But I think it’s worth noting that there’s an additional piece of the puzzle that I believe this one is largely codependent on: namely, that burnout often comes from a mismatch between responsibility and power.
This can be seen in not just high-stress jobs like medicine or crisis work, but also regular “office jobs” and interpersonal relationships. The more someone feels responsible for an outcome, whether internally or due to external pressure/expectations, the more power to actually affect change they will need to not feel that their efforts are pointless.
EAs tend to be the sort of people who, in addition to taking large scale problems seriously, internalize the idea of Heroic Responsibility. This can work out well if they manage to find some form of work that helps them feel like they are making meaningful change, but if they do not, it can make the large, difficult, and often heartbreaking challenges the world faces all the more difficult to engage with. And for many, narratives of personal inadequacy start to creep in, unless they have proper CBT training, robust self-care norms, or a clear sense of boundaries and distinctions between what is in their power and what isn’t.
Most people in society tend to do work that progresses causes and institutions with not-perfectly-aligned values to their own. The two main ways I’ve seen this not cause burnout is either 1) when they don’t really pay attention to the issues at all, or 2) when they feel like they’re still making a meaningful difference to progress their values in some way, shape or form. Lacking that, the mismatch of values will indeed tend to erode many aspects of their mental and emotional wellbeing until they grow numb to the value dissonance or burnout.
As a result of this comment, I have added to the OP: “[ETA: My working model is incomplete. I think there are probably other reasons also that EA burnout is a thing. But I’m nowhere near as satisfied with my understanding of the other reasons.]”
I agree that “something related heroic responsibility” is almost certainly part of the puzzle. But I feel lingering confusion and/or dissonance when I read your account here, and also when I’ve heard anyone else talk along similar lines. I am not sure yet where my confusion and/or dissonance comes from. It may be that there’s really not a gears-level model here, and I’m holding out for seeing the gears. It may also be that a description along these lines is basically accurate and complete, but that I’m having some kind of defensiveness response that’s preventing me from really getting it.
In fact I’m confident that I am having some kind of defensiveness response, and the thing I can see now that I’m worried I’d lose track of if I fully adopted a perspective like this is: There’s something good and right about heroic responsibility. I am curious what would happen to me if someone precisely named what is good and right about heroic responsibility in the course of discussing how it interacts with EA burnout.
Ah, thanks for saying that. It does feel worth noting that I am a huge proponent of Heroic Responsibility, so let me see if I can try in bullet point form at least, for now...
1) People have much more capacity for agency than society tends to instill in them.
2) The largest problems in the world are such that some people pretty much have to take it upon themselves to dedicate large chunks of their life to solving them, or else no one will.
3) This in fact describes most of the widely admired people in history: those who saw a major problem in the world, decided to make it their life mission to solve it, and often sacrificed much to do so.
4) For these reasons and more, I would never tell someone not to take Heroic Responsibility for things they care about. It would be hypocritical of me to do so. But...
4a) I do caution people against taking Heroic Responsibility for things they feel pressured to value, as you note in this post, and
4b) I do caution people to remember that most heroes historically do not in fact have happy endings.
5) Furthermore and separately, for every hero who visibly took a major problem in the world upon their shoulders and was recognized for doing so, many more are invisible to us because they never managed to accomplish anything.
6) Heroic Responsibility is not just a lens, it also provides power. It is a frame for motivating action, heightening agency, and expanding solution-space.
7) Like most powers, it comes with a cost to those who try to wield it unprepared. Someone who has not internalized and accepted “failure” as a part of life, as an intrinsic part of the process for learning and growth, is more likely to let the power of Heroic Responsibility break them in pursuit of their cherished values.
...I think that’s it for now, though I can say more and expand on each of these. Thoughts so far?
“A happy life is impossible, the highest thing that man can aspire to is a heroic life; such as a man lives, who is always fighting against unequal odds for the good of others; and wins in the end without any thanks. After the battle is over, he stands like the Prince in the re corvo of Gozzi, with dignity and nobility in his eyes, but turned to stone. His memory remains, and will be reverenced as a hero’s; his will, that has been mortified all his life by toiling and struggling, by evil payment and ingratitude, is absorbed into Nirvana.”—Arthur Schopenhauer
Perhaps the key question is what does research on burnout in general say, and are there things about the EA case that don’t match that?
Also to what extent is burnout specifically a problem, vs pepole from different places bouncing and moving onto different social groups (either wihtin a year or two, or after a long relationship)?
For the former, my guess is that right around now (after having done some original seeing) is the time in Logan’s MO when they typically go see what preexisting research says.
For the latter, anecdata: I’ve had something on the order of twenty conversations with EAs on this topic in the past five years, and those conversations were generally with officer-class EAs rather than enlisted-class EAs (e.g. people who’ve been around for more than five years, or people who have careers in EA and are highish in EA orgs) and I’ve never had someone say that burnout seemed not a problem and I’ve had lots of people say that they themselves struggled with burnout on the level of “wrecked at least a year of my life” and the rest are only one degree away from someone who did, which seems higher than base rate out in genpop.
Social narratives can run away with us, and people do catastrophize, but my personal sense is that it’s a real and prevalent problem.
I know very little about other sorts of charity work, but i heard social workers complaining about burnout a lot.
I tend to assume that encounter harsh reality s hard, and working in unappreciated work that lack resources is hard.
It may be interesting to see what is the baseline burnout level in some fields is, to look both on variation and to how similar or dissimilar EA to other charities is. It may help to understand who big part different elements play in burnout—true values alignment, Heroic Responsibility, encountering discouraging reality, other things (like simply too many working hours).
This makes me think it is more likely that there is some problem specifically with EA that is driving this. Or maybe something wrong with the sorts of people drawn to EA? I’ve burned out several times while following a career that is definitely not embedded in an EA organization. But it seems more likely there is something going on there.
The way i see it, something wrong with people EA attract and some problem with EA are complimentary hypotheses. dysfunctional workplaces tend to filter for people that accept those dysfunctionalities.
This all seems broadly correct, to me.
But I think it’s worth noting that there’s an additional piece of the puzzle that I believe this one is largely codependent on: namely, that burnout often comes from a mismatch between responsibility and power.
This can be seen in not just high-stress jobs like medicine or crisis work, but also regular “office jobs” and interpersonal relationships. The more someone feels responsible for an outcome, whether internally or due to external pressure/expectations, the more power to actually affect change they will need to not feel that their efforts are pointless.
EAs tend to be the sort of people who, in addition to taking large scale problems seriously, internalize the idea of Heroic Responsibility. This can work out well if they manage to find some form of work that helps them feel like they are making meaningful change, but if they do not, it can make the large, difficult, and often heartbreaking challenges the world faces all the more difficult to engage with. And for many, narratives of personal inadequacy start to creep in, unless they have proper CBT training, robust self-care norms, or a clear sense of boundaries and distinctions between what is in their power and what isn’t.
Most people in society tend to do work that progresses causes and institutions with not-perfectly-aligned values to their own. The two main ways I’ve seen this not cause burnout is either 1) when they don’t really pay attention to the issues at all, or 2) when they feel like they’re still making a meaningful difference to progress their values in some way, shape or form. Lacking that, the mismatch of values will indeed tend to erode many aspects of their mental and emotional wellbeing until they grow numb to the value dissonance or burnout.
As a result of this comment, I have added to the OP: “[ETA: My working model is incomplete. I think there are probably other reasons also that EA burnout is a thing. But I’m nowhere near as satisfied with my understanding of the other reasons.]”
I agree that “something related heroic responsibility” is almost certainly part of the puzzle. But I feel lingering confusion and/or dissonance when I read your account here, and also when I’ve heard anyone else talk along similar lines. I am not sure yet where my confusion and/or dissonance comes from. It may be that there’s really not a gears-level model here, and I’m holding out for seeing the gears. It may also be that a description along these lines is basically accurate and complete, but that I’m having some kind of defensiveness response that’s preventing me from really getting it.
In fact I’m confident that I am having some kind of defensiveness response, and the thing I can see now that I’m worried I’d lose track of if I fully adopted a perspective like this is: There’s something good and right about heroic responsibility. I am curious what would happen to me if someone precisely named what is good and right about heroic responsibility in the course of discussing how it interacts with EA burnout.
Ah, thanks for saying that. It does feel worth noting that I am a huge proponent of Heroic Responsibility, so let me see if I can try in bullet point form at least, for now...
1) People have much more capacity for agency than society tends to instill in them.
2) The largest problems in the world are such that some people pretty much have to take it upon themselves to dedicate large chunks of their life to solving them, or else no one will.
3) This in fact describes most of the widely admired people in history: those who saw a major problem in the world, decided to make it their life mission to solve it, and often sacrificed much to do so.
4) For these reasons and more, I would never tell someone not to take Heroic Responsibility for things they care about. It would be hypocritical of me to do so. But...
4a) I do caution people against taking Heroic Responsibility for things they feel pressured to value, as you note in this post, and
4b) I do caution people to remember that most heroes historically do not in fact have happy endings.
5) Furthermore and separately, for every hero who visibly took a major problem in the world upon their shoulders and was recognized for doing so, many more are invisible to us because they never managed to accomplish anything.
6) Heroic Responsibility is not just a lens, it also provides power. It is a frame for motivating action, heightening agency, and expanding solution-space.
7) Like most powers, it comes with a cost to those who try to wield it unprepared. Someone who has not internalized and accepted “failure” as a part of life, as an intrinsic part of the process for learning and growth, is more likely to let the power of Heroic Responsibility break them in pursuit of their cherished values.
...I think that’s it for now, though I can say more and expand on each of these. Thoughts so far?
I’m still mulling this over and may continue doing so for a while. I really appreciate this comment though, and I do expect to respond to it. :)
A quote I find relevant:
Perhaps the key question is what does research on burnout in general say, and are there things about the EA case that don’t match that?
Also to what extent is burnout specifically a problem, vs pepole from different places bouncing and moving onto different social groups (either wihtin a year or two, or after a long relationship)?
For the former, my guess is that right around now (after having done some original seeing) is the time in Logan’s MO when they typically go see what preexisting research says.
For the latter, anecdata: I’ve had something on the order of twenty conversations with EAs on this topic in the past five years, and those conversations were generally with officer-class EAs rather than enlisted-class EAs (e.g. people who’ve been around for more than five years, or people who have careers in EA and are highish in EA orgs) and I’ve never had someone say that burnout seemed not a problem and I’ve had lots of people say that they themselves struggled with burnout on the level of “wrecked at least a year of my life” and the rest are only one degree away from someone who did, which seems higher than base rate out in genpop.
Social narratives can run away with us, and people do catastrophize, but my personal sense is that it’s a real and prevalent problem.
I know very little about other sorts of charity work, but i heard social workers complaining about burnout a lot.
I tend to assume that encounter harsh reality s hard, and working in unappreciated work that lack resources is hard.
It may be interesting to see what is the baseline burnout level in some fields is, to look both on variation and to how similar or dissimilar EA to other charities is. It may help to understand who big part different elements play in burnout—true values alignment, Heroic Responsibility, encountering discouraging reality, other things (like simply too many working hours).
This makes me think it is more likely that there is some problem specifically with EA that is driving this. Or maybe something wrong with the sorts of people drawn to EA? I’ve burned out several times while following a career that is definitely not embedded in an EA organization. But it seems more likely there is something going on there.
The way i see it, something wrong with people EA attract and some problem with EA are complimentary hypotheses. dysfunctional workplaces tend to filter for people that accept those dysfunctionalities.