranoia--but, while the two problems work together remarkably well, Invulnerability Syndrome is quite distinct. It is not the notion that everything is out to get you, but rather that, if something is, you should be perfectly assured of defeating it.
IS takes many forms, some obvious, some far less so. For a rather blatant and physical form, you need look no farther than any given gunbunny forum--"they" should just try breaking in, or that's how it would be if the poster was a slightly better shot, or as long as the law doesn't make you modify your gun so you can't shoot that one last round while changing magazines... To go to the opposite, purely emotional, end of the spectrum, haven't we all met someone who tries to limit their compassion to the people closest to them, for fear of sympathetic pain or the mere possibility someone might take advantage? The whole field of business-advice books is based on this as well; they all seem to float the promise of "how to never fail". I find it difficult, as well, not to see many people's ideas of healthy living as affected by this condition--not so much in the basic ideas, which may well be sound, but in their doctrinaire adherence and outright fear over any lapses.
Invulnerability Syndrome turns up, perhaps, even more politically than personally--it seems to be the essential mentality of the American right, the idea that we, as a country, would be truly safe if we only came down harder on crime, or the enemy of the moment, or the "undeserving". To be fair, it is not strictly their purview--the promise of safety and the fear of weakness is an easy thing to be played upon, or even cultivated, by politicians of any stripe. Perhaps I should say leaders of any stripe, because organised religion distressingly often puts forth the notion that sufficient faith will be absolute proof against misfortune.
It may be from this religious form that the United States gains its particular connection to Invulnerability Syndrome--the Puritan religion important in our colonial days certainly believed that God's predestined elect would lead successful lives, and that any insuperable troubles might prove you to be damned instead. This connection is not at all certain; it could as easily come from our situation protected between two oceans, combined with out earlier sense of vulnerability against European powers who then had colonial interests in North America, or from some unpredictable fallout of the cultural blending that shaped us. At any rate, this problem seems endemic to the USA, perhaps even the national neurosis, if one compares the outlooks shown in our politics and fiction to those of other countries.
Why am I so particularly irritated by this phenomenon? First, there is just the direct impression that it gives when it becomes apparent in someone--the fearful, often hostile defensiveness involved is just uncomfortable, as already mentioned. Second, it gives me a bit of the sense of watching someone stare down an oncoming train--as I mentioned, it is distressing and self-reinforcing, for one simple reason. Perfect safety from anything is impossible--mistakes happen, and there's always something you didn't think of. Also, armouring one's outside also often goes along with failing to develop real strength, the ability to accept defeat and loss and move onward. That is what troubles me about it.