Do you think that this behavior (learned helplessness, learned blankness) might have non-obvious benefits? For example, could too much independence be aggressive—or conversely, could dependence be a way to bring about beneficial social relations?
In economics it is known as specialization and there are gains associated with specialization and trade. In a marriage generally each party specializes which tasks they perform to bring about an overall net gain in the work done with in the marriage. So my comparative advantage may be in doing the dishes and the laundry while the other party to the marriage may be in cooking dinner and vacuuming. Soon I no longer know where all the spices are but the other party no longer knows where all the dinner dishes go, not that we can’t find out but it is cheaper to just ask the other person when we need that knowledge then to maintain constantly the current knowledge on what the other has specialized in.
So rewriting the question to “does specialization bring about benefits?” should make it obvious that the answer is a resounding yes. To give two examples, in the wealth of nations there is the example of a pin factory, not going to quote exact but give the basic argument: a skilled blacksmith making the pin by himself may be able to make say 100 pins a day. Three laborers working in a manual pin factory however can make 100 pins an hour while as they are relatively unskilled blacksmiths may not be able to make a whole pin in a day by themselves. Second example: there isn’t any one person in the entire world that knows how to make a pencil from the basic materials, that is no one person that knows which trees to cut, how to mill the tree, which rocks to mine, how to mine them, how to smelt them, how to shape the graphite, how to combine everything (not even including how to make and operate all the machines needed for each step). This should give you a decent understanding of how specialization is extremely beneficial to everyone involved.
It’s a reasonable question to ask. Division of labor is certainly a major way a society improves both individual and societal efficiency. This can work all the way down to one-on-one relationships. A married couple often finds ways that each member of the partnership can most efficiently contribute to running a household.
But I think there is a conceptual distance between knowing you’re not as good at something as a person with whom you have a good relationship and thinking you can’t approach the knowledge that the other person possesses. my husband does almost all the cooking in our house, largely because he enjoys it and I do not. But sometimes I need to cook, so it pays for me to learn some of what he does in his cooking for those unforeseen times when I need to cook a family meal.
Do you think that this behavior (learned helplessness, learned blankness) might have non-obvious benefits? For example, could too much independence be aggressive—or conversely, could dependence be a way to bring about beneficial social relations?
In economics it is known as specialization and there are gains associated with specialization and trade. In a marriage generally each party specializes which tasks they perform to bring about an overall net gain in the work done with in the marriage. So my comparative advantage may be in doing the dishes and the laundry while the other party to the marriage may be in cooking dinner and vacuuming. Soon I no longer know where all the spices are but the other party no longer knows where all the dinner dishes go, not that we can’t find out but it is cheaper to just ask the other person when we need that knowledge then to maintain constantly the current knowledge on what the other has specialized in.
So rewriting the question to “does specialization bring about benefits?” should make it obvious that the answer is a resounding yes. To give two examples, in the wealth of nations there is the example of a pin factory, not going to quote exact but give the basic argument: a skilled blacksmith making the pin by himself may be able to make say 100 pins a day. Three laborers working in a manual pin factory however can make 100 pins an hour while as they are relatively unskilled blacksmiths may not be able to make a whole pin in a day by themselves. Second example: there isn’t any one person in the entire world that knows how to make a pencil from the basic materials, that is no one person that knows which trees to cut, how to mill the tree, which rocks to mine, how to mine them, how to smelt them, how to shape the graphite, how to combine everything (not even including how to make and operate all the machines needed for each step). This should give you a decent understanding of how specialization is extremely beneficial to everyone involved.
It’s a reasonable question to ask. Division of labor is certainly a major way a society improves both individual and societal efficiency. This can work all the way down to one-on-one relationships. A married couple often finds ways that each member of the partnership can most efficiently contribute to running a household.
But I think there is a conceptual distance between knowing you’re not as good at something as a person with whom you have a good relationship and thinking you can’t approach the knowledge that the other person possesses. my husband does almost all the cooking in our house, largely because he enjoys it and I do not. But sometimes I need to cook, so it pays for me to learn some of what he does in his cooking for those unforeseen times when I need to cook a family meal.