Rose-tinted Tentacles

Rose-tinted Spectacles eh? I’ve never owned a pair, myself. Then again, I’m still fairly young, and I have no illusions about the joys of childhood. I didn’t find the time to blank out memories of all the nasty stuff kids do to each other.

So I don’t really look at the modern world, or the past, as some kind of idyllic place of wonder and beauty. Sure, it can be idyllic, and it is full of wonder and beauty at times. But to imaginate yourself into a perfect world is verging on delusional.

Heck, my own life isn’t really all that bad, beyond the usual difficulties with the utter fakeness of social interaction (eat your heart out Holden, I’m 28 next week and I still see this). I’ll get back to that in a minute. However, the curse of all this information we have at our fingertips means that anyone who takes an interest in the world outside their immediate sensory experience will inevitably find little niggles.

Now, I know there are the die-hard positivity people who will tell you all about how positive thinking can change the world. I agree with that to a degree, however I don’t believe in ignoring problems or not speaking about them because it makes people uncomfortable. There’s an old adage about how all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. I would probably change “do nothing” to “ignore the bigger issues.”

To change tack slightly, and return to my glitch for the day which is the backhanded nature of social interaction.

I’ve been think about gossip, about backstabbing a lot recently. Now, I know people are very good at justifying their actions. Very few people have the capacity to really analyse their own motivations. Anyone who does is probably going to go through quite a long period of depression while they iron out everything society drilled in to make them functional. That’s not fun, so most will avoid it.

I studied psychology, and although it is filled with really rather worrying theories, it does hit nails on the head sometimes. One in particular I noticed is gossip.

Gossip serves to build social bonds. When people are in a group, generally after they run out of other conversation they will start pulling someone apart. I suppose the most removed form of this is celebrity gossip. Always feels good when you can build yourself up by picking at people more successful than you. I'm sure it makes the celebrities feel great to know thousands of people mind rape them every day. But then, it’s their fault, right? Anyone who follows their dreams, makes a success of themselves, deserves to be torn apart by those who aren’t quite so ambitious. Not because I wanted more for myself and never got there….no, no, no. It’s because…..well…..they get paid a lot, right? It’s their own fault, putting themselves in the spotlight, right? They’re talentless but rich…..that’s why. And….I’m not jealous. I’m just as talentless as them, and I do it for free.

Please….stop me, I’m laughing too hard.

More sinister though, is that people do this to people in their immediate vicinity. One thing I’ve noticed through a few different jobs is that there’s always a scapegoat. Always some poor sod who doesn’t quite fit, and bears the brunt of all the poisonous backbiting. Very few have the nuts to say anything to their face, but everyone will pitch in when they aren’t there.

It’s a team-building exercise, after all.

Funnier still is how people even do this with those who they ostensibly call their friends. Sure, you can try to justify it by saying you are just worried about them, or that it is them who are in the wrong.

But guess what? You’re wrong. If you were right, then you would grow a pair and bring your opinions to their face like a real adult. Not many real adults in this world, that’s something I’m starting to realize.

Let’s really analyse the ramifications of this kind of behaviour, given my limited understanding of reality.

Now, we think what a person doesn’t know won’t hurt them, right? So if we talk behind a person’s back, it’s a victimless crime, right? Perhaps. More likely, that discussion will work it’s way back to the victim. We are not good liars, no matter how much we think we are. Body language plays a major part, although that’s just the most obvious facet of a far more complex system that I don’t believe we are even approaching an understanding of at this point in time. These cues are picked up either consciously or subconsciously by the person, creating cognitive dissonance. They know something is wrong, but not what.

I know a guy who became the scapegoat for a group of friends a while ago. He developed an incurable (but not fatal) disease that forced him to sever ties for a while. The group moved on to another scapegoat, and he returned to the group, ready to join in the scapegoating from the other side of the fence. Was this his body forcing a decision his brain didn’t have the information to see? I’ll leave that up to you, these things just fascinate me.

This ties well with another little spiel I knocked out the other day, Dependant on Destruction. Is it really any surprise that we build a society on destruction when our social relationships are built on grouping together to destroy another weaker member of the group? Is there any hope of ironing out any bigger problems when we choose to accept/ignore this fundamental flaw at the base? Can anything enduring ever be built off a shaky foundation? Maybe that's why civilisations collapse. The people get too close to seeing themselves, and smash everything around them rather than opening their eyes.

Holden, I feel your pain man. Salinger, I feel your pain even more. It seems when society is confronted with its flaws, it pulls a scared turtle, jams its collective fingers in its ears and repeats “juvenile” at high volume until the annoyance goes away.

Might as well be talking to itself.

Bit like me really.