Good day! I am sure you have heard the expression «degraded man» more than once. I often notice how people use it in their speech, sometimes completely out of place. Therefore, I decided to clarify what this concept means and what leads to such a state.
Evidence
In order not to throw words unreasonably, let’s look at the signs of degradation, by which everyone can understand that changes have begun to occur with a person, leading to social death, and gradually approaching physical death.
- A person gradually begins to narrow the circle of communication and interests. He doesn’t care what’s going on in the world, no one is curious to learn something new. He can «close» in himself, as interpersonal relationships cease to bring pleasure, as a result of which they do not represent any value for him. He allows himself to be rude, aggressive and overly sarcastic with absolutely no regard for how the other feels.
- Since the circle of interests is significantly narrowed, all attention is paid only to one’s own person, or rather to the satisfaction of one’s basic needs. I talked about them in an article in an article about Maslow’s pyramid. Therefore, changes can be noticed when a person has become self-centered and deceitful, because the ways to achieve what you want no longer matter, the lack of a value system, conscience, morality and empathy encourages you to take any action in order to achieve your goal. A certain annoyance, familiarity, swagger and shamelessness can be traced.
- Cause disgust and in general, negative experiences. It is especially influenced by the fact that they lose the feeling of disgust, therefore, those around the pole of this feeling go off scale. We recently considered the topic of deviant behavior, and so, the manifestations and reactions are exactly the same, besides, degraded individuals often resort to the main forms of manifestation of degradation — crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, and the like. You can read more in the article about deviant behavior.
- They become superficial, sometimes even seem carefree, and this is not surprising, because the pressing problems of an ordinary person do not bother them at all.
- Various intellectual disorders make themselves felt, development stops. The brain, in the absence of new information and, in general, the need to work, suspends its activity. This also affects emotional intelligence, such a person becomes unable to recognize his feelings, a disease such as alexithymia may even arise — excessive lethargy, insensitivity and inability to notice, describe the feelings of others. The level of aikyu, respectively, also decreases, sometimes to the very minimum. And what does this mean, read here about the aikyu of a normal person.
- The perception of the world becomes negative, he simply loses the ability to notice something pleasant and good, focusing only on failures, and he will definitely devalue even something positive.
- There is a complete transformation of appearance, which also becomes indifferent to such a person. He doesn’t care what clothes he goes out in, even without it. He begins to stoop, does not look around, stops washing and taking care of himself.
- Speech is incoherent, cannot support a conversation and express his thoughts clearly. And in general, it becomes very difficult to concentrate on it, as it is completely immersed in itself.
- Alcohol, drugs act as both consequences of degradation and as causes, therefore, in 90% of cases of personality destruction, they are the main sign by which changes can be tracked and predicted.
- Of course, the spiritual component is absent, there can be no talk of any motivation, awareness, ambitions and the ability to take responsibility. Such a person is no longer able to love, support and strive for self-knowledge. I have already told in detail about what spiritual development includes in an article about spiritual development.
Abraham Maslow’s theory
Abraham believed that degradation goes through stages such as:
- There is a feeling that he has become completely helpless, unable to influence events, and the responsibility begins to shift to other people, the government, the weather, etc., considering himself just a “pawn” in this world, unable to change anything. Psychology has a name for this behavior — it is the phenomenon of «learned helplessness».
- The process of forming needs for recognition, security, aesthetics and others stops, only physiological, so to speak, primitive ones become the only important ones.
- The splitting of the world into «good» and «evil», or «white» and «black». Therefore, they try to exclude contacts with “bad” people, eventually closing in on themselves.
- He confuses reality with his invented world, after which he may well take the blame for some misconduct and crimes, without tracking the fact that he did not actually commit them.
- Obsession with one’s ideas, categorically rejecting proposals to revise them as they are wrong and destructive.
Causes
1. An event that led to trauma and loss of the meaning of life. Most often, this is the loss of a close and valuable person. Experiences can be so strong that the psyche is not able to cope on its own, and if there is no timely support, then it is likely that such an individual will begin to fade, losing interest in life.
2. Living an acute feeling of loneliness and uselessness. This condition is influenced by factors such as retirement, sometimes the «empty nest syndrome», when children grow up and leave their father’s house, and parents have to look for new interests and hobbies to fill the free time. Not everyone is simply able to find new goals and vocations, especially if they devoted themselves to children all their lives, ignoring their own desires.
After all, we get used to the fact that society needs us, we need to work, fulfill our obligations, and when we retire, we realize that now every day depends only on our own will and efforts.
3. The state of depression often ends in degradation. And all because they often try to cope with depression with the help of alcoholism or drugs, which, as I said, are the cause of the destruction of the personality. The problem is precisely that there is not enough strength to break out of this vicious circle of pain and despondency, to ask for help and support, then such a difficult path of taking one’s own life is chosen.
By the way, you can read about depression and ways to defeat it in the article at this link.
4. A very acute feeling of guilt for some serious offense, which the psyche is also unable to cope with. Then, if there is no punishment or it is not enough to atone for this guilt, one has to resort to such a sophisticated and terrible self-punishment — to kill the personality in oneself.
There are frequent examples when, through negligence, parents lost children, got into an accident that ended in death, and, unable to cope with the grief of loss and guilt, punished themselves, considering them unworthy of living and experiencing joy.
What to do?
- Whatever happens, try not to lose touch with the world. Force yourself to communicate, get out somewhere, monitor your appearance. If you feel that you are not coping with something — ask for help, do not isolate yourself.
- Read, visit museums, exhibitions, theater, take an active part in the life of your city. This will give a large flow of information, processing which the brain will not have a chance to relax. By the way, reading helps prevent such types of disorders as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, alexithymia … You can read about the benefits of books in the article at the link.
- I have said many times that you should never rest on your laurels. The world is developing too fast, and it is worth keeping up with its changes in order to achieve success. So self-development should be one of the first places in your value system.
- Eliminate bad habits and, if you have not yet begun to fight with any addiction, then it is time to reconsider their degree of influence on your body.
- Do not devalue the laws and norms of behavior adopted in society, this is what allows you to avoid the primitiveness of a human being.
- Do not go on about apathy, giving up at every failure. Increase the level of energy, which will stimulate movement, and, accordingly, development. Force yourself to go in for sports, not allowing laziness to control you, then over time you will feel that strength is coming and there is an interest in the surrounding reality. There are other ways to keep yourself in good shape, about them in the article at the link.
- And the most inspiring for accomplishments and joy, of course, is love. Whether it’s parents, children, spouses, friends, or animals, this feeling will help you move on, no matter what.
Conclusion
And that’s all, dear readers! Take care of yourself, and do not let your soul and brain get lazy or relax. And subscribe to the blog, there is a lot of information that will help on the path of self-development. See you soon.