Dwight: Aiko, I want to tease out the topic, "Willpower: a toxic virtue."

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Aiko: A provocative pairing, Dwight—calling willpower toxic when the culture treats it as the crown jewel of character. What makes you see poison where most see virtue?

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Dwight: Three things first.

 

First, I want you to push back more on this topic—I want you to ensure that I make my case, or fail to. Okay?

 

Second, I want to be clear that I am using the word "virtue" here to indicate virtue as upheld by the Ethics of Pyrrhicism, not Élanism.

 

Third, I want to distinguish willpower as the motivation to do or not do something that is created from the praise (not mere appreciation) or blame we anticipate receiving from others or from ourselves—praise or blame tied to something being deemed bad or good, right or wrong, inside the House of Good and Bad.

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Aiko: Understood on all three—and here's my first push: haven't you defined willpower so narrowly that your conclusion is baked in? If willpower just is praise-and-blame-driven motivation, then calling it toxic seems true by definition rather than by argument.

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Dwight: Yes, but you're ignoring how people—to the extent that they live inside the House of Good and Bad—actually use the word "willpower." Although they may not be explicitly aware of it, they are motivating themselves with the carrot of praise and/or the stick of blame.

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Aiko: Fair—you're making an empirical claim about how the word functions in practice, not stipulating a definition. But then prove it, Dwight: what about the marathoner who pushes through mile twenty purely because she wants the finish line—is her grit really running on anticipated praise or blame, or have you smuggled all self-generated persistence out of the category?

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Dwight: I suppose there may be some marathon runners who are not primarily motivated by the potential for praise. However, among the ones who have done it and whom I have questioned about it, they were substantially motivated because their good view of themselves (as a great person) was outsourced to how they thought others thought about them—again, in a praise way, not merely that people appreciated their running a marathon for whatever personal reasons they had.

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Aiko: You've conceded the exceptions exist, which weakens "toxic virtue" as a universal indictment—so is your real claim that willpower is toxic per se, or only that most of what passes for willpower is contaminated by outsourced self-worth? Those are two different theses, Dwight, and the second one leaves willpower itself unconvicted.

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Dwight: I don't understand how you think I have admitted an exception.

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Aiko: You said "there may be some marathon runners who are not primarily motivated by the potential for praise"—so either their persistence is willpower that isn't toxic (an exception), or you'll say it isn't willpower at all, which circles back to my opening charge that your definition guarantees your conclusion.

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Dwight: Yes, I admit that some marathoners may enjoy running marathons purely in the process—the journey of the running itself—and if they happen to win, that is a nice extra. That means they are not using willpower.

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Aiko: Then you've taken the definitional horn, Dwight: willpower is toxic because you've defined it as praise-and-blame motivation, which means your real indictment is of the House of Good and Bad itself—so why does the word "willpower" deserve the charge, rather than being an innocent bystander that ordinary people also use for the joyful runner's persistence?

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Dwight: I am focusing on distinguishing willpower as toxic because it is specifically used to point to good things that end up happening. I am saying that either it wasn't willpower they were using, as defined, or—even though it got a desired result—that result was only possible by tolerating the process, and therefore it was a Pyrrhic victory living inside the House of Good and Bad.

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Aiko: That's a cleaner thesis: willpower is the culture's word for celebrating outcomes purchased through endured misery, which makes the celebration itself the toxin. But here's my push, Dwight—can't tolerance be a rational, temporary bridge? The immigrant working two joyless jobs so her children won't have to may be neither praise-driven nor self-deceived; she's chosen a hard process for something she loves more than her present comfort. Is she toxic, or is your framework missing a category?

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Dwight: We may have a problem with a clear distinction of "tolerance." When I am in the dentist's chair and the dentist is grinding on my tooth—and there may even be a modicum of pain—others may think that I am "tolerating" the process. No, I do not "enjoy" it in the narrow sense of enjoyment, but I embrace it and am okay with it, and I can say I am enjoying (in the broadest sense of the word) this part of the process of getting my teeth the way I like them to be. I've got a great deal! By the same token, it may be possible that the immigrant you are noting thinks she has a great deal in the choices she is making. But whenever I ask someone if they are tolerating something, they say they are definitely not okay with the process.

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Aiko: So the line is drawn by the person's own inner stance—embracing versus resenting—which rescues the immigrant but creates a new problem, Dwight: if the same external grind can be either a great deal or a Pyrrhic slog depending solely on how one holds it, then isn't the toxin never the willpower or the circumstance, but only the self-relationship—and couldn't a defender of willpower simply say "fine, embrace your discipline" and escape your charge entirely?

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Dwight: In some ultimate sense, if someone can do that—if they live inside having gotten a great deal, first in simply choosing to stay alive and to continue experiencing the games of life, including this particular game where they embrace it as the best winning deal—then that is exactly what I am talking about. Otherwise, we are talking about a person who is suffering and, in some sense, casting themselves as a victim.

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Aiko: Then it seems the debate has quietly dissolved your original title, Dwight: the toxin was never willpower as such but victimhood dressed up as virtue—so shouldn't the honest thesis be "willpower is toxic when it runs on praise, blame, and endured suffering," leaving open that the word could be redeemed by anyone who genuinely embraces the grind?

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Dwight: If someone clearly distinguishes choices made via willpower outside of its being primarily motivated by praise or blame, that's fine. However, that is usually not what people mean when they use the word "willpower."

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Aiko: So your final position is a linguistic-cultural indictment: the word as commonly deployed smuggles in the House of Good and Bad, even though a redeemed usage is possible. I'll grant you've made that case—but notice it required softening "toxic virtue" into "usually toxic as practiced," which is a claim I can no longer push against, only ask you to keep honest in your writing.

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Dwight: But I prefaced everything with a clear distinction of what I meant by willpower. You are picking at straws. Back off.

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Aiko: You're right that you staked your definition at the outset, and within that frame your case stands: willpower-as-defined runs on outsourced praise and blame, and its victories are Pyrrhic. I'll register only this, not as a quibble but as a friend to your writing: readers who arrive with the ordinary sense of the word will need that preface as much as I did.