To continue lines of thought from previous writing, further analysis of the idea of vulnerability is needed to really get a grasp on the subject. Many relationship “experts”, communication “experts”, and the like tout the phrase vulnerability.
“Vulnerability is a fundamental skill that we need to nurture in order to authentically engage with our partner. If we don’t lean in to our own vulnerability, it closes us off to ourselves and others.” – Joel Durkovic
They make a claim that saying something along the lines of “you have to be vulnerable with a woman” to improve your relationship with her. As good intentioned as this is, the underlying danger has the potential to completely destroy a relationship all by following this well intentioned “advice.”
What is happening here? Why do people come to this conclusion? Are they conflating ideas such as truth or transparency with “vulnerability?”
I haven’t met a single person that disagrees with the idea that women do not respect weak men, but I’ve met plenty of people that teach vulnerability as emoting about the ways in which you are weak. This is quite perplexing.
Being the curious individual that I am, I couldn’t help but pose this paradox when I came across someone who claimed to be a “Cristian Marriage Counselor.” I was told that stating this as a paradox was subscribing to a “worldview” and that as Christians we are called to look past worldviews.
Let’s talk about the idea of a worldview for a moment:
“All truth is God’s truth” – St. Augustine
As far as I can tell, the structure of reality is because God made it so. Therefore; there are things that a true and things that are not. The criticism that something is a worldview since you don’t agree with the idea does not hold water in this light. The idea of a worldviews in general doesn’t seem like a beneficial lens to view anything through. It also doesn’t seems Biblical or “Christian,” which is quite ironic given the nature of the criticism.
What is the truth of the matter? Is the circuit in out hindbrains that causes us to gain or lose respect for someone there for a reason? Could that reason be that the function of that circuit is to detect of difference between what a person is and what a person could be, a delta between what is and the ideal.
If Jesus is a manifestation of the transcendent ideal (the idea that his life was a model for you to follow by walking in his footsteps), it would be very beneficial if others around you had innate circuits that could identify that potential and bring that potential out of you.
Is that what a competency hierarchy is? Is that what the primitive hindbrain processes involved with mate selection do? Are they there to identify how you could be better so that you can be better?
One thing that Christianity gets right, but I don’t know many individual Christians that make this realization, is that the highest possible good for you is also the highest possible good for everyone else. The best version of you contributes most to the whole in every way.
People understand this on some level since the new age church goers commonly says things like “in order to pour out to others, you need an abundant overflow.”
Now, back to vulnerability:
It seems that it’s a good thing to be and remain attractive to your partner. It seems reasonable that the most attractive thing is that which is closest to the ideal. Weakness is far from the ideal.
Are we fed that being vulnerable is emoting in a display of weakness? This is the path to a deeper relation ship?
What seems obvious to me, as a man, is that opposite of anything beneficial is an emotional display of weakness. Pop psychology, that prioritizes the feminine primary mode of being and presents it as the correct mode of being, is not doing us any good.
Dr. Jordan Peterson has made the claim that “the most vulnerable thing you can do is trust another human being.” He goes on to explain malicious intent from those you trust (betrayal) are the things that absolutely destroy people to the degrees that you might not recover from.
Tom Bilyeu speaks about the idea of radical honesty when addressing how to earn your own respect. If you’re radically honest, there’s nothing weak about that. Truth seems paramount.
Is truly trusting someone and practicing radical honesty vulnerable?
To answer this, I’ll pull from the dictionary of terms that Peterson is fond of. If you behave as if God exists, i.e. living out scripture as truth, you have voluntary accepted suffering and therefore transcended it (bear your cross). [INSERT THE SEROM ON THE MOUNT HERE].
The mathematical formula for risk is as follows: risk = threat X vulnerability
What are we risking, what is the threat, what is vulnerability. Is there vulnerability if you have truly transcended suffering?
If you behave in a manor in which you wrestle with god, contending with the divine, and you are close to the ideal, there’s not much left to put in that equation.
It doesn’t seem obvious that an emotional display of weakness, “being vulnerable”, and the like are actually keys to a good relationship. Instead, it seems as if those ideas may be peripheral issues that distract us from realizing our full potential individually and in relationships. The focus is wrong, potentially detrimental, and seems to consistently do more harm than good.