I was reading an advice column (AN advice column Dom, now lets not reply all kiddos) the other day (I know--how super emo of me), and I noticed that the ridiculous nature of the advice being given is a classic pattern of thinking in our irrational society. In it, the lady said that the petitioner should just immediately leave her boyfriend because he was giving her the silent treatment (women NEVER do that--its so childish) after they had an argument. I was amazed at what a quick rush to judgment this was--the advice columnist, miss Carolyn Hax (who is a total hack), immediately assumed the woman was on the right side of this argument, and that the gentleman in question must have been behaving like a total jerk, without even knowing anything about the scenario of the relationship or nature of the argument.
Sound familiar? This quick rush to judgment is a veritable pandemic in our society, a distinct pathological characteristic of the American zeitgeist that probably owes its existence to our lamentable puritanical past. It is the reason that we so strictly punsih criminals and have the largest prison population in the world, and probably the reason Fox News is able to exist. As a society, we are so self-righteous, so holier than though, and if we are a Christian nation, we did certainly not learn our Sunday school lessons, in which Jesus Christ explains that one should not judge others, lest ye be judged. If this is true, we are in for a hell of a lot of judgement, and it won't be the first time (or the last) that "Christians" end up looking a lot more like jerks than genuinely decent people.
I don't know if people understand this, but you aren't going to teach anyone any lessons by being an asshole...you're not making the world a better place by being so harsh and quick to judgement, and in the end it is just ridiculous, not to mention tremendously narcissistic. Somehow, we think we've taught people a lesson, when in fact, the opposite has happened: the accused now has every reason to believe they've been treated unfairly and is given no reason to examine the validity of their own actions.
I mean, I used to do it, I'd purposely not do jerky things that guys get accused of being horrible people, specifically because I did not want to give men a bad name.
This, at least, until I realized, that even if I do something totally justified, girls are going to think men are bad people anyway. I was not teaching the female gender at large any grand lesson through my behavior--my attachment to moral behavior was just that--an attachment--it had absolutely zero effect on the world around me. In other words, yes, people do dumb things that are hurtful and inconsiderate, but we don't make them any better or make the world a better place by shunning them and acting like jerks ourselves.
In the same way, this woman who was told by the hack to dump her boyfriend, will not guarantee her better treatment in the future, nor will it, in all likelihood, alter his behavior in similar circumstances. Politicians are big fans of saying they are tough on crime because they pass harsh penalties for particular crimes, when in reality, they are only increasing the jail time of those we catch. When people do bad things they know they shouldn't do, the overwhelming majority do it because they believe they will not get caught, so the consequences are completely inconsequential.
Harsh prison sentences do nothing to deter crime, as harsh social consequences do nothing to deter bad behavior. As long as the reasons and rational exists to commit a crime or behave poorly (not to mention human imperfection and tendency to err), it will continue to happen. And the longer our society continues with this tremendous sense of self-righteuosness and narcissistic indignation, the longer we will continue to have bad policies like our failed war on drugs and failed system of education, and continue to have failed political and social discourse on matters that are utterly inconsequential and meaningless.
NOTE: If you would like to comment on this or any of the other blogs, please go ahead and comment on this blog right here!
No comments:
Post a Comment