Hmmm….. is that really the case?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 (for some value of ‘normal’!!)<\/p>\n
It is this last caveat that really gets to the root of things – what is ‘normal’?\u00a0 For just about everyone it is easy to see that ‘normal’ equates to ‘like me’.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The downside of this is that we are often overly quick to criticise others without good reason \u2013 other than the fact that they are not \u201clike us\u201d.\u00a0 This happens at many different scales and on many different characteristics.\u00a0 There is a basic \u201cintolerance\u201d of anything that is the slightest bit \u2018foreign\u2019 to us.<\/p>\n
Actually, using \u201cforeign\u201d 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 \u201cnot normal\u201d \u2013 which often equates to \u201cnot right\u201d!!\u00a0 We make these judgements without seeing the irony\u2026.<\/p>\n
Whenever I consider this sort of topic there is an immediate picture in my head \u2013 a scene from Monty Python\u2019s film \u201cLife of Brian\u201d where the crowd is being berated for following like sheep and not thinking for themselves \u201cYou are all DIFFERENT\u201d \u2013 and a solitary voice pipes up \u201cI\u2019m not\u201d \ud83e\udd14\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
So it is with \u201cpointing the finger\u201d at others because they are not completely in sync with ourselves \u2013 In most of the examples I gave a couple of paragraphs back there is no \u201cright and wrong\u201d simply because of the \u201cforeignness\u201d of the other person \u2013 we are just as \u201cforeign\u201d to them!!<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 I’m sure that everyone has had the situation where someone that they thought that they knew well has acted “out of character”.\u00a0 At least, out of the character that was expected.\u00a0 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”!!<\/p>\n
The same act by someone who we might “expect” to do it would be much less of a problem to us.<\/p>\n
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!!\u00a0 The reaction is often proportionate not to the scale of the “misdemeanour” but to the scale of our expectations….\u00a0 We can often find it relatively easy to forgive at a distance, but not close at hand.<\/p>\n
Is that because there is some sort of sense of “betrayal”?\u00a0 Is it the “betrayal of trust” that we are condemning rather than the actual act?<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Helping the old lady across the street does not look very altruistic to the old lady who wanted to stay on the other side:-\/<\/p>\n
So, we must be slow to judge (always good advice anyway) and considerate of the different ‘norms’ and customs that we encounter.\u00a0 Just because “I wouldn’t do that” doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the right thing to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hmmm….. is that really the case?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[103,119],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ignorance","tag-philosophical","tag-worldview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systemsthink.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}