Author: Alycia

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.

It has been written One must never tolerate evil, for first evil is tolerated, then embraced, then hailed as being good, and then it becomes unlawful to do what is actually good. Right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.

We all have desires to do some kind of evil. Good people make an honest effort to overcome these desires. People who are not good, however, will give in. When they do, they often still want the world to see them as good, and they want to see themselves as good. They do not necessarily want to be held responsible for their actions. They want to continue to indulge in their desires to do evil while their evil deeds go unnoticed.

Evildoers will use various tactics to combat the voices that speak out against their bad deeds. One such tactic is to frame the person who speaks out against their bad deeds as being an antagonist or perpetrator while they are the victim.

Vilification of the person who speaks out against evil

Let us say that you and your colleagues at work are trying to put together a report on time for your boss. One of your colleagues, unfortunately, is unreliable and often disappears when you are approaching a deadline. Because of this, the report is not finished on time. This colleague of yours, named Dave, does not seem to care that others are depending on him to do his part. He even brushes you aside whenever you try to talk to him. So you discuss the issue with your boss. When Dave finds out that you “said bad things about him” to your boss, Dave accuses you of throwing him under the bus. According to Dave, you are just a mean person who likes to point the finger of blame at people whenever something goes wrong.

In the example above, Dave obviously does not care what effect his incompetent behavior has on others who depend on him. At the same time, he also does not want to take responsibility for his actions. He may even have a false sense of entitlement to do whatever he wants. Therefore, when you try to hold him responsible for his actions, he sees you as the bad guy and himself as the victim.

Bad people often want others to tolerate their bad behavior. Bad people will commend as kind and merciful those who tolerate or overlook their bad deeds. Conversely, people who speak out against their bad deeds will be called “harsh”, “difficult”, “mean” or sometimes even “crazy”. To the doer of bad deeds, the person who speaks out against the bad deeds is the enemy. The evildoer will either try to silence that person, frame that person as being the bad one or frame that person as being worthy of ridicule — anything it takes to allow the evildoer the privilege to indulge in his/her desires to do evil while maintaining his/her outward image of being good.

Sometimes the evildoer will exclaim “that is a serious accusation!” as if making an accusation is always wrong. Here, the evildoer is trying to make the other person feel bad for “pointing fingers at people”. In reality, making a serious accusation is only wrong when the accusation is false. Furthermore, making the accusation is sometimes a moral obligation. Someone has to stand up to the evil that is taking place and call attention to it so that it does not continue to do more damage. The evildoer, however, would rather have everybody believe that all serious accusations are wrong so that the evildoer can go on his/her merry way doing whatever he/she wants.

Other times the evildoer will frame the person standing up to him/her as being an abuser. The evildoer may say things like “you are hitting me below the belt” or “you are just trying to make me feel bad” or “you are hurting my feelings”. These tactics are attempts to make the other person feel guilty for speaking out against the bad behavior and revealing it for what it is.

When evildoers try to evade responsibility for their actions, their views of reality are not always accurate. As shown in the image above, when you confront a wrongdoer for his/her bad deeds, he/she may perceive that he/she is under attack by some big scary monster — you — and his/her goal is to “survive the encounter”.

Bad behaviors seen as good

There are certain wrong behaviors that large numbers of people throughout society like to do. Because such large numbers of people indulge in these behaviors, mainstream culture will, as time passes, start to view these behaviors as being okay. Examples of such behaviors include binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and taking advantage of people who are “too nice.” Not only are these behaviors seen as okay by mainstream culture, but also people can be judged for not participating in these behaviors. Hence right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.

Binge drinking

Binge drinking is a self destructive behavior that can cause deaths and permanent injuries both to the binge drinker and to others who are the victims of the binge drinker’s actions. It is harmful to the body, particularly the brain and liver. Yet in some circles of people, the ones who do not binge drink are seen as the odd ones out. One time in college, I told a Pakistani woman that I do not binge drink. She asked me if I was afraid of it. I was kind of disgusted by this question. Is fear the only reason she can think of for why someone would refrain from binge drinking?

Sometimes wrongdoers will judge another person as being “afraid” just because the other person is not participating in their destructive behaviors. It is as if fear is the only reason binge drinkers can think of for why someone would not binge drink.

First, there are oodles of ways to have fun — fishing, dancing, sports, games, etc. Of all of the oodles of ways to have fun, why do we all have to choose binge drinking? It does not make any sense. Has it not occurred to these people that not everybody has fun in the same way?

Second, has it not occurred to these binge drinkers that the reason some people do not binge drink is that it is wrong, and often leads to bad consequences? Indeed, there is a big difference between avoiding an activity because one is fearful versus avoiding an activity because one has moral integrity or because one is just being rational. Now I can imagine the binge drinker saying “well, I think it’s a little bit of both.” Once again, the binge drinker is still attempting to justify his/her destructive behaviors by making allegations that anybody who is not a binge drinker is just “scared”.

If the other person’s reasons for not binge drinking is that it is wrong, then that would imply that the binge drinker is being immoral. If the other person’s reasons for not binge drinking are just rational reasons, such as avoiding an activity that can have bad consequences and instead choosing an activity that is not prone to leading to bad consequences, then that would imply that the binge drinker is being irrational. However, if the other person’s reason for not binge drinking is fear, then that would imply that the binge drinker is taking on risky activities that other people are not brave enough to do. Certainly the binge drinker does not want to see him/herself as immoral or irrational, but brave sounds so much better. Hence the binge drinker would like to believe that those who avoid binge drinking are doing so out of fear.

Sexual promiscuity

I am going to say something that is going to be news to many of you readers — there is nothing wrong with dying while still a virgin. After all, what bad things would happen as a result of a lifetime of celibacy? Some may say that loneliness will result. However, if sexual activity with another person protected one from loneliness, then prostitutes and one-night-standers would be among the happiest and most emotionally fulfilled groups of people. Of course we can probably agree that prostitutes and one-night-standers are not the happiest of people. The reason is that it is not sexual activity with another person that protects one from loneliness, but rather long-term meaningful relationships. Note that these relationships do not have to be romantic in nature.

According to Hollywood culture, dying while still a virgin is so horrible that it is unthinkable. Characters all over television are over-sexualized. A large portion of movies and sitcoms are very sex- and romance-centric. It is as if our romance and sex lives are supposed to define us.

The beautiful truth is that we are more than just sexual beings. We are spiritual beings. We can be loving. We can be creative, inventive, adventurous, brave. We have a sense of humor. We can transform other people’s lives in ways that do not involve sex or romance. Each and every one of us has unique talents.

Though a happy romantic relationship does make life better, a bad one tends to be worse than no relationship at all. Furthermore, even though intercourse is a necessary step in procreation, not everyone is interested in procreating.

Some people may say that we should have sex because it is important to “experience physical love.” Equating sex with love is outright idiotic. Sexual relations are supposed to take place where there already is love. It is an experience you share with someone special. It is not an experience you share with just anyone.

Many television characters, and real-life people, have sex just so that they can say they did it. At this point, sex becomes an obligation pushed onto people that is necessary for acceptance into the social circle. It is no longer for fun or stress relief or even for sharing an intimate experience with a special someone. Throughout movies and sitcoms we see young people who are self conscious because they have “not done anything yet”, or have only gone to second base. It is as if people are being conditioned to oversexualize themselves.

Sometimes when people find out that someone is a virgin, they laugh. If you ask these very same people why they have sex to begin with, they will likely say that they have sex for fun or for stress relief. So, what if I am an avid surfer, and I like to ride the waves for fun and to relieve stress? Does that mean that I will laugh at and ridicule anybody who has never tried surfing before? Of course not. That would be really silly. The same goes for laughing at someone for being a virgin. As stated above, there are many ways of having fun. Why do we all have to choose the same thing and laugh at anyone who prefers to do something else? It makes no sense.

While nothing is wrong with the celibate lifestyle, the sexually promiscuous lifestyle does cause problems. One such problem is a high prevalence of unwanted pregnancies, leading to the killing of unborn babies in large numbers. According to statistics, about 629,000 unborn babies were killed in 2019 in the United States alone. Another problem caused by sexual promiscuity is the spread of disease. Statistics show that about one in eight people are infected with herpes. Now damage to the woman’s cervix from STDs is so prevalent that all women are required to get a pap smear. In addition, sexual contact is the largest factor in the spread of the deadly HIV. So much for having “fun”. Do we still want to laugh at the people who have fun some other way?

Survival of the loudest and most obnoxious

In some pockets of mainstream culture, being “too nice” is seen as wrong, and deserving of punishment. Being mean or aggressive, on the other hand, is seen as a virtue. If you are a nice person, in other words, and someone decides to take advantage of you, then culture says it must be your fault for being “too nice”.

There is even the expression “Nice Guys Finish Last”. According to the Urban Dictionary, this expression means the following:

The idea that if you are nice to a girl, compliment her, tell her how amazing she is everyday, and really just genuinely show her how incredible she is everyday, that you will never get her to love you. Sadly, this is more than true in most cases. You know when you love this girl, and you’re always there for her no matter what, and she always goes for the assholes that cheat on every girl they date and treat them like shit? Yea, thats cause your the nice guy.

This idea frames women as being incapable of loving good men and preferring bad men, which is not rooted in reality. Indeed, I have seen a lot of nice men in happy long-term relationships. However, if we measure a man’s success based on how much sex he gets, then maybe the bad men will get more sex. That is because good men want more from a woman than just sex. They want a real emotional and spiritual connection.

Niceness tends to be condemned in a survival-of-the-fittest type of environment. Humility is mistaken for incompetency. Being mean and loud and aggressive, on the other hand, is praised. In toxic work environments, people listen to the loudest talking and most opinionated person rather than the wisest and most competent individuals. If you know what you are talking about, and people fail to listen to you, you may get blamed for not being heard. You may be told that you were not being loud and obnoxious enough. Such an environment can hardly be called civilized.

Of course confidence in one’s assertions is often a poor indicator of competency, given the Dunning-Kruger effect. Generally, the more that one learns on a given topic, the more one realizes how much one does not know; and so level of confidence can decrease with increased knowledge. Therefore, the people who are the most confident in their assertions are sometimes the least knowledgeable and the least worth listening to.

Where protagonists are bad and antagonists are good

In stories, movies and sitcoms, we are all familiar with the concept of a protagonist and an antagonist. The protagonist is the main character of the story. This is the character that we identify with, the character we are rooting for to succeed. The antagonist, on the other hand, is the character that represents the opposing force to the protagonist. Usually the protagonist is supposed to be the “good guy” while the antagonist is supposed to be the “bad guy”. So what if I told you that in some movies and sitcoms, the antagonist is more righteous than the protagonist? How is that for morally degenerate entertainment?

The 1980s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is an example of a story where the antagonist is the more righteous one. Ferris Bueller, the protagonist, has been pulling off deceptive schemes through his senior year of high school so that he could skip school without getting caught. Throughout the movie, we follow Ferris on another one of his marvelous days off, and we get to see how much fun he has. Here are the deceptive schemes he pulled off to make it happen:

• He coerces his best friend into impersonating his girlfriend’s father to the high school administrative staff
• He commits a felony by stealing his best friend’s father’s expensive Ferrari
• He gets his girlfriend to lie to the school, saying that her grandmother died, just so she could get excused from class for the day
• He impersonates the Sausage King of Chicago just so that he and his friends could eat at a fancy restaurant
• He deceives large numbers of students at the school into believing that he is so sick that he may be on the verge of death. There is even a water tower that says “Save Ferris” in big letters

That is a lot of lying for one day, and does not paint a picture of a righteous protagonist. In fact, in some cases impersonation is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Ed Rooney is the antagonist in this story. He is the principal who is trying to get Ferris caught and penalized for skipping school. If Ferris gets caught, the penalty would be getting held back another year. Given this synopsis, Ed Rooney is not exactly at the top of our list of cruel villains. In a way, he is just a man trying to do his job enforcing school rules as the high school principal. He takes matters into his own hands and tries to conduct his own investigation into Ferris Bueller in order to catch him red-handed. Is this wrong? Not to the best of my knowledge. The only wrong thing I remember Edward Rooney doing was breaking into the Buellers’ house. Otherwise, this man is innocent as far as I am concerned.

Ferris’ sister, Jeannie, also is trying to get Ferris busted. She believes it is not fair that everybody else has to go to school while Ferris gets to take a bunch of days off and have fun. She tries to get Ferris caught, too, but she messes up and ends up at the police station. While there, she talks to some guy and then becomes “enlightened”. She suddenly is no longer bothered that she has to go to school while Ferris does not, and in the end, she actually rescues Ferris from finally getting caught red-handed by Ed Rooney. We, as the audience, are supposed to believe that this rescue is a “happy ending”, but is it? All that happened was that Ferris did something wrong and was never held responsible.

The 1980s Revenge of the Nerds movie is another story where the protagonists are not good guys. Their evil nature particularly manifests in the way that they treat women. Numerous viewers have complained about a scene where one of the nerds raped an attractive woman by disguising himself as her boyfriend.

Summary

The book of Isaiah states Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

When we think of the word “flattery”, what comes to mind? People may think of those annoying empty compliments that other people send in their direction from time to time…often because someone wants something. In his book How To Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie has this to say about genuine praise versus flattery: “One is sincere and the other is insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

While flattery is characterized by insincere praise, backhanded compliments may be sincere, but tend to blur the line between compliment and insult. This article from consulting.com and this article from insider.com discuss the different kinds of compliments that come with an underlying insult. Examples include You look great…for your age and I wish I could just let my kids watch TV all day like you do. The intentions behind backhanded compliments are sometimes good and sometimes bad.

People generally do not feel guilt when delivering these empty compliments. Such people may think to themselves Hey, what harm could it do? At worst it is just annoying, right? Wrong! Flattery and backhanded compliments can be a lot worse than just annoying. Sometimes they can be outright derogatory.

Imagine you are a lawyer working at a law firm. Your boss informs you that they are letting you go, but he says he will go over what your strengths are in a minute. Later on in the conversation, you ask him “So…what are my strengths?” “Well…” he says “you are a nice person.” What would be your reaction? Would this compliment make you feel better about yourself in this context? Not likely. What your boss actually told you was “you do not have any real strengths in your field of work, but you are nice.”

As we can see in the example above, a compliment can be a grave insult in disguise. Sometimes a compliment can be so offensive and insulting that it would be less offensive if the other person just delivered the true message directly.

Compliments as a form of microaggression

Sometimes backhanded compliments are a form of microaggression. Microaggression is defined in this article as “a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.” This New York Times article discusses microaggressions in the every day lives of marginalized groups, and the cumulative emotional and psychological harm they can do over time. According to the article, some psychologists call microaggressions “death by a thousand cuts.”

Certain “compliments” can actually be a derogatory insult in disguise that is directed towards a racial minority group. Let us say you are an Asian American. You and your family were all born in the United States and have been living in the United States your entire lives. While waiting at the bus stop, you strike up a conversation with someone. At some point, the woman says “You speak good English.” Well, of course I do. I am not mentally retarded you think. Nonetheless, you know why the lady really made that remark, and it is not because she thinks that you are retarded. She thinks you are an alien in your own home land. No matter how many generations your family has been in America for, you will never completely be seen as a fellow American.

Sometimes a black person is told “You are so articulate.” This compliment does not usually offend white people, and so white people may not see why such a compliment would offend a black person. Isn’t being articulate a good thing? Yes it is. What is not a good thing is the implication that it is unusual for a member of one’s race to be articulate.

Of course, if the white person were to bluntly say “People of your race are usually not articulate. I am surprised that you are…”, the white person would look like a big racist scum bag. White people do not want to look like racist scum bags to anyone, including themselves; so delivering a derogatory insult masked as a compliment is a lot more convenient.

On the other hand, many white people who make these comments do not mean to be insulting. They are racist on a subconscious level, and their subconscious racism, which they are not aware of, manifests itself in the form of these “compliments”. The best thing to do in this case is to educate them.

This table lists numerous other examples of microaggressions directed towards racial minorities.

Sometimes it is pretty obvious when a compliment is a form of aggression. For example, a young woman is walking along in an inner city neighborhood, and some men yell out “Nice ass, baby!” In actuality, most women would like to have a nice butt. In this context, however, the comment is obviously a form of aggression that gives the woman reason to fear for her safety. The comment signifies sexual objectification. The woman is seen as a potential source of sexual entertainment by the random men in her vicinity.

“You have a mind of your own” Compliment or insult?

Some verbal expressions can be a true compliment in some contexts and a terrible insult in other contexts. For example, the expression “You have a mind of your own” is a very loaded expression. It can be a true compliment in some contexts or a very derogatory insult in other contexts.

In some contexts, when too many people conform to one way of thinking, the expression “You have a mind of your own” can be a true compliment. It means that the individual has the courage and the wit to adopt a different way of thinking from the mainstream view. Rising above the follies of mainstream thinking is quite admirable.

In other contexts, the expression “You have a mind of your own” carries much less weight. For example, adults tell a two-year-old that she has a mind of her own because she refuses to play with the toy that they give her, and insists that she wants to play with one of the other toys.

Even dogs and cats have a mind of their own to some extent. Sometimes when a man tries to put his cat into a cage, the cat squirms and bares its claws. Indeed, the cat has a will of its own, and therefore a mind of its own.

So, if you are told that you “have a mind of your own”, is it sincere praise or an insult? The rule of thumb, in my opinion, is to ask yourself what triggered the compliment? For example, imagine a young woman is living with her aunt, who does not seem to have much respect for her. Her aunt sees her as a silly girl not to be taken too seriously. In one conversation, the aunt makes a suggestion that does not seem to make any logical sense. The young woman expresses disagreement, to which the aunt replies “Well…you certainly have a mind of your own.”

In the context described above, all that the young woman had to do to earn this “compliment” was to disagree with someone on something. Of course most people possess the cognitive capacity to disagree with another human being. The only people who are lacking in this cognitive capacity are people who suffer from a severe form of mental retardation. Therefore, to consider it remarkable that the young woman has the cognitive capacity to express disagreement in an everyday conversation is very insulting. It would even beg the question cats and dogs have a mind of their own, so why are you surprised that I have a mind of my own?

Sometimes insincere compliments are meant to manipulate someone into tolerating bad treatment. For example, let us say that the young woman is fed up with not being taken seriously. In response, the older woman says “Oh, but you are so beautiful! I would never have guessed that you had a brain too!” Such a compliment is intended to soften the young woman’s mood and make her feel flattered. In this way, she will be more likely to tolerate the older woman’s disrespect.

“But it is just a compliment!”

Evildoers can find great convenience and satisfaction in delivering insults masked as compliments. In this way it is harder for you to call them out on their offensive behavior without looking unreasonable. While it is easy to explain why an overt insult is offensive, more lengthy prose is required to explain why a compliment is offensive. Evildoers want it to be this way so that they can torment their victims more easily without any accountability.

A true compliment signifies admiration for the other person, or at least admiration for something about the other person. The motivation behind flattery and backhanded compliments, however, is quite different. Below are some examples:

• To feel better about oneself
• Attempt to manipulate
• Deflect the direction of a conversation
• Patronize or convey disrespect

Below are some contexts where “compliments” can signify disrespect, not admiration:

Context: Someone has told you to do something that is foolish and wrong, and you have expressed an unwillingness to do it.
Comment: “You have a mind of your own.”
True message: Even though cats and dogs have a mind of their own, I am surprised that you do. Your mind is at the same level as that of a lower lifeform.

Context: You are physically small and have a chronic medical condition and/or disability. The flatterer is convinced that you are having difficulty performing a simple task that is fairly easy for the average person.
Comment: “You are tough”
True message: I think that you are a little weakling, and I am surprised that you can even function normally.

Context: You are an intellectual, and a less educated person has decided to coerce you into being his/her friend so that he/she can pull off an underhanded scheme at your expense.
Comment: “You are sooooo smart. You are such a brain. You are just so smart …”
True message: I may think you are book smart (because of your prestigious career), but I think that you are stupid in everything else. In fact, I believe that I am successfully outsmarting you right now. Furthermore, I think that you are full of pride. If I want to manipulate you, all I have to do is appeal to your sense of pride. Then I will have you in the palm of my hand.

In each of the examples above, the speaker is establishing superiority over the target. The speaker does not even expect the target to catch on that the compliment is not a true compliment. Thus the speaker can feed his/her desire for a sense of superiority without having a guilty conscience.

Delivering the true message directly, on the other hand, would make the speaker look like the mean person that he/she is. The speaker would much rather disparage the target in a much more underhanded way so that the speaker could look innocent to the casual bystander, and not have a guilty conscience. Think of it as giving into one’s desires to do evil to another without appearing evil to oneself or to others…aka having one’s cake and eating it too.

Concluding Remarks

When an individual delivers an insult to you directly, the individual is essentially saying “I think lowly of you in some way”. On the other hand, when the individual delivers an insult masked as a compliment, and expects you to take it as a compliment, the individual is essentially saying “Not only do I think lowly of you, I also firmly believe that you have the same low opinion of yourself.” That is why an insult masked as a compliment is generally more derogatory than a direct insult.

To be judgmental is to jump to negative conclusions about other people off of the basis of little to no information. Think of people as like a box. There is the outside of the box that is readily visible to the outside observer. The outside of the box consists of the person’s outward appearance, actions, speech, etc. The inside of the box consists of anything not visible to an outside observer. The inside of the box includes the person’s past life experiences, the person’s upbringing, the person’s medical history, etc. What judgmental people tend to do is make assumptions about what is inside of the box based on what they see on the outside of the box. The problem is that the outside of the box does not tell us much about what is inside.

Three examples of common target groups for judgment are drug addicts, homeless people and morbidly obese people.

When Judgmental Jen sees a drug addict, she may think that the drug addict is being ridiculous for thinking that drug addiction is a disease. Judgmental Jen thinks that all that drug addicts need to do is stop taking the drugs, get clean and move on with their lives. According to Jen, drug addicts who want to be seen as having a disease are just asking for pity points.

In reality, drug addiction is caused by physiological changes in the brain that cause the brain’s pleasure circuit to become less easily stimulated. This means that activities such as eating that should give us pleasure do not give the addict much pleasure anymore. The addict can only feel pleasure when taking the drug. Some studies show that drug addicts are disproportionately more likely to have suffered from previous childhood abuse. Many drug addicts may also have a reduced sense of self worth and believe that they are not worth being saved and getting clean. The reasons for chronic problems with drug addiction are many and complex; but Judgmental Jen does not want to think about all of the complexities of drug addiction and what causes it. Judgmental Jen would rather give herself a pat on the back for being “better than those people who just seem to keep making bad decisions.”

When Judgmental Gary sees a homeless person, he figures it is just another drug or alcohol addict who has made a lot of bad decisions and is too lazy to find work. Judgmental Gary gives himself a pat on the back for being a harder worker and making better decisions than this guy.

However, according to the National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty (in the United States), the top cause of homelessness is insufficient income and lack of affordable housing. The second leading cause of homelessness is unemployment. For women, domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness. While addiction is a factor that can lead to homelessness, it is not the most common cause of homelessness.

When Judgmental Judy sees a morbidly obese person, she just rolls her eyes. Another fat slob that just doesn’t stop eating. Why don’t these people just get a life. Judgmental Judy simply eats until she is full. She cannot see how someone can stuff him/herself every day, and then gain all of this weight.

In reality, obesity is a disease with a complex range of causes. Brain scan studies have shown that unhealthy foods have addictive properties. They stimulate the same part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens) as cocaine and heroine. Though unhealthy foods are not as powerfully addictive as illicit drugs, they are much more readily available than illicit drugs. In fact, it is hard to avoid being in a room that contains at least some unhealthy food products.

Of course Judgmental Judy has plenty of exposure to unhealthy foods too, but she may not be as genetically prone to addiction to unhealthy foods as some other people. She also may not know about the serious emotional issues that can drive people to overeat. For some people, food is the only way they can cope with their life problems and past traumas without losing their minds. Other obese people are just too busy and have too many responsibilities to even think about their own health.

Furthermore, many scientists believe that a person’s body has what is called a weight set point, and for some obese people, the weight set point can be unusually high. What this means is that the brain will tell the person to eat and make him/her feel hungry until his/her body weight reaches its weight set point, which may be in the obese range. Many people trying to lose weight have reported feeling hungry all the time. Even if they lose the weight, it can easily come right back when they start eating enough to not feel hungry. The point is that there are many causes of obesity, and many life circumstances that make losing weight very difficult.

Being judgmental is easy

Once someone decides to be judgmental, he/she will find opportunities to be judgmental everywhere he/she goes. At work, someone shows up late for a meeting. Judgmental Jane thinks this woman must be disorganized or have poor work ethic. In reality, there are oodles of reasons for someone to arrive at a meeting late.

While walking on the sidewalk, Judgmental Jim sees a lady who seems to be frowning. What a sourpuss he thinks. What he does not know is that she just lost her husband and children in a house fire the previous day.

Judgmental Mike sees a mother with a couple of screaming children at a department store. Another parent who can’t control her children Mike thinks. Of course Mike has never been a parent. He is only assuming that parenting is easier than it actually is.

Recall the previous blog post The Evildoer and the Nut Job where an abuser appears calm while the victim is in hysterics. The “calm one” assures others present that she is just crazy, but he “loves her anyway.” Judgmental Jim has no problem with assuming that this lady is just another nut job. I am much more like the calm and patient one Jim thinks. What Jim does not know is that only weeks later, the “nut job” will get strangled to death by the “calm one.”

While bad decisions are a factor that can lead to bad situations such as drug addiction, judgmental people can make bad decisions, too. By luck, the bad decisions made by the judgmental person may not have the same devastating consequences as the bad decisions made by another person. In fact, often people will judge others even though they would not have done any better if they were trapped in the same circumstances.

Why do people get judgmental?

There are plenty of articles on the internet that talk about judgmental people. Many of these articles will say that people get judgmental because they feel insecure. By judging other people, they are validating themselves. Nonetheless, I think there is another major reason that people can get judgmental: excessive pride. Some people just have pride issues. They want to think that they are better than others.

Some arrogant people like to think that they are the best at everything; and if there is something they are not good at, then it must be a thing that they are “too good for” anyway. For example, a software engineer with pride issues may be very good at computer programming, but not be good at interacting with people; so he figures that interacting with people is more “menial work” and that such a job should be left to people who are not as smart as he is.

In a way, being judgmental can be kind of fun. Judgmental Carla can just take a walk around the block thinking to herself I am better than him…and her…and him…and her… and by the time she has finished her walk around the block, she is feeling like #1.

Being judgmental and being compassionate do not go together

It is hard to have compassion for someone when you are judging him/her. How would Judgmental Jen have compassion on a drug addict when she is too busy thinking that the drug addict is just making bad decisions and messing around when he could just get clean? Why would Judgmental Gary have compassion on a homeless person when he thinks that the homeless person is homeless because of laziness and bad decisions? How would Judgmental Judy have compassion on a morbidly obese person who has trouble moving when she sees the person as a slob who just eats too much and doesn’t move enough? How could one have compassion on a woman who is frowning when he thinks she is just a sourpuss?

When people are judgmental of others, it is a red flag that they are most likely not compassionate people.

Judging people based on over-generalizations

Sometimes, a judgmental person can think that people are more similar to each other than they actually are. Every person is unique, but not necessarily in the eyes of the judgmental person. For example, a judgmental person may jump to the conclusion that someone is lying because, the judgmental person figures, everybody lies.

Judgmental Jim meets a physics professor at a top-tier university. Judgmental Jim figures that this professor must be full of pride and ego for having such a prestigious job and being so smart; but, Judgmental Jim figures, this physics nerd is probably not as street smart as he is science smart. Judgmental Jim thinks this physics nerd would be too socially inept to know when someone is trying to manipulate him or take advantage of him.

Judgmental Jamie overhears Annie discussing how bad of a manager their boss is. Annie would never have the guts to say that to his face Jamie thinks. Jamie figures that all people are quick to say bad things about someone behind his/her back, but would never mention it to his/her face. What Jamie does not know is that Annie is planning on confronting their boss the very next day. Annie considers speaking up to be important when something is not right.

As we can see, over-generalizations can be pretty offensive because they can falsely attack someone’s character.

The thing about over-generalizations is that they do apply to some people. Some people do lie all the time. Some highly intelligent people are full of pride. Some people are two-faced. Because these over-generalizations are correct for some people, a judgmental individual may believe that they are correct for everybody.

The short bridge from being judgmental to being prejudiced

I am figuring that people who are judgmental are also more likely to be prejudiced. Prejudice essentially means pre-judge. When a person starts to judge another person based on the other person’s membership in a group, it becomes prejudice. A prejudiced person may assume that a young woman has a fear of getting fat because “all young women have a fear of getting fat.” A prejudiced person may assume that a black person is living on welfare. A prejudiced person may assume that the Hispanic woman he/she sees at the grocery store is a cleaning lady, never finding out that she is a university professor.

In one episode of Hell’s Kitchen, the chefs were told to prepare a birthday feast for a Latino girl. The Latino girl specified that she did not want the food to be too spicy, but one of the chefs put hot spices into the food anyway because, he said, all Latinos like spicy food. Sure enough, when the girl tried his food, it was too spicy and she did not like it.

How do you feel when people make assumptions about you because of your membership in a certain group? Maybe those assumptions are correct, but maybe they are not. Maybe these assumptions are made about you even when you insist that they are not true.

When people are not being judgmental

If you were to openly identify as being non-judgmental, or evenly openly condemn judgmental behaviors, people may use this against you. They may figure that because you take pride in being non-judgmental, they can manipulate you by accusing you of being judgmental for seeing any bad in someone at all. In these cases, it is good to know when you are not being judgmental.

When you evaluate someone’s behavior as being wrong, you are not being judgmental. Wrongful behaviors are things we can see “on the outside of the box.” When you make assumptions about why the individual is exhibiting this behavior, then it is possible that you are being judgmental because you are making assumptions about the person’s inner thought process.

Sometimes we can see what are called “red flags” that somebody is up to no good. Recognizing these red flags does not make you judgmental. It makes you wise. Recall a previous post on this blog What is a good person, anyway?, which presents a discussion of how we can tell when someone’s actions are a manifestation of his/her true character. When a person who did something wrong is perfectly calm, is not being deceived or manipulated, knows full well what he/she is doing and feels no remorse afterwards, then we have sufficient information to figure that the bad deed is a manifestation of the person’s true character. At this point, we are not being judgmental by associating the bad deed with the person’s true nature.

Someone may call you judgmental when you are not being judgmental, particularly when you violate their rules of politeness and denounce their behavior as wrong. You also may be called judgmental when you proclaim someone to be a bad person even if the individual is doing things that only a bad person would do. Some people may want you to see them as being better than they actually are, and will call you judgmental even if your negative evaluation of them is based on sufficient information.

“But I didn’t know…”

Sometimes a judgmental person’s assumptions are proven to be false, in which case the judgmental person may earnestly say “I didn’t know” as if this is supposed to absolve him/her from responsibility for his/her behavior. Meanwhile, there is not necessarily any sincere apology for misjudging the other person and for putting the other person in a negative light.

Let us say that Judgmental Jen is informed of the large amounts of scientific research showing that her assumptions about drug addicts were wrong. Judgmental Jen exclaims “Hey, I am not a neuroscience nerd. Don’t expect me to know about that stuff.” What Judgmental Jen should have known is that people like her have no business making assumptions about something they know little about, and pushing those assumptions onto other people.

What if we just ignore these judgmental people?

Some people say that judgmental people cannot hurt us as long as we don’t let them hurt us. All we need to do is stop caring about what they think, and all is good.

The truth is that words can hurt. Voicing judgments towards the other person can be verbally abusive, and some people are more vulnerable to hurtful words than others. Even when people are weak and prone to making bad decisions, they should be built up, not put down.

Physical harm also can happen to people as a result of judgmental thinking. Let us say that a young woman orders for a meal to be served without dairy in a restaurant. The waiter figures the young woman is probably just putting herself on a diet to lose weight and look better in a bathing suit. She won’t know the difference if there is a little dairy in it. What the waiter does not know is that the woman has a real dairy intolerance that can cause her to be sick for a day or two as a result of dairy being put into the food.

Misinformation also can hurt people, particularly by doing damage to someone’s reputation. When a judgmental person makes false assumptions about someone in his/her circle of people, he/she can potentially spread false information about the person that places the person in a negative light. Damage to the person’s reputation can affect the person’s ability to find employment, find a date or be included in social functions. Even if the judgmental person eventually realizes that the information he/she spread was false, it may be too late. Misinformation can spread, but it cannot completely unspread. People tell people, who tell other people, who tell other people.

Imagine you see two people going out somewhere together. One is in hysterics while the other one is perfectly calm. The calm one is explaining to others that his/her companion is just crazy, but he/she loves him/her anyway. In such a scenario, some of us may be inclined to believe that the calm one of the two is just a very patient person who is somehow “tolerating” the hysterical one. In reality, this scenario is a red flag for a possible abusive situation.

Abusers will often create a discrepancy between appearance and reality. Certainly if bystanders saw the reality of the abusive relationship, they would be more likely to intervene, and the abuser would be less likely to evade accountability. Abusers like to create an appearance of a happy relationship, or make it look like the victim is the aggressor.

The movie Case 39 presents a good illustration of the large discrepancy between how a relationship appears on the outside and how it actually is behind closed doors. In this video clip from the movie, a case worker from child protective services meets a young girl and her parents. We see a sweet young girl with these parents who look like angry nut jobs. We, as the audience, are inclined to empathize with the case worker who wants to get the girl out of this bad family situation and give her the loving home that she deserves.

What we find out later in the movie is that the girl’s parents were a perfectly nice couple, and it was the girl who is evil and drove her parents crazy. She is not even a child, but rather a demon. In this video clip, we see the girl reveal her true colors; and the case worker, who was so keen on giving this poor girl the loving home that she deserves, now is smashing the TV onto the ground and yelling at the girl. Then we see, for a split second, the girl’s face become the face of a demon. Indeed, the girl’s parents were not the problem. The girl was the problem the entire time, but this girl, who is actually a demon, is very good at making herself look like the innocent victim while her victims look like the aggressors.

The Case 39 movie is completely fictional. We are not going to see in our lifetimes a demon disguised as a young girl; but the same principle still applies. All over the world there are abusers who emotionally, and sometimes physically, abuse their victims until their victims reach a breaking point. When these victims have undergone emotional trauma, sometimes seemingly little things can set them off. They can appear as high-strung to outside observers. Sometimes the outside observers may even wonder how the other person is able to tolerate this “nut job.” What the outside observers do not know is that this nut job is a nut job because of abuse by the other person who seems to be the more emotionally stable one of the two.

A real-life example of an evildoer and a nut job is in the story of Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito. The couple were on a road trip together when they got into a bad argument one morning. They got pulled over by the police and each one was interviewed separately. In this video clip, we see that Gabby is very upset while Brian is nice and calm. Later in this video clip, we see that if anything, police officers are suspicious that Gabby is the aggressor because of scratch marks on Brian’s skin; but Brian says he does not want to press charges because she is his fiance and “he loves her.” We see that Brian is good at creating the illusion that Gabby is the nut job and he is the calm and tolerant one. See the full video of their encounter with the police here. Meanwhile, a 9-1-1 caller had earlier told a dispatcher that he/she saw Brian slapping her.

Not only was Gabby not the aggressor, but also evidence showed that Gabby was strangled to death, most likely by Brian. Gabby was reported missing, about one month later, by her family after they noticed that she had not returned any phone calls or posted on social media for several days. Her body was found outside somewhere in Grand Teton National Park where it was thought that it had been there for 3-4 weeks before it was found. The autopsy evidence showed that Gabby was manually strangled to death. Meanwhile, Brian was out on the run. The FBI tried to search for him for over a month. Eventually his skeletal remains were found in Florida, with evidence that he committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Prior to his suicide, he had already been charged with unauthorized use of a debit card, on which he spent about $1000 during his road trip with Gabby. He obviously was not a good honest person.

Complaints have surfaced on social media about how the police officers had ignored the signs of domestic abuse, and thought that Gabby was the aggressor. Julie Cantrell — a multiple award-winning, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author, editor, story coach, TEDx speaker, and ghostwriter — lists 30 lessons we can learn from the story of Brian and Gabby. One of the lessons that she listed:

A typical abuser would be skilled at convincing people that he’s innocent, while in fact he’s been acting very differently behind closed doors, pushing his target to this point intentionally and feeding on her emotional break. Many abusers LOVE to see evidence that they’ve hurt their target. They LOVE to see their target in pain. For this reason, “breaking” the target is usually the goal from the start. In cases of abuse, it may take an abuser hours, weeks, months, or even years to break the target, but he won’t stop until he gets that reaction, and then he’ll point the finger and say, “See? She’s crazy. I’m just trying to keep her calm.” And then he’ll do it again. And again. And again.

Another blogger, Chump Lady, discusses how angry she was that the police gave Brian a hotel room while Gabby had to sleep in the car. In numerous comments to this blog post from Chump Lady, women relay their personal experiences with the same kinds of abusive partners who tried to convince themselves and others that the woman is the aggressor.

In one of the comments, the woman’s husband found out that she knew about his adulterous affair, so he explains to her that he was avoiding her because he was “afraid that she would try to kill him.” Such a statement is offensive and accusatory. Furthermore, women are less prone to physical violence, and when they do get physically violent, they do not cause as much damage as a man would. While both men and women are equally prone to doing wrong, when the man does wrong, the consequences are more devastating because generally men are larger and can physically overpower women. Therefore, a woman has more reason to fear for her safety when the man is the aggressor than the man does when the woman is the aggressor.

The Crying of Gabby Petito

Many people do not think there is enough awareness of domestic abuse, but there is even less awareness of domestic abuse towards women of color. Some have complained that Gabby’s story was only told because she is white and blond and pretty. If she were a woman of color, her story would be less likely to be told. This article states that in the state of Wyoming, “only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, compared with 51% of white homicide victims.”

Toxic people can bring out the worst in others

I have met people who have presented to me a negative picture of this other person that they were in a relationship with. The other person was often described as bitchy, angry and abusive. In a subtle way, I was being congratulated for not being like him/her. I would later find that the person I was talking to was exhibiting behaviors that would make a normal person get angry.

For example, there was one guy I met who described his X-wife as bitchy and abusive. However, he also admitted that at one point in their marriage, he went out and bought a car without talking to her about it. Considering that he made much less money than she did, he was using more her money to buy the car than his own money. His actions gave her a good reason to get angry. It makes one wonder if his X-wife really was the bad guy.

The point is that when you are told that another person, whom you have never met, is easily angered and/or bitchy and/or crazy, you may be deceived. The bad guy may be the one standing right in front of you, and if you go into a relationship with this bad guy, then you may become his/her next easily angered nut job that he/she will be telling others about.

What about the screaming child in the grocery store?

If you see the usual screaming child in the store with the calm adult, it does not mean there is abuse. Children are known for throwing tantrums in public even when they have loving caring parents.

If you see two adults, and one is very upset while the other is calm and is exclaiming that the upset one is just crazy, then I would get suspicious. Nonetheless, finding out what is really going on can be tricky because even the victim can be brainwashed into believing that he/she is the problem. I am no psychologist or domestic violence expert myself, so I wouldn’t consider myself to be qualified to evaluate the situation. Just be aware that these abusive relationships happen, and to an outside observer, the perpetrator and victim can appear as the “calm one” and the “nut job.”

When we say “our loved ones”, we are generally referring to friends and family; but beware, friends and family can be some of our most treacherous enemies. The reason is that they are more likely to have our trust, and they have easier access to us, both physically and socially. They are more likely to know our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They usually know where we live and where we sleep. Sometimes they even live in the same household as us.

Family

You can at least choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family members — with the exception of marriage and adoption. In a perfect world, family is always there to meet your needs. Family members shower you with unconditional love. Family members have your back. However, we do not live in a perfect world. If someone is a family member of yours, it does not mean that he/she is a good person, and it does not mean that he/she will not do anything to deliberately hurt you.

We have all heard of abusive fathers and sibling rivalry, and we have all heard of the term “domestic violence”. Nonetheless, there are many other forms of evil that can occur among family members in seemingly normal families. Family members can be verbally abusive, sabotaging, exploitative, back-stabbing, oppressive, and/or controlling, and they are not being this way “because they love you.” They may have an emotional attachment to you, but that does not mean they will always care about your better interests.

The 2011 movie Cyber Bully presents an example of how treacherous friends and family can get. In the movie Cyber Bully, a teenage girl, Taylor, is excited about getting her own laptop. She now can go on social media and mingle with the other kids at her high school; but within a day of being on social media, Taylor is in tears because someone hacked into her profile and made her look like she was willing to sleep with any guy who crosses her path. Consequently, large numbers of disparaging comments appeared all over her wall. Later on, a guy that she had friended had told a lie that Taylor not only slept with him, but also gave him a sexually transmitted disease. Such a rumor can ruin someone’s reputation and may even make it harder to find employment in the future.

So who did this to her? We find out that the person who hacked into her profile was her younger brother, and the guy who said he slept with her actually did not exist. His profile was made up by one of Taylor’s two best friends. What motivated her brother and her best friend to do this to her? Jealousy. Taylor’s brother was jealous that she had her own laptop and he did not. Taylor’s best friend was jealous because Taylor found favor with a boy at school who had previously rejected her.

While Cyber Bully is just a movie, some say it is based on a true story of a teenage girl, named Megan Meier, who actually was cyber-bullied, and ended up committing suicide. In the true story, a family friend was the one who posed as a guy who did not exist, and through this profile, the family friend terrorized Megan. A major motivation for making the movie was to raise awareness of the dangers of online bullying, but the movie also illustrates how rumors can start with the very people that are closest to you.

Based on my observations, people are more likely to feel envy for friends and family members than for strangers. For example, think of all of the famous people in Hollywood who are idolized. Are you jealous of them for having fame and fortune that you do not have? Maybe some of you are, but now imagine that the famous person that so many people idolize is your brother or sister. Would you be more likely to be jealous of them then? It is one thing if a stranger out-shines us, but when a close family member like a sibling out-shines us, we may feel like we are in his/her shadow. We may secretly wish bad on him/her.

Rivaling Siblings or Actual Enemies?

Rivalry between siblings is normal and maybe even inevitable. Innocent sibling rivalry can happen when, for example, both siblings want to play with the same toy at the same time, and do not know how to compromise. A wide array of scenarios can lead to fights. So when does sibling rivalry escalate to full-blown enmity?

An enemy is defined as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” When a brother does something mean to his sister, not because he is upset, but rather because he just likes to watch his sister suffer, then in my opinion he is crossing the line into being his sister’s enemy. At this point, there is no toy being faught over. Nobody is competing for the parents’ attention. Instead, one sibling is deliberately doing something to the other just so that he/she can enjoy watching the other one suffer.

Sometimes sibling rivalry is so bad in childhood that siblings continue to be enemies in adulthood.

Toxic Parent-Child Relationships

Getting out of a toxic relationship can be hard enough, but it is even harder when the culture around you expects you to remain in the toxic relationship. People can especially be judged when they try to end their relationships with their mothers. Culture has a tendency to have this “but it’s your mother” attitude. Culture neglects to see that your mother is not necessarily going to be a good person. When a woman has toxic behavioral tendencies, she is especially prone to exhibiting toxic behavior towards her daughters. Conversely, when a man has a tendency to be physically abusive, he may physically abuse his sons more than his daughters because he figures that his sons need to “toughen up.”

Regardless of who is abusing you, continuing in a relationship with the abuser and tolerating the abuse does not benefit anybody. Your abuser knows how to be nice. He/she is just choosing not to be nice. If you set boundaries and make it clear to your abuser that you will not tolerate his/her bad behaviors, then he/she will find a way to be nice again if he/she wants a relationship with you that badly. If he/she is not willing to modify his/her bad behaviors, then the relationship is not important to him/her and should be terminated.

Culture seems to have more awareness of abusive fathers than of abusive mothers. Because of this, adult children are often judged more when they try to cut off ties to their abusive mothers. Though mothers are less likely to be physically abusive, they can still be quite emotionally abusive and leave emotional scars in their children.

The Fetish for Female Self-Sacrifice

Within a family can also be the fetish for female self-sacrifice. As Grace Jennings-Edquist put it, “we [women] so often say “yes” to favours, requests and unrealistic parenting expectations because we fear being accused of being rude, mean or – shock horror – selfish (one of the worst things you can call a woman in our culture that fetishises female self-sacrifice).”

While self-sacrifice can be a great virtue, it is not always the right thing to do. Basic logic: sacrificing A for B is not right if A is more important and more valuable than B.

Women historically have had more familial responsibilities, and still do today. While taking care of family is important, the fettish for female self-sacrifice becomes wrong when family members demand more from the woman than is necessary. She is given more chores and responsibilities than she can handle, and she becomes exhausted. Her family members make her feel like unless she is sacrificing her livelihood for them, she is a terrible person. Meanwhile, her self-sacrifice may not even be fulfilling the needs of her family members, but rather their wants, which only exist because of greed.

Women are often raised to be polite and are taught the virtue of self-sacrifice. Such teachings can place these women into a position where they can be taken advantage of by their family members. In such a setting, children are taught to be self-entitled monsters who expect the woman to be catering to their greedy wants to the point of exhaustion. A good person would not want someone waiting on him/her hand-and-foot to the point of exhaustion. A good person does not want anyone to have to sacrifice her livelihood for him/her. A good person wants to be a joy to others, not a burden.

Recall the previous post, Planet Loser, where losers like to create an environment around them where being a loser is the norm. In a lot of parts of the world today, women are still subservient to men. Therefore, when a man is a loser, he at least has a certain status above women that he never had to earn. Losers do not earn what they have. When they do have status or authority over others, it is often a result of something besides merit, such as inheritance or being born of a certain race or gender. Losers like to have status over others that they do not have to earn. It helps them to forget that they are losers, and to forget that they never amounted to anything. Hence, one of the last things that a male loser will want to see is a woman in his family achieving things that he could never achieve himself. So what does he do when a woman in his family aspires to something great that he does not have the courage or talents to take on? He shames her for being “selfish”. How dare she better herself! He wants her to remain in a lower-level existence below him.

There are numerous challenges facing the world today: hunger, homelessness, violence, wars, cancer, etc. We need all the talent we can get to tackle these challenges, but some of that talent will be made unavailable if a sizable portion of the world’s population is prevented from developing their true talents, and is told that they are being selfish whenever they try to better themselves.

When women take care of themselves and try to better themselves, who suffers as a result of this “selfishness”? Nobody. For example, who suffers when a woman decides not to have children? Nobody. Her parents may be disappointed that they do not get grandchildren, but having grandchildren is only a want, not a need. Conversely, who suffers when a woman does not better herself, and instead does menial work that is either unnecessary or that can be done by someone else? The world can suffer because any rare talents she has are not being utilized.

Friends

We can choose our friends, but that does not mean we cannot be deceived or manipulated. Friends can be enemies in disguise as well. One red flag for an evil friend is when your friend is the one who initiates the relationship, and initiates the relationship aggressively. Another indication of an evil friend is one who is not considerate of your time, and one who from the beginning always seems to want something from you.

When I was at a social group gathering, Krystina asked me for my phone number, saying that we should get together sometime. Later that week, the first text message I received from her was a message stating that she needed somewhere to live. It was a turn-off. It was as if she was not really interested in me as a person; rather, she just had a use for me.

Later on she began showing lack of consideration for my time. She would request that I pick her up at a certain time so I could show her my living space, and then she would not show up. When we decided that she could live with me for awhile, she seemed to only be interested in moving into my place during the week when I was at work, and not on the weekend when I had off from work. Her lack of consideration for my time was another red flag that she was not a good person, and had potentially bad intentions.

Generally when evildoers make friends with you, it is because they have a use for you. Their use for you may be to get money from you or they may see that you have a good reputation while they do not. By associating with you and allowing themselves to be seen with you, they may hope to improve their image in the eyes of others. Yet another use someone may have for you is to make another X-friend jealous.

Nepotism

Another characteristic of evil friends and family members is the false sense of entitlement to favors. For example, say you are running a business and you have to hire some people. Evil friends and/or family members may believe they are entitled to get hired before other candidates who are more qualified. In addition, if a friend or family member is already hired and is performing poorly on the job at the expense of your customers, you may be judged for firing your friend or family member “because they are family.”

The truth is that favoritism is destructive. Depending on what the job is, hiring an under-qualified person can put customers and other employees in danger, and can jeopardize the business. Hiring unqualified people can cause customers to receive defective products, which can result in safety hazards, and can lead to the loss of customers altogether. Having unqualified managers and supervisors can lead to toxic work environments ridden with harassment and low morale. Unqualified employees can also be guilty of poor adherence to safety protocols, which can place themselves and others at risk.

Are you tolerating them? Or are they tolerating you?

Sometimes an evil friend or family member will try to make you feel like you are the bad one. He/she may even tell you that you should be grateful that he/she is willing to be around you “despite how you are”. (This has happened to me a couple of times.) His/her bad treatment of you may get you upset. Rather than feel bad for getting you upset, the friend or family member may act like your being upset is the problem rather than the bad treatment that made you get upset. He/she may try to convince you that you are just too sensitive, and he/she just never knows when you will unexpectedly get upset. If you fall for this trick, then you will be unable to stand up for yourself against bad treatment. You will instead believe that you are always the problem, and you may even try to make yourself numb to the bad treatment.

Because we associate family with unconditional love, an evil family member may tell you that while he/she will always love you, the rest of the world may not. Meanwhile, you may have friends that do love you for who you are. The evil family member is just trying to convince you that you are incapable of receiving conditional love, and the only love you can ever receive is unconditional love. According to the evil family member, if others found out “who you really are”, they would leave you. So you should be grateful that the evil family member knows your true colors and is still there for you. In reality, it is not he/she who is tolerating you, but rather you are tolerating him/her. He/she does not want you to know that.

Summary

To summarize, friends and family can be your most treacherous enemies because they have easier access to you, they know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they are more prone to being jealous of you and the surrounding culture may judge you if you shun them.

Planet Loser is a subculture where being a “loser” is the norm. In other words, being screwed up and living a mediocre life is the norm, and anybody who is happy and thriving is looked upon as a alien and a threat.

In the Urban Dictionary, loser is defined as “someone who doesn’t know what they have and F-s it up”. A loser is always making bad choices and messing up his/her own life and the lives of those around him/her. Some people make much out of whatever little they are given, but the loser could be given much and still make very little of it. Even if the loser has a privileged upbringing where Mom and Dad pay for him/her to go to college, he/she can still underachieve, never accomplish much of anything and be in one dysfunctional relationship after the other.

Being the 45-year-old bagger at the grocery store does not make one a loser. The bagger at the grocery store is still a productive member of society. A person with a “lower-end” job can still be a great husband and father, and still be a great contributor to his community. The real loser, on the other hand, may have a perfectly respectable desk job, but messes up almost every relationship he is in. He hates coming in to work every day, and only does so to pay the bills. He wastes both time and money on superfluous things, and may spend hours wasting in front of the television, guzzling down alcoholic drinks.

Loserhood likes company

Losers are not happy with their own lives, so they like to be in an environment where others are not doing too well either. Sometimes losers will even project their limitations onto other people. In other words, if something is hard or impossible for them, then they may assume it is hard or impossible for everybody else even if it is not.

One woman told me that she does not like being around happy people. She preferred to be around people who are “normal.” By no coincidence, her life was a mess because of bad decisions she had made. She was the kind of person that you feel sorry for when you first meet her. She was unemployed and on disability. She had gotten into a car accident years back and has not been the same since then. She had no place to live of her own, and kept living with one person after the other. Every time I turned around, some new bad thing would seem to be happening to her.

When she lived with me for a couple of months, I saw her continually make bad decisions that kept her in her bad situation. She would turn down opportunities to find a permanent place to live. She spent whatever money she had on expensive name-brand items at Whole Foods. Then she admitted to me that the reason she got into that car wreck was that she was driving drunk at night and ran the car into a palm tree. When she went to ride with me in the car, she did not even wear a seat belt. It was as if she was setting up the next big misfortune to fall on her.

Her friend told me that he has seen her burn bridges. In addition, she was mean and exploitative towards the people who let her live with them, including me. She would sometimes drive people to fits of rage. One person after the other kicked her out of their residence. One could see why such a person cannot relate to happy people.

When losers are around people who are happy and thriving, they are reminded that they are losers. A loser likes being around people who are screwed up and full of problems. The loser may even say that he/she likes being around people with lots of problems because it means they are “human.” The reality is that being human is no excuse to be screwed up. Even when people are living in poverty in a third world country, they can at least foster good relationships with others and enjoy the simple things, and with few problems. Problems are bound to occur even when we make good decisions because some things are outside of our control. Nonetheless, actively wishing for everyone around you to have “at least some problems” is evil.

In some cases, the loser may sabotage others in order to prevent people around him/her from thriving in ways that he/she is not. An example can be found in the movie Mona Lisa Smiles where the snob, Betty Warren, marries an unloving man who is never there for her and is out having an affair. Because she is unhappy with her own life, she decides to sabotage the love life of her friend, Connie Baker, by telling her lies that her lover is only using her when he actually was not. Connie was so hurt that she would not even talk to him, and their relationship almost ended.

As Betty’s marriage crumbles, Betty becomes increasingly mean to her other friends. She makes mean remarks like “Does he pay for your sex?” and “They say you’re a whore. And pretty soon, once they’ve all sampled you, they’ll toss you aside like a used rag.” Then she says “The men you love don’t even want you! Your father doesn’t want you!” At this point, Betty breaks down and cries. She is in so much pain that being mean cannot even make her feel better anymore.

Losers Who Control Other People

Sometimes losers try to wield control over friends, family members and/or romantic partners. Controlling and/or exercising authority over another person gives the loser a sense of superiority, status and power where the loser would otherwise feel insignificant and worthless. We have all heard of controlling people — especially controlling romantic partners. People can be controlling for a variety of reasons, and not all controlling people are losers, but being controlling is still a toxic behavior.

When losers try to control others, it can be oppressive and sometimes abusive for the other person. Losers are most likely to try to control people whom they perceive as easy targets, namely vulnerable people, which includes children, disabled people, chronically ill people and women (if the loser is a man).

When a man has a desire to control someone, he often views women as easier targets because they are easier to overpower. A man who controls his girlfriend may even rationalize and say to himself that he is only controlling her “because he loves her” or because he “wants to protect her.” What he is really doing is oppressing the woman and preventing her from thriving and succeeding in ways that he himself never could.

Some losers wield oppressive control over their own children. Normally one would think that parents would want their children to thrive and succeed. If anything, parents are known to sometimes live vicariously through their children, acting as if their children’s accomplishments are their accomplishments. However, one psychologist told me that some parents do not like to see their child do something that they have neither the courage nor the self discipline to do. For example, the adult child may undergo intensive lifestyle changes to reverse a chronic disease while the parents continue to live with their chronic diseases and chronic drug dependences.

Throughout history, and throughout much of the world today, women have been subservient to men. As a result, women can sometimes feel powerless and insignificant…until they have children. When the woman has children, she is finally in a position of authority and status. She finally has power over other human beings. What she does with that power will say a lot about her character. Will she strive to give her children the best lives that she can? Will she try to get her daughters the education that she never had? Or will she try to prevent her daughters from doing great things simply because it will remind her of what she never did herself?

Hypothetical scenario: Let us say that a woman was raised in a culture where women did not enjoy as many privileges as men. Not only has she had less privilege than her male counterparts, but she also is weak in spirit and in character. She always did what the world expected of her without standing up against anything or questioning anything. She never excelled at anything. She never stood out in any way. However, her daughter is not like her. Her daughter is tenacious, and ready to take on challenges that the world does not expect her to take on; but the mother does not want to see her succeed, because her daughter’s success would remind her of the great things that she never did. So whenever her daughter tries to take on a challenge, the mother whispers into her ear “You can’t, you do not have what it takes, but I will always love you anyway.” She rationalizes and tells herself she is treating her daughter this way out of love, and to “protect her”. What she really wants is for her and her daughter to be worthless underachieving nothings together, rather than for her to be an underachieving nothing by herself.

Older women especially have seen times when women had lower status than men. Women could not even get their own credit cards in the United States until the 1970s. Some older women are glad to see young girls today enjoying privileges that they never had when they were young; but other older women may get jealous.

Hypothetical scenario: Throughout her life, a woman has had lower privilege and lower status than her male counterparts and weak character. As a result, she has not amounted to much of anything. She never even got married or had children. Now that she has gotten old, she finally has the opportunity to have a higher status than “those young people.” She wants to be known for her wisdom, but has not acquired much wisdom during her many years because of how little she has done with her life. She likes to act as the strict disciplinarian and intimidate children because it gives her a feeling of power that she never had when she was younger. She likes to control children because otherwise she feels small and insignificant.

Sometimes adults abuse children because of their own insecurities. Many of us have heard of cases of physical abuse and mental abuse; but what if the abuse is very subtle? The parent may not physically abuse the child, or even make the child cry, but the parent may oppress the child in such a way as to prevent the child from thriving and achieving his/her potential. Such an abuse can be subtle and harder to detect by adults outside the home, such as teachers and sports coaches.

Losers as Caretakers

In some relationships, the boyfriend or husband acts as the caretaker to a girlfriend or wife who is morbidly obese and can barely move. I have seen documentaries where a doctor presents a promising plan for the woman to lose weight and become more independent again. One would think that the boyfriend would want to see his girlfriend lose weight and become more attractive and independent. Indeed, more often than not, the boyfriend or husband was quite supportive of the woman’s quest to lose weight, but in some cases the boyfriend was not so supportive. Some boyfriends actually like having a girlfriend who is dependent on them. He can more easily control her, and he knows it would be next to impossible for her to leave him for another man.

When a loser is in the position of caretaker, he/she is in a position of power and control over another human being. This position gives the loser a sense of power and status. Having power over another human being helps the loser forget that he/she is a loser.

We can be sure that someone is a bad person when he/she shows signs of wanting another person to remain in a state of perpetual dependency. Good people want what is best for others, and will try to help someone achieve a state of independence if indeed they can. Bad people, especially losers, desire for the other person to remain dependent and in a decrepit state.

The good news is that if you are a truly good person, then you are not going to be a loser. Good people have too much of a passion for helping others and making the world a better place. They are bound to amount to something, even if they do not have the most prestigious career in the eyes of the world.

Summary

When you land your spaceship on Planet Loser, you will be viewed as either a fellow loser, an alien or a prisoner. If you are screwed up and have lots of problems in your life caused by your bad decisions, then Planet Loser will welcome you as one of its own. If you are happy and thriving, then you will be seen as an alien and a threat. If, however, you are vulnerable — a child, a disabled person, a sick person, etc — then Planet Loser may capture you and keep you as a prisoner. Such is the environment that losers create around themselves in order to cope with their mediocre existence.

Self-righteous and unrighteous people have one thing in common—both are bad people. The difference is that unrighteous people know that they are bad while self-righteous people do not.

Sometimes people want to be able to wear the good-person feather in their cap, but without going through the work and inconvenience of actually being good. As such, they will find loopholes in the “moral code” that will allow them to do bad things to people and yet still view themselves — and be viewed by others — as good decent people. Over time, they may bury themselves deep in delusions that their destructive behaviors are okay. Rationalization could easily be the most common tool that self-righteous people use to deceive themselves, and others, into believing that their evil behaviors are okay.

Self-righteousness can be dangerous in ways that unrighteousness is not, as is explained by a quote from C.S. Lewis, which compares robber barons (wealthy powerful businessmen) to a certain kind of self-righteous people called moral busybodies:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Here C.S. Lewis explains that the worst forms of oppression can be from the self-righteous crowd.

Destructive behaviors of the self-righteous

• Seeing fault in others that is not there
• Imposition of unnecessary behavioral standards onto others
• Hypocrisy
• A false feeling that others are indebted to them

When a bad person is buried in the delusion that he/she is righteous, and presents him/herself as the pinnacle of goodness, it is an ugly sight to see. It is analogous to a schizophrenic presenting himself as the pinnacle of mental soundness.

Self-righteous people often know deep down that they are not as good as they like to think that they are. Rather than acknowledge their shortcomings, they often project their faults onto others. For example, let us say a self-righteous person wants to get her way all the time, and yells at people if she does not get her way. She may project her faults onto her husband, telling her husband that he is such a hot head whenever he expresses the slightest bit of aggravation about anything, even if that feeling of aggravation is warranted. She may also accuse him of expecting everyone to always agree with him. Does he actually expect everyone to always agree with him? Not necessarily, but his self-righteous wife does.

By seeing fault in others that is not there, the self-righteous person can divert his/her own attention (and the attention of others) away from his/her own hidden faults. The worse the other person looks, the better the self-righteous person looks in his/her own eyes.

Self-righteous people are known for pushing unnecessary rules of behavior onto others, and they may or may not be following those rules themselves. For example, a self-righteous family member may council you to act as if you enjoy someone’s company more than you actually do. He/she may tell you to make sure that you appear very sad when the other person has to leave. After all, you want to make sure that the other person feels loved by you and walks away believing that you are just dying to see him/her again. Of course nobody benefits from this rule of behavior. If everyone behaved this way, then you would have no way of knowing whether someone wants your company! You could be around people who hate your guts and never even know.

A self-righteous person may express great disgust if you so much as slurp while you are eating your soup. The self-righteous person may roll his/her eyes when you shove food into your mouth, not caring that maybe you are in a hurry and have to eat really fast. If, heaven forbid, you violate one of their petty rules of politeness, you may get a long, cold, scornful stare.

The strict rules of behavior that are imposed by self-righteous people do not necessarily benefit anybody. Why? Because these rules of behavior are not meant to benefit anybody, but rather are meant to maintain the moral high ground of the self-righteous people who are imposing these rules. Looking behind the curtain, you may find that these self-righteous people do not always follow these rules of behavior themselves.

Self-righteous people can be bad hosts and hostesses. Just by setting foot into their house, they may believe that you are indebted to them for having their roof over your head for any length of time. If you happen to be in their house for a really long time, and you start to go hungry, judgment from your self-righteous host may be hard to avoid. If you do ask for food, then your self-righteous host may judge you for being an imposition. If you do not ask for food, then you may be insulting the host by assuming that he/she has no food to give to you and the other guests. When the self-righteous host serves food and you have diet restrictions, then you are more vulnerable prey. The self-righteous host may single you out as being more indebted to him/her than any of the other guests. Even if the self-righteous host serves you the wrong food by accident, in his/her mind, you are still indebted to him/her for just trying to accommodate you — even if you get sick afterwards.

When a self-righteous person does something nice for you, it can be uncertain whether he/she actually cares about you, or if perhaps you are just a vessel through which he/she is flaunting his/her goodness. Hint: if the deed is done in plain view of others, then the more likely motive is the latter.

Self-righteous people have a way of throwing a fuss over little things while overlooking the things that do matter. For example, say you are sending out a memo at work. The memo presents a message of high urgency about a deadline coming up. A self-righteous colleague may call attention to some minor grammatical errors in the memo, and ignore the content of the actual message.

Unrighteous people

Unrighteous people can turn good at any time, but they are most likely to turn good when they have hit rock bottom, such as when they have committed a heinous crime and are sentenced to prison for life or for a very long time. A number of criminals have turned good while in prison, most often because they have found God, the one being that will forgive them no matter how many terrible things they have done in the past.

Dave Maynard’s article presents stories of six different violent criminals who turned to God while in prison, some of whom went on to help other prisoners turn to God as well. One of these criminals was David Berkowitz who randomly shot a group of people in New York City, killing 6 and injuring 7. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison. Ten years into his prison sentence, a fellow inmate urged him to read the Bible. After reading the Bible for some time, David prayed to God: Jesus, God, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know if You have any interest in me. I don’t know if You hate me or what, but I just want you to know how sorry I am for the things that I’ve done wrong, how I hurt people, how I hurt my family.

After David Berkowitz converted to the Christian faith, he became a counselor to young people and fellow inmates. He would go to parole hearings to apologize and own responsibility for the crimes he committed. God’s forgiveness was what motivated him to turn away from his evil ways and move on to a righteous life.

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 people, and also committed rape, cannibalism and necrophilia (sexual intercourse with dead bodies). One day, a pastor sent Dahmer a Bible study course, and Dahmer completed it. Next, a pastor was visiting Dahmer once a week for Bible lessons. Dahmer eventually got baptized. In his interview with MSNBC, he said “If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?”

Karla Faye Tucker had been abusing drugs since the age of 8, and she ended up killing her friend and his girlfriend with a pickaxe. A year after she committed the crime, someone spoke about Jesus Christ at Karla’s prison. Karla accepted Jesus Christ as her savior, and afterwards she taught the Bible to fellow inmates, leading them to the faith. She also ended up apologizing to the families of the people that she had killed.

Susan Atkins participated in what was known as the Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969. She stabbed a woman 16 times who was in the later stages of pregnancy. She also participated in the killing of two grocery store owners, a music teacher and Abigail Folger (of Folger’s coffee). In 1974, when she was in her prison cell, she had a vision of Jesus and became a born-again Christian. According to the article, “She went on to write the book ‘Child of Satan, Child of God’ about her salvation testimony. She then devoted herself to Bible studies and chapel services. She prayed with other inmates and even some guards. She started an online newsletter that spoke of God’s forgiveness, love and hope. By all accounts, she became a model prisoner, ministering to many people. Even the family members of the people she killed said so and praised her efforts behind bars.”

In all of these stories, the people committed crimes that are recognized by our culture as evil. They received strong messages from the world around them that what they did was terrible. They all were sentenced to life in prison. The way that the world reacted to their crimes was probably a major factor that lead to their changes in character.

I think that a bad person can become a good moral person without converting to Christianity, but it is harder to find such stories. If a prisoner were to become good, he/she would exhibit good behavior as a prisoner no doubt, but good behavior does not attract as much attention as bad behavior. Stories of baptism, however, attract more attention and are more likely to generate stories that people write about.

Self-righteous people do not become good as easily

The process of turning good is more complicated for self-righteous people because people cannot turn good if they do not know that they are a bad people to begin with. In order to turn good, one has to know that one is not good. Hence, when it comes to turning good, self-righteous people have an extra step to take that is not necessary for the unrighteous people. That extra step is not easy because it involves putting aside one’s pride and admitting to one’s own shortcomings.

Dolores Umbridge of the Harry Potter novel series is an example of a self-righteous person. Dolores gravitated towards positions of high power, and often liked to think of herself as an unspoken hero whenever she exercised that power to pull off one of her schemes. For example, after Harry Potter witnessed the return of Lord Voldemort, wizards and witches in the Ministry of Magic wanted to silence Harry because they did not want to stir up a panic in the wizarding community; but they did not know how best to silence Harry, so Dolores took matters into her own hands and sent two dementors to Privet Drive where Harry lived with his cousin, Dudley. The goal was to force Harry to use his magical powers against the dementors, get Harry into trouble for violating the law against underage use of magic outside of school, and then get Harry expelled from Hogwarts.

For those of you who do not know, dementors are dangerous creatures who have the ability to suck the soul out of a human with a kiss. Both Harry and Dudley almost got kissed by the dementors. Harry had to use his magic to save them. Meanwhile, Dolores did not tell her superiors at the Ministry of Magic that she had sent the dementors, and she let them believe that the dementors wound up on Privet Drive by coincidence. In her self-righteousness, she thought that what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Dolores’s plan to get Harry expelled did not work, but Dolores continued to cause trouble in her new position as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. The Defense Against the Dark Arts class no longer taught students how to use magic to defend against evil. When Harry kept insisting that Lord Voldemort had returned, Dolores punished Harry by making him write in his own blood “I must not tell lies.” Harry was to write the message repeatedly until its words formed a scar on the back of Harry’s hand.

In her mind, Dolores Umbridge was just preventing Harry from stirring up trouble by telling tales that Lord Voldemort returned. In reality, she had no reason to believe that Harry was lying. She and the other witches and wizards at the Ministry of Magic simply believed what they wanted to believe.

Overlooked evil — a breeding ground for self-righteousness

Think about the self-righteous characters on television. One reason these self-righteous people are not as likely to turn good is that they are receiving messages from the world around them that their behavior is okay. Indeed, when our culture overlooks evil behaviors, or views evil behaviors as okay, a breeding ground for self-righteousness emerges.

The truly good person will refrain from behaviors that seem to hurt people — even if the surrounding culture sends messages that those behaviors are okay. The truly good person is motivated by care and compassion for fellow human beings as opposed to the individual who refrains from bad behaviors just to keep people off of their case or keep from being yelled at. Do you genuinely care about your fellow human beings? Or do you just not want to be yelled at or hated? The self-righteous person often falls somewhere in between. Self-righteous people do have some good in them, but they believe that they are much more good than they actually are.

Murderers — are they that much worse than the rest of us?

We tend to think of murderers as being among the worst of people, but some self-righteous people may not be any less evil. In actuality, there are selfish reasons to not kill people. The self-righteous person knows that if he/she kills someone, he/she can get caught, get prosecuted and either spend life in prison or get executed. Furthermore, everyone will think of him/her as a monster. These are very powerful motivations to not kill people that have nothing to do with actual goodness.

Self-righteous people will often say that they cringe at the thought of killing someone with a knife or a gun, and may even faint or become squeamish at the sight of blood, but that does not make the individual any more good of a person than someone who is desensitized to the sight of blood, such as doctors and nurses who do life-saving work or soldiers who fight for our country.

Just wanting someone to be dead is an indication of the mindset of a murderer. Alternatively, the self-righteous person may be in denial that another person’s life has value. If the self-righteous person is a narcissist, then he/she may believe that others have no value as human beings, but rather exist only for the purpose of meeting his/her wants and needs.

What our culture recognizes as some of the worst evils — murder, pedophilia, terrorism, rape — tend to be evils that have immediate bad effects. They cause harm in the very same moment that they are committed. Some evil deeds, however, have harmful effects that are delayed. Self-righteous people sometimes do acts of evil that do not cause any visible harm the moment they are committed, but cause harm perhaps years later. Because the harm caused by the evil deed is delayed, the self-righteous person can more easily evade accountability and even deny to him/herself that he/she did anything wrong.

One evil deed that can have delayed harmful effects is exposing a child to cigarette smoke over a period of many years. While the child is inhaling the cigarette smoke, the child does not show any signs of ill effects. The bad effects accumulate over time and are eventually noticeable. When the bad effects become noticeable, such as the onset of an illness, it is harder to trace the illness to cigarette smoke because there are so many other factors that can cause tobacco-related illnesses. Because of the harmful effects are so delayed, it is easier for the self-righteous person to deny to him/herself that any harm came about from the second-hand smoke.

Evil deeds with delayed bad effects could be done by an individual or an organization. For example, an employer may overwork their employees to the point that they die premature death. The employer, in their self-righteousness, may see this exploitation of workers as “business as usual.” The self-righteous employer does not necessarily care that their employees die prematurely, as long as they get the most work out of their employees while their employees are still alive. Fortunately, this kind of overwork does not happen as much in the developed world today because of the labor laws that have been passed.

Summary

To conclude, self-righteousness is farther away from turning good than unrighteousness because one cannot turn good if one does not know that one is a bad person to begin with. Certain environments that allow self-righteousness to flourish are environments that overlook certain evil behaviors and/or view certain evil behaviors as being okay. Friends and family also can be enablers of self-righteousness by not saying anything to the individual and continuing in a relationship with the individual despite harmful behaviors.

People who identify as Christian are arguably the biggest misrepresentation of Christianity. The reason is that while people who identify as Christian will acknowledge God’s existence and acknowledge Jesus as the son of God, they do not necessarily live by the teachings of the Bible. They are what we could say are “false disciples.”

In Matthew chapter 7, verses 21-23, Jesus states Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Also in the gospel of John, chapter 4, verse 15, Jesus states If you love me, you will keep my commandments. In other words, a true disciple lives his/her life in obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

It is easy to judge a belief system by observing the people who identify themselves as members of that belief system; but this is not how we should learn about a belief system. We should learn about a belief system by observing the behaviors and deeds of the founder of that belief system, and by reading the scriptures of that belief system. For example, if we want to learn about Christianity, we should study the New Testament, and read about the behaviors and deeds of Jesus, who is the founder of Christianity. If we want to learn about the Muslim faith, then we should study the Quran. If we want to learn about the Jewish faith, then we should study the Old Testament.

When we study the New Testament, we will find that there are many teachings of Jesus that are pretty different from the mainstream lifestyle in western culture. Living by the teachings of Jesus means that we are not to have any sexual relations outside of marriage. We are not to utter curse words. We are never to lie; even “white lies” are forbidden. We are not supposed to get drunk; many followers of Jesus avoid alcohol altogether. If someone is mean to us, we are not supposed to “return evil for evil”. We are not supposed to be materialistic, so getting rich is not a priority for any follower of Jesus. Furthermore, we are commanded to observe communion on the first day of the week, and we are supposed to read and study the Bible on a regular basis.

The overwhelming majority of people who identify as Christian do not live out the teachings described above. They are, therefore, a false representation of Christianity.

Christian Churches

The overwhelming majority of Christian churches also are misrepresentations of Christianity. They often tell people what they want to hear, which is that they can live whatever way they want, and as long as they are not “really bad” they will be saved.

Let us say that you commit a crime, and the sentence for your crime is life in prison; but someone who committed no crime himself decides to undergo your punishment in your place. Now you do not have to go to prison after all. Does that mean you go out and re-commit the crime? Hopefully not. Such an act would be a slap in the face to the person who went to prison in your place. Hopefully you will feel grateful that someone has undergone the punishment in your place, and you will try to make the most of your time outside of prison from now on.

This scenario is analogous to what Jesus did for us according to the Christian faith. We all did something wrong at some point in our lifetimes, and the sentence for our wrondoings is to be tormented and destroyed in hell. Jesus, however, who committed no sin in his lifetime, suffered for our sins in our place and experienced death. If we come to believe that Jesus died for our sins, and we decide to live a life of obedience to Jesus from now on, then all of our previous wrongdoings are forgiven, and we no longer have to go to hell.

According to the New Testament scriptures, Jesus is the founder and head of the Christian church, as it states in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5 verse 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body. Yet many Christian churches were founded by men. Examples include the Episcopal church, the Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Methodist church, etc.

Each of these churches has its own set of teachings that do not come from the Bible. The Catholic church has the catechism. The Episcopal church has the Book of Episcopal. The Mormon church has the Book of Mormon. Some of these man-made teachings contradict teachings of the New Testament. For example, some priests are addressed as “Father”, but the Bible states in gospel of Matthew, chapter 23 verse 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

The New Testament warns about false teachings and false prophets. It states that you can tell a true prophet from a false prophet by whether or not his/her predictions of the future come to pass. We can detect false teaching based on whether or not they match the teachings of the Bible.

Neither the Christian churches nor the people who identify as Christian are going to give you an accurate view of Christianity. You will have to read the Bible yourself. Fortunately, there is a minority of Christian churches that do operate based on the Bible teachings, and their members believe that no teachings are to be added to the Bible or taken away.

Christian Cults and Mind Control

Some people outside of the Christian faith see Christianity as a bunch of man-made mind control. This concern is understandable given that a number of Christian cults through history have manipulated otherwise good people into doing bad things, and have often used fear of hell to scare people into obedience. These cults, once again, are another false representation of Christianity. We know that a cult, or any church, is a misrepresentation of Christianity when its teachings are not in the New Testament. Another red flag that a church is corrupt is when it forbids or discourages its members from reading the Bible themselves. Indeed, if their members read the Bible themselves, they are likely to see discrepancies between the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church.

I was once in a church that was known for being a cult, though I did not know this at the time. This cult was certainly not one of the more dangerous cults, but like any cult, members believed that this church was the only true Christian church, and that members in all other churches were doomed to go to hell. They did study the Bible, but not all of it, and some of their beliefs and the way they did things went against Bible teachings, as I found out later. First, they believed that good works save you and not faith. Their reasoning was that demons will acknowledge God’s existence, and they are not saved.

While this is true, the Bible does distinguish between a saving faith and a dead faith in the book of James, chapter 2. Chapter 2 of the book of James explains that a simple acknowledgement of God’s existence does not save you, but a faith in God that drives you to action does save. When the Bible states that faith is what saves, what it is really referring to is faithfulness or loyalty to God. The saving faith is more than just acknowledging God’s existence. It is about loving God and living the lifestyle that God commands us to live. The good works that you do are simply evidence that you are saved.

Other verses such as Ephesians 2:8-9 explain that faith saves and not good works, “so that no one may boast”. In other words, getting into the kingdom of heaven is not something we can boast about because we did not earn our place in God’s kingdom ourselves. Jesus earned it for us. Even if we do the mighty works described in the gospel of Matthew, such as driving out demons in the name of Jesus, if we are not obedient to God’s commandments, then we will not have a place in the kingdom of heaven.

The problem with believing that good works is what saves us—aside from that it goes against the Bible’s teachings—is that no matter how many good works we do, we will always wonder if we are doing enough. Christian cults that teach their members to rely on good works for salvation can cause their members to pour exorbitant amounts of time and money into the church while always feeling like they could be doing more.

While I was in this church that turned out to be a cult, I had a “discipler” assigned to me. This discipler kept an eye on me and made sure I was going to every Sunday morning service and every Bible study. If I missed any, then my discipler shamed me. It felt wrong because I was an adult in my 30s, not a 9-year-old skipping school. Yet another big red flag was that when they saw that I was interested in reading more of the Bible, they told me not to. They told me to “…do what we say, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” I eventually left this church after I found out that it was known for being a cult. Although they were taking the time to teach me the Bible, I figured that they were teaching me the Bible from their perspective, and only the parts of it that they wanted me to know.

Since I had left this cult, I have only joined churches that operate based on the Bible’s teachings, and not man-made teachings. No disciplier was assigned to me in any other church I had joined, and I was encouraged to study the whole Bible.

Christianity in its true form is not mind control, but man-made institutions that associate themselves with Christianity can be mind-controlling. In reality, God gives us all free will. He wants us to follow Him because we love Him, not because of fear, or because we are robots programmed to follow Him. For example, when you have friends, you want your friends to choose to be your friends out of free will, not because they are robots that are programmed to be your friends, or because they are afraid that some terrible punishment will fall on them if they choose not to be your friends. You want them to choose to be your friends because they love you and find your company to be rewarding. God wants the same thing from us.

Faith and Evidence

Already discussed is the myth that a simple acknowledgement of God’s existence is enough to save you. Another myth about faith is that faith means believing in something despite the lack of evidence.

Biblical faith is believing in things unseen, but is still based on evidence. In other words, our God may be invisible, but we still believe that He exists because of the evidence for his existence. We were not alive in ancient times to observe the life and miracles of Jesus, but we still believe that they happened.

Atheists have faith that historical events happened even though they were not there to see them. Atheists generally believe that Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and Alexander the Great existed even though they were not alive to see them. The reason is evidence in the form of archaeological findings and historical documents. The same goes with the existance and life of Jesus. The gospels are eye-witness accounts of the life of Jesus. While some of the events of the gospels may not match everybody’s idea of realistic, eye witnesses were still there to see these miraculous events, and four of these eye-witnesses wrote the gospels.

Lee Strobel used to be an atheist who worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He thought of God as one big fairy tale that he would never believe in, and he decided to investigate where the Bible came from in order to prove that the Bible had no truth and was just a bunch of made up stories. He interviewed biblical scholars at universities, discussing with them corroborating evidence between the Bible and other historical documents; archaeological findings; the fulfillment of divine prophecy and how long the gospels were written after the events happened. Lee Strobel not only failed to prove that the Bible was wrong, he converted to Christianity himself. He saw so much evidence behind the Bible as the word of truth that he came to believe it takes faith to not believe in God. He tell his story in his book A Case for Christ.

What does it mean to convert to Christianity?

Conversion to Christianity comes by hearing the word of God in the Bible, believing it, choosing to repent from a life of sin and getting a baptism.

Baptism is a ritual that a convert goes through when the convert has decided to live the rest of his/her life for Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the baptism, the convert is briefly immersed in water. The ritual represents the death of the old sinful self and the birth of the new self that now lives for God. This is what they mean “born-again Christian”.

Have you ever heard the phrase “He did that terrible thing, but otherwise he is a good person”? What can cause otherwise good people to do bad things?

Emotional distress could cause an otherwise good person to do something bad that causes harm to somebody else. When a person is in a state of emotional distress, whether it be anger, fear or some other strong emotion, the person can lose control and do things that that person would not normally do. For example, let us say you have been working very hard on your masterpiece Lego structure for a very long time. Just when you are almost finished with your masterpiece, someone knocks it down by some act of negligence. You lose your temper in the heat of the moment, attack him. Does that mean you are a bad person? Not necessarily. You simply acted out during a point of weakness where your emotions got the best of you. As you calm down, you may feel regret for what you did.

Manipulation and deception are other factors that can cause otherwise good people to do bad things. We have heard of religious cults that manipulate and deceive people into doing some bad things “for their god.”

Still another factor that can cause good people to do bad things is mental illness. However, a bad deed committed by a mentally ill person can still be a manifestation of his/her true character. The reason is that a mentally ill person can still have evil intentions.

To determine whether an evil act is a representation of one’s true character, ask the following questions:

1) Was the person perfectly calm when he/she committed the evil deed?
2) Was there evidence that the person was being manipulated or deceived?
3) Does the person know full well what he/she is doing?
4) Did the person feel true remorse afterwards?

Note that somebody may have influenced the person into committing the bad deed, but influence is not the same as manipulation. Also note that people can pretend to feel remorse when they do not; but if the person doesn’t show signs of remorse, then chances are that there is no remorse.

Television Examples

On television we can see examples of good people doing bad things and bad people doing bad things. When Anakin Skywalker’s mother dies in his arms, Anakin becomes very angry and heartbroken. In his anger and heartbreak, he proceeds to kill men, women and even children with his lightsaber. Is this a representation of Anakin’s true character? While Anakin does end up turning to the dark side, at the time Anakin was still good. He only committed these murders because he was intensely angry and upset. Furthermore, Anakin shows remorse afterwards, lamenting over what he had done, and recognizing how bad it was.

The terrible deeds that Anakin does as Darth Vader are a representation of his true character as Darth Vader. They happen after Anakin converts to the dark side, and is no longer a good person. Darth Vader is perfectly calm when he does evil deeds, and he does not show remorse afterwards. One could say he is under the influence of the emperor, but Darth Vader is not being manipulated or deceived. He knows full well what he is doing, and he can decide to abandon his allegiance to the emperor anytime. Of course, Darth Vader does eventually turn good again, but that is because people’s character can change over time. This is good news because it means that when someone is a bad person, it is possible for him/her to become good.

In the 1990s Merlin TV series, Merlin convinces Sir Lancelot to deceive the King of Camelot into believing that he is of noble birth when he is not so that he can become one of the king’s knights. Sir Lancelot initially rejects Merlin’s offer to help him to deceive the king, but he eventually goes along with the plan because he wants to be a knight so badly. In this scenario, we have two people—Merlin and Sir Lancelot—pulling off a deceptive scheme to deceive the king so that Sir Lancelot can get what he wants.

This deceptive scheme is a representation of Merlin’s true character. Merlin is perfectly calm when he comes up with the scheme and pushes Sir Lancelot to go along with it. Merlin certainly is not being manipulated. He came up with the scheme himself, and any regret that Merlin feels afterwards is most likely because the scheme had failed and the king found out that Sir Lancelot is not of noble birth. Sir Lancelot, however, does show genuine remorse for going along with the scheme to deceive the king. He believes that he is not worthy to be one of the king’s knights, and so he leaves. The deceptive scheme, therefore, is much less of a representation of Sir Lancelot’s true character than it is of Merlin’s character.

The one cockroach

If you see a cockroach scurrying across your kitchen floor, do you think that that one cockroach is the only one in your house? People who have had bug infestations know that when you see a member of an invasive insect species on your kitchen floor, there are going to be numerous other ones hidden somewhere.

The same applies when a person does a bad deed, and we have reason to believe that the bad deed was done out of his/her true character. The bad deed is a manifestation of evil inside of a person’s heart. If the person has proven him/herself capable of that one bad deed, then you can bet there are other bad deeds he/she is capable of doing too.

Good Person Bad Person Shades of Gray

Even when we admit that there is evil inside of the heart of someone close to us, we still want to believe that he/she is “not a bad person” and is instead “a good person overall.”

While the Bible presents a clear definition of good person and bad person (referred to in the Bible as the righteous and the wicked), outside of the Bible, the definition of the “good person” versus “bad person” is fuzzy. Rather, the definition of good person and bad person is in the form of a spectrum with good person at one end and bad person at the other end.

Tall person and short person also are on a spectrum where at one end of the spectrum are people who are definitely tall, on the other end are people who are definitely short, and in between are people who are, for example, considered tall in some circles of people and considered average height in other circles of people.

Many people would say that you are a good person if there is a lot of good in you and not too much bad. Perhaps we are a good person as long as we are more the 50% good and less than 50% bad.

Some people do not want to believe that one of their loved ones is bad. For example, a mother may not want to believe that her son is a bad person even if he does a lot of bad things and with bad intentions. As long as she sees at least some good in him, she will tell herself that he is a good person, even if there may be more bad in him than good. The problem is that if we define someone as good as long as there is at least some good in him/her, then the “good person” label does not mean much anymore. After all, pretty much everybody has at least some good in him/her—even cold-blooded killers.

In my opinion, the definition of a good person is one who, on a consistent basis, makes an honest attempt to do what is right. At points of weakness, a good person may give into the temptation to do something wrong; but he/she would then feel some remorse afterwards and try to do better next time.