Just Because You Keep Saying It

Doesn't make it so...

Recently, and in the past, I have come across people that have an opinion about something because that opinion makes them feel good, not because the opinion has any value. Normally, I don’t care. It’s not my problem, but every once in a while it becomes my problem either through these sorts of people being a part of influencing social policy, or because they inflict me with their opinion.

Often times these thoughts or opinions are rather idealistic in nature and lack critical thinking. If someone wants to be an idiot, that’s fine, but simply saying something is so because they feel that it should be, is not reality.

Recently I was contacted by someone that asked me why a psychopath would do a certain egregious thing to a child. I have no idea if the person being asked about was psychopathic or not, but the excuse that they gave for their behavior was completely inane. It was your basic…I did X, but it’s not my fault because (insert a total lie here). If they are a psychopath, the reason given was bullsh*t and I told the asker as much.

If the person was actually a psychopath, they did what they did because they wanted to. There was no other reason, no excuse, nothing to dodge or hide behind. They did it because they wanted to, and any excuse that they were feeding regarding their behavior was just trying to dodge consequences or lessen their culpability in other people’s minds.

I see this a lot. The excuses given to criminals like those that shoplift. It’s because they're poor and desperate, they can’t help themselves. Panhandlers are truly in need, and everyone should feel sorry for them. No one would choose that… right?

Wrong. Most people that steal, rape, murder, maim, torture, kidnap, or whatever other crime you can come up with, did so because they wanted to. They might feel bad about it later, but the chances are pretty high that they mostly feel bad about the fact that they have to explain themselves when they know how bad it makes them look to others.

I heard a story about a guy that kidnapped two teenage girls, did unspeakable things to them, murdered, and dismembered them afterward. He was caught almost immediately and instead of facing trial, he killed himself in his cell. Do you think he killed himself out of regret and remorse, or do you think that he did it because he didn’t want to explain himself and face whatever punishment was coming his way?

Granted, I can’t read his mind, but it wasn’t the first time he had assaulted someone. He tried to rape a woman when he was in the service, and hit her over the head several times with a barbell when she resisted. If he felt remorse about that one, he wouldn’t have committed murders later on. She survived by the way, and pulled his mask off when he tried to flee. It is far more likely that he killed the two girls because then there are no witnesses to testify against him.

Let’s talk about panhandling. People assume that those that are standing there with a sign asking for money must really need it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Wrong. So very very wrong. Are there some panhandlers that actually need the money? Sure, there are some. However, panhandling can bring in some very good money. What’s funny to me is that people make assumptions about panhandlers, that they are truly poor and in need, but they don’t take the time to really look at them. Have you ever studied someone that is standing there with a sign?

Have you ever evaluated their clothing, their shoes, their accessories, have you ever considered what those clues are really telling you? Most people don’t want to do this, and the reasoning seems to be twofold. On the one hand, they don’t want to spend too much time engaging with the panhandler, even if they give them money. They want the exchange to be over as quickly as possible, and for whatever reason feel like it is their duty to hand over a couple of dollars or some change. The other appears to be that people think it is offensive to question the motivations of someone who had their hand out. They couldn’t see themselves panhandling unless they absolutely have to, and therefore apply that thinking to the person standing on the corner.

This is another failure of empathy. Just because you wouldn’t ask for money from strangers unless you were starving has nothing to do with the motivations of other people. Most people asking are asking because they are relying on you thinking that way. They want you to assume that they wouldn’t be that shameless.

When I first met my Significant Other he made it a habit of pointing out these things to me, not because I was inclined to give money to those asking, but because it was a good lesson in cognitive empathy. I wouldn’t even bother with people panhandling. Not my problem, and not something I was paying attention to. However, he was trying to teach me to see things through other people’s eyes, and also to understand what most people miss about the world because they are too busy making assumptions rather than evaluating what is in front of them.

Look at their shoes, are they new?

Look at their clothing, is it clean? Is it new?

Do they have a smartphone?

Do they have an iPod?

What about their possessions? Are they old, are they new, are they clean?

Oftentimes when you start paying attention you will see that the picture does not match the intention. That’s not always the case though. Sometimes people are dedicated to the bit as my Significant Other saw firsthand.

Once upon a time, he saw a man that looked every bit homeless who panhandled outside a gas station. One day speaking to the attendant he told my SO,

Never give that guy money.

Why? Asked my SO.

Come back at 6:30 and you’ll see.

So, intrigued my SO did.

Lo and behold what did he see? The same guy disappear into the gas station washroom, only to come out fifteen minutes or so later, cleaned up and dressed in a suit. He put all his homeless gear into the trunk of a brand-new Porsche, and drove away. This man made a lot of money trading on people’s assumptions and their pity. He was able to do this because people would see him through the eyes of their emotions, instead of applying critical thought to something.

Idealistic thinking is rarely useful in my experience. It leads to nonsensical conversations about how things should be, not how they are. Having these conversations is exhausting and often not worth my time, but every once in a while there is someone that feels the need to educate me on the “correct” way of thinking. The fact that I had the audacity to have a different opinion than their idealistic one cannot stand and I must be reeducated.

I have had more than my fair share of these conversations, and never once has the other person been able to succinctly defend their position against the facts. In their minds, their emotions are the facts. They think that the world works a certain way because that is how it should work. Any evidence to the contrary either makes them very angry, or they stop talking.

I don’t care what a person’s Pollyanna worldview is. If it doesn’t coincide with reality I do not have time to entertain them nor their wishlist of ideals. Wishing that the world worked differently than it does is normal. Getting angry at another person because they do not agree with a pedestrian understanding of complex problems, that is another story.

Here is a lovely example of this. One day, over on Quora, I was sent a message from someone that I had interacted with somewhat regularly. However, this time they had read an answer that had raised their ire. Here is that answer so you have context:

To what extent should the local government provide housing for homeless people?

The person that messaged me was quite upset that I had the nerve to upvote this answer:

These are utterly not the same house and this guy is spreading fake vile and hate. Why exactly did you upvote this. Simply comparing by eye shows tge side walks are different and the widows are different shapes and so on and so on.

Also it has reapeated been proven economy just doesnt work like that. We’ve literally tried it several times in real life.

The problem was… they were wrong in their assumptions about the answer provided. Not only were they wrong, it was easily discovered that they were incorrect, but they couldn’t be bothered to do the basic research before getting outraged. My response:

1. It is literally the same house. The address is 17529 kentfield street detroit michigan, and you can find information on it here:
   
   Detroit real estate game creates chaos in neighborhoods
   

   Do a modicum of your own research before stating things you clearly know nothing about.

2. Where did you get the hubris to make demands on me when you haven't bothered doing the bare basics of said research?

3. I am not interested in debating economics with you. If you think that putting people homeless in empty houses works, by all means, go start a nonprofit, buy a bunch of houses, renovate them, put people in them, and watch what happens. I have already seen this in action. Believe what you want, but if you think it works that way, go do it. No one is stopping you.

Either way, I am not going to debate what you think has earned an upvote from me or hasn’t, or how the world works. For you to assume that you can demand to know why I do anything is a wrong way to approach me. If you have a question, you can ask it, respectfully, and be ready to hear an answer that might contradict what you think is correct. Especially when you obviously haven't bothered to even look into something outside of convincing yourself you are right because you think have sleuthed out the sidewalks and windows, when you could have literally taken a single moment to find the article I referenced above where the address is provided, as well as a detailed story of how that house got to the state that it is. It is nuanced, but doesn’t change that you can’t just give homeless people houses, and think that it fixes a far more complex problem.

If you thought this was a way to espouse some ideological nonsense to me, it is not. I have arrived at what I think and know through lived experience, not ideology, nor a ridiculously simplistic notion of how things function.”

What I found most interesting about this was if you dove into the writer’s background you would find that he worked at homeless shelters for a good portion of his life. It is easy to go for the narrative that everyone that is homeless or is panhandling is just in need of a little help, and they will get right back to living the same life that most people live. The fact is, however, a lot of people that are homeless, that panhandle, that commit crimes, that do bad things in society, they do these things because they want to.

I get it, it’s totally foreign to the way a lot of people think, and they assume that there is just that one element missing from the recipe of life that individual is using, and if they are just provided it everything will be great. Or, save that, if that person wants to do things in the way that they are, that means that they are somehow fundamentally different in a way that is diagnoseable as a disorder. That’s not the case a good deal of the time.

People do terrible things to others, and to themselves, often because they want to. Trying to frame that in ways that are simplistic and understandable to you as a person isn’t going to give you insight to their choices if what you are assuming about them isn’t applicable to begin with. Not everything is rationalized through a worldview that you can understand. It is why I don’t talk about the inner functioning of low-functioning psychopaths very often. I recognize that I am limited in my understanding of how their minds work. I am apt to apply to them things that aren’t relevant to their situation.

Granted, that doesn’t change my belief that low-functioning psychopaths operate on the mentality of “an impulse not resisted, not an irresistible impulse”, but who knows? Maybe I’m wrong about that and I am being too judgy.

I often tell you not to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I follow that up with, let them tell you who they are over a long period of time over which you watch their actions and see if they match their words. However, that is only useful if you can also understand that your way of being in the world doesn’t necessarily apply to them, and that sometimes there is far more complexity to situations that you might first assume. On the other hand, sometimes people are just crappy individuals that like causing problems in the world. Trying to give them excuses for their behavior isn’t doing them, or you, any favors.

See the world as it is, not how you would like it be. Pollyanna was a movie for a reason. Being that way doesn’t apply to real life.