BonosSaint
Rock n' Roll Doggie
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2004
- Messages
- 3,566
I was reading a book by George Sands (Indiana) and a paragraph jumped out at me.
It set me to thinking about a common theme I wonder about--what we do to maintain our good opinion of ourselves, while pretty much allowing ourselves to behave in manners we would criticize in other people, the mental gymnastics we must perform to justify our behavior as much to ourselves as to others.
It interests me because I watch my character flaws and I watch other people. I watch what they (and I) say in public and do in private when we think no one is watching or no one important enough to bother us or challenge us is watching. Not even huge things but the smaller day to day things that wreak havoc--the bullying, the stereotyping, the lies, the cruelties, the betrayels and the backstabbing, the ignoring, the mocking, the kissing up to those more powerful than we are and the less than considerate treatment we extend to people less powerful than we are. We often behave differently in one of one group of people than we do in front of another. We behave differently when we don't think we are accountable or anonymous or protected.
I watch it in the corporate world, the religious world, the academic world---where it seems the rules are made for other people. We are justified in some way in breaking them. But we want to keep our good name as if we do follow the rules.
Do you find that true in other people? Do you find it true in yourself?
Do you monitor your own behavior? Can we look at ourselves objectively? Or do most people do those twists that allow them to ignore or justify their own behavior so they don't have to be uncomfortable with themselves?
Is bad behavior (sin, vice, whatever you want to call it) just what other people do?
...Vice never sees its own ugliness---if it did, it would be frightened by its own image. Shakespeare's Iago, who behaves in a way that's true to his nature, soundsfalse because he is forced by our dramatic conventions to unmask himself, to himself be the one to lay bare the secrets of his complex and crooked heart. In reality, man seldom tramples his conscience underfoot so casually: he turns it this way and that, pushes and pulls at it. twists it out of shape, and when he has distorted it, made it flabby and shapeless, worn it out, he then keeps it at his side like an indulgent master whom he pretends to fear, consult and obey but who in reality gives in to his every whim and desire.
It set me to thinking about a common theme I wonder about--what we do to maintain our good opinion of ourselves, while pretty much allowing ourselves to behave in manners we would criticize in other people, the mental gymnastics we must perform to justify our behavior as much to ourselves as to others.
It interests me because I watch my character flaws and I watch other people. I watch what they (and I) say in public and do in private when we think no one is watching or no one important enough to bother us or challenge us is watching. Not even huge things but the smaller day to day things that wreak havoc--the bullying, the stereotyping, the lies, the cruelties, the betrayels and the backstabbing, the ignoring, the mocking, the kissing up to those more powerful than we are and the less than considerate treatment we extend to people less powerful than we are. We often behave differently in one of one group of people than we do in front of another. We behave differently when we don't think we are accountable or anonymous or protected.
I watch it in the corporate world, the religious world, the academic world---where it seems the rules are made for other people. We are justified in some way in breaking them. But we want to keep our good name as if we do follow the rules.
Do you find that true in other people? Do you find it true in yourself?
Do you monitor your own behavior? Can we look at ourselves objectively? Or do most people do those twists that allow them to ignore or justify their own behavior so they don't have to be uncomfortable with themselves?
Is bad behavior (sin, vice, whatever you want to call it) just what other people do?