[rant]
Apparently everybody needs somebody to look down on. I just can't figure out exactly why.
What brought this to my attention was the way a guy at work has been treated. He's a nice guy, conscientious worker, but he's... mentally disabled, or developmentally disadvantaged, or whatever the politically correct term is for "somebody not quite as bright as most people." He doesn't need assisted living, but he's not quite up to par with everybody else. But he's a great guy.
Some people at work have noticed his peculiarities, but instead of talking TO him, they have been talking ABOUT him and making up theories to explain the oddities. These theories really are quite negative, and the people making these theories state them as fact. I respect him a lot more than I respect the people inventing gossip about him, so every time I heard this gossip I have wedged myself into the conversation and mentioned his positive traits and explained the things they thought were so bad. But it still bugs me that I should even need to. Why don't they just ASK HIM WHY HE ACTS THAT WAY instead of making up bad things to believe about him?
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising though. Humans have done this as far back as our recorded history goes. But I wish I knew why.
Ever heard of the Sourdoughs? They were the earliest settlers in Alaska and northwest Canada. They planted themselves and started living there, made communities, and after they ran out of baking powder they made their bread with sourdough yeast because they had no stores from which to buy baking powder. When newer settlers came, with their baking powder, the old-timers used the distinction of their yeast bread as an excuse to look down on the newbies.
Yeah, that's right. They used something they couldn't get as a reason to look down on the new people who had it. Silly, huh?
Remember the golden age of internet, when only nerds were smart enough to use a modem and connect to other computers online? The elite computer users made up what they called "leet speech" except they spelled it "1337 5p34k." They used a lot of numbers and symbols instead of letters, partly because they thought it was cool and partly because it made what they were saying hard for the unwashed masses to read.
Then came AOL, and suddenly every kid could connect. The internet ballooned and "normal" people started noticing and adopting leet speak. Well! This just would not do for the true computer elite. They stopped using it, started calling it AOL speak and made fun of anybody who used it.
Yeah, that's right. They made fun of people for doing what they themselves started. Silly, huh?
But WHY?!
I have a couple of theories.
My first theory is if people can find somebody to look down on, they feel better about themselves. No matter how low I feel, no matter how much I hate myself, if I can find somebody who is lower than I and point to all his failures and faults, I can feel better about myself because at least I'm not as bad as he is. And if I can't find anybody who is obviously lower than I, I can pick somebody and find a trait about him that is different from me, and make that the reason to disparage him. Hey, it'll work to make me feel better about myself.
My second theory is if people can find a reason to look down on others it makes it easier for them to justify their opinions and actions. If a car is driving slowly in front of me I can spout something about elderly drivers, or women drivers, or whatever group I want to gripe about while I'm driving behind a slow person. It gives me a target to get angry at... right up until I have the opportunity to pass the slowpoke and find out it's a guy in his late 20's. It's not enough for me to like Ford - I have to also hate Chevy and find every excuse I can to put Chevy down, because that boosts my pride in my beloved Ford. I can't just like my high school's football team, I have to also say mean things about their rival team from another school... it makes it feel better to trample them when we win and it gives me a target to gripe about and insult if we lose.
These are just theories though. I don't really understand why we automatically find reasons to look down on people.
Somebody once said that if we woke up tomorrow morning and found that everybody in the whole world was the same color, belonged to the same kind of church, spoke the same language, and was in all other respects alike... different groups of us would find a new reason we are different from other groups, and claim that makes us better and them inferior, before lunch time. And I have to admit that observation is true. But I still can't really figure out why. It's not logical, it's counterproductive and it is actively harmful.
So why do we automatically do it? Anybody got any answers?
[/rant]
