Why isn't it in human nature to lift people up? When you see someone who is strange, or not normal, your first response is typically to ostracize that person. Some even go as far as to bully and intimidate them, for no other reason than because they are weird. Why is that? Are we trying to fix the problem? Are we trying to make that person stop being weird? I have a good friend who was once a bitter enemy. He was in the navy, and picked on me relentlessly. When I asked him (years later) why he did it, he said that i was a time-honored navy tradition. Make the person straighten up through intimidation and fear. Why can't we actually try to help the person? I went to a Christian (couch cough) summer camp. All four years that I went, someone tried to start a fight with me. The first year, I got nervous whilst trying to give a speech in front of the entire group. No one saw a scared kid, they saw someone who needed to be picked on for it. And they did, they picked on me for the rest of the week for it. In church, I was never accepted by the youth group, and normally just went off with my one friend, who was also not accepted. Were they trying to fix us by ostracizing us out of the group? Well, we weren't bothering the popular people, so I guess from their point of view, the problem was solved. You have someone who is strange, you pick on them, that pushes them deeper into the hole, so you pick on them more, pushing them deeper into the hole. It's a vicious cycle. Why can't people uplift those that are different, instead of trying to make them feel worse about themselves? I admit, I'm guilty of this myself. But why is that? Why can't society help those that are different, instead of pushing them away? I've actually been asked to leave three different churches because of my psychotic behavior. A CHURCH!!!! A place where people are supposed to accept you. So-called Christian summer camp. It's no different wherever you go. Someone is weird, so you push them around and make them feel worse about themselves, which just perpetuates the cycle. Those that are not accepted will never be accepted, because society pushes them deeper into the hole that they got stuck into. And that's supposed to solve the problem.
What does this have to do with gaming? Well, wouldn't it be nice if there was a world where everyone was accepted, regardless of how unusual they are?
If I may pick on Adam, when he was running my world, he sent me a private message. The one thing I remember was "I don't coddle people." Why not? Is pushing the person around, making their situation worse, making them feel worse better than uplifting them? Why must people think that the best way to handle things is to hurt them? Why can't people uplift each other? What would be wrong with helping one another? Society says "That person isn't cool, so we must hurt him." When people would pick on me, if I started crying, they would laugh and say "Look, he's crying!!!" in that mocking tone that people have. Well, of course I'm crying!!! You'd probably be crying too if someone put you in this much pain!!!!!!!! But of course, no, they can't stop. They see they're hurting someone, so they just redouble the efforts. They can't make the person feel better, they have to make the person feel worse. Which of course makes the person more goofy by pushing them deeper and deeper into the hole from which they started.
A guy I went to school with just loved to put dents in the side of my head. When asked why, he said "It feels good to hit someone." Well, it also feels good to make them feel better. Why must you get pleasure from the pain of other people?
Why isn't the world made so that people help each other? So that, instead of harming each other, we uplift and make people feel good about themselves?
Is there a world like that? Where people accept and help one another, regardless of their idiosyncrasies? Why is hurting each other a better way to handle the situation than not?
I thought it an interesting commentary on society, and the way the societies might be different in the Multiverse.
When I was on the soccer team in high school, I was admittedly the single worst player on the team, so of course, everyone made fun of me for it. They wondered why I wasn't working harder. Well, why should I work harder, if no one is encouraging me to do so? All they're doing is making me not want to work harder.
Why doesn't society say Help each other. Encourage each other. No, the best way to handle someone is to make them feel worse about themselves. It's absolutely impossible for the person to improve through being put down. You must encourage one another.
A society where people are encouraged and uplifted by each other. Yeah, maybe I am just grousing about my life, but it is something to consider in the design of societies.
Are you looking for real answers?
- Most people are insecure about their own abilities and importance. It thus helps them to find someone less acceptable than themselves. By picking on you, it makes them see themselves as better than you, and thus they are able to hold up their own heads and say that at least they aren't the worst people in the world, because at least they are not as bad as that guy.
- People who are different make us uncomfortable. This is particularly so if their differences include that they are socially inept. My mother-in-law suffers from moderate Alzheimers, according to one report, and she gets into these fits where she is repeatedly calling for help and demanding medicine. Sometimes she gets bad enough that she starts yelling at people around her for not making her feel better, which causes them to leave the room (knowing that she cannot follow them). It would be much better for everyone if she had the social aptitude to accept that some of her condition cannot be fixed, and that she needs to control herself or she will alienate others around her--but people who are socially handicapped by definition cannot comprehend their handicap or why or how they are alienating others. (If you confront her with this, she will simply shout back that they don't know how she feels, but that's exactly the point--they can't possibly know, and all they do know is how she makes them feel.) So you can't help the fact that you are irritating people, and you can't really recognize that you are doing it, and you can't understand how you are doing it, so you can't fix it; but you are still trying to be with them, and they don't want this because you make them uncomfortable and you irritate them. Thus they attempt to intimidate you into stopping your conduct or leaving them alone.
- Most "popular" people have an inherent self-esteem problem which is solved by the approval they get from others who are also perceived as "popular". Such groups usually have only one or two people who are self-assured in their own selves, and the rest are assured by the fact that they belong to this elite group. But the group would not be elite if anyone could become part of it who was not "popular", and being "popular" requires a certain amount of social adeptness. Those who are able to adjust to the expected norms and so fit in to the crowd still need to be accepted by the crowd to be popular, but those who cannot be "normal" cannot ever fit into the crowd. (This is different only in those rare cases in which one of the core self-assured people takes a particular interest in and liking for the "abnormal" person. In that case he becomes grudgingly accepted because one of the people who are the measure of "cool" in the group has lent some "cool" to him--but he is never part of the group in the same way as all the "normals".
--M. J. Young
Most people are insecure about their own abilities and importance. It thus helps them to find someone less acceptable than themselves. By picking on you, it makes them see themselves as better than you, and thus they are able to hold up their own heads and say that at least they aren't the worst people in the world, because at least they are not as bad as that guy.
Yeah, that's the entire point I'm making. Why do we have to be like that? Why do we have to lift ourselves up by putting people down? Lift yourself up by lifting them up also.
And as far as churches, regardless of my behavior, whatever happened to WWJD, live and let live, love thy neighbor, forgive and forget, and everything else the Bible teaches? Why try to correct the problem when you can just tell it to leave and go back to your peaceful little bubble that you live in? I thought the entire purpose of church was to make people more like Christ. Name one person that Jesus Christ turned away for being different.
It was a commentary on society, and how societies can be different. That's it and that's all. Different societies are the framework and basis for the entire Multiverse concept, are they not?
Two Posts
Ya know MJ, I'm surprised at your response to this. You seemed to be in favor of ostracizing the one undesirable person from church.
Ostracizing one undesirable person makes the church run more smoothly.
Ostracizing six million undesirable people was the basis for the German Holocaust.
If one is acceptable, what about two? Where do you draw the line? If one is acceptable, why wasn't six million acceptable? Very similar thinking to Nazi Germany, just on a much smaller scale.
Actually, What Would Jesus Do? is not in the Bible. It first appeared, as far as I am aware, in a novel entitled In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, at the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century. You might also be interested in noting that one of the things the characters in the book thought Jesus would do was end the sale of all alcoholic beverages everywhere in the city, which they worked toward through economic means (like refusing to rent properties to bars and not doing business with people who did rent their properties to bars, and editorializing in their newspapers against the sale and use of alcohol). While I am not at all interested in drinking alcoholic beverages (and most of the best referees I know avoid the stuff simply in a desire to keep a clear head while running games), I think it underscores for me--and how much more for you--that "what would Jesus do" often comes back to the opinion of the person asking the question, and is not really based on what Jesus actually would or would not do. Besides, I think the right question is really, "What would Jesus have me do."
I did not say that it was "right" for a church to ostracize you. On the other hand, they might not have known that you were handicapped, and thought that you were simply there to disrupt services; or they might have thought that if you were handicapped you should have sought help outside the service. Put it this way: if you're a special needs student, you don't belong in the regular student classes, because your special needs will prevent them from getting the help they need.
--M. J. Young
Regarding drinking and Jesus. What was Jesus' first miracle recorded in the Bible? Changing water into wine. And He did it AFTER everyone was already drunk to the gills. (The policy was to serve the not so good wine after everyone had gotten too drunk to notice, but they commented that it was the best wine of the evening.)
Alcohol is clinically proven to slow down a psychotic state, and is also shown to have multiple other medicinal properties. I use it in my psychosis therapy. By the time I'm done with it, the vodka is so watered down that I could hardly be considered drunk. It's just to take the edge off of the episode, so I can focus more on controlling it.
And yes, I'm well aware that WWJD is not in the Bible. However, how many people at that church were wearing the WWJD bracelets? They would preach against hypocrisy, whilst wearing the WWJD bracelets, then evict someone who obviously needed help. That's messed up, any way you spin it.
People love things familiar with them and fear things unfamiliar or seem unusual from them. They wonder why they are different, and the answers scare them. Lets also not forget that *speaking as an anthropology major* our culture teaches and gives us a sense of norm, and tries to reinforce those norms through mockery or other social/judicial negatives. Sometimes this can defy logic or it's own rules. For instance my grandparents on my dad's side are very christainly religious, so when they see me or expecially my sister they hate the fact that we dress in gothic/punk tenancies because their norm of the time said that dressing in all black was demonic although last I heard the bible states that the devil would take a familiar face and form to get us into a false sense of security, so wouldn't it be just the opposite.
Ya know, not to knock your goth tendencies, but I find that a kind of backwards logic. People like goths, hippies, etc like to call themselves non-conformists. However, you look like a goth. You look like a hippie. You conform to what those stereotypes are like. A true non-conformist can be picked out of a crowd, but not because they look like a non-conformist. A true non-conformist has his/her own look. I am a true non-conformist.
Me and my sister were discussing that yesterday. The dual-edge sword. When goth or hippism becomes more popular, it's easier available to the followers, however it then becomes steryol to those who simply like the style and don't understand it's meaning and becomes just another fashion. Though this also depends on what it means to you, to me, goth is the drive to be/do/act something unique and special and that's why I like it. :)
You want to see an example of true non-conformity, watch the movie MAY with Angela Bettis. May Cannady is a true a true non-conformist, and also, my ultimate dream girl.
That's interesting to know :-P
Yeah, check that movie out. You're going to think I'm insane for liking her after you see it (She's an evil little thing) but she's only evil because she's so badly misunderstood. Everything she did made perfect sense to me. If I met her, she wouldn't be nearly as evil because she wouldn't need to be. (You'd have to see the movie to understand)
I thought she was an actress?
No, Angela Bettis is the actress, May Cannady is the character she plays. The movie is called MAY, main character, May Cannady. Sorry, I should have been more clear.
Why can't we just get along, eh? I can't honestly say I have ever done anything malicious to anyone else, but I see it all the time. Speaking as a frequent mediator into these disputes, I can say quite frankly that it is all about a perceived pecking order. Each person who does these kinds of things feels they need to prove to the world that they are better than someone else, in order to feel better about themselves. For those few that do not require a rank in society to function, it has pretty much no effect-unless you become a target.
Ah, that reminds me of the only bully I ever had. I beat the hell out of him the first time he hurt me, and I never saw him at school again. I wonder where he went? Only real 'fight' I ever had. Since I haven't moved anywhere, a lot of people around here have heard about it. When I didn't claim social status for it, I sort of fell outside the popularity scales. I have overheard people referring to me as "the book guy that helps people. Try the library." It's rather fascinating, to be truthful.
"People like goths, hippies, etc like to call themselves non-conformists. However, you look like a goth. You look like a hippie. You conform to what those stereotypes are like."
Agreed. Non-conformity is, by definition, not adhering to the same rules as whatever group you are not conforming to. The problem is, most people (most, not all) need to have companions that truly understand them. If you seek out like-minded individuals, you will often find they have had the same ideas as you. Also, see below.
Thing is, it's all a matter of perception-the other problem with non-conforming lies in the fact that you can never truly be a non-conformist in every way. By definition, you must pick and choose those things that you do not conform to, and chances are someone else picked those same things, and thus you all conform, consciously or not, to that group. In order to truly be a non-conformist, you must purposefully reject everything that would make you similar to other groups-like breathing, making the decision not to conform, eating, etc. It isn't really possible. That's why my advice is to forget about conforming, and just be yourself.
Yeah, exactly, Why CAN'T we all just get along? When I was a kid, there were 5 or 6 guys that would follow me to school every day, doing all kinds of horrid things to me. (It takes real balls for 6 guys to gang up on someone who is 4 years younger than they are, ya know?) Every day, I asked the same question "Why are you doing this to me?" Every day, I got the same answer "Because you're a nerd." First off, I STILL don't know what a nerd is, and secondly, just because I was a nerd, I didn't have the right to walk to school in peace?
Are there societies where things like this don't happen? That was the question I was asking. Since different societies are the basis and framework for the Multiverse, I thought it relevant.
This is a very large part of why I believe that there HAS to be a God. Someone HAS to put all of this right in the end.
The non-conformist conformists theory aka the Snowflake Theory: Certain people would like to (because its their nature, or they feel a lack) to reconfigure society in a new image. These people create a vision, which attracts others who buy in, and you go from the seed crystal (the first person) to the rest of the snowflake. Others are then attracted first because its interesting, then its cool, then its powerful (I'm fairly cynical- a lot of people vote not according to principle but according to who they think will win. Of course, then there are people like my Ladyfaire who want to keep things balanced and vote the other way.). Some are then dis-attracted because they don't want to be part of a mass movement. The balloon has expanded, and now it collapses to mix my metaphors.
I also found it interesting (and extremely angering) that some people would seemingly bump my then pregnant wife on purpose. Some, of course, did the right thing, and showed extra consideration which in my opinion ought to be the norm. But some didn't.
I came to two theories for that.
1. Vulnerability brings out the bad side in some people. Some people would kick the beggar just cause, if they thought jail and public scorn wouldn't soon be heaped on their heads.
2. Ideology: There are those who believe in overpopulation (I don't. I can explain why its hokum if you like.)
3. And there is a third factor: Jealousy.
I think #1 was the major factor, but I'm not able to read minds...
I have been in a few heavy crowd scenes, and I've 'radiated my aura' so to speak. I'm a big guy, but it helps to make it clear that you want your space, and space for your family, and you're prepared to knock someone down or back if it comes to that. This is the opposite of vulnerability. There's been other times when I've been very mild in lesser crowded situations (I only do the 'radiate' when I'm worried about dense crowds) and I've been cut-off by much smaller people.
Its like having a sign. "Don't mess with me" vs. "Ah, whatever.". Of course, once upon a time, my sign read "I'm War, Pestilence, and Famine. Get out of my way!!" but I'm a lot happier now. :) Although, back then most people got out of my way right quick.
1. Vulnerability brings out the bad side in some people. Some people would kick the beggar just cause, if they thought jail and public scorn wouldn't soon be heaped on their heads.
That makes sense. It's no fun to pick on someone who can and will actually fight back.
I'll tell you what though, if I had one wish, it would be to go back in time as I am now, and make them tell me what a "nerd" is. A 32 year old with a baseball bat would be more than a match for them, ya know? They wouldn't have an answer. "Oh, so when you were just dealing with him, you're so sure he was a nerd, now that I'm here, you don't even know what a nerd is. Is that it?"
I know it basically sounds like a lot of grousing and ranting about my life, but seriously, my intention here was to get it started about ways societies could be different from this.
"I have been in a few heavy crowd scenes, and I've 'radiated my aura' so to speak. I'm a big guy, but it helps to make it clear that you want your space, and space for your family, and you're prepared to knock someone down or back if it comes to that. This is the opposite of vulnerability. There's been other times when I've been very mild in lesser crowded situations (I only do the 'radiate' when I'm worried about dense crowds) and I've been cut-off by much smaller people."
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean you somehow make it clear, through posture, to everyone around you that it would be unwise to mess with you?
Brock, I think I know what he's talking about. Using body language and other factors to intimidate your potential attackers BEFORE they become a threat. I was walking home from the bus stop at about 11 at night one time. These three black guys were behind me. I heard one of them say "Hey, let's go beat up dat big white boy over der." (ME) So, 11 at night, I put on a pair of sunglasses and started screaming at people who weren't there. "HEY RALPH, HOW'S IT GOING BUDDY!?!?!?!?"
They never got within 50 feet of me.
Unfortunately it seems that most bullies have a 'only the strong survive' mentally and they feel their just enforcing it based of what everyone is saying. I personally have been bullied but not in the physical sense, guess cause I am a girl 'nerd'. Everytime I talk to people who have been bullied it seems the same, boy 'nerds' get the shit beaten out of them every so often. Girls get picked on every day in class, in the hallways, on the way home from school, at recess, in public, etc which sometimes includes trying to snatch their stuff. Yeah, you really want to be a mugger when you grow up. Stealing a middle schoolers purse or trying to take the teenagers backpack, really scary.
Unfortunately I think media imaging that has been around since our parents and our grandparents were kids doesn't help either. Helps with the 'looks like a nerd and has nerd tendances, so thus you are a nerd, and I am a tough guy who's going to beat you up'. Of course the obnoxious thing about it is that if we didn't believe these things were true or that's how people behaved or you have to be the tough kid in school or be beat up by the tough kid in school we'd most likely just go through the day after day after day after day.
As I said, speaking as an anthropology major, every culture has 'norms' that people are expected to follow, and those who don't get some sort of social or judicial backlash. For instance, there is or was (had to say because China's trying to conform them to the rest of China) a culture in south china where woman do most of the work and men sit around and smoke unless they are really needed, if they are caught trying to do work they are teased and taunted which reinforces their norm.
Yeah, I've been psychotic all of my life. In high school, kids would ask me "Why aren't you NORMAL?????" I would invariably reply "Define Normal" Strangely, no one ever answered that.
Because normal is in perspective of both the culture and the people living in it, especially a culture that has a large or dense population, more peoples perspectives on things.
Ya know, it just occurred to me what you meant there. Given a "Majority Rules" attitude, that would mean that, inside the confines of an insane asylum, the patients are the ones who are normal. They're all insane, therefore, they all conform to the majority.
If you look at the asylum and not the whole world.
But then, the question remains, if a guy is in prison, is he being locked up, or is he locking up the rest of the world?
Well, it's funny because there's norms and beliefs about other crimonals, for instance, in their in there for a murder, it's alright mostly because there could have been a circumstance where they murdered, like found his wife in bed with another man or vice versa, but a rapist will get the worst torture because there is no circumstance for that and most of the people in their has family and wonder what if that were my children?
Well, as I like to tell people "I am not crazy, I am just so normal that I make everyone else look nuts."
Ha ha, that's pretty funny.
Its body language,but it also feels like I'm extending part of my 'self' out, or pulling it back in thus 'radiating my aura'. I'd call it a Psi Defensive Intimidation skill for Multiverser.
I guess it's the same with my boyfriend, he doesn't get anything thrown at him because, well, lets say there's a reason why he's good at roleplaying an all powerful warlock that destroys everything in his path when he needs to.
Sorry: that assumes that their insanities are all consistent with each other. It is more likely that the staff outnumbers any particular patient "type".Given a "Majority Rules" attitude, that would mean that, inside the confines of an insane asylum, the patients are the ones who are normal. They're all insane, therefore, they all conform to the majority.
Of course, there's a wonderful old folksong in which a girl from Maudlin (the female insane asylum Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem) sang about the wonderful boys who lived at Bedlam (the male facility, Bethlem Royal Hospital), "for they all go bare and they live by the air and they want no drink nor money." So to some, abnormal can be quite desirable.
Indeed, one that I find most confusing is that a male prisoner will sodomize another male prisoner, but not if the other is gay, because that would suggest that the one performing the act was also gay, while sodomizing someone who is not gay apparently does not mean that....there's norms and beliefs about other crimonals, for instance, in their in there for a murder, it's alright mostly because there could have been a circumstance where they murdered, like found his wife in bed with another man or vice versa, but a rapist will get the worst torture because there is no circumstance for that and most of the people in their has family and wonder what if that were my children?
And Eric's skill is a P8@0 Posturing variant, a skill by which he projects a mental attitude through perceivable body language in a way that has psychological effects based on mental attitude but which does not actually use anything like telepathic ability.
--M. J. Young
I know that song, 'Tom of Bedlam', lovely upbeat song about insane men :D
I am sorry, but I found this existed and wanted to rant about it to people and this is the best place for it. It is that seriously WTF stupid.
Do people REALLY need a quiz to tell them whether their a fan of twilight or a fan of harry potter?! REALLY?! ARE PEOPLE THAT BLANKED MINDED THAT THEY NEED A QUIZ TO TELL THEM WHAT THEY LIKE?!?! It's probably one of those scam quizzes that charge you like $120 to your cell phone afterwords, but still, who freaking needs that?! They can't watch the movies or read the books and then decide for themselves?!
It could be a promotional gimmick for Twilight--you know, pull in Harry Potter fans and get them to take a quiz that will tell them that they would also enjoy Twilight.
--M. J. Young
I could see that, despite twilight fans thinking it's the biggest thing around at the moment.