Month: February 2022

When you are in a debate or an argument with another person, there are two potential goals you can have. One potential goal is to win the argument. The other potential goal is to find out what is objectively true or objectively right. Though there can be shades of gray, I think that people tend to be shifted more towards one side. In other words, some people are not thinking as much about what is objectively right/true. They just want to win the argument. Other people care more about what is objectively true/right. They are concerned that their thinking may be misguided, and they want to be put right in the case that they are wrong.

People who just want to win the argument are going to exhibit certain behaviors. I figure that such people are going to talk more and listen less. When they do listen to the other person’s side of the debate, they are doing so not to genuinely understand the other person’s perspective, but rather to find fault. As the other person is talking to them, they will be constantly looking for fault so that they can secure their win. When they do this, they will often find fault before they even completely understand the other person’s argument in its entirety. In other words, they will jump to conclusions about why the other person thinks the way that he/she does before completely hearing the other person out.

Sometimes when people just want to win an argument, they pervert the other person’s assertions into something that they are not so that the other person’s perspective is made easier to criticize. For example, let us say that some women are complaining about “mansplaining” in the workplace, and a man invalidates their complaints by saying that mansplaining is defined as “whenever a man speaks”. In this case, the man is saying that these women do not want men to speak or express themselves at all. That is not necessarily true, however. In reality, mansplaining is defined as commenting on or explaining something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner. In other words, these women are complaining that they are being talked down to by men who think that they are superior. As you can see, there is a discrepancy between what the man thinks that the women are complaining about and what the women are actually complaining about. By altering the definition of mansplaining to “whenever a man speaks”, the man is making it much easier to find fault with the complaints of these women.

If the man cared about what was objectively right, then he would have collected information from the women and the other men that they encountered. He would have tried to develop an understanding of why these women felt that they were being talked down to, and how they would like to be treated. He would have then considered whether men would still be able to express themselves while still treating the women the way that they want to be treated.

The straw man logical fallacy is the act of setting up a phony, weak, extreme or ridiculous parody of an opponent’s argument and then proceeding to knock it down or reduce it to absurdity with a rhetorical wave of the hand. For example, if the opponent is a vegetarian who claims that animals have feelings, the person may ask if anyone has ever heard a cow laugh at a joke. If the opponent is pro-life and against abortion, the person may judgmentally assume that the pro-lifers want women to be oppressed, pregnant and chained to the stove. In these scenarios, the person who wants to win the argument is trying to frame the opposing view into something that it is not so that it is easier to win.

When people just want to win an argument, the reasons, I figure, are ego and wishful thinking. In other words, sometimes people just want to feed their sense of pride. Other times people believe what they want to be true/right, but not what is evidently true/right.

Scenarios where the truth is more popular

While droves of people are more interested in winning an argument than in finding out what is objectively true/right, there are some situations where most people do care what is objectively true/right. For example, let us say that you decide to take a train from New York City to Boston. You are sitting on the train waiting for it to start moving when someone near you explains that you are wrong, the train is actually going to Philadelphia. Here, someone has expressed disagreement with you as to where the train is going. What do you care about more?—winning the argument or finding out where the train is actually going?

If you decide that winning the argument is more important, then your goal is to convince the other person that the train is actually going to Boston. If you succeed, then the other person will leave the train and go find another train. However, what if it turns out that the train you are on is really going to Philadelphia? You would end up in the wrong city, and you would be late for an important business meeting, BUT at least you won the argument with that other guy who thought the train was going to Philadelphia.

Another example: Let us say that you and another person are having a debate about whether the Atkins diet is a healthy diet. You argue that the Atkins diet is good for weight loss, vibrant health and longevity while the other person disagrees. Eventually, you win the argument and convince the other person that the Atkins diet is a good healthy diet. Now imagine that years later, you die a slow and painful death from heart disease because of the high fat content of the Atkins diet. Though you die a slow and painful death, at least you won the argument.

In these examples described above, a reasonable person would care more about the objective truth than about winning the argument. A reasonable person would be willing to find out that he/she is wrong if that is the case so that he/she could be put right.

A lesson we can learn from the examples above is that even when you win the argument, you may still be objectively wrong, and the truth will often be made known eventually. At that point you may look more foolish than if you just admitted that you were wrong in the beginning, and allowed yourself to lose the argument.

Another lesson we can learn from the examples above is that when you win an argument, and you turn out to be wrong later, you not only screw yourself over, but also other people. Think of the person who thought that the train was going to Philadelphia, and then left to go look for another train, not knowing that he was on the correct train at the start.

Goodness cares about what is right while evil just wants to win

Sometimes people are praised for having good debating skills. With good debating skills, we are good at being persuasive—not only towards the person with whom we are debating, but also towards others observing the debate. The problem comes when techniques emerge that involve deception and manufactured misunderstanding of the opposing side.

Let us say that you are a prosecutor and you are praised for having an 85% success rate. This may seem impressive, but what if only 60% of the defendants were actually guilty? That would mean that because you are “so good at your job”, innocent people have been prosecuted and sent to prison. Is this acceptable? According to the world, it is. When a destructive behavior is common, culture becomes desensitized to it, and eventually people just shrug their shoulders and mutter “that’s just how things are…”

While the law profession has sometimes been condemned for being corrupt, a lawyer can still carry out his/her work in a morally right manner by, for example, refusing to take a case if he/she has reason to believe that it does not represent what is true/right. In the long term, this can result in a higher success rate even though at times it can involve rejecting high-paying clients.

How do we define “winning an argument”?

When there are formal debates, the winner is generally chosen by a panel of judges who are supposed to be impartial. In informal debates, however, there are usually no 3rd party judges present, and so it is more difficult to define the winner and loser. Is the loser the one who stops arguing first? Is the loser the one who changes his/her mind to that of the opposing side? If we define the loser as the one who is persuaded of the opposing view, then we make it difficult to impossible to win an argument against an idiot. In order for a person to be persuaded to change sides, the person needs to first understand the other side, and this is more difficult for an idiot to do. Idiots find more difficulty in learning new concepts and taking in new information.

To persuade the opposing side of our view, we need to do some amount of talking. To be persuaded of the opposing view and thus change sides, we need to listen and understand. The thing is that listening, and especially understanding, requires much more cognitive capacity than talking and lecturing. The reason is that when we are talking, all we are doing is taking information that is already in our heads and spitting it out. Talking is so easy that even parrots can do it, and they do not even possess human intelligence! To listen and understand, however, we need to take in new information and make sense of it. This is more difficult.

So if we were to see an idiot having a debate with a smarter person, we may see the idiot doing more of the talking while the smarter person listens. The listener may look like he/she is just sitting there doing nothing, but in reality, he/she is doing more than the one who is doing all of the talking. Recall the scene from the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie where Dorothy asks the scarecrow “How can you talk if you do not have a brain”. The scarecrow comments that “some people without brains do an awful lot of talking”. We should try not to be one of those people.

Do you want to look smarter or get smarter?

I have a saying: if you want to look smarter, then use your mouth. If you want to get smarter, then use your ears.

I would imagine plenty of people saying that they would like to both look smarter and get smarter, but there is some degree of tradeoff. When we are too obsessed with looking smarter, we become unable to admit when we are wrong. Correspondingly, when our view is objectively wrong, we will be less likely to be corrected in a debate. Indeed, a debate is an opportunity to be put right in the case that we are objectively wrong; but it is harder to be corrected when we are too busy talking over the other person and finding fault in the opposing view that may not be there.

Additional behaviors exhibited by people who want to win

People who just want to win are more likely to be condescending and disrespectful towards the opposing view. Such people also are more likely to be aggressive and hostile. They may even take pride in making the other person cry. At this point, the debate is more like a verbal boxing match than it is a civilized discussion.

People in search of truth, on the other hand, are more likely to take the time to listen and understand. They are open to the possibility that they are wrong and the opposing side is right. Such open-mindedness is not always easy.

Sometimes when people just want to win an argument, they will falsely accuse the other person of falling into logical fallacies. For example, they may accuse the other person of the post hoc logical fallacy even when there is reason to believe that a cause-effect relationship does exist. They may accuse the other person of the slippery slope logical fallacy even when there is evidence of a chain reaction taking place. They may accuse the other person of the style-over-substance logical fallacy simply because the other person does not feel comfortable around someone who is dressed in shabby attire. The shabby attire is not necessarily what is causing the discomfort for all they know.

Most people hate hearing the other person say “you are wrong. This is what I think…”, but at least the person is addressing you as an equal and is taking the time to disagree with you. What I find to be more noxious and offensive is being told “well, if that’s how you feel…”. This expression also is an expression of disagreement, but with an additional condescending twist. Unlike the expressions “that’s what you think…” or “you are wrong”, the phrase “how you feel” to me implies that your view does not come from any reasoning, is not rooted in reality, and is rather just a feeling. While people sometimes say “I feel that…” as a way of admitting that they may be wrong, the act of telling someone “that’s how you feel” serves as a put-down in ways that saying “you are wrong” does not.

Summary

Let us say that you are having a disagreement with someone, and you really care about what is objectively true/right. If you see that the other person just wants to win the argument, then the two of you are not on the same page. You both have different agendas. What will probably happen is that you will do more of the listening, the other person will do more of the talking, and the other person may have the illusion of getting the upper hand simply because he/she is talking more. He/she may think that your talking less means that you are less knowledgable. This can be frustrating, but sometimes the right way is harder.

A debate can be one of two things: a search for truth or an ego fest.

Most, if not all, of us remember the heroes of classic fairy tales. They tended to be rich, handsome and skilled in combat. They were virtuous. They were brave. They were kind. In these stories, they would rescue the young beautiful woman from the villain and marry her. Then the two would live happily ever after. The villain, on the other hand, was often ugly in appearance. Even in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the good witch of the north assured Dorothy that only bad witches are ugly.

Some more recent fairy tale movies, such as Shrek, have shown much less physically attractive heroes while the villain may be the more physically attractive one. Indeed, most people are probably aware that when a man is rich and handsome, he is not necessarily a good person. Conversely, when a person is ugly, he/she is not necessarily a bad person. This concept should be easy enough for the average person to understand. Yet most people have some famous celebrity that they idolize, such as a pop artist, Hollywood actor or sports athlete. Many people see these celebrities as being like royalty.

So suppose you are a big fan of a famous person throughout much of your life. This person’s work inspires you, and uplifts you. Now suppose that one day you find evidence that this person—whom you have been a fan of for so long—is not a good person. Word has it that this person has done some bad things that have caused people to suffer, and he/she is not showing signs of penitence. Would you still be a fan?

Unfortunately, a lot of celebrities have been guilty of causing suffering to others, particularly women. This Wikipedia article presents a long list of male celebrities who have sexually harassed and sexually abused women. Some of these male celebrities were accused of sexual abuse by up to 60 or more women.

The world’s fetish for rich, handsome men

One day when I was in high school, my sports team was having a car wash. The next customer comes up to have his car washed, and I hear one of the other girls say “He is really hot, you guys, so do a good job”. I did not like this comment. Being more physically attractive should not mean that one is more deserving of better service. Nonetheless, this incident shows how physically attractive people are more likely to get better service.

Rich people also have a higher status in mainstream culture than poor or middle income people. While many rich people have worked their way into becoming rich, there are also many people who were born rich, and thus have been rich their entire lives. They did not have to earn their high status in society. They always had it.

The average person usually has to put effort into earning the favor of others. They may earn the favor of others by demonstrating certain virtues, talents, passions or charisma. The rich and handsome man, on the other hand, does not have to do as much to win the favor of others. What does this mean? He can be a mediocre person and plenty of people will still like him.

How this fetish can affect the rich, handsome men

In general, rich handsome men receive messages from the world around them that they will be well-liked even if they are not good people. They often receive these messages from a very young age. Such messages convey to them that there are little to no behavioral standards and no boundaries. They can do with people whatever they want, and it is okay.

Gaston from the classic story Beauty and the Beast is an example of a handsome alpha male who believes that it is every woman’s fondest dream to be with him. In reality, he is conceited, self-centered and outright evil. Even though he is far removed from being a decent human being, he has a posse of people in town who adore him for his good looks and his talents. As illustrated in this video, he has both men and women swooning over him. As long as people continue to shower him with adoration, he will continue to see himself as the handsome and virtuous hero who is entitled to get whatever he wants.

When these rich handsome men are favored by our culture, almost unconditionally, they are, I figure, predisposed to developing narcissistic behavioral tendencies. In other words, they become predisposed to growing up believing that they are entitled to special treatment and are entitled to get whatever they want, regardless of how badly the fulfillment of their desires affects others.

I do not mean to say that all rich and handsome men are bad. What I am saying is that they, as a group, have an increased temptation to do evil simply because their actions are less likely to backfire on them. Even when they commit a heinous crime, they can afford to pay lawyers large amounts of money and evade prosecution.

Young women and girls often become infatuated with these rich and handsome men, and they display this infatuation freely for others to see. This behavior can fuel the flames of the superiority complex of these rich and handsome men. Eventually, these men start to believe that all women love them. The word “no” from a woman ceases to have any meaning in their world. Because they think that all women are supposed to like them, they can become prone to sexual misconduct. They can fall into the delusion that all of their sexual advances are welcome.

Sometimes the rich, handsome men see themselves as being like the heroes from fairy tales. Like the heroes from fairy tales, they are rich, handsome and perhaps have some notable talent. They see themselves as the one who fights evil, or at least as the one who is on the good side. They do not understand that they are the villain, and not the hero.

The Bryce Walker character from the Thirtheen Reasons Why TV series is an example of a rich and fairly good-looking guy who abused his high social status and became a serial rapist. He was not only rich, but also a star athlete. This video clip from the series shows Bryce’s rationalization for his actions — the all too common “she wanted it!” At the end of the video clip, Bryce says that “she was practically begging me to fuck her. If that’s rape then every girl at this school wants to be raped”. Of course Bryce’s recollection of the event is inaccurate. Anybody who saw the scene would see that the girl was obviously trying to get away when he forcibly grabbed her and had sex with her from behind.

When Bryce Walker was put on trial for rape, he managed to evade prosecution because of the large number of lawyers receiving plenty of money from his wealthy family. Nonetheless, once word got out that he was a serial rapist, he became known as the town monster. Even the other boys at his new school were mean to him because of what he had done. This chain of events, however, is not always representative of what happens in real life. In real life, rich handsome men sometimes maintain an okay reputation even after word gets out that they have sexually abused large numbers of women.

Take Bill Cosby, for example. About 60 women had made allegations against him for sexual abuse, and those allegations were found later to be true. Despite this, Bill Cosby is still best known as a stand-up comedian and actor who presented a more positive image of African Americans on television. Because he had such a high level of social importance at the time of these rape allegations, it was hard for the public to recognize him for the bad man that he was.

Sowing one’s wild oats

Sowing one’s wild oats refers to the practice of having many sexual relationships particularly when one is young. Young men in old fashioned upper class society were sometimes encouraged (though maybe behind closed doors) to sow their wild oats before they marry and commit to one woman for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, sowing their wild oats often involved taking advantage of lower class women. In the southern United States during the time of slavery, the sons of plantation owners were sometimes told to have sex with the slave women rather than spoiling a “pure white virgin girl”. It was common for slave women to be raped by their masters and their masters’ sons.

When upper class men sow their wild oats, their sexual indulgences often involve abuses of their power. When they are rich and handsome, they are sometimes not able to see why a lower class woman would say “no”. They believe that with their smooth talk and charm, all women adore them, and all women should welcome their sexual advances. When the lower class woman pushes the man away, he does not go away so easily. He is not able to comprehend the fact that he is not as desirable as he thinks he is. His attempt to take advantage of a lower class woman alone is proof of the terrible person he is. No woman, in her right mind, of any class would marry him or have anything to do with him. His stubborn delusion that all women love him is what makes him so dangerous for women to be around.

What makes matters worse is that these rich handsome villains are not the only ones who think all women are supposed to adore them. Much of the rest of society also expects all women to adore these men, placing the women into a bad position where it is difficult to impossible to seek justice should they be victimized. Society already treats rape victims badly enough when the rapists are not rich and handsome.

It is thought that these rich, handsome men do not need to rape women because they already have a bunch of women willingly throwing themselves at them. Real-world observations, however, show that wealthy male celebrities do sexually abuse women, sometimes on a routine basis. This article discusses the dark side of Hollywood and how many men in Hollywood have abused their power and used their high social status to silence their victims. Below is an excerpt from the article, translated from Spanish:

As Andrés Quinteros, a Cepsim psychologist specializing in sexual abuse, assures, although there is no specific profile of a harasser, it is always his power that leads him to these situations. “They are men or women with a lot of power and they use it with vulnerable people to get what they want. Normally they lack empathy, which is what places us in the pain of others and makes us do no harm or be selfish », he assures.

The concept of people as private property is offensive to mainstream culture. Our culture especially condemns slavery. While owning people as private property is technically illegal, evildoers will still find ways to claim another human being as their personal property.

What does it mean for a person to be the private property of another?

Imagine a scenario where there is a chair in the room, and you would like to sit down. You do not have to ask the chair if it is okay for you to sit on it. The chair has no will of its own. It is an inanimate object. However, if someone else owns the chair, and the owner of the chair says that you are not supposed to sit in the chair, then that is a different story. The chair does not have a will of its own, but the owner of the chair does.

So when one person claims another person as his/her personal property, the will of the other person does not matter anymore. All that matters is the will of the “owner”. Everything that the other person says or does is to be dictated by the one who owns him/her.

Note that romantic relationships are not the only kind of relationship where one person claims another as his private property. People may claim friends, family members or maybe even coworkers as their private property.

So let us say that Jen decides to claim Jill as her personal property. What does that mean? Well, first Jen forces Jill to be in some kind of relationship with her. For example, Jen may coerce Jill into being her friend. In the relationship, Jen will stifle Jill’s ability to express herself freely. Jen could not care less that Jill has a will of her own. If Jill is writing up an email where she is speaking her mind about something, Jen may constantly look over her shoulder to see what she is writing. If Jen finds that she does not agree with the content of Jill’s email message, then she will, by force, stop Jill from sending out the email. All the while, Jen may be too delusional to believe that she is doing anything wrong. Jen may rationalize and tell herself that she is only protecting Jill because if silly Jill does whatever she wants, she may hurt herself, and we don’t want that!

In addition to stifling Jill’s ability to express herself, Jen may also force Jill to live her life the way that Jen wants her to. Jen may tell Jill how to eat, what to wear and even what kind of career path to take. Jen also does not like it when Jill makes friends with people who are not friends with her. What if Jill’s other friends are people that Jen does not like? They may pollute Jill’s head with ideas that Jen does not agree with. Jen also will not want Jill to accomplish great things that Jen never accomplished herself. Indeed, private property cannot be superior to its owner!

One would think that Jill would want to leave such a terrible relationship, but as far as Jen is concerned, Jill has no right to leave the relationship any more than a chair has a right to decide not to be owned by its owner. If Jill tries to get away from Jen, then Jen may stalk her. For example, Jen may walk up to the door of Jill’s apartment and keep knocking until Jill answers. Jen may even try to break into Jill’s home, saying she “just wants to talk to her”. Jen may convince herself that Jill only wants to get away because she is suffering from anxiety issues and is behaving irrationally. Eventually, Jill may need to resort to an act of violence just to keep Jen from invading her space.

Fortunately, friendships like the one between Jen and Jill do not happen often, but there are shades of gray. Often people will try to exercise some degree of control over another, though not necessarily to the extent that Jen exerts control of Jill.

Why would people try to control other people?

Many articles discuss how people try to control other people. Usually, articles site anxiety as being the most common motivation for controlling other people. When people are anxious, they are more likely to want their way all the time. They are nervous about what may happen if they do not get their way. The only way that such people can get their way all the time is by controlling people around them.

I think that there are other motivations besides anxiety for controlling others. Sometimes people want to control others just because they are evil. This article discusses the characteristics of evil people, one of which is the need to control everything. The evildoer’s objective is to get whatever he/she wants regardless of the path of destruction and suffering that he/she leaves behind.

Unsolicited physical contact and invasion of space

Some say that more communication takes place in nonverbal body language than in verbal communication. Physical contact, for example, usually conveys affection, which may be sexual or nonsexual.

Unsolicited physical contact, however, is contact that is inappropriate or unwanted. When we think of unsolicited physical contact, we most often think of physical contact of a sexual nature. However, unsolicited physical contact can also be nonsexual. When the evildoer makes unsolicited physical contact with the victim, the evildoer is, in a nonverbal manner, claiming ownership over the victim in that moment. The message is not one of companionship, but rather one of control. Just as an animal marks a plot of land as its territory by urinating on it, the evildoer can mark a victim as his/her territory by means of physical contact and invasion of the victim’s space. Meanwhile, to the casual bystander, the unsolicited physical contact just looks like a friend patting the other friend on the shoulder.

So let’s go back to the story of Jen and Jill. When Jill is sitting at her computer writing an email and Jen places her hand on Jill’s shoulder, what Jen is nonverbally conveying to Jill is “You are under my control right now. Your will does not matter, only mine does”. Jen may even start typing on Jill’s keyboard and clicking on Jill’s mouse. She does not care that the computer belongs to Jill and not her. Because Jen is underhandedly claiming Jill as her personal property, any of Jill’s property automatically becomes Jen’s property as far as Jen is concerned. After all, private property cannot own other private property. An entity can either be an owner or be a piece of property, but not both.

If Jill complains that Jen is invading her space and touching her too much, Jen may just brush off Jen’s complaints. Jen describes herself as a touchy-feely, affectionate person, and tells Jill that she is being unappreciative of her friend’s “love and affection”.

In my opinion, one can tell whether physical contact by another person is malicious or friendly based on the context. If someone has been a good friend of yours for many years and pats you on the shoulder, then the physical contact is friendly. If the person makes physical contact with you continually even though you have told him that you do not like it, then what he is doing becomes harassment. If the person making physical contact with you has been trying to control you in ways that are oppressive and inappropriate, then you can figure that the physical contact is not conveying true companionship.

Making the victim feel guilty for having any will at all

In the times of slavery, a master wanted a slave to be docile, submissive and apathetic. Correspondingly, when evildoers claim another human being as their personal property, they too prefer their “property” to have these same characteristics.

To get the victim to be more submissive and apathetic, the evildoer may try to make the victim feel guilty for expressing a strong opinion about something. When the victim speaks his/her mind, the evildoer may act like the victim is being too overbearing. Also, if the victim so much as expresses a preference for things to be a certain way, the evildoer may say things like “you just like to always be in control”.

In other words, whenever the victim expresses an opinion or a preference, the evildoer may intentionally blow the victim’s behavior out of proportion, and act like the victim is being overbearing, bossy and always wanting to be in control. If these manipulative tactics are successful, then the victim will over time become less and less assertive and more and more submissive to the will of everyone else. The victim may even cease to express him/herself altogether.

Do parents own their children?

Most people believe that children are not the property of their parents. For example, children have rights, and they can be taken away from their parents if the state finds that the parents are harming the children. Conversely, when someone owns a piece of property, he/she can do with it whatever he/she wants, and it will not be taken away. Back in the days of slavery, slaves did not have rights, and no amount of harm that the master did to the slave would warrant the removal of the slave from the master.

The good parent sees the child as a separate, though underdeveloped, human being. The good parent tries to raise the child in the best way he/she can so that the child becomes the best version of him/herself. The parent who sees the child as property, on the other hand, views the child more as an extension of him/her. When this parent speaks highly of the child to others, he/she is actually flattering him/herself. For example, the parent may comment on how beautiful the child is. Now when we comment on how beautiful a house is, we are not complimenting the house because the house is an inanimate object. Obviously, we are complimenting the owner of the house. Similarly, when this parent comments on how beautiful the child is, the compliment is not directed at the child any more than it would be towards a house. The parent is complimenting him/herself, the “owner” of the child.

Parents often view their children as an extension of them. To me, this does not necessarily mean that they view their children as chattel. Perhaps these parents just feel a connection to their child because their child has inherited their genes and because they raised the child. Therefore, the child’s accomplishments are seen as a reflection of them, the parents.

The parents who view their children as their personal property, on the other hand, have a mentality that the children exist for their own sake. Their children live for them rather than them living for their children. Because they do not see the children as separate human beings, they think their children’s cares and concerns are not warranted and that any negative emotions that their children express are inconsequential. To them, the things that their children worry about are all in their head. Rather than a negative emotion being validated, the negative emotion is viewed as this thing that comes out of nowhere, and just needs to be subdued, either by hugs and kisses or by punishment.

I personally find Leonard Hofstadter’s mother (from The Big Bang Theory show) to be refreshing. Her children have accomplished some great things. When others say that she must be so proud of her children, she simply says that she is not proud because, after all, they are not her accomplishments.

People who use other people

Even when people are not claiming you as their own personal property, they may still “rent” you. In other words, they may temporarily use you for their own personal gains. Their use of you may involve invasion of your personal space. Once they have gotten what they wanted, they stop using you. Their rent period is over.

Let us say that some lady has a bad reputation and she knows that you have a pretty good reputation. The lady may stand close to you, talk to you, and maybe even make physical contact with you, just to make it look to others like she has a relationship with you of some kind. She figures that by associating with you, she can improve her image in the eyes of others. She may even give you a hug. You awkwardly let her hug you. What else are you going to do? Push her away? Meanwhile, your hug is signifying to others that the two of you are buddies, even though you are not.

Let us say that you are a woman, and a man is standing close to you and talking to you. His X-girlfriend is within sight, and he is trying to make her jealous by making it look like he has something going with you. You see that he is just using you, and you don’t like it. You try to push him away, but he is not going away so easily. He thinks that if he can just kiss you, he can make his X burn with jealousy. “I know what you are doing, and I don’t like it!” you say. He doesn’t care. Instead, he stubbornly believes that you should be flattered by his attention. In that moment, you exist for his own sake as far as he is concerned. It will not be for long though. Once he has accomplished his little scheme, his rent period is over, and you belong to yourself again.

Summary

Many will say that unsolicited physical contact implies that one’s body is not one’s own. The victim’s living body does not belong to him/her anymore, but rather to someone else. For those of you who follow the Bible, the Bible states in 1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. In other words, the Bible states that the person’s body belongs to God. By claiming another person’s body as theirs, evildoers are claiming ownership of something that actually belongs to God, and are using it to fulfill their own desires.

Nonetheless, I believe that unsolicited physical contact has additional implications. For example, many would agree that it is wrong to pet a cat or a dog that does not want to be petted. Hence, unsolicited physical contact implies that the victim has even less autonomy than what a cat or a dog should have, and therefore ranks the victim at the same level as an inanimate object. Just as an inanimate object has no will of its own, the victim is treated as if his/her own will either does not exist or is inconsequential.

The phrase “I didn’t mean to” is one of multiple tactics that evildoers will use to try to make themselves look innocent when they have caused harm to someone else. When an evildoer says “I didn’t mean to”, he/she may actually be telling the truth. He/she may indeed not have intended for harm to come to the other person. The catch is that he/she did not necessarily consider the potentially harmful unintended effects. As long as he/she gets what he/she wants, he/she does not care what harm may befall others in the process.

When a good person does harm to another by accident, the good person will generally feel bad, even if it was just an accident. Even when there was no negligence on the part of the good person, the good person will still feel bad if someone else gets hurt because of him/her. The bad person, on the other hand, is more concerned about whether he/she gets blamed for the incident. Indeed, you may get a glimpse into someone’s true character by examining his/her immediate reaction when harm has come upon another person because of something that he/she did. Is the immediate reaction one of genuine concern for the wellbeing of the person who was harmed? Or is the immediate reaction “I hope I don’t get blamed for this” or “I am so dead!”?

Let us say that a teenage boy is making fun of another teenage boy for being afraid of a chainsaw. The boy waves the chainsaw in the direction of the other teenage boy, while the blades are spinning. He thinks it is funny watching the other boy get scared. Suddenly, the blades get too close and the other boy loses a couple of fingers. “I didn’t mean to” the boy says. Indeed, he is telling the truth. He really did not mean to. Does that mean he is innocent? Many will agree that the answer is no.

Sometimes we see clumsy characters on television. We are supposed to laugh because they are so clumsy. Some studies have even shown that clumsy people are rated as being more likeable. No so to me. I would not want such people around any of my things. They may break something.

So suppose a clumsy person is walking around the inside of someone else’s house in a separate room from where everybody else is. He touches several things, rolling things around in his hands. Then suddenly he drops something and it breaks. “I didn’t mean to” he says. He also explains that he has been clumsy his entire life. He just can’t help it. Does that make him innocent? Not necessarily. If he knew that he was clumsy and prone to breaking things, then he would have refrained from putting himself into a position where he could cause damage to someone else’s property. Indeed, good people generally feel worse damaging something that belongs to someone else than they do damaging their own things. The bad guys, on the other hand, don’t care if they damage someone else’s things. As long as they do not get blamed.

Lip service apologies

Little children are taught to say they are sorry when they have been mean to someone, hurt someone, etc. Adults, however, sometimes abuse this expression. To evildoers, “sorry” can be a magic word that they use to make themselves look like good people that they are not. Recall the rules of politeness blog post, which discusses how easy it is to master simple rules of politeness and still be a bad person. Even the evilest people in the world know how to say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and of course ‘sorry’.

So how do we know when an apology is a real apology or just lip service? We can tell by the person’s actions. For example, say you have a roommate and the roommate uses your kitchen appliances without asking. One day, your roommate breaks one of your kitchen appliances. Your roommate says that she is sorry, but what about her actions? Does she try to do something to make it up to you, like buy a replacement that is at least as high quality or offer to pay your share of the rent for the next month? Maybe she does get a replacement, but it is a cheaper and lower quality replacement. Meanwhile, she may continue spending money on other things for herself that she does not need. Such actions indicate that she is not actually sorry, she is just saying that she is.

Another sign that an apology is only lip service is when the person continues to recommit the offense.

Sometimes bad people can be pretty good at making their apology sound genuine. I believe their actions are more informative of where their heart is. In other words, how much of their time/money/energy/resources would they invest in making it up to you? If uttering the word “sorry” is the only thing that the person is willing to do when he/she could be doing more, then there is probably no actual remorse.

Playing dumb

Sometimes when confronted with the grave consequences of one’s actions, one will play dumb and claim that he/she did not know any better. He/she will say things like “I would never have guessed that this thing I did was so wrong…” or “I never would have guessed that that would have hurt you that much…”. The wrongdoer wants the others to figure “Hey, you learn something new every day!” In reality, this wrongdoer never put into consideration how his/her actions would affect others. The wrongdoer is just playing dumb in order to make him/herself look innocent.

Note that we all have days where we are not thinking, and sometimes we slip up and do something stupid that hurts somebody else. Because some wrongdoings really are just honest mistakes, it may be hard to tell whether the harmful action was an honest mistake or an act of evil. So when the wrongdoer exclaims that he/she “had no idea” that his/her actions would have hurt others so much, how do we know whether this expression of ignorance is genuine or fake?

One question to ask ourselves is: is it common knowledge that these actions would harm others? Another thing to consider is how well we know this person. Does he/she often harm others out of acts of negligence or thoughtlessness? Also, how much is the person willing to invest in making it up to the party that he/she has harmed?

Let us say that there is a physically attractive man at a workplace who believes that all women like him, and he goes around touching women in a sexual manner. When he gets reprimanded, he claims that he had no idea that his actions would hurt others this much. Is he innocent? Many would say he is not because it is common knowledge that touching women in a sexual manner in a work environment is wrong, and it becomes harrassment when the women make it known that the sexual touching is unwelcome.

In another example, let us say that a mishap occurs at a workplace because someone was violating safety protocols. The violator of the safety protocols explains that he did not realize how important the safety protocols were. Obviously he does not have much of a leg to stand on for claiming innocence. After all, it is everybody’s responsibility to know and to follow safety protocols.

“I don’t know how to be nice: teach me”

Another way to play dumb is saying “I don’t know how to be nice. Teach me.” Here, the person is acting like he/she does not know how to be nice. He/she figures that you cannot reasonably expect him/her to be nice if he/she does not know how to be nice in the first place.

Being nice, however, is something we learn in preschool. Small children learn what are nice words and what are mean words. They also learn how to say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Even mentally retarded people know how to be nice. Therefore, a normal adult most definitely is going to know how to be nice. He/she is just choosing not to be nice.

Furthermore, by requesting that you “teach her” how to be nice, the person is attempting to use up your valuable time, and without any just compensation, aside from perhaps some empty promises that she will eventually get nicer by following your “teachings”.

Gaslighting

To gaslight means to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning his/her own sanity. This article discusses many different kinds of gaslighting in abusive relationships and the detrimental effects they can have.

Let us say that the victim attempts to confront the perpetrator about something that he/she said, and the perpetrator says something like “I never said that. You just heard me wrong. What I really meant was …” What this implies to the victim is that the victim was hurt over something that never happened. In this way, fault is placed squarely on the victim for his/her own pain.

Now I have a pretty good memory of the other person’s exact words, particularly when the other person says something that hurt me. On at least one occasion, when a woman told me that I heard her wrong, and told me what she “actually meant”, I knew she was lying because I remember her exact words, and those exact words did not match what she said that she meant.

One technique that can be utilized against gaslighting is to record the other person’s exact words as soon as possible after the person has said something that hurt you. In this way you have a written record of what happened, and it will be easier for you to trust your own perception of what happened.

It is possible to hear someone wrong and get hurt because of it. However, people who are abusive tend to show ongoing abusive behaviors. In other words, they will say/do hurtful things to you again and again. When you know that someone has already hurt you on multiple occasions, you can figure that he/she is most likely lying when he/she claims that you heard him/her wrong. Such an individual is not trustworthy.

Double-tongued

Double-tongued refers to a deliberate deceptiveness, especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another. When people are double-tongued, they say one thing at one point in time, and then say something contradictory at a later point in time without acknowledging that they were wrong earlier or had changed their mind. To me, this is a red flag that the person is a toxic person that you should avoid.

One woman I knew used the double-tongued technique to evade responsibility for mean things that she said. One time she said to me “you are not an empathetic person”. In response, I told her that I do think that I am an empathetic person, to which she replied “Oh, everybody who is unempathetic thinks that they are an empathetic person”. I found these words to be hurtful. Then later on, she seemed to have realized how wrong it was what she said to me; but rather than admitting that she was wrong, she said “well that was a nice empathetic thing to do”. Essentially she gave me a compliment that contradicted what she said before, and without acknowledging that she was wrong before or that she changed her mind.

Sometimes characters on television can be double-tongued. Meanwhile, we as the audience are enticed to laugh at how devious they are. In reality, we should not find this to be funny at all. It is a toxic and destructive behavior that bad people exhibit.

“I don’t remember”

When you decide to confront someone for something mean that he/she did to you, it is best to get the dirty deed done as soon as possible. The reason is that some wrongdoers will try to evade responsibility for their bad behaviors by claiming that they “don’t remember”. Are they telling the truth? Maybe and maybe not.

Generally when someone gets hurt by another person’s actions, the one who got hurt will, I figure, more readily remember the incident than the one who did the hurting. When the perpetrator forgets the incident, it is harder to hold him/her responsible.

“I was trying to protect you”

Sometimes when someone sabotages another, the saboteur claims that his/her actions were out of love and were for the purpose of protecting the other person. For example, let us say that a girl sabotages her friend’s chances at winning the favor of a boy at school by telling the boy that her friend has a venerial disease. Her friend is outraged and asks her why she would do this, to which she replies “I was trying to protect you. I do not think that he is nice, and I did not want your heart to be broken”. Meanwhile, the real reason that the girl did not want her friend to date this boy was that the boy had rejected her in the past, and she did not want to see her friend winning favor with a boy who had rejected her. It would have made her very jealous. By saying “I was trying to protect you” not only is she trying to come across as innocent and loving to her friend, but she is also rationalizing.

Another example: let us say a student submits an application to a very elite university, but his friend blocks the application from being sent out. He says he was just trying to protect his friend from the disappointment of rejection. His real motive, however, is to prevent his friend from succeeding in life and making him jealous.

“I am not perfect”

The statement “I am not perfect” is a statement that evildoers may use to try to make the other person feel as if he/she has unrealistic expectations for perfection (even though the other person perhaps is only expecting him/her to behave like a halfway decent human being). In certain contexts, the statement “I am not perfect” is used to undermine the other person’s complaints about the evildoer’s behavior, and manipulate the other person into accepting the evildoer’s “flaws”. Once again, this is an attempt by the evildoer to manipulate others into tolerating his/her behavior despite how destructive it is.

In reality, nobody is perfect. Therefore, acknowledging that one is not perfect does not distinguish one from any other person who has existed. The statement “I am not perfect” may be an attempt by the evildoer to prevent him/herself from being rightfully singled out as the doer of wrong, and instead be lumped in with everybody else.

Playing the game

One thing I find to be particularly disgusting is when evildoers make a game out of evading responsibility for their actions while making others look bad instead. Somtimes when you assert yourself and successfully reveal the evildoer’s bad deeds for what they are, the evildoer will have the gall to congratulate you on being sooooo good at playing the game. “You are really good at this” they say. What these evildoers may be trying to do is convince themselves that they look bad, not because they actually are bad, but because they are just not as good at winning an argument as you are.

Sometimes evildoers may sink so low as to accuse you of making this all into one big game, even though it is actually their game. According to their reasoning, you are winning the argument, so you must have had plenty of “practice”. In reality, you are winning because you stand for the truth and for what is right. You do not have to make things up as you go along. You have nothing to hide, they do.