Excerpt from The Bushido of Bitcoin by Aleks Svetski
The psychology of responsibility
“He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one, has arrived.”
Chinese Proverb
Radical ownership is not a new idea. It is deeply ingrained in the psyche of the best of us, and remains a core tenet of high performing teams and leaders. This is evidenced by the popularity of personalities like Jocko Willink, retired Navy SEAL commander and author of Extreme Ownership, and Jordan Peterson whose core message in 12 Rules for Life is about taking responsibility and ownership. Before them, it was Tony Robbins and the personal development crowd, with their emphasis on owning what happens in one’s life and placing oneself ‘at cause’, not ‘at effect’. Going back even further is Alfred Adler, the forgotten father of psychology, whose entire psychological philosophy centered on individual responsibility. For the great warrior cultures of the past, this was a way of life. It’s always been there, and no matter how much modern society conspires to ignore it, it will always be there, because it’s part of our DNA.
Alfred Adler held the individual responsible for his own mind and behavior, instead of “external events,” arguing that it wasn’t on-going therapy or etiological reasoning, but the courage and honesty to take personal responsibility which helped deal with psychological issues. According to this school of thought, known as “Individual Psychology,” each person is an integrated whole striving toward an outcome: each feeling, each belief and action taken, while seemingly irrational, ultimately represents a choice made by the individual, not something happening to them.
Adler infamously didn’t believe in trauma, which triggered his contemporaries and especially modern psychologists. He didn’t deny the existence of traumatic events, of course, nor the mental and emotional scars they leave, but he emphasized that people have the capacity to choose and direct their behavior, and therefore their reaction to such events; yes, you may be traumatized, but that’s not the end of the story: instead of placing yourself at the effect of trauma, powerless against it, you have agency to deal with it.
His work is largely glossed over in modern psychology, most likely because it negates the need for ongoing therapy, medication and the never-ending labeling of every emotion as a syndrome or disorder, not unlike how the Austrian School of Economics, which does away with the bureaucratic central banking apparatus, is conveniently ignored. Coincidentally, Adler too was Austrian; there was clearly something about that region and era.
The problem with most modern psychology and all kinds of therapy is that by dwelling on trauma we enable its effects, giving it both life and significance. Looking back over the last century, mental health issues, depression, and a plethora of syndromes and disorders have steadily increased, in lockstep with the rise of ‘psychology’ both as a discipline and as a well-funded institution.
We have come to ignore the body and the very things that make us alive. We’ve drugged the feelings which are otherwise signals to act, into oblivion and replaced them with numbness and docility. Through this modern psychology, we’ve separated the mind out, while trying to make everything safe, comfortable and not your fault. By abdicating responsibility in this way, we’ve made it okay to be a victim. Remember this: victims are not free! That is precisely because they are not responsible for their own circumstances or how they react to said circumstances. A victim is a slave, whether to circumstance or his own beliefs. If you’re wondering why we’re surrounded by compliance maximalists and the world has turned into one big game of Oppression Olympics, this is it. It’s not the grand conspiracies we should be worried about, but the renunciation of responsibility, and the obsession with things you cannot change or influence.
This is the whole point of Adler’s school of psychology. It is teleological, meaning that it is concerned with the present and the future, the things you can control or have influence over. Contrast this with essentially all modern schools of psychology which are etiological: they focus on how past events and biological factors impact psychology, that is, things you have very little influence over. One is goal oriented, the other is causation oriented.
In other words, you have more power and control over it than you’d like to admit. Which is ultimately another way of saying you’re more responsible for it than the world would otherwise have you believe. It’s not what happens to you but what you do with it that matters. The bro-psychologists were right again, as were the personal development gurus.
“No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”
Alfred Adler, What Life Could Mean to You
For over fifteen years I’ve triggered my psychologist friends by calling depression an act or a behavior, not a syndrome or disease. You don’t “get” depression, you “do” depression, by choosing to remain in that state. It’s not just something that happens to you, or that you catch like the flu. It’s a choice or at most, it’s a temporary feeling. Of course, life knocks you down, and instead of feeling elevated, you occasionally feel de-pressed. That’s normal, it happens to all of us - and it’s your body’s way of telling you to take stock and introspect for a minute. This feeling is a healthy signal from the nervous system to adjust your behavior, a warning that you are lacking focus or meaning in your life. Instead of using it as the catalyst for change, or riding it like the wave of emotion that it is, modern psychology short-circuits the natural process by teaching you to numb yourself into oblivion with drugs, or marry the feeling and label yourself “clinically depressed.”
Unsurprisingly, behind the myth that depression is a “chemical imbalance” that needs to be “corrected” via the use of medicines or drugs, we find a multi-billion dollar SSRI industry. But it’s a scam as blatant as the idea that printing money creates more wealth. A recent review published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, which looked at studies involving thousands of people across decades of research - found no evidence that depression is even caused by serotonin abnormalities, nor by lower levels of reduced serotonin activity!1 Despite mounting evidence against this myth, and the common sense, first-principles approach of “bro-psychology”, the trends toward more drug use for depression and less responsibility for choosing to don these labels both continue.
You are taught to feel powerless about whatever situation or circumstance you are in, and as a result, you abdicate your responsibility. Your ’trauma’ and labels such as depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety and the like are just enabling your choice to keep focusing on what’s wrong, instead of doing something about it.
You are always choosing how to feel, think and behave, whether it’s conscious or not. In the end, it serves a purpose. It is you and only you that can associate meaning to an event or a circumstance. Acknowledging this requires courage and honesty. You must resist the modern, medicated, feminized, therapy infused schools of psychology and instead choose responsibility. This approach will make you elite, in the true sense of the word - and it will forever be the case, because it is always easier to blame others for your feelings of inferiority. The hard and noble road, the road of radical ownership is for the few. For the responsible and the excellent.
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The energy of responsibility
Responsibility applies more to adults than to children or adolescents, and more to men than it does to women. Responsibility comes with maturity and it carries a masculine charge. This doesn’t mean the latter cannot be responsible - but there is a spectrum and a charge.
Responsibility is a weight. It’s something you carry, and men, both psychologically and physiologically are designed to lift and bear weight. It is why they are called to “carry frame” which essentially means to hold space, demarcate territory and assert standards. When a man does so, he brings order to the world around him, which frees the young and the feminine to explore, learn, nurture, play and love.
When a man doesn’t take on this responsibility, he burdens those who depend on him. You see it with children who parent their parents, and with women who, because of the weakness of their men, have to pick up the frame. Both in time develop resentment toward their parents or partners because they cannot let go and be free.
“To be a man is to bear responsibility for all things.”
Jerr, The Wall Speaks
Weight and responsibility age you, which for a man is more acceptable since we physiologically age later and remain fertile for longer. It’s not the same for children and women. Ignoring this ignores the real cost. We’re only children once, and exploration is critical for early development. Women are literally designed to bring life into the world, and it is a man’s duty to create the frame and structure around her so she can do this safely and freely.
We have a saying in my household: “Everything is my fault.” Wife is annoyed? My fault. Food didn’t taste good? My fault. Traffic on the road on our way somewhere? My fault. I really mean everything. It may sound harsh, but it’s true, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, because it puts me in a position of ultimate responsibility. It means I can fulfill my instinctual role as a man and a husband, and more practically, that I can actually do something about it.
This energy extends beyond the household and through to society. The cycles of history can even be defined as the rise and fall of patriarchies. They grow and conquer, only to be run by weak men, who are easily corruptible and fail to maintain it. These weak men are then overrun by more vital invaders who are more patriarchal. We are living in the third innings: weak men behaving like women, and women, deceived with stories of independence and careerism, acting like tax-paying weak men. This not only lacks the strength of structure, but kills the charge between genders. Instead of the attraction that comes from polarity, we have the eternal friendzone: a place devoid of charge and life. Instead of building, being fertile and flourishing, society is engulfed in equality and sameness: where everyone is a copy of a copy of a copy.
This is all on men, who have abdicated their responsibility to lead and bear the weight. And the truth is, because there can be no vacuum of frame or leadership, the world currently operates from a feminine frame - one which does not carry the charge of responsibility or order. One which is not designed to bear weight, and is crumbling before our very eyes.
Feudalism and all warrior cultures were patriarchal. They were hierarchy and responsibility-based, because they were father-led. A matriarchal society is communal and egalitarian by nature. It works in the home but it doesn’t work at scale. Civilisation demands excellence and differentiation. The world is not a womb, nor is it the warm embrace of the mother. The world is the wild, and it is a man’s duty to build the structures that can withstand and protect. It is not a woman’s duty or responsibility to bring order to society. Her energy brings life and vitality to the structure and order man constructs. It’s about time we remembered this.
A man is designed to carry his responsibility, and the amount he can carry is the true measure of his strength. A strong man is responsible for his territory: he is the father who bears the responsibility for his family; the man who runs a company and thus bears responsibility for his employees; the man who mentors the young and thus bears responsibility for the development of their character. This is what it means to be powerful.
We all know that with great power comes great responsibility, but the inverse is also true. With great responsibility comes great power, and power is a good thing. For too long we’ve been told that “power is evil” that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” but I’ve come to realize that this is a lie.
Power only corrupts the weak. Power, like technology, is agnostic. Put technology in the hands of a sadist, and they will use it to dominate those weaker, and to bring down those who are better. This is communism in action. It’s why everything that comes from communism is ugly. It’s anti-life. It’s an attempt to make everything the same.
The man who bears the responsibility for his people or for an idea that changes the way the world works, the Nikola Teslas, Steve Jobs, and Alexander the Greats of the world. These men were the truly powerful.
Notice I did not say “Christine Lagarde,” “Janet Yellen” or “Joe Biden.” When I talk about strength or power, I am not talking about the man who steps on the ant and calls himself a hero. I am not speaking of the heads of central banks, petty politicians, and meddling bureaucrats who exist only to suck wealth out of the system. These people are too weak to actually build something, so they lie, cheat, and steal from others. They are the most dangerous kind: the weak with access to power. The envious and the ugly.
It is our job, as men of strength, to claim power, by first taking responsibility.
