Hmmm….. is that really the case? So often we might say “would you believe what she has done” or “I wouldn’t have thought they were capable of that” or “you would never have thought that of him” or some other, similar, phrase to describe some ‘unexpected’ behaviour from someone.
However, when you delve a little, I think it is often the case that – far from unpredictable – the behaviour is actually if not exactly “in character”, it is at least somewhere along the range of ‘normal’ behaviour. (for some value of ‘normal’!!)
It is this last caveat that really gets to the root of things – what is ‘normal’? For just about everyone it is easy to see that ‘normal’ equates to ‘like me’. We are, I think, unlikely to see our own characteristics/behaviour as anything other than normal – therefore, anything that is ‘different’ must be ‘not normal’ – to one degree or another.
The downside of this is that we are often overly quick to criticise others without good reason – other than the fact that they are not “like us”. This happens at many different scales and on many different characteristics. There is a basic “intolerance” of anything that is the slightest bit ‘foreign’ to us.
Actually, using “foreign” is a very good example of how this works – anyone of a different race; from a different country; observing a different religion; supporting a different sports team; all can be immediately accused of being “not normal” – which often equates to “not right”!! We make these judgements without seeing the irony….
Whenever I consider this sort of topic there is an immediate picture in my head – a scene from Monty Python’s film “Life of Brian” where the crowd is being berated for following like sheep and not thinking for themselves “You are all DIFFERENT” – and a solitary voice pipes up “I’m not” 🤔 Of course, the owner of that voice has not grasped the irony that in making that statement he marked himself out as being, indeed, different – he, uniquely in that crowd, claimed that he was the same as the others.
So it is with “pointing the finger” at others because they are not completely in sync with ourselves – In most of the examples I gave a couple of paragraphs back there is no “right and wrong” simply because of the “foreignness” of the other person – we are just as “foreign” to them!!
However, true as that is – these sort of differences are perhaps easier to deal with than the differences that we see in people who are (supposedly) the same as us. I’m sure that everyone has had the situation where someone that they thought that they knew well has acted “out of character”. At least, out of the character that was expected. Bizarrely, we tend to judge them not so much on the actual act, but on the fact that the act is “not what we would have expected”!!
The same act by someone who we might “expect” to do it would be much less of a problem to us.
We see a young child being “cheeky” and a little “naughty” and we find it amusing and/or sweet – when I child of our own does the same thing “they should know better” and we get annoyed!! The reaction is often proportionate not to the scale of the “misdemeanour” but to the scale of our expectations…. We can often find it relatively easy to forgive at a distance, but not close at hand.
Is that because there is some sort of sense of “betrayal”? Is it the “betrayal of trust” that we are condemning rather than the actual act?
I’ve written before about the fact that there is a often a fine dividing line between “good” and “bad” behaviour – that it is often (if not always) context dependent and inevitably will be a matter of perspective. Helping the old lady across the street does not look very altruistic to the old lady who wanted to stay on the other side:-/
So, we must be slow to judge (always good advice anyway) and considerate of the different ‘norms’ and customs that we encounter. Just because “I wouldn’t do that” doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the right thing to do.