Are we too mean?

Maybe people are just better at expressing their true feelings now. I’d rather have someone be rude to my face than have them condescend or patronize me. People might have been more polite in the past, but that doesn’t prove people were less mean.

Bullying is different from being blunt or being sarcastic. What some people call mean is just not being a sensitive pansy all of the time. I agree about stangers being suspicious of each other, but there are reasons for it and the majority of people are not open to come out of their box and generalizing of people around them.

@Blackberry absolutely, it is different. But what I’m describing is more than just the tendency to lean towards being blunt. I have watched groups of friends, families, even my own friends & family for that matter… single out one person. And what starts as a snarky comment, or a little jab of a joke… often turns into everyone kind of piling on. I’m just not sure that type of social behavior was always acceptable… and I’m kind of curious as to whether or not it really should be.

My whole family is sarcastic and we all take turns being the brunt of joke. It makes for a lively conversation as we all know we are just kidding.

But I do see society, in general, is a little meaner. And I don’t think that is good thing.

@TheOnlyNeffie I think there is a common misconception that family is supposed to always get along and love each other, although in actuality, once the kids are adults and are not cute anymore, there are just another face. Only immediate family members care enough, aunts, uncles etc. are just strangers that we sort of know. They are acquaintances.

As we become an emotionally weaker society. We are more apt to take things more personal, much quicker.

No, not the we in my life.

To me, being mean requires intent. With what you’re talking about you can still hurt someone’s feelings without intent, but that’s not being mean, just stupid and there’s always been plenty of that to go ‘round.

I’ve always felt everyone needs to be able to take a joke now and then, be able to laugh at themselves, and have a significantly thicker skin. I’ve met too many people who are much to easily insulted and offended. With that said, when enough’s enough the people doing the joking need realize it and have enough common sense to put a stop to it.

As to sarcasm, as someone once said, sarcasm is the witless stepchild of humor. While it can be genuinely funny, it’s also so over-used that, at times, people don’t realize you’re beings serious. Part of that, I believe, comes from people wanting to say something but they don’t want to commit to it until they know how the “crowd” will respond. Again the thin-skinned issue is at work.

Gentle teasing, about something that doesn’t embarrass a person or make him/her feel foolish, can be fun and affectionate. My husband and I often tease each other about small, harmless things that we both find amusing.

I detest teasing that “hits below the belt”, however, because it’s mean-spirited and cruel. I grew up in an abusive household, where most of what passed as “humor” was sarcastic and insulting. If I dared to speak up and say that the words were hurtful, I’d be criticised for being too sensitive and having no sense of humor (blame the victim; it works every time).

GQ! A lot of what you wrote resonates with me.

Sometimes I greet strangers too (smile, “good morning”), and I’ve had a few odd looks as well. I don’t know if it’s about scepticism so much as it is about being “cool.” I think people are used to the paradigm of coolness: acting aloof, even self-involved. No one wants to greet their neighbours because that’s “dorky.” The only strangers I even attempt to greet are older folks – sometimes they look surprised, mostly they’re reciprocatory. I admit, when the strangers are young like me (30 and less), I avoid eye-contact…I don’t want to be seen as dorky, either! (even though logically-speaking I couldn’t care less)

I think of the over-board sarcasm in the same way: people just trying to seem cool. Maybe that has something to do with the over-board teasing and bluntness, too?

I also think all of this has to do with an increasing focus on the individual. Individual rights, autonomy, hyper focus on childhood self-esteem… all these are prominent to the degree that we don’t talk enough about respect, community, responsibility, relatedness.

@ChazMaz Interesting. Care to elaborate?

I think there are many levels to this. As some people have said, people may have been more polite in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were nicer. People were pressured more to keep their feelings and opinions of other people to themselves. People had to put up a facade of “niceness” at all times. It reminds me of what someone said about how you can insult anyone in the South as long as you add “bless her heart” to the end of the statement. A lot of it is phony kindness and it’s just an issue of people keeping their true feelings about people to themselves. Honesty is the best policy. People are just taking this too far.

Then the issue becomes whether we should or shouldn’t keep these things to ourselves. I think that we should be more open about our feelings, but we don’t need to be unkind or insulting about that. That may seem like too much to ask, but I believe it is possible. Speak up when something bothers you or hurts you, but don’t necessarily reveal every small complaint that may come to your mind. It’s human nature to be annoyed by many different things, but that doesn’t mean that you need to reveal every one of these, especially if it won’t lead to an improved situation and only worsens the situation.

If people are looking at you oddly for being kind in public, then that it a sign that the “system” isn’t working. People should appreciate kindness like that; I know I do. I don’t assume it’s patronizing or condescending. The problem comes when people are caught being condescending and patronizing. That just leads to skepticism. The less condescension, the less skepticism, and the more appreciation of kindness.

I haven’t noticed that, and I have a child in high school. I think you may be observing a specific group, but making a broad generalization. Kids can be mean. I remember being on the receiving end of ridicule. I don’t think it’s more prevalent now than when I went to school in the sixties.

@nicobanks thank you, you actually reworded that, and made my point better than I did. It seems like it is “cool” now to be unfriendly, or aloof, or even mean. I genuinely do get that impression from a lot of people, particularly younger people.

Maybe it’s regional. Maybe young people in my area are more prone to this crappy attitude than elsewhere. Or I really could be imagining it… having fun reading all of the feedback, though :)

The basic fundamental of life is, Survival Of The Fittest. And, no matter how hard we try to be “politically correct.” It ends up the same difference.
That being someone gets hurt. Developing such a pacifistic and politically correct attitude, is denying us our true, honest and “hard wired” feelings. That denial coming from our blind effort to not step on toes.Toes get stepped on because they are in the way. Spend all your time watching the ground and you will end up walking into a wall. That is what is going on. Slowly and covertly.

Don’t take offense to what I am saying. Just trying to delineate the political correctness. See how it works. I am doing it as I write this. This is not banter of anger or bitterness. Look at it as free though.:-)

We fear honesty and truth to avoid others getting their feelings hurt. What is truth? I’ll tell you what it is not. It is not what you might see it as. Honesty and truth can and does hurt.
We want to smooth it out. It’s not whether you win or loose, it is how you play the game. True. The game being to win. To end up on top, and to be on top, someone will have to be on the bottom.
That person not liking the end result. What ever happened to, if you fall down you need to pick yourself up? Now it is ok to lay there. With plenty of other sad sacks giving cause and reason to lay there.
You have the choice to do what you want. We are tuning out the voice of reason that is/was telling us to do what is right. Basically, get off your ass. Life is not about life on YOUR terns. But drag us all down having to hold your hand, simply because you can.
Life is struggle, and we need to accept it and cope with it. It is not a bad thing unless you make it one. Remove the challenges in life and you remove the desire to live. Remove the desire to live and you become bitter, disruptive and mean.
Maybe it is just a part of our evolutionary process of demise. We are hugging ourselves to death. :-)

@ChazMaz I didn’t ask this question because someone hurt my feelings, just so you know. I certainly didn’t see anything offensive in your answer, in fact it was very well thought out.. and I don’t disagree at all. I’m not even sure that I think personally that we are “too mean”. I asked because I am sarcastic and crack jokes on people that I love all the time, just like anyone else. I just sometimes wonder exactly what the balance is, and if we’ll realize it if we’ve tilted the scales. Be that too mean OR too nice/PC/sugar coated.

You brought up a good question.
A drop of rain comes from a bigger source.

So basically we are just embracing a more honest style of interaction? That seems to be what I’m picking up from the majority of answers. Pretty reasonable to me.

Sometimes I think we are too mean, to the point of having no empathy. If you have empathy and can still joke then all is probably well.

I think this is behavior we see among people who think they are playing to a studio audience.

The way people speak to one another in sitcoms for the sake of a laugh is usually not a very good way to sustain a warm relationship. Moreover, most of us can’t really deliver spontaneous clever one-liners on a par with the work of a team of scriptwriters.

We’ve also forgotten the difference between honesty and brutality, and we’ve mistakenly equated tact with hypocrisy. Tact is what allows us to live together without wanting to murder each other.

Say, maybe this trend is the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: misguided humor as a path to population control.

Please give me your reactions to something that happened last weekend.

I was out-of-state and among my extended family. One of my cousins has a 17-year-old daughter who’s well-endowed and has a very womanly body. When another cousin hugged this girl goodbye, she said “I can feel your nipples!”

I was stunned. I thought that the comment was impossibly crass, and the girl was very embarrassed; her face literally turned red. In my opinion, that’s the sort of teasing that’s never funny or appropriate. What do you think?

@Primobabe That sounds like an immature observation, but not teasing. Everyone knows nipples get hard. I would brush it off as simply young people being dumb. That event is not going to go down in history…..

@Blackberry _ I would brush it off as simply young people being dumb._ I failed to mention that the second cousin, the one who made the comment, is in her mid-60’s. That’s the part that I found so disconcerting.

@Primobabe Ok..then she is just an older person who speaks her mind and may have a goofy personality. Either way…..it’s not a big deal. Anyone with a life will forget about it the next day.

Yes. Society has groomed people to be mean in many ways. In some communities, you are criticized not only for being different, but for sticking up for those who are different (gays, etc). Kids in school gain popularity by picking on the nerdy and weak kids.

@ChazMaz Hey, Chaz! I’ve read that 75%-80% of insults and offenses are unintended, and the person saying the words or doing the action is completely unaware of any wrongdoing. Sometimes, we say something thoughtless or make a comment that gets misconstrued. Or, we don’t mean to be hurtful, but we’re insensitive and touch a raw nerve. I have no idea whether there’s any science behind that percentage range but, anecdotally, it works for me.

Given all the potholes that life sends our way—opportunities to hurt or upset someone unintentionally—why deliberately take actions that might be offensive? I don’t think that this has anything to do with political correctness; it’s a matter of simple compassion.

@Primobabe ”..75%-80% of insults and offenses are unintended, and the person saying the words or doing the action is completely unaware of any wrongdoing.”

I can totally believe that. I can’t count how many times I have accidentally offended someone or have made them uncomfortable. You have to feel people out before you joke around with them, I do this now.

@Blackberry I really like you. You offer some very wise and intelligent thoughts at this website.

I’m as sarcastic as they come and I use it only when provoked by blatant stupidity.

I think it’s a good illustration of the old quote: “Full many a truth is oft told in jest.”

@PrimoBabe Thanks : )

It is all a matter of perception. Here in NYC, they say we’re mean but I say we’ve got tens of thousands more people than wherever you come from and we manage to do a million more things per day without killing each other so…sometimes a loud ‘excuse me!’ is just that, managing to live your life when everyone standing on top of you in the train is trying to live their own. there just must be a metaphor for fluther in that comment somewhere but I’m too tired to suss it out

@Primobabe That is exactly what I mean by lack of empathy. Cousin 2 obviously did not put herself in that girls shoes. If I was that girl’s parents I would have been ticked off.

@RedPowerLady It’s nice to know that someone understands why I had such a strong reaction.

Cousin 1—the girl’s mother—wasn’t nearby and, thus, didn’t hear the comment. She won’t learn about the incident unless the girl complains to her.

Cousin 2 shocked me because she’s the daughter of a brilliant physician and an elegant lady. She went to the best schools, socialized at a good country club, and is articulate and cultured—arts, music, literature, etc. In other words, she knows better. Yes, she was just trying to be funny, but I don’t understand why she said something so crude.

@Primobabe I don’t even see how it is funny to be honest. Perhaps she was feeling insecure? Is she small busted? Not that you want to look, haha.

I do hope the girl complains to her mother. Well I don’t think family drama should be stirred up but I would think Cousin 2 deserves a reprimand even if small.

I hope it doesn’t damage cousin 1’s self confidence.

@ChazMaz Thanks for your elabourating on your previous response.

But, you’ve gone and pinned Darwinism onto social organization. Most everyone (academics, professionals) roundly reject that kind of thinking nowadays, recognizing the trouble it’s gotten us into in the past, as well as how its a simplistic and illogical move anyway.

Society isn’t an imitation of nature.

Assuming “survival of the fittest” is a fundamental mechanism of evolution (which, by the way, you are assuming – these are theories we’re talking about, and many people these days are arguing that cooperation may have just as much to do with it as competition does), that doesn’t mean we should imitate it in our engagement with society, or apply it in our treatment of other people.

Savage killings abound in nature, but we’ve made that illegal in society. Society is about protection from and control over nature.

Honesty and “truth” (a pretty subjective concept, I’d say, although you speak of it like it’s objective) do sometimes hurt, but there are ways to be careful and ways to be careless with these things.

If a good friend has a body odour problem, I could:

(1) Take her aside and suggest a grooming tip or that she see a doctor, or
(2) Say “You pig, you always stink!” in front of everyone.

Don’t you understand the distinction between these two methods? That’s what this post is about. It’s not about pretending everything is easy when it’s really a struggle, or being “politically correct,” or dragging others into despair with you, or removing the challenges in our lives: it’s about exercising tact, being respectful and considerate.

I think you need to think these things through more. I mean, first you say that we have a choice in what we want, then you say people drag others down having to hold their hands. Which is it? You can’t blame someone for not taking control of their own life, yet somehow having taken control of your life. If you were dragged down by someone, that’s your fault, not theirs.

@Jeruba “We’ve forgotten the difference between honesty and brutality, and we’ve mistakenly equated tact with hypocrisy. Tact is what allows us to live together without wanting to murder each other.” Yes, exactly, GA.

@Primobabe I don’t think that’s a case of “teasing,” but rather of verbal diarrhoea, thoughtlessness, and self-centeredness. It’s obvious to any thinking person that a comment on a 17-year old girl’s nipples in a family setting would be a great embarrassment to her. This relative of yours clearly wasn’t thinking of anything but herself, which, when you’re in the midst of engaging with other people, is a great shame. Like Blackberry said, it isn’t the worst of transgressions and will be soon forgotten (probably, hopefully), but it was a painful situation that could easily have been avoided and had no positive consequence, so why not just avoid it?

“Society isn’t an imitation of nature.”
No, its an attempt to contradict it. Or we would not be having the issues we have. I think therefore I am always gets in the way.

“Savage killings abound in nature, but we’ve made that illegal in society.”
No we have made it creative. In what cave do you live in? ;-)

“Honesty and “truth” (a pretty subjective concept,”
Glad you get a different feeling when sticking your hand in fire.

“Society is about protection from and control over nature.”
We being a part of nature. Control over nature, nature is never controlled. Trying to control it? Another example of society kidding itself.

“If a good friend has a body odor problem, I could:”
Sometimes you have to choose #3 and say nothing. Because #1 or #2 could be taken wrong, them seeing it as YOU dragging them down.

“it’s about exercising tact, being respectful and considerate.”
Sounds like survival tools to me. Those and $2 will get you on the buss.

“I think you need to think these things through more.”
I do every day. And, I have to function in the real world. Apparently you are comfortable with kidding yourself.

“first you say that we have a choice in what we want, then you say people drag others down having to hold their hands.” Which is it?
Depends on the situation and sometimes both. Compassion, a real bitch sometimes. :-) . That magic society of yours. Pushing others around with powered sugar, that is your idea of compassion at work.

“If you were dragged down by someone, that’s your fault, not theirs.”
There is to “fault”. Just survival. And, easier said then done. If I push you off a bridge. Don’t blame me. ;-)

You can speculate all you want about the mechanics of a utopia society. I function on the hear and now and I see where it is taking us. I see the harmony in nature and the process at work. There is no nice or mean. We just try to label it as such. Spending most of our time trying to swim up stream.

@ChazMaz This has nothing to do with a Utopian society. Let’s forget the theories and stick to experience. You wrote: “There is no nice or mean. We just try to label it as such.” I’ll go back to my friend with the body odour. You’re saying it isn’t mean to call her a smelly pig in front of a bunch of people?

No, it is just wrong.
Not the right way to handle your smelly friend.

Action reaction.

@ChazMaz Why do you say that it’s wrong?

Good question. I guess even if you tell your friend they are smelly. Your action, causing a reaction. All that is expected from life. And really all there is.

So in all reality, the end result of your action is more of choice then right or wrong. Nothing more.

@ChazMaz Etiquette is what allows us to get on with people, which allows us to get from them the things we need from them. Unless you intend to live alone in the hills, what you’re saying is so impractical as to be nonsensical.

Sorry you feel that way. Etiquette has nothing to do with it. More like protocol.

Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny.

@ChazMaz I’m not talking about my feelings on the subject – look it up, that’s what the word “etiquette” means. Yes, it is exactly like protocol.