Monday, February 06, 2006
The 2nd cutest sidebar doodad EVER
Karma Kitty is still the cutest, but if you're observant you've noticed something at the top of my sidebar that comes close; his name is Neko, and you may have seen him before, as there's an all-white version of him in several popular animated gifs... he's not a gif, though, he's a dazzling example of DHTML (the "D" stands for "dynamic"). Click on him, and then move your cursor away; he'll follow it in any direction, OVER anything on the screen. When you pause, he'll stop by your cursor, at which point he might: scratch his ear with his hind leg, scratch an imaginary wall to the left or right, scratch in front of himself, or, VERY rarely, scratch behind himself. He'll do 0, 1 or 2 of these things, at random, and take a random amount of time in between them and in doing them collectively... after which he yawns, lays down and goes to sleep, with z's floating over him and his little sides moving in and out as he "breathes." When you move the cursor again, he shows a "startled" reaction (his tail goes up and he gets that halo of tiny lines around his head, plus he sits up if he was laying down) and runs after it. Occasionally, though, he'll run for the bottom left corner of the screen, and do his little routine down there; if you move the cursor some more, usually he'll run back at it, but not always... very catlike. Moving the cursor over onto your menu or scroll bar will also make him run for the corner; when you return to the regular screen area, he'll come back. If he's in his "home spot" and you reduce the size of the screen, he won't move along with the rest of the sidebar, but will soon reappear at the edge of the screen as he runs back to his area; if you re-widen the screen, he'll be left behind again, but will quickly return to his spot. To make him go to his area and settle down there when he's running around, just click on him; if you can time a click on him as he's running back, he'll return to cursor chasing.
Have you tried him out yet? Go ahead-I'll wait. :-)
Isn't he FUN? When I 1st saw him, I thought he was an animated gif that the blogger whose site I was on had somehow managed to put in the upper left of his page, overlapping the Blogger logo; I pulled up the source code and looked for the gif, so that I could get what I assumed was code to put stuff in that corner, but I couldn't find it. It was LATE, and I needed to get ready for bed, so I asked my husband (who wasn't doing anything in particular) to search the code for whatever page it was calling that had the gif on it, and thus the command(s) I wanted; with his usual sniveling and ill grace, he complied... and then tried to pretend he didn't know HOW, so I had to tell Mr. High Tech to do a search for "http" in the source code and check each URL he found.
When I came back from washing up, he had a surprise for me; the kitty wasn't a gif, it was a script doing something slick with DHTML... and then he showed me how it worked, and with a shriek of delight I jumped in and started madly playing with all the versions available at the home page for the Neko game
http://www.webneko.net/
Then, I did something VERY hard; I ignored my rampant desire to try installing him, bookmarked the page and went to bed... and if you're a long-time reader, you know how passionately I love my blog doodads, so you should be duly impressed. I went right to work on it as soon as I got up, of course; my 1st step was to just stick the code in with no attempts to customize it, to see if it'd work with my template... I was relieved to see that it did. Then, I put the code in the sidebar part of the template, rather than after the body tag as the website said to, to see if it would still work; it did, but unfortunately Neko still came out at the upper left corner of the page rather than in the sidebar. I took the h1 references out of the code, thinking it was this that might be making it go up there; no change in Neko, but a link to the website appeared in the sidebar. I tried to put him in an iframe; I got a rectangle of gibberish. Out of ideas, I emailed the programmer who'd created the game; he replied promptly, and told me that he had Neko on the right-hand side of this site
http://procrastinators.org
and that if I could adapt the code he had there for my sidebar I was welcome to use it... but that it wasn't something I could just copy and paste. My husband, who knows some programming, looked at the code and said that it seemed like it was feeding info to the script, because (as I'd already verified) the variables being used didn't appear elsewhere in the source code; this was good, because it meant that I didn't have to try to define the variables in my template, which could cause possible conflicts with other stuff. He also told me, and this was the pivotal point, that the #'s in the code were coordinates counted down from the top of the screen and in from the right, so I should be able to plug my own #'s in and get the kitty down in the sidebar (rather than in the corner); I copied the extra bit of code, stuck it in, put in my best guess for how many pixels down and in I needed to go to get Neko right on top of my sidebar, republished, refreshed, and... PERFECT!! :-)
Flushed with victory, I added a line of code to give usage instructions, so people wouldn't make the mistake *I* did of thinking it was a gif rather than a game; THAT came out perfect the 1st time too, scarily enough... I won't get used to it, of course, but it was nice. After that, all I had to do was little tweaks; I altered the wording to make it shorter, then played with the coordinates until Neko was centered over the instructions and as close as possible to being right on top of them so that people would grasp that they were "his"... and then I was done.
In case he uses the URL I sent him and visits my blog; thanks to ace programmer Greg Bell, both for creating this adorable version of Neko and for writing back to me on a Sunday and being friendly and helpful... you ROCK!!
I hope you all enjoy playing with Neko; be sure and play with Karma Kitty too, so we don't have a cat fight. ;-)
Have you tried him out yet? Go ahead-I'll wait. :-)
Isn't he FUN? When I 1st saw him, I thought he was an animated gif that the blogger whose site I was on had somehow managed to put in the upper left of his page, overlapping the Blogger logo; I pulled up the source code and looked for the gif, so that I could get what I assumed was code to put stuff in that corner, but I couldn't find it. It was LATE, and I needed to get ready for bed, so I asked my husband (who wasn't doing anything in particular) to search the code for whatever page it was calling that had the gif on it, and thus the command(s) I wanted; with his usual sniveling and ill grace, he complied... and then tried to pretend he didn't know HOW, so I had to tell Mr. High Tech to do a search for "http" in the source code and check each URL he found.
When I came back from washing up, he had a surprise for me; the kitty wasn't a gif, it was a script doing something slick with DHTML... and then he showed me how it worked, and with a shriek of delight I jumped in and started madly playing with all the versions available at the home page for the Neko game
http://www.webneko.net/
Then, I did something VERY hard; I ignored my rampant desire to try installing him, bookmarked the page and went to bed... and if you're a long-time reader, you know how passionately I love my blog doodads, so you should be duly impressed. I went right to work on it as soon as I got up, of course; my 1st step was to just stick the code in with no attempts to customize it, to see if it'd work with my template... I was relieved to see that it did. Then, I put the code in the sidebar part of the template, rather than after the body tag as the website said to, to see if it would still work; it did, but unfortunately Neko still came out at the upper left corner of the page rather than in the sidebar. I took the h1 references out of the code, thinking it was this that might be making it go up there; no change in Neko, but a link to the website appeared in the sidebar. I tried to put him in an iframe; I got a rectangle of gibberish. Out of ideas, I emailed the programmer who'd created the game; he replied promptly, and told me that he had Neko on the right-hand side of this site
http://procrastinators.org
and that if I could adapt the code he had there for my sidebar I was welcome to use it... but that it wasn't something I could just copy and paste. My husband, who knows some programming, looked at the code and said that it seemed like it was feeding info to the script, because (as I'd already verified) the variables being used didn't appear elsewhere in the source code; this was good, because it meant that I didn't have to try to define the variables in my template, which could cause possible conflicts with other stuff. He also told me, and this was the pivotal point, that the #'s in the code were coordinates counted down from the top of the screen and in from the right, so I should be able to plug my own #'s in and get the kitty down in the sidebar (rather than in the corner); I copied the extra bit of code, stuck it in, put in my best guess for how many pixels down and in I needed to go to get Neko right on top of my sidebar, republished, refreshed, and... PERFECT!! :-)
Flushed with victory, I added a line of code to give usage instructions, so people wouldn't make the mistake *I* did of thinking it was a gif rather than a game; THAT came out perfect the 1st time too, scarily enough... I won't get used to it, of course, but it was nice. After that, all I had to do was little tweaks; I altered the wording to make it shorter, then played with the coordinates until Neko was centered over the instructions and as close as possible to being right on top of them so that people would grasp that they were "his"... and then I was done.
In case he uses the URL I sent him and visits my blog; thanks to ace programmer Greg Bell, both for creating this adorable version of Neko and for writing back to me on a Sunday and being friendly and helpful... you ROCK!!
I hope you all enjoy playing with Neko; be sure and play with Karma Kitty too, so we don't have a cat fight. ;-)
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Some comments on control freaks
"Control freak" is one of those terms for which the meaning is starting to get distorted; its actual meaning is
"One who has an obsessive need to exert control over people and situations"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=control%20freak
but too many people use it to refer to when someone tries to control their OWN life... especially when the name-caller themselves is trying to control that person and failing. Let me be perfectly clear; someone trying to have control of their OWN life is being an ADULT, not a control freak... and if anyone tries to insist otherwise, it's probably because they're a manipulator who's trying to gain control of you, so run, run, RUN.
Another misuse of the term "control freak" is with the intention for it to be a more extreme version of "anal" (aka "anal retentive," NOT the other meaning, this isn't a porn blog); the sort of person who uses it this way will always be the less powerful member of the relationship they have with the alleged freak, and have issues with the amount of control they perceive the other person has over them... my husband is a perfect example of this (if that surprises you, you must be a new reader, lol):
Me: Are you ready to go?
Him: Yes, let's go.
Me: It's gotten chilly in the past hour; I'll get my jacket.
Him: You don't need a jacket.
Me: Yes, I do.
Him: No, you don't, it's not that cold.
Me: I'll be cold without a jacket, so I'm getting it.
Him: You're not going to need it.
Me: Yes, I am, and I'm taking it with me.
Him: Why do you always have to be such a control freak?
Me: It's not being a control freak to make the decisions for my own life.
Him: But... yeah... but... er...
Me: A control freak is someone trying to enforce their preferences on someone ELSE'S life; that'd make YOU the control freak in this scenario, not me.
Him: Yeah, but... but you don't need... if you're insisting on doing something unnecessary...
Me: It has nothing to do with being a control freak. Furthermore, it's extremely arrogant for you to assume that you have the ability and authority to decide what other people need, especially in circumstances where someone else's physical perceptions, about which you know nothing, are involved.
Him: Yeah, but...
Me: Can we go now?
Him: Yeah, fine... I still say you won't need the jacket...
Although my husband isn't above trying to be manipulative (it never works, but he TRIES), he's not attempting to manipulate me in these sorts of exchanges, or to control me either (he's bright enough to know THAT'S pointless); he honestly, although of course incorrectly, believes that reasonable things like taking along a jacket on a chilly night, turning off lights in rooms you're not in, and closing up food packages so they don't get stale or full of bugs are anal, and that he's helping me by trying to steer me to "non-anal" choices. His inability to persuade me to change my actions to match his theories frustrates him, and leads to him using incorrect wording in his efforts to push me into doing things "the non-anal way"; given his awareness that I have greater control in our relationship, using the term "control freak" might also be a Freudian slip.
If this description reminds you of someone in YOUR life, be aware that they feel powerless and resentful, and can be expected to pull passive aggressive stunts such as always being late and forgetting things (2 of my husband's specialties) to even the scales.
It's important to be on the lookout for control freak-ism in those around us, especially in the early days of relationships (romantic or platonic) when people are normally on their best behavior; everybody likes to get their way, but control freaks get a charge out of making you do whatever they ask, including things that don't involve their own welfare but are purely to showcase their power... and that makes them BAD relationship choices.
I had a close call with a man like that, many years ago before I met my husband; I'd been single for a while, and was getting pretty desperate... and so was extra-excited when a man who at first seemed high-quality showed an interest in dating me. Towards the end of the phone conversation in which we'd decided we were going to start going out, he used a trick you see all the time in cop films; he waited until I felt like we had a done deal, and my defenses were down, and then hit me with something else... in the cop movies it'd be a pivotal question that the victim was trying to conceal the answer to, but in this case it was a demand. It was brilliantly done from a psychological viewpoint; what protractedly single woman, with what apparently was a solid man interested in her, would risk losing him by refusing to do what he asked?
ME, that's who.
Him: Oh, I almost forgot; I think you should grow your hair out 3 inches.
Me: You're JOKING, right?
Him: No, I just think your hair's a little too short, and you should grow it out 3 more inches.
Me: I'm happy with my hair the way it is.
Him: Well, it's ok, it just needs to be 3 inches longer.
Me: No it doesn't.
Him: Why are you being stubborn?
Me: It's not being "stubborn" to refuse to let a total stranger dictate how long my hair should be.
Him: Yes it is.
Me: No, it's NOT, and I'm NOT going to grow my hair out, not 3 inches or any other amount.
Him: Well, I'm not willing to go out with anyone who won't agree to do a reasonable thing like grow their hair 3 inches.
Me: That's fine, because I'M not willing to go out with anyone who's so controlling that they need to dictate how many inches of hair another person has.
Him: I'm NOT being controlling, I just think you need to grow your hair out 3 inches.
Me: You're not just thinking it, you're trying to force me to DO it, and that IS being controlling, not to mention ridiculous; what difference could 3 inches of hair make one way or the other?
Him: Never mind. {click}
There's no exaggeration in the above; he really did make a repeated issue of THREE inches of hair, and did in fact hang up on me once he realized that he wasn't going to be able to get control of me as he'd intended... and it remains, to this day, the most outrageous example of attempted control of someone by a stranger that I've ever heard of. Perhaps he thought that something so trivial would have a high likelihood of being accepted, thus giving him the opening wedge he wanted to obtain further control? Or did he just demand some random alteration of my appearance to see if he could "mold" me? It doesn't matter, I suppose; he was bad news either way, and I'm lucky that he didn't hold off on his controlling maneuvers until AFTER we'd been on a few dates... as tough-minded as I was even back then, the stakes would've been high enough at that point that I'm not 100% certain I could've held firm.
The next time someone tries to push you to do something that's not for your benefit, doesn't impact THEM, and so shouldn't be anything they'd validly want or need to influence you on, make sure all your alarms and red flags are deployed; you're dealing with a control freak, which means they're probably a manipulator, and might even be a sociopath... and if you give in to them, expect plenty more where that came from.
"One who has an obsessive need to exert control over people and situations"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=control%20freak
but too many people use it to refer to when someone tries to control their OWN life... especially when the name-caller themselves is trying to control that person and failing. Let me be perfectly clear; someone trying to have control of their OWN life is being an ADULT, not a control freak... and if anyone tries to insist otherwise, it's probably because they're a manipulator who's trying to gain control of you, so run, run, RUN.
Another misuse of the term "control freak" is with the intention for it to be a more extreme version of "anal" (aka "anal retentive," NOT the other meaning, this isn't a porn blog); the sort of person who uses it this way will always be the less powerful member of the relationship they have with the alleged freak, and have issues with the amount of control they perceive the other person has over them... my husband is a perfect example of this (if that surprises you, you must be a new reader, lol):
Me: Are you ready to go?
Him: Yes, let's go.
Me: It's gotten chilly in the past hour; I'll get my jacket.
Him: You don't need a jacket.
Me: Yes, I do.
Him: No, you don't, it's not that cold.
Me: I'll be cold without a jacket, so I'm getting it.
Him: You're not going to need it.
Me: Yes, I am, and I'm taking it with me.
Him: Why do you always have to be such a control freak?
Me: It's not being a control freak to make the decisions for my own life.
Him: But... yeah... but... er...
Me: A control freak is someone trying to enforce their preferences on someone ELSE'S life; that'd make YOU the control freak in this scenario, not me.
Him: Yeah, but... but you don't need... if you're insisting on doing something unnecessary...
Me: It has nothing to do with being a control freak. Furthermore, it's extremely arrogant for you to assume that you have the ability and authority to decide what other people need, especially in circumstances where someone else's physical perceptions, about which you know nothing, are involved.
Him: Yeah, but...
Me: Can we go now?
Him: Yeah, fine... I still say you won't need the jacket...
Although my husband isn't above trying to be manipulative (it never works, but he TRIES), he's not attempting to manipulate me in these sorts of exchanges, or to control me either (he's bright enough to know THAT'S pointless); he honestly, although of course incorrectly, believes that reasonable things like taking along a jacket on a chilly night, turning off lights in rooms you're not in, and closing up food packages so they don't get stale or full of bugs are anal, and that he's helping me by trying to steer me to "non-anal" choices. His inability to persuade me to change my actions to match his theories frustrates him, and leads to him using incorrect wording in his efforts to push me into doing things "the non-anal way"; given his awareness that I have greater control in our relationship, using the term "control freak" might also be a Freudian slip.
If this description reminds you of someone in YOUR life, be aware that they feel powerless and resentful, and can be expected to pull passive aggressive stunts such as always being late and forgetting things (2 of my husband's specialties) to even the scales.
It's important to be on the lookout for control freak-ism in those around us, especially in the early days of relationships (romantic or platonic) when people are normally on their best behavior; everybody likes to get their way, but control freaks get a charge out of making you do whatever they ask, including things that don't involve their own welfare but are purely to showcase their power... and that makes them BAD relationship choices.
I had a close call with a man like that, many years ago before I met my husband; I'd been single for a while, and was getting pretty desperate... and so was extra-excited when a man who at first seemed high-quality showed an interest in dating me. Towards the end of the phone conversation in which we'd decided we were going to start going out, he used a trick you see all the time in cop films; he waited until I felt like we had a done deal, and my defenses were down, and then hit me with something else... in the cop movies it'd be a pivotal question that the victim was trying to conceal the answer to, but in this case it was a demand. It was brilliantly done from a psychological viewpoint; what protractedly single woman, with what apparently was a solid man interested in her, would risk losing him by refusing to do what he asked?
ME, that's who.
Him: Oh, I almost forgot; I think you should grow your hair out 3 inches.
Me: You're JOKING, right?
Him: No, I just think your hair's a little too short, and you should grow it out 3 more inches.
Me: I'm happy with my hair the way it is.
Him: Well, it's ok, it just needs to be 3 inches longer.
Me: No it doesn't.
Him: Why are you being stubborn?
Me: It's not being "stubborn" to refuse to let a total stranger dictate how long my hair should be.
Him: Yes it is.
Me: No, it's NOT, and I'm NOT going to grow my hair out, not 3 inches or any other amount.
Him: Well, I'm not willing to go out with anyone who won't agree to do a reasonable thing like grow their hair 3 inches.
Me: That's fine, because I'M not willing to go out with anyone who's so controlling that they need to dictate how many inches of hair another person has.
Him: I'm NOT being controlling, I just think you need to grow your hair out 3 inches.
Me: You're not just thinking it, you're trying to force me to DO it, and that IS being controlling, not to mention ridiculous; what difference could 3 inches of hair make one way or the other?
Him: Never mind. {click}
There's no exaggeration in the above; he really did make a repeated issue of THREE inches of hair, and did in fact hang up on me once he realized that he wasn't going to be able to get control of me as he'd intended... and it remains, to this day, the most outrageous example of attempted control of someone by a stranger that I've ever heard of. Perhaps he thought that something so trivial would have a high likelihood of being accepted, thus giving him the opening wedge he wanted to obtain further control? Or did he just demand some random alteration of my appearance to see if he could "mold" me? It doesn't matter, I suppose; he was bad news either way, and I'm lucky that he didn't hold off on his controlling maneuvers until AFTER we'd been on a few dates... as tough-minded as I was even back then, the stakes would've been high enough at that point that I'm not 100% certain I could've held firm.
The next time someone tries to push you to do something that's not for your benefit, doesn't impact THEM, and so shouldn't be anything they'd validly want or need to influence you on, make sure all your alarms and red flags are deployed; you're dealing with a control freak, which means they're probably a manipulator, and might even be a sociopath... and if you give in to them, expect plenty more where that came from.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
A MAJOR epiphany
I've agonized many times, not just on this blog but throughout my life, about why even basically decent people end up being buddy-buddy with habitual evildoers and turning their noses up at the virtuous, judging the former as "better" than the latter in direct contrast to their respective records of behavior, and siding with the former over the latter even when the former has attacked the latter without provocation. If you ask anyone if they'd rather have a good person or a bad one as their friend, lover, co-worker, whatever, they'll ALWAYS unhesitatingly reply "the good one," but in reality virtually no one actually follows that alleged preference when choosing who gets to be in their life; you'd be hard-pressed to find even a single person who makes a point of gathering good folks around them and pushing away the bad. WHY?
I'm well aware of the discomfort most folks feel around the virtuous (because they feel inadequate by comparison), that they're certain they're being looked down upon by the virtuous (even if they've never seen evidence of any such thing), and that they suspect that the virtuous must be deceiving them about their degree of virtue (and thus aren't actually superior). I'm also aware of how rotten types, in contrast, cause no such angst, and are seen as exciting, fun, glamorous and sexy. However, these attitudes were never quite enough to explain how if you actually CALL someone on the illogic of the preferences they're showing their explanation seems to indicate that they're living in a parallel universe where the virtuous person has consistently behaved badly and the non-virtuous person is a near-saint... how, in other words, they seem to have no memory of any of the countless incidents that should lead to an accurate judgment of the relative merits of those in question, and to be focusing instead on distorted perceptions of anomalous behavior of the 2 parties. Even worse, if you REMIND people about the REAL behavioral records of the virtuous and non-virtuous individuals, they never seem to think it counts for anything compared to the incidents that THEY recall, even if they outnumber them a thousand to 1; WHY?
Since it's contrary to a person's best interests (not to mention common sense, fairness and SANITY) to choose the baddies over the good guys (and gals) of the world, it made me nuts that I knew that folks were overwhelmingly doing it, and demonstrating a totally consistent pattern of denial and misinterpretation of the facts in the process, but couldn't see the mechanism behind it although there clearly HAD to be one.
Today, at long last, I SAW.
I was writing an email to a friend with whom I'd started a conversation about this topic, and because he didn't seem to know all the ways that virtue is hated and non-virtue is pursued I was trying to come up with a comprehensive list of examples... and suddenly, I saw how some of my examples formed the basis for an actual explanation of how people look at the virtuous and the non-virtuous and decide to favor the latter.
The pivotal issue was the earth-shattering realization that, although *I* keep track of the behavior of people in my life, objectively judge EVERY action, and add all the "scores" together to form a judgment on each person's level of virtue, NO ONE ELSE DOES THAT. What normal folks do, astoundingly enough (at least to ME), is IGNORE most of the things people do that SHOULD be counted towards their level of virtue, forget most of the ones they DID notice, and fail to make a moral judgment on any of it; instead, they keep track of those few actions the people they know take that are in CONTRAST to their normal behavior, multiply their importance by about a million and use THAT result to judge how good a person is.
I couldn't understand at first why this method would exist, much less be the one everyone uses, but when I thought about it I realized that it would actually work extremely well for judging those of AVERAGE virtue (in other words the vast majority of us), whose day-to-day actions probably DON'T mean much virtue-wise, and thus for whom focusing on the unusual things they do, in other words those rare things that are notably good or bad, would in fact give a really good picture of what sort of folks they are, withOUT the major time and effort required to keep track the way *I* do.
The dark side of what's really an impressively efficient system is that when it's used on people of particularly high or low virtue it gives a result that's the exact OPPOSITE of the correct analysis... and THAT'S why people's judgment even of the virtuous and non-virtuous that they know well enough to have a clear picture of is always the opposite of what it should be. I've laid out the steps that lead to this grim result so you can see how the process works:
1) People take however an individual typically acts as a given, on which no judgment is made and for which no credit is awarded, which means that they
a) shrug off the ugly things their badly-behaving friends and acquaintances routinely do, rather than using them as reasons to cut the wrongdoers out of their lives if they can, or at the very least stay aloof from them and not trust or support them
b) ignore the many good things that the virtuous folks they know routinely do, rather than seeing them as reasons to pursue or intensify relationships with them, much less to trust and support them
2) People make an exaggerated issue of when someone acts in an atypical way, which means that
a) when a NON-virtuous person does something good, everyone notices and makes a big deal about it, giving them all sorts of praise and treating them like a hero
b) when a virtuous person does something even slightly wrong (which WILL happen, since no human being is perfect), or even does something that's less than ideal but not bad, people act like they've committed a murder
3) People remember atypical behavior FAR more clearly than they do typical behavior, which means that
a) when they think of a NON-virtuous person, they remember good things they did, and have amnesia about their endless wrongdoings
b) when they think of a virtuous person they remember negative things they did, and have amnesia about the endless good things they've done
4) The enhanced memory of atypical behavior, combined with the greater weight given to it, means that
a) the NON-virtuous are seen as swell people and liked, which leads to judgments being habitually made in their favor
b) the virtuous are seen as unappealing people and DISliked, which leads to judgments being habitually made against them, especially when they're pitted against the non-virtuous
I can't tell you how deep the satisfaction I feel at figuring this out is. I'm sharing it with you, 1st because I'm proud of it, and 2nd because I hope, as always, that I'll make some folks THINK instead of blindly following the standard behavior patterns, so that a few bad people get what they deserve, and a few good people end up victorious.
I'm aware that some of my assertions might seem insane if you haven't been consciously observing this dynamic, but test it yourself and you'll see it; next time you observe a situation in which a virtuous person is in a conflict with a non-virtuous one, ask around, and you'll hear a litany of praise for the non-virtuous person, and some mean-spirited complaints about the virtuous one... which will explain why everyone's siding with the former, even if they're supposed to be friends with both of them. I've seen it countless times, and it always made me crazy because I didn't know why people acted in such a consistently illogical way... but now I know. YES!!!!!!! :-)
I'm well aware of the discomfort most folks feel around the virtuous (because they feel inadequate by comparison), that they're certain they're being looked down upon by the virtuous (even if they've never seen evidence of any such thing), and that they suspect that the virtuous must be deceiving them about their degree of virtue (and thus aren't actually superior). I'm also aware of how rotten types, in contrast, cause no such angst, and are seen as exciting, fun, glamorous and sexy. However, these attitudes were never quite enough to explain how if you actually CALL someone on the illogic of the preferences they're showing their explanation seems to indicate that they're living in a parallel universe where the virtuous person has consistently behaved badly and the non-virtuous person is a near-saint... how, in other words, they seem to have no memory of any of the countless incidents that should lead to an accurate judgment of the relative merits of those in question, and to be focusing instead on distorted perceptions of anomalous behavior of the 2 parties. Even worse, if you REMIND people about the REAL behavioral records of the virtuous and non-virtuous individuals, they never seem to think it counts for anything compared to the incidents that THEY recall, even if they outnumber them a thousand to 1; WHY?
Since it's contrary to a person's best interests (not to mention common sense, fairness and SANITY) to choose the baddies over the good guys (and gals) of the world, it made me nuts that I knew that folks were overwhelmingly doing it, and demonstrating a totally consistent pattern of denial and misinterpretation of the facts in the process, but couldn't see the mechanism behind it although there clearly HAD to be one.
Today, at long last, I SAW.
I was writing an email to a friend with whom I'd started a conversation about this topic, and because he didn't seem to know all the ways that virtue is hated and non-virtue is pursued I was trying to come up with a comprehensive list of examples... and suddenly, I saw how some of my examples formed the basis for an actual explanation of how people look at the virtuous and the non-virtuous and decide to favor the latter.
The pivotal issue was the earth-shattering realization that, although *I* keep track of the behavior of people in my life, objectively judge EVERY action, and add all the "scores" together to form a judgment on each person's level of virtue, NO ONE ELSE DOES THAT. What normal folks do, astoundingly enough (at least to ME), is IGNORE most of the things people do that SHOULD be counted towards their level of virtue, forget most of the ones they DID notice, and fail to make a moral judgment on any of it; instead, they keep track of those few actions the people they know take that are in CONTRAST to their normal behavior, multiply their importance by about a million and use THAT result to judge how good a person is.
I couldn't understand at first why this method would exist, much less be the one everyone uses, but when I thought about it I realized that it would actually work extremely well for judging those of AVERAGE virtue (in other words the vast majority of us), whose day-to-day actions probably DON'T mean much virtue-wise, and thus for whom focusing on the unusual things they do, in other words those rare things that are notably good or bad, would in fact give a really good picture of what sort of folks they are, withOUT the major time and effort required to keep track the way *I* do.
The dark side of what's really an impressively efficient system is that when it's used on people of particularly high or low virtue it gives a result that's the exact OPPOSITE of the correct analysis... and THAT'S why people's judgment even of the virtuous and non-virtuous that they know well enough to have a clear picture of is always the opposite of what it should be. I've laid out the steps that lead to this grim result so you can see how the process works:
1) People take however an individual typically acts as a given, on which no judgment is made and for which no credit is awarded, which means that they
a) shrug off the ugly things their badly-behaving friends and acquaintances routinely do, rather than using them as reasons to cut the wrongdoers out of their lives if they can, or at the very least stay aloof from them and not trust or support them
b) ignore the many good things that the virtuous folks they know routinely do, rather than seeing them as reasons to pursue or intensify relationships with them, much less to trust and support them
2) People make an exaggerated issue of when someone acts in an atypical way, which means that
a) when a NON-virtuous person does something good, everyone notices and makes a big deal about it, giving them all sorts of praise and treating them like a hero
b) when a virtuous person does something even slightly wrong (which WILL happen, since no human being is perfect), or even does something that's less than ideal but not bad, people act like they've committed a murder
3) People remember atypical behavior FAR more clearly than they do typical behavior, which means that
a) when they think of a NON-virtuous person, they remember good things they did, and have amnesia about their endless wrongdoings
b) when they think of a virtuous person they remember negative things they did, and have amnesia about the endless good things they've done
4) The enhanced memory of atypical behavior, combined with the greater weight given to it, means that
a) the NON-virtuous are seen as swell people and liked, which leads to judgments being habitually made in their favor
b) the virtuous are seen as unappealing people and DISliked, which leads to judgments being habitually made against them, especially when they're pitted against the non-virtuous
I can't tell you how deep the satisfaction I feel at figuring this out is. I'm sharing it with you, 1st because I'm proud of it, and 2nd because I hope, as always, that I'll make some folks THINK instead of blindly following the standard behavior patterns, so that a few bad people get what they deserve, and a few good people end up victorious.
I'm aware that some of my assertions might seem insane if you haven't been consciously observing this dynamic, but test it yourself and you'll see it; next time you observe a situation in which a virtuous person is in a conflict with a non-virtuous one, ask around, and you'll hear a litany of praise for the non-virtuous person, and some mean-spirited complaints about the virtuous one... which will explain why everyone's siding with the former, even if they're supposed to be friends with both of them. I've seen it countless times, and it always made me crazy because I didn't know why people acted in such a consistently illogical way... but now I know. YES!!!!!!! :-)
