The Politics of Learned Helplessness
Don't give up. We can grow.
Let’s talk about something called learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness is a state in which an individual has given up as a result of negative conditioning.
I came across a video on YouTube the other day that really stuck with me. In it, a teacher is running a simple experiment with her class. She split the room in half and gave each side a set of three anagrams to solve. One half of the room received two easy, solvable anagrams, while the other half was given two that were intentionally impossible to solve. The third anagram was the same for both groups and was solvable.
When the students started working, hands shot up quickly on the side with the solvable puzzles. But on the side with the impossible ones, no hands went up. And even when they reached the third, shared puzzle, which everyone could solve, still, only a few students from the second group had their hands raised. The others had already given up.
Afterward, the teacher revealed the trick and asked the students how they felt. Words like "stupid" and "confused" came up. They had already convinced themselves they couldn’t do it, so they didn’t even try. That’s learned helplessness in action.
Let me give you a personal example.
When I was a kid in elementary school, I performed in a Christmas concert. After the show, I was hanging out when I overheard a group of adults talking—teachers, parents, even the principal. They were laughing and joking about how some of the kids, including me, struggled to clap in rhythm. Someone said, “Jeff, you have no rhythm!” and everyone laughed. I laughed, too. I thought it was funny. I believed them.
They didn’t explain to me that rhythm was something that I could learn, just that I couldn’t learn it. They made it seem like I didn’t have it and never would. So, I gave up. It wasn’t really that important to me anyway. I want to be a professional baseball player, so what do I need music for? I stopped trying to be good at music or to understand rhythm. Whenever I was faced with learning, I would say, 'I can’t do this,' and pretend to be following along. I carried that belief for a long time.
But as an adult, things started to shift. I began reading more, writing more, and I started to notice a kind of rhythm developing in my work. It made me wonder: Could I actually learn this? Could I sing? Could I carry a beat?
So, I tried. I practiced. And recently, I got up at karaoke and sang "You’ll Be Back" from Hamilton. Was it perfect? No. I’m no Broadway star. But it wasn’t bad. I had some rhythm because I had worked for it. Effort matters, and believing you can accomplish your goal is vital in the amount of effort someone is willing to put in.
Now, why am I telling you this?
Because our modern politics conditions us into a state of learned helplessness. When we voice frustration about corruption or gridlock, we’re often told, “Well, that’s just how it is.” We’re told nothing can change. We can’t grow. And over time, we stop trying. We accept that our voices don’t matter.
It would be easy to blame our current leaders for this problem, but that would not be fair. With some, I am sure it's intentional. But a lot of the time, those in power genuinely believe it, too. They are also experiencing learned helplessness themselves, and they pass it on to us. But just because they believe growth isn’t possible doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
The truth is, growth is absolutely possible. It takes understanding. It takes effort. It takes people building something together. And for me, I always had rhythm. I only used it where it came naturally or where I wanted it most, such as in sports. I had to believe I could grow before I could.
When I decided to sing a song, the first thing I did was the basics. I learned the words. Then I learned the rhythm. Understanding the words allowed me to sing them with confidence. But more than that, understanding what the artist is trying to convey helped me better understand the rhythm. Rhythm is something we feel. The artist is expressing an emotion, and being able to tap into this helps me find the rhythm.
To get past our learned helplessness in politics, we need to return to the basics. We need to read the words and understand what our fathers before us were trying to teach us.
Our founders created a constitution that lays the framework for us to govern ourselves through a system of representation. And they believed that representation should be accountable to the people, which is why, during the Federal Convention, George Washington interjected only once, and it was on the issue of representation.
Washington believed that representation was a fundamental principle of a free government. He wanted to increase the size of the House, reducing the districts from 1:40,000 to 1:30,000. James Madison also believed the number was too few and the representatives “would not possess enough of the confidence of the people,” because they could not “bring with them all the local information which would be frequently wanted.” With Washington and Madison’s support, the amendment was passed.
Madison studied the history of representation. Washington had just fought a war over representation; both understood the importance. They did not live in a state of learned helplessness like we do today. They knew growth was possible.
Take the size of the current House of Representatives. It has been capped at 435 members since 1929, despite our population having tripled. That cap isn’t in the Constitution. We don’t need an amendment to fix it. We just need a bill. That’s it.
Some people say it can’t be done. They say it’s unrealistic. However, if we set aside the negative conditioning, if we educate, debate, organize, and take action. We can absolutely uncap the House. We can reclaim our power. We don’t have to live in a state of learned helplessness. We can grow.
Peace and Love,
Jeff Mayhugh