Friday, December 01, 2006
Group vs one
I saw an episode of M*A*S*H recently in which a new nurse who'd decided to try to become a doctor had joined the staff, and the other nurses, far from being supportive and proud as they SHOULD have been, treated her like dirt for daring to try to better herself. Major Houlihan, who's as smart and tough as they come, analyzes the situation and tells the innocent nurse that, since the nursing staff had been running smoothly before SHE showed up, she must somehow be to blame, and she'd better find a way to magically make all the other nurses stop mistreating her or else... and at no point is there any indication that the Major said a single word to the actual wrongdoers about their catty, belligerent and therefore utterly unacceptable behavior, or even suggested that they should take any part in rectifying the situation (that THEY had created) as part of being "team players."
Unfortunately, the way that problem was (MIS)handled on the show is perfectly in tune with how these things get dealt with in real life, and we're so used to this grossly unfair and stupid judgment of "group vs one" situations that the M*A*S*H writers felt comfortable incorporating it into the plot without fear that anyone would find anything wrong with it... and that's what's so grim, that nobody would have a problem with even a top-notch officer like Margaret failing to grasp the real problem and do the right thing.
The central issue here is so important that I'm going to "shout" it:
WHENEVER THERE'S A GROUP AGAINST ONE PERSON, THERE'S A 99.9% PROBABILITY THAT THE ONE IS A VICTIM AND THE GROUP ARE ATTACKERS.
Actually, it's more like a 99.999999999999999999999999999% probability... and it'd be 100% if not for online trolls and the 1 case in a million where people gang up on an actual wrongdoer (as opposed to winking and nodding at them or rewarding them like they usually do).
Do you doubt that? Think back to all the many times you've seen a group against one; how often was that one someone who'd done something wrong for which they were getting well-earned retribution? NEVER, right? From earliest childhood, when someone became the target of group abuse it was because they were fat, or bespectacled, or short, or tall, or homely, or dressed poorly, or bad at sports, or "too smart," or spoke with an accent, or were a different color or religion; did it ever consciously occur to you that none of those things constitutes wrongdoing, and thus they're NOT valid reasons for doling out abuse? By the late teens, some of these "reasons" (in quotes because they're lame excuses, NOT actual reasons) for ganging up fade away, but not many, and new ones get added, such as; being gay (or suspected of being gay, or not stereotypically "masculine" or "feminine" and so assumed to be gay), not wearing the "right" brand of sneakers, being a slut (aka female and "too sexually active," or believed to be), being a geek, not developing as fast as the majority, or simply being different in any way. Once adulthood is reached, most of these things stop being socially acceptable "reasons" for taunting people directly or for forming groups to oppose them, and get demoted to merely being "reasons" to dislike others or to badmouth them behind their backs; some, sadly, such as race, religion, and sexual orientation, do persist as "reasons" for groups of unpleasant types to be openly hostile to, or openly "against," given individuals within certain social circles.
Bigots and such aside, it'd be nice to think that part of being an adult is having the maturity to not be interested in playground-type gang-ups, but cyberspace teaches us that, for many people at least, what happens is that they learn through observation that they have to stop doing it in "real life" or be seen as IMmature, but the DESIRE to form attack groups remains... we can see the proof on nearly any forum, message board or other internet gathering place that isn't relentlessly moderated. While there are certainly cases where someone gets gangbanged online because of, say, their religion or ethnic background, the overwhelming majority of group attacks occur for one reason; the victim expressed an opinion contrary to theirs. It doesn't matter how politely the contrary opinion is expressed, how dispassionately, how logically and reasonably it's laid out, it doesn't matter if no disrespectful insinuation is made about previous commenters, or no reference to them or their remarks is made at all, or even if no one else has yet expressed the opposing position; an astonishing # of people respond to anything posted that's contrary to their views with vicious attacks, including personal remarks, foul language and insults... and if there's more than one of them around they instantly bond together, even if they're total strangers, and launch a flamewar against the innocent commenter.
Sometimes, the attack doesn't start until after the commenter has had the unmitigated gall to, GASP, rebut the responses to their post; I don't think that people who'd have been satisfied if the commenter had humbly caved in after their sacred responses, and so wait until "round 2" to start attacking, are any better than those who attack instantly... they're WORSE, really, because of their arrogance and irrational expectations. Perhaps the most contemptible of all are those who start out at least pretending to have a calm discussion, or even a heated but properly-done debate, against one person, and then, once it becomes clear that they're being out-argued, or, just as bad in their minds, that the victim is showing no signs of conceding or giving up no matter how many times they're hammered, start getting ugly, rapidly escalating to full-out flaming if the commenter stands their ground instead of heading for the hills; this is nothing but a petty, childish desire to hurt someone who isn't doing things their way. Regardless of which version of this concept is being played out, the commenter isn't guilty of ANY wrongdoing, and the central truth is the same; a group against one person = attackers against an innocent victim, which means that the members of the group are the bad guys, NOT the victim... despite the inexplicable tendency for all observers, including the authorities, to assume otherwise.
As mentioned earlier, there ARE exceptions, but they're so easy to spot that you don't have to worry about them: Should you ever encounter a group of people harassing someone because they're a convicted child molester rather than because of their race or religion, that'd be an exception. Online, if someone shows up on a forum and starts posting incoherent insults (usually in all-caps and without benefit of a spellchecker), and people decide to respond protractedly in kind (which they almost never do, have you noticed?), that'd be an exception; be aware, though, that most people who get labeled as trolls are simply those who voiced contrary opinions and then defended them, and/or defended themselves when the personal remarks started flying, so don't buy it when the attackers call their prey a troll... scrolling back to the beginning of the battle will virtually always reveal that the victim was NOT trolling when they got jumped on, and neither refusing to change an opinion nor lashing back when insulted makes them trolls at any point in the fight.
Why is it that those who disrupt a forum with a mass attack on one person never get called trolls, which they in fact ARE... but if they label their target a troll people believe it? Why is it that those who gang up on one person in real life never get seen as troublemakers... but their victim often DOES? If we observe ONE person attacking another, although we tend to side with the attacker and to see the victim as a loser we do at least usually grasp who's at fault even if we don't pass the correct judgment based on it; however, we foolishly refuse to accept that it's not only possible but COMMON for multiple people to collectively decide to kick the butt of someone who hasn't done anything wrong... despite all our personal observations to the contrary, we're sure the victim MUST have done something awful to have a whole group attacking them at once.
What can you do about all this? When you witness a group attack on an individual, take an honest look at what judgments you automatically passed, and then consciously alter those judgments to the correct ones. Make note of who the attackers are; they're bad people, and you'd do well to remember that if you're ever tempted to hang around with them. Last but far from least; if you want to be able to consider yourself to be a good person, you have to do more than look and think... you have to interrupt the assault and demand that it cease. This might be scary the 1st time you try it, but fear not; the psychology of the situation requires that the victim be fighting alone (yes, this means that the attackers are cowards as well as cockroaches), and if even 1 person intervenes it'll nearly always bring the action to a screaming halt... the best they'll ever manage is the occasional attempt to protest that the victim had it coming (usually "because (s)he won't stop arguing," although THEY are arguing every bit as much, the hypocrites), but when you dismiss that with the contempt it deserves that'll be the end of it.
Aside from the justifiable pride you'll feel for defeating evil and protecting the innocent, taking action against bullies will be good for your karma; the next time YOU get ganged up on, you want someone to jump to YOUR defense, right?
Unfortunately, the way that problem was (MIS)handled on the show is perfectly in tune with how these things get dealt with in real life, and we're so used to this grossly unfair and stupid judgment of "group vs one" situations that the M*A*S*H writers felt comfortable incorporating it into the plot without fear that anyone would find anything wrong with it... and that's what's so grim, that nobody would have a problem with even a top-notch officer like Margaret failing to grasp the real problem and do the right thing.
The central issue here is so important that I'm going to "shout" it:
WHENEVER THERE'S A GROUP AGAINST ONE PERSON, THERE'S A 99.9% PROBABILITY THAT THE ONE IS A VICTIM AND THE GROUP ARE ATTACKERS.
Actually, it's more like a 99.999999999999999999999999999% probability... and it'd be 100% if not for online trolls and the 1 case in a million where people gang up on an actual wrongdoer (as opposed to winking and nodding at them or rewarding them like they usually do).
Do you doubt that? Think back to all the many times you've seen a group against one; how often was that one someone who'd done something wrong for which they were getting well-earned retribution? NEVER, right? From earliest childhood, when someone became the target of group abuse it was because they were fat, or bespectacled, or short, or tall, or homely, or dressed poorly, or bad at sports, or "too smart," or spoke with an accent, or were a different color or religion; did it ever consciously occur to you that none of those things constitutes wrongdoing, and thus they're NOT valid reasons for doling out abuse? By the late teens, some of these "reasons" (in quotes because they're lame excuses, NOT actual reasons) for ganging up fade away, but not many, and new ones get added, such as; being gay (or suspected of being gay, or not stereotypically "masculine" or "feminine" and so assumed to be gay), not wearing the "right" brand of sneakers, being a slut (aka female and "too sexually active," or believed to be), being a geek, not developing as fast as the majority, or simply being different in any way. Once adulthood is reached, most of these things stop being socially acceptable "reasons" for taunting people directly or for forming groups to oppose them, and get demoted to merely being "reasons" to dislike others or to badmouth them behind their backs; some, sadly, such as race, religion, and sexual orientation, do persist as "reasons" for groups of unpleasant types to be openly hostile to, or openly "against," given individuals within certain social circles.
Bigots and such aside, it'd be nice to think that part of being an adult is having the maturity to not be interested in playground-type gang-ups, but cyberspace teaches us that, for many people at least, what happens is that they learn through observation that they have to stop doing it in "real life" or be seen as IMmature, but the DESIRE to form attack groups remains... we can see the proof on nearly any forum, message board or other internet gathering place that isn't relentlessly moderated. While there are certainly cases where someone gets gangbanged online because of, say, their religion or ethnic background, the overwhelming majority of group attacks occur for one reason; the victim expressed an opinion contrary to theirs. It doesn't matter how politely the contrary opinion is expressed, how dispassionately, how logically and reasonably it's laid out, it doesn't matter if no disrespectful insinuation is made about previous commenters, or no reference to them or their remarks is made at all, or even if no one else has yet expressed the opposing position; an astonishing # of people respond to anything posted that's contrary to their views with vicious attacks, including personal remarks, foul language and insults... and if there's more than one of them around they instantly bond together, even if they're total strangers, and launch a flamewar against the innocent commenter.
Sometimes, the attack doesn't start until after the commenter has had the unmitigated gall to, GASP, rebut the responses to their post; I don't think that people who'd have been satisfied if the commenter had humbly caved in after their sacred responses, and so wait until "round 2" to start attacking, are any better than those who attack instantly... they're WORSE, really, because of their arrogance and irrational expectations. Perhaps the most contemptible of all are those who start out at least pretending to have a calm discussion, or even a heated but properly-done debate, against one person, and then, once it becomes clear that they're being out-argued, or, just as bad in their minds, that the victim is showing no signs of conceding or giving up no matter how many times they're hammered, start getting ugly, rapidly escalating to full-out flaming if the commenter stands their ground instead of heading for the hills; this is nothing but a petty, childish desire to hurt someone who isn't doing things their way. Regardless of which version of this concept is being played out, the commenter isn't guilty of ANY wrongdoing, and the central truth is the same; a group against one person = attackers against an innocent victim, which means that the members of the group are the bad guys, NOT the victim... despite the inexplicable tendency for all observers, including the authorities, to assume otherwise.
As mentioned earlier, there ARE exceptions, but they're so easy to spot that you don't have to worry about them: Should you ever encounter a group of people harassing someone because they're a convicted child molester rather than because of their race or religion, that'd be an exception. Online, if someone shows up on a forum and starts posting incoherent insults (usually in all-caps and without benefit of a spellchecker), and people decide to respond protractedly in kind (which they almost never do, have you noticed?), that'd be an exception; be aware, though, that most people who get labeled as trolls are simply those who voiced contrary opinions and then defended them, and/or defended themselves when the personal remarks started flying, so don't buy it when the attackers call their prey a troll... scrolling back to the beginning of the battle will virtually always reveal that the victim was NOT trolling when they got jumped on, and neither refusing to change an opinion nor lashing back when insulted makes them trolls at any point in the fight.
Why is it that those who disrupt a forum with a mass attack on one person never get called trolls, which they in fact ARE... but if they label their target a troll people believe it? Why is it that those who gang up on one person in real life never get seen as troublemakers... but their victim often DOES? If we observe ONE person attacking another, although we tend to side with the attacker and to see the victim as a loser we do at least usually grasp who's at fault even if we don't pass the correct judgment based on it; however, we foolishly refuse to accept that it's not only possible but COMMON for multiple people to collectively decide to kick the butt of someone who hasn't done anything wrong... despite all our personal observations to the contrary, we're sure the victim MUST have done something awful to have a whole group attacking them at once.
What can you do about all this? When you witness a group attack on an individual, take an honest look at what judgments you automatically passed, and then consciously alter those judgments to the correct ones. Make note of who the attackers are; they're bad people, and you'd do well to remember that if you're ever tempted to hang around with them. Last but far from least; if you want to be able to consider yourself to be a good person, you have to do more than look and think... you have to interrupt the assault and demand that it cease. This might be scary the 1st time you try it, but fear not; the psychology of the situation requires that the victim be fighting alone (yes, this means that the attackers are cowards as well as cockroaches), and if even 1 person intervenes it'll nearly always bring the action to a screaming halt... the best they'll ever manage is the occasional attempt to protest that the victim had it coming (usually "because (s)he won't stop arguing," although THEY are arguing every bit as much, the hypocrites), but when you dismiss that with the contempt it deserves that'll be the end of it.
Aside from the justifiable pride you'll feel for defeating evil and protecting the innocent, taking action against bullies will be good for your karma; the next time YOU get ganged up on, you want someone to jump to YOUR defense, right?
Monday, November 27, 2006
Humans vs human nature
Several years ago, I participated regularly in a chatroom, one of whose regulars was so well-known for snacking non-stop that when he logged in the 1st comment addressed to him after "hello" was usually "what are you eating?". The subject of dieting came up one day, and this man who probably hadn't gone more than half an hour without eating in 20 years broke into the discussion of how difficult it was to lose weight and keep it off to proclaim "Losing weight is easy-all you have to do is put down your fork." This man who had no idea what hunger was, much less the gut-twisting agony that accompanies prolonged restriction of caloric intake, honestly thought that you could just decide to stop eating and weight-loss would follow.
You're probably puzzled, or even astounded, that anyone could be so stupid, not to mention insensitive... but wait, haven't you ever looked at an obese person and had vaguely disgusted thoughts about how they must lack any shred of self-control to have overeaten to that extent, or observed a fat person eating anything other than a dressing-free salad at a restaurant and seen it as a contemptible failure on their part that they chose regular food over what they "should be" eating as penance for their rotundity? Americans are an alarmingly chubby bunch, and nearly every one of us has dieted and so knows firsthand how difficult it is to not eat when we're ravenous, or to keep munching celery instead of digging into the ice cream, so why do we habitually expect OTHER people to be able to do these things, and do them with such consistency that they never cross over into fatness?
Part of it is hypocrisy, over-eagerness to pass judgment, and cultural programming that we've absorbed but too often don't apply to ourselves, but the lion's share is that we've lost track of what human nature is; we're so caught up in our modern, mechanized lives that we forget that we're ANIMALS, and like all animals have biological programming to maximize our chances of surviving and continuing the species... programming that's almost impossible to overcome no matter what your level of determination and willpower are because THAT'S ITS PURPOSE, to make us do the pro-survival thing whether we want to or not.
We're programmed to eat when we're hungry, to drop everything, think of nothing else, and focus on finding and consuming food until we're full. We're also programmed to eat more than we need to achieve satiety if there's lots of food around, or if there's a wide variety of food available. We're ALSO programmed to have overwhelming preferences for food that's fatty, sweet or salty. None of this is a secret, but the so-called experts still profess to not understand why people who're surrounded by infinite food of infinite variety, including a dazzling array of junk foods that were designed to appeal to our biological cravings for fat, salt and sweet, are choosing to over-indulge in tasty foods and get fat rather than to eat small amounts of not-very-tasty "healthy" foods and be thin. The so-called experts also don't grasp why diets fail, why folks whose lives are a misery because of their weight can't take it off or keep it off, and why even people looking death in the face often can't stick to medically-prescribed diets, whether for weight loss, blood pressure control or whatever; they can't see, or refuse to accept, that the way people would have to eat to achieve the desired results is contrary to human nature, and that we aren't much better at combatting the dictates of our bodies than lower animals are.
A related issue is exercise; why, when we know its importance for weight control, keeping our hearts strong, and 5 dozen other health benefits, do we not work out more, or at all? We've got a double dose of human nature to blame here: 1st, when we don't need food and aren't running from threats, we're programmed to take it easy to conserve energy, and our bodies resist being forced into pointless flailing around even when we're out of shape to the point that our lives are at risk; our biology doesn't take into account the possibility of an existence where lots of physical activity isn't a given. 2nd, we're programmed to recoil from anything that causes discomfort or pain, because the ability to feel those sensations exists specifically to help us avoid injury and death... and exercise is at the very least uncomfortable for those who aren't already fit, and is often outright painful, especially when it includes the sorts of repetitive motions (aka "reps") that are totally unnatural for us to do at any time.
Our powerful internal resistance to pushing forward against pain, especially once it becomes intense, is central to another human-nature issue; addiction. The sad truth is that our bodies contain a potentially-fatal flaw; the ability to become addicted to a wide variety of things, most of which are bad for us and the rest of which BECOME bad when taken to addictive extremes. The addict may try repeatedly to break the addiction, but even when they're losing their health, their homes, their jobs, their families and friends, all their $ and possibly their lives, they all too often can't do it; when denied the object of their addiction, they suffer, and the suffering increases and increases until it's beyond human endurance and they give in to it... just as YOU would do almost ANYTHING to stop feeling that kind of pain, both because you couldn't handle it and because your body would think you're dying and would force you to do whatever it takes to survive (keep that in mind the next time you feel superior to junkies and drunks and such).
There's a gray area here, because there obviously ARE people who can suffer every agony the human body can produce and still lose huge amounts of weight and keep it off, go from being couch potatoes to winning triathlons, and permanently give up drugs and other addictions; ignorant and unsupportive types use this to "prove" to folks who're losing the battle with their pain that everyone can achieve the same things, that it's just a matter of willpower... which is no different than pointing to a famous artist or writer and insisting that we can all be like them if we just TRY hard enough. Just as there's nothing "natural" about artistic or writing ability (paints and paper are NOT part of the natural world we evolved to live in), the ability to ignore or overcome crushing pain is an unnatural one that few possess, and to expect EVERYONE to be able to do it is not only unfair, it's INSANE... and terribly cruel as well.
The other urge we're biologically designed to not be able to hold out against is the sexual one; much of the sexual behavior we're amazed by, disapprove of or just plain don't understand exists, and resists all efforts to control or eradicate it, because our sexual urges are so powerful that scientists are now starting to suggest that they're stronger even than the survival and food-related instincts... and those urges do NOT incorporate exceptions for such concepts as "married to someone else," "not willing," "below a randomly-chosen age," "dating my friend," "darn, I'm too young," "uh-oh, this is illegal" or "whoops, this is sick." Stop a minute and think how much of our culture deals with trying to force people to act contrary to this intensely powerful part of human nature: We're programmed to try to procreate as soon as we're physically able, but we expect sexually mature people below the age of 18 to "just say no," even though much older folks are routinely unable to. Males are programmed to be sexually drawn to females who show physical signs of sexual maturity, the younger the better because they're stronger and more fertile, but if they pursue girls who are sexually mature but below whatever we've decided is the official age of consent we condemn them as wannabe child molesters. We're programmed to be sexually interested in whoever's around and thus actually available to us, but are outraged when people are found to be sleeping with the lovers of those they're close to, as if this were unthinkable instead of natural. We're stunned when pedophiles and other perverts make enormous effort, and risk social condemnation, to get sexual gratification, although we don't blink when "normal" people jump through hoops of fire to get THEIR desires fulfilled. If we'd just accept the dictates of human nature we could have far less drama and focus our ire exclusively on those who might harm innocents.
The final area of human nature that we expect people to ignore is one of the most ferocious; the drive to nurture our children. So-called experts are always claiming, without proof, that parents should ignore their biological urges and, for example, not comfort a baby when it cries for fear of "spoiling" it; in recent years, a major issue in this category is that parents should "cure" obesity in their children by withholding food from them... and this seems so simple that if they DON'T do it, they must be awful parents. Let's ignore for a minute that all but the tiniest children can get food from many sources other than their folks, and focus on the little ones whose food intake parents CAN control; do we REALLY think that parents can just toss aside their biological drives to provide food for their offspring without a quiver? And what about the reactions of the children thus deprived; do we expect them to be silent and stoic about it? Even if you're not a parent, is there anything that'll make you nuts faster than the sound of a baby or small child crying? That's not an accident; we're programmed to react powerfully to the distress of children, because they're so helpless that they need to be able to grab adult attention quickly. Multiply that by a thousand, and you get the reaction of a parent to the crying of their own child; the pain of their offspring hurts them worse than any pain they can suffer directly. There isn't a # big enough to indicate the agony a parent would endure from hearing their hungry child crying and begging for food constantly for months; how can we expect them to brush that off and not keep breaking the child's diet? We need to stop pretending that this biological programming can be discounted and give parents of obese kids support rather than condemnation.
There aren't any easy answers to these problems, but we can certainly do better than our current "solution" of expecting people to overcome human nature and disparaging them when they inevitably fail.
You're probably puzzled, or even astounded, that anyone could be so stupid, not to mention insensitive... but wait, haven't you ever looked at an obese person and had vaguely disgusted thoughts about how they must lack any shred of self-control to have overeaten to that extent, or observed a fat person eating anything other than a dressing-free salad at a restaurant and seen it as a contemptible failure on their part that they chose regular food over what they "should be" eating as penance for their rotundity? Americans are an alarmingly chubby bunch, and nearly every one of us has dieted and so knows firsthand how difficult it is to not eat when we're ravenous, or to keep munching celery instead of digging into the ice cream, so why do we habitually expect OTHER people to be able to do these things, and do them with such consistency that they never cross over into fatness?
Part of it is hypocrisy, over-eagerness to pass judgment, and cultural programming that we've absorbed but too often don't apply to ourselves, but the lion's share is that we've lost track of what human nature is; we're so caught up in our modern, mechanized lives that we forget that we're ANIMALS, and like all animals have biological programming to maximize our chances of surviving and continuing the species... programming that's almost impossible to overcome no matter what your level of determination and willpower are because THAT'S ITS PURPOSE, to make us do the pro-survival thing whether we want to or not.
We're programmed to eat when we're hungry, to drop everything, think of nothing else, and focus on finding and consuming food until we're full. We're also programmed to eat more than we need to achieve satiety if there's lots of food around, or if there's a wide variety of food available. We're ALSO programmed to have overwhelming preferences for food that's fatty, sweet or salty. None of this is a secret, but the so-called experts still profess to not understand why people who're surrounded by infinite food of infinite variety, including a dazzling array of junk foods that were designed to appeal to our biological cravings for fat, salt and sweet, are choosing to over-indulge in tasty foods and get fat rather than to eat small amounts of not-very-tasty "healthy" foods and be thin. The so-called experts also don't grasp why diets fail, why folks whose lives are a misery because of their weight can't take it off or keep it off, and why even people looking death in the face often can't stick to medically-prescribed diets, whether for weight loss, blood pressure control or whatever; they can't see, or refuse to accept, that the way people would have to eat to achieve the desired results is contrary to human nature, and that we aren't much better at combatting the dictates of our bodies than lower animals are.
A related issue is exercise; why, when we know its importance for weight control, keeping our hearts strong, and 5 dozen other health benefits, do we not work out more, or at all? We've got a double dose of human nature to blame here: 1st, when we don't need food and aren't running from threats, we're programmed to take it easy to conserve energy, and our bodies resist being forced into pointless flailing around even when we're out of shape to the point that our lives are at risk; our biology doesn't take into account the possibility of an existence where lots of physical activity isn't a given. 2nd, we're programmed to recoil from anything that causes discomfort or pain, because the ability to feel those sensations exists specifically to help us avoid injury and death... and exercise is at the very least uncomfortable for those who aren't already fit, and is often outright painful, especially when it includes the sorts of repetitive motions (aka "reps") that are totally unnatural for us to do at any time.
Our powerful internal resistance to pushing forward against pain, especially once it becomes intense, is central to another human-nature issue; addiction. The sad truth is that our bodies contain a potentially-fatal flaw; the ability to become addicted to a wide variety of things, most of which are bad for us and the rest of which BECOME bad when taken to addictive extremes. The addict may try repeatedly to break the addiction, but even when they're losing their health, their homes, their jobs, their families and friends, all their $ and possibly their lives, they all too often can't do it; when denied the object of their addiction, they suffer, and the suffering increases and increases until it's beyond human endurance and they give in to it... just as YOU would do almost ANYTHING to stop feeling that kind of pain, both because you couldn't handle it and because your body would think you're dying and would force you to do whatever it takes to survive (keep that in mind the next time you feel superior to junkies and drunks and such).
There's a gray area here, because there obviously ARE people who can suffer every agony the human body can produce and still lose huge amounts of weight and keep it off, go from being couch potatoes to winning triathlons, and permanently give up drugs and other addictions; ignorant and unsupportive types use this to "prove" to folks who're losing the battle with their pain that everyone can achieve the same things, that it's just a matter of willpower... which is no different than pointing to a famous artist or writer and insisting that we can all be like them if we just TRY hard enough. Just as there's nothing "natural" about artistic or writing ability (paints and paper are NOT part of the natural world we evolved to live in), the ability to ignore or overcome crushing pain is an unnatural one that few possess, and to expect EVERYONE to be able to do it is not only unfair, it's INSANE... and terribly cruel as well.
The other urge we're biologically designed to not be able to hold out against is the sexual one; much of the sexual behavior we're amazed by, disapprove of or just plain don't understand exists, and resists all efforts to control or eradicate it, because our sexual urges are so powerful that scientists are now starting to suggest that they're stronger even than the survival and food-related instincts... and those urges do NOT incorporate exceptions for such concepts as "married to someone else," "not willing," "below a randomly-chosen age," "dating my friend," "darn, I'm too young," "uh-oh, this is illegal" or "whoops, this is sick." Stop a minute and think how much of our culture deals with trying to force people to act contrary to this intensely powerful part of human nature: We're programmed to try to procreate as soon as we're physically able, but we expect sexually mature people below the age of 18 to "just say no," even though much older folks are routinely unable to. Males are programmed to be sexually drawn to females who show physical signs of sexual maturity, the younger the better because they're stronger and more fertile, but if they pursue girls who are sexually mature but below whatever we've decided is the official age of consent we condemn them as wannabe child molesters. We're programmed to be sexually interested in whoever's around and thus actually available to us, but are outraged when people are found to be sleeping with the lovers of those they're close to, as if this were unthinkable instead of natural. We're stunned when pedophiles and other perverts make enormous effort, and risk social condemnation, to get sexual gratification, although we don't blink when "normal" people jump through hoops of fire to get THEIR desires fulfilled. If we'd just accept the dictates of human nature we could have far less drama and focus our ire exclusively on those who might harm innocents.
The final area of human nature that we expect people to ignore is one of the most ferocious; the drive to nurture our children. So-called experts are always claiming, without proof, that parents should ignore their biological urges and, for example, not comfort a baby when it cries for fear of "spoiling" it; in recent years, a major issue in this category is that parents should "cure" obesity in their children by withholding food from them... and this seems so simple that if they DON'T do it, they must be awful parents. Let's ignore for a minute that all but the tiniest children can get food from many sources other than their folks, and focus on the little ones whose food intake parents CAN control; do we REALLY think that parents can just toss aside their biological drives to provide food for their offspring without a quiver? And what about the reactions of the children thus deprived; do we expect them to be silent and stoic about it? Even if you're not a parent, is there anything that'll make you nuts faster than the sound of a baby or small child crying? That's not an accident; we're programmed to react powerfully to the distress of children, because they're so helpless that they need to be able to grab adult attention quickly. Multiply that by a thousand, and you get the reaction of a parent to the crying of their own child; the pain of their offspring hurts them worse than any pain they can suffer directly. There isn't a # big enough to indicate the agony a parent would endure from hearing their hungry child crying and begging for food constantly for months; how can we expect them to brush that off and not keep breaking the child's diet? We need to stop pretending that this biological programming can be discounted and give parents of obese kids support rather than condemnation.
There aren't any easy answers to these problems, but we can certainly do better than our current "solution" of expecting people to overcome human nature and disparaging them when they inevitably fail.
