you can choose your people and your environment but people never stop being cruel.

i actually think that most people are forced to age out of juvenile bullying but not out of unkindness so they move on to more serious antisocial expressions that are viewed as ”acceptable” such as right-wing politics.

sure, nobody will exclude me for my appearance anymore, but they surely will because of my race or religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

funnily enough my class became super divided in the last election and it was mostly mean people who voted right wing and nice kids or the minorities who voted left wing.

i wish people were more sincere and honest.

also, i wish people would take responsibility for their issues after a certain age.

bullying kids because you get abused at home is unfortunate but understandable. being a grown woman in your 30s and being ”afraid” of trans women because of your experiences and supporting their oppression is NOT understandable.

i got bullied by muslim kids and i dont use that as an excuse to be anti-Palestine.

so no, being racist towards black people or any race for that matter because you got bullied by a member of their group is NOT acceptable.

i think that people operate on such a childish level but in adult bodies.

  • big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    2 hours ago

    people never stop being cruel

    “cruel” activities are usually something forged by lack of consciousness, ignorance, or a very rooted tradition, someone has to teach them that something is “cruel” to at least make an effort to stop it

    most people are forced to age out of juvenile bullying but not out of unkindness

    i don’t know what kind of environment are you living, but this is not accurate

    funnily enough my class…

    well…you’re probably still young if a school memory feels still so relevant

    being a grown woman in your 30s and being ”afraid” of trans women because of your experiences and supporting their oppression is NOT understandable

    it is if you’re raised in a very psychotic religious home. there’s terfs created by looney religious parents, and there’s terfs like jk rowling, who probably became like that after getting filthy rich but needing someone to hate rather than capitalist class. a poor rowling would be more leftist and accepting by working and living among trans people, but no the rich rowling who can afford a mansion and being isolated of certain types of interactions

  • ArcticFoxSmiles@lemmygrad.ml
    4·
    1 day ago

    The most interest thing I ever heard from a therapist, I used to know was that she said that she dealt with kids who were bullies and whose parents were even fact people who used to be bullied. Instead of being horrified, were in fact proud of their child. The parents believed that the child being bullies made them strength because they unlike the parents were not being picked on and instead dealing it out.

  • bluestem@lemmygrad.ml
    20·
    2 days ago

    I’ve found that many people stop emotionally maturing at about 18-25 years old. I’d like to believe that there’s some way to break these people out of this “rut” - possibly through class consciousness or some other thing that might open them up to more introspective thought patterns.

    I was admittedly racist and Islamophobic and a bit of a bully as a teenager until I was about 19 or 20, having grown up in a very very rural American town where that was basically the norm. I found my way to where I am now via years of introspection, exposure to more diversity, and opening my mind to trying to understand things like class and anti-imperialism (probably initially by good faith exposure to Israeli apartheid and the Palestinian genocide). I’m definitely not a “finished product” by any means, but I’m a much better person than I was back then (over a decade ago now). This leads me to hold out some sliver of hope that there is some way to move the needle with the people who are like I was when I was younger.

    At least for people with my background, I do think there are a surprising number of them that would be open to left wing beliefs if you could somehow break through the endless layers of right wing propaganda. If you talk to enough of them, they will occasionally say something that sounds like they’re essentially paraphrasing Das Kapital, but somehow they come to the conclusion that the solution is hating immigrants and lowering taxes for the rich.

    • catonion@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      2·
      5 hours ago

      the brain’s neuroplasticity doesn’t stop developing until your early 30s. but even if someone lacks empathy, they can be taught to understand it. it’s all settler-colonial capitalism unfortunately.

  • Azzu@leminal.space
    12·
    2 days ago

    It requires a lot of self-awareness and lack of ego to actually get rid of these shitty behaviors. I myself was pretty shitty when I was in my 20s simply because I didn’t know better and humans do have pretty shitty behaviors by default. It requires so much work to get rid of if you’re not initially being brought up that way and have lots of trauma.

    I feel you. Today, I go around and see people saying and even believing they are doing good and at the same time doing the shitty things you talk about. They are either not being aware of it or actively ignoring it because it’s too painful for them to admit. And it’s so hard for me because you just never know how someone is until they actually reveal their problematic behaviors. Sometimes it’s fast, like someone admitting to supporting right-wing politics, but more often it’s very circumstantial and you go along thinking someone is good until they’re in that specific kind of situation where they reveal their shitty side.

    That’s why personally, I select for awareness. I look for signs that they think about how they think and that they are able to admit they were shitty at some point, but trying to do better. And even that fails sometimes, because there are still people that do these things just to virtue signal without any desire to actually do better.

    It’s fucking exhausting. But like you say, you can choose your people and your environment. There are actually good people out there. They’re just soooo hard to find. I have found like 6 right now. And I venture outside of this only veeeeeery rarely. That works for me.

    • Maeve @lemmygrad.ml
      5·
      1 day ago

      I myself was pretty shitty when I was in my 20s simply because I didn’t know better and humans do have pretty shitty behaviors by default.

      I think it’s mostly by nurture, since humans have the capacity to rise above animal instinct.

      • Azzu@leminal.space
        6·
        1 day ago

        since humans have the capacity to rise above animal instinct

        Exactly, that’s what I’m saying. The animal instinct comes first, we have to rise above it. The base instinct is to, for example, get extremely angry and smash some faces. You don’t need to learn that; babies get angry and try to smash things.

        It requires a lot of control to when you are angry, not to try to destroy the object of your anger if it is right in front of you. That control has to be learned.

        • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
          6·
          1 day ago

          I’m pretty sure the actual predisposition is toward communal behavior, if there is any. Not smashing things.

          Here’s a quick example I could find: https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/02/04/altruistic-babies-study-shows-infants-are-willing-to-give-up-food-help-others/

          Granted it’s only one limited study, but it leans in the direction of kids showing early interest in helping out.

          But it may look like the opposite in a capitalist society if you only glance at how young-ish kids tend to behave in day to day situations because kids will grow up exposed to varying degrees of a selfish culture and some of them will internalize that and mimic it. Keep in mind that capitalism benefits from promoting a narrative that people are inherently selfish, since it validates the idea that the worst exploiters are simply acting “normal” and that it takes a kind of conscious valorous overcoming via willpower to not fall prey to that. In reality, there are examples of capitalism actively punishing people for trying to be helpful, such as with policing related to giving food to homeless people.

          • Azzu@leminal.space
            5·
            1 day ago

            Both behaviors are innate. They are not at all exclusive to each other, just different expressions for different situations.

            That’s kinda what you said, but with the words “the actual deposition” you imply that we would never be angry and smash things unless we are taught it, which is not true. Anger and smashing things does not need to be taught and is a natural reaction, same as kindness and sharing things is a natural reaction.

            • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
              5·
              9 hours ago

              I was basing my response off of you saying things like:

              humans do have pretty shitty behaviors by default

              The animal instinct comes first, we have to rise above it. The base instinct is to, for example, get extremely angry and smash some faces. You don’t need to learn that; babies get angry and try to smash things.

              It requires a lot of control to when you are angry, not to try to destroy the object of your anger if it is right in front of you. That control has to be learned.

              I did not originally see this said in the presence of also saying humans have pro-social instincts. On its own, it implies that the default state is being a wild animal who can’t control themself and that this has to be unlearned (though honestly, even trying to compare to wild animals in that way is kinda screwy - some wild animals are themselves pretty communal in how they work together among themselves and are more defensive than offensive).

              What I’m saying to counter that implication is that studies would appear to show the opposite of the hulk smash tendency, that even at a very young age, kids can already show signs of instincts toward communal, pro-social behaviors. This does not mean we are pure angels who can do no wrong. It’s just countering the narrative that we are putrid creatures of the mud who can’t see straight unless sapience is shoved down our throat. It really doesn’t require that much control to not attack someone when you are angry and it says more about socializing and culture than it does about humanity inherently, to believe otherwise. The reason young kids can be more volatile is because their emotions are new and explosive, and they haven’t learned to regulate them yet, partly because they’re in a very dependent state and have a hard time communicating their needs and desires. That doesn’t mean humans are inherently explosive and have to unlearn it. It’s a stage of development that has material factors linked to the manifestation.

              It’s really important that we investigate and take into account the influence of those material factors in how people behave and not fall prey to a universalized biological lens that is too far in any direction. Cultures and behavior are far more varied than one society. The reason a place like israel can be so horribly violent, but Palestinians aren’t, isn’t because israeli people are “corrupted” or something. It’s because israel as a project is founded on invasion and occupation, and its very idea is drenched in the blood of mass murder in order to take what it believes is rightfully its by killing and displacing who was already there. In order for israel to legitimize and stabilize itself, it also has to create instability in the form of ongoing genocide, which undermines its goals of legitimacy and stability.

              These kind of large scale contradictions are far more important as factors for understanding human behavior.

          • Azzu@leminal.space
            3·
            1 day ago

            I’m almost useless in understanding poetry and it’s insinuations/metaphors. I guess this song is about racism and that racism=bad but other than that, no idea. If you want to tell me something, tell me in a literal/direct way please, otherwise I might not understand :)

          • Maeve @lemmygrad.ml
            1·
            21 hours ago

            It is about racism, moreover when black USian children were granted the right to attend the same schools as white children. The Pete Seeger version makes it more clear.

            That control has to be learned.

            I just extrapolated the line I quoted to apply to nurture in general. One naked ape discovers a useful skill and teaches others, either by directly teaching or by other naked apes observing and repeating. Of course negative behaviors are also learned the same way. It’s up to us to choose the behaviors.