A Quick and Easy Guide to Displaying Your Virtue

Becoming a good person who contributes to society is difficult, as outlined in a previous post.  It requires a change in mindset, a change in attitudes and acting according to rules.  Making that change can also mean that you will face consequences from friends, family and even the authorities. There will always be a cost to being a "good person".  It's actually far easier to LOOK like someone who's virtuous without actually making the sacrifices.  So, in order to gain social brownie points, you'll need to be effective at signaling your virtue to both your digital and analog social circles.

Here are a few easy tips on how to do that.

1) Be Offended and Outraged

You have a lot of options here. You can be offended about jokes. You can be outraged at the lack of racial/gender/religious/sexual orientation/physical size/disability/dietary choice "representation" in films and TV shows. You can complain about public figures' comments, or lack thereof, on a given controversial topic that they have no expertise on.  You can complain about the insensitivity of Halloween costumes.

Of course, even if you're not part of the group that you believe is being victimized by the offensive piece of content, you shouldn't be shy to show how offended and outraged you are.  After all, if you're not part of that underprivileged group, you can still be an "ally" to that group.  You can use your "position of privilege" to help the cause.

You know, because people that are different from you have no agency at all and will always require your help.

2) Take to the Streets and Protest
Historically, protesting on the streets has been a great way to get governments to take action.  This worked in the past when trying to get a dictator to step down from power or to have specific laws changed.  It's eventually worked for people wanting political prisoners to be freed or for people wanting to get an occupying power out of their country.

Of course, there's a cost for those types of protestors. They historically have been targets of violence, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights violations.  Think about the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s, the Arab Spring protests in the early 2010s, the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, or more recently, the protests in Chile and Hong Kong as examples.

If you live in a free society and democracy in 2019, the types of causes similar to those mentioned above aren't found as easily.  Instead, you'll have to find ways to protest against problems and concepts like censorship of free speech, racism, police brutality, income inequality, sexism, anti-scientific thinking, climate change and human extinction.  It's not that these causes aren't worthy of protest. The problem is that these are complex, unspecific issues that require extremely complex solutions which can't be fixed by simply taking a walk.

For example, if you want to stop climate change caused by humans, you can try to get governments to commit to making investments in clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. To make that work, that means you need to create a mechanism to enforce their commitments.  And then those governments have to get trillion dollar industries to bend to their will.  Good luck fixing that with your march.

But hey, you did take to the streets for a cause.  You marched and blocked traffic to let people know that you're fighting against a concept or something that requires a multiple levels of complex thought to to reach a solution.  You didn't really affect change and put yourself in any danger of violent reprisals. Your protesting just made it LOOK like you did something. That should be enough. You just want to seem like you're "fighting" without actually incurring any real cost to your well-being.

3) "Think of the Children"

Saying that you're thinking of children and future generations as a reason for your position is great way to show your virtue.  This is true whether you're part of a highly religious group wanting to censor the latest blasphemous, popular film or whether you're part of an environmental activism group trying to fight climate change.

Even if you don't have kids or you don't really care about kids, you'll sound like someone who cares. All you need to do is to position your argument as being based on "protecting children" or ensuring that you are fighting to "leave a better world for the next generation".  This is a very easy way to demonstrate that you are unselfish and better than other people who can only think of theirs and their own families' current well-being.

It is true that children can be vulnerable to adults who can directly exploit them. This is not what I'm talking about.  To actually help expose and help prosecute a pedophile or a child pornography ring requires time, effort and could potentially put yourself in harm's way.  Studying and getting a job as a social worker who tries to take kids away from their abusive home is way more difficult than simply clicking "like" and "share" on a social media sob story.

It's much easier to say that you're thinking of the children when you petition school boards to censor what kind of books teachers should be teaching or when you demand that certain types of words need to be "policed" in schools.  That's an easier task that will make you seem like a good person who wants to help children.

4) Document everything on Social Media

Of course, you must make sure your efforts are visible to the world. If there are no pics (or videos), then it didn't happen.  This is where social media comes in.

Now I'll admit that in places where oppressive governments censor the press and the flow of information, social media has been useful at disseminating news of civic unrest.  The Arab Spring wouldn't have played out the way it did if it wasn't for Twitter, for example.

However, for those living in free, Western democracies, you can also use this tactic to make your actions seem more virtuous than they actually are.

Post selfies of you and your besties participating in protests to show that "you took part in this historic moment." That way, when someone else did the work of getting elected, changing laws and negotiating with multiple stakeholders to effect real-life political and social change, you can point to your Instagram pic and take credit because you skipped out on a job you don't like that day to take a walk.

Don't be shy to post on public figures' social media accounts to call them out on their non-woke behaviours and opinions. You can "call them out" if they're not living up to the arbitrary moral standards of the day.

Even if these public figures are too busy doing their jobs and have outsourced their social media to their marketing and PR teams, it's ok. You'll get more views on your posts by tagging these people than just posting something yourself. And that means more people can potentially see how morally superior you are.

Final Thoughts
It's very difficult to actually be a good person.  In fact, it's almost impossible if you consider all the unintended consequences of your choices and actions.  Creating real social change is incredibly difficult. It's much easier to make people THINK that you are virtuous.  It's easier to adopt a strong opinion on a subject and determine that one side is perfectly good and the other is evidently evil without examining the nuances.

Whether it's allying yourself with an "oppressed" group or using future generations as the "beneficiaries" of your actions, the idea is to make sure that the most amount of people see that you're being morally superior.  With that, you can reap the benefits of being a good person without having to face the difficult consequences of choosing morally acceptable behaviour.

The (Potential) Benefits of Getting Bullied

For a brief time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I got bullied. On a daily basis, a much larger kid, along with a couple of his buddies, threatened to beat me up if I didn't give him money.  Being a kid from a recently immigrated, not-very-well-off family, I didn't actually have any money to give him.  The experience induced a lot of anxiety whenever I had to go to school and I eventually told my parents.

Even before I got bullied, my parents somewhat prepared me and told me to expect to meet a-holes in the world who will eventually bully me.  It wasn't to scare me.  It was to prepare me so that I'm not surprised when it happens. They told me that when it happens, to stand my ground and not let any bullies push me around. I should try to talk the bully out of doing what he's doing, and if absolutely necessary, not be afraid to throw hands and fight back.

My parents never intervened. They never called my school or the bully's parents.  Eventually, after weeks of not acquiescing to my bully's threats and just standing up to him by saying no, the bullying stopped.  We thankfully never came to blows.  I think I eventually gained his respect because he saw I wasn't backing down from him. We never really became good friends, but everything was smooth sailing and he and his friends eventually left me alone.

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Today, with the best of intentions, schools have anti-bullying programs.  Kids are encouraged to immediately report bullying behaviour (be it physical, verbal or online) to a teacher or an adult.  Some schools have zero tolerance policies on bullying and fighting.  While the spirit behind these rules are commendable, there are some weird arguments that can be made to say that in certain situations, bullying can have some positive effects on kids.

Bullying experiences acts as fuel for success
How many stories of accomplished people in all walks of life have started by being subjected to bullying?

At some point, a lot of great art has been produced in reaction to people being oppressed, being bullied and being put in adverse situations.  Many comedians will tell you that one of the reasons they learned to make people laugh was because they didn't want to get picked on.  Many authors have taken the pain they felt from bullying and put that into creating great works of literature.  The field of acting is filled with people who are constantly seeking validation from other people, especially from "the cool kids" who excluded them when they were younger.

Look into the biographies of some of the wealthiest and most successful professional athletes (especially professional fighters).  You'll see that part of the reason they started their sport was because they were bullied.

Former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre has openly shared that being bullied at school is what started him in martial arts.

Bullying can teach kids conflict resolution skills
With zero-tolerance bullying policies, kids are told to immediately report any bullying to teachers and their parents.  On the surface, this sounds good.  Eventually, if things get bad, you will want an adult to intervene and stop the bullying behaviour.

Here's my problem with it.  If kids who are getting bullied decide to immediately go to an adult as directed, they won't necessarily learn how to resolve the conflict with bullies on their own.  Instead, they will learn that the first thing they need to do when there's a conflict is to look for an authority figure to defend them.

So what happens when these kids grow up to be adults?  What if they have an "intimidating" neighbour who's playing music too loudly at night?  Will they be more likely to call the landlord or the cops immediately to complain?  Or will they talk to the neighbour first and nicely ask to turn the music down?

What if it's just a co-worker being a bit rude or inappropriate in the office?  An adult who as a kid learned to go to an authority figure will immediately go to their boss or to HR instead of figuring out a way to confront the office bully in a way that will help make the bullying stop while trying to keep the working relationship healthy.

Bullying can help kids learn social skills
One factor (though not the only one) that causes kids to get bullied seems to be the fact that they're not as socially adept as their peers.  I'd hate to sound like a "victim-blamer", but most of the time, the kids that get bullied are the ones who haven't yet developed the social skills needed to make friends, making them easy targets for bullies.

This is where parental preparation can be helpful. Teaching kids to be friendly, interested, curious and unafraid of rejection will help them talk to other kids. That will help them start conversations, find common ground and make friends more easily. Building social skills early will prevent a kid from getting bullied.

On a large scale, a lot of the school programs have learned this is the case and have been slowly implementing social skill building workshops for kids.  The great thing about this is that it won't just prevent bullying but will also develop adults with better social skills in the future.

Final Thoughts

Now, I'm not an advocate of bullying.  It's a terrible experience that I wouldn't like any kid to feel.  In fact, the online bullying of today makes it so much more of a difficult experience because it's no longer confined to a specific time and place. It can now happen to anyone 24x7 with technology and social media. In many cases, extreme bullying has sadly led to suicides. In that sense bullying is toxic.

However, like with any poison, it's all in the dosage.  Bullying can provide the benefits mentioned above, but it has to be the right amount and the right intensity.  My thought is that it should be like weight training.  If you start with bullying that's too much for the kid to handle, they will simply be crushed by the psychological and physical trauma. This is where online bullying can be a problem because the bullying doesn't end when the kid leaves the school.

With just the right amount, paired with proper parental preparation and management of expectations, bullying can help a kid strengthen their minds, learn to deal with conflicts, with people in general, and maybe even motivate them to succeed in the future.  The difficult part is finding the right balance that will build someone up instead of destroying them.

Violence Might Be a "Good Answer"

Our modern, relatively peaceful society will always teach that when it comes to resolving conflicts, "Violence isn't the answer."  I would respectfully argue that this adage is B.S.

I'm not advocating that we should go around starting fights and walking around being bullies.

What I'm advocating is that everyone at some point in their lives should be put in a controlled setting that simulates, in the most accurate way possible, a real-life, violent situation. In order to create a society made up of individuals who are unwilling to resort to violence, everyone in that society should know what it feels like to be in a violent situation.  And they should know that from a young age.

This comes down to a very strange observation that we notice when you look at high-level martial artists and professional fighters.  If you ever meet such people, you'll notice that these people are usually mellow, calm and very unlikely to get into heated arguments that lead to physical confrontations outside of competition or training.

The other side of the coin is that most of the people who encourage violence are the ones who have no concept of violence and its consequences. That is, people who have never even trained in any type of martial art, combat sport, or even military service.

Why is that?

One "tongue-in-cheek" hypothesis is that martial artists and combat athletes have trained so hard that they're too tired to get into useless fights. Another is that because they've reached such a high level of skill in fighting that they have gained confidence in what they can do, thus reducing any insecurities that would generally goad the average person into a physical altercation.

My hypothesis:
People who are trained in fighting and martial arts, people who have knowledge of the damage the techniques they practice can cause, know that the consequences of a fight can be dire. Once you get into a physical altercation, anyone of the parties involved are risking loss of consciousness, broken bones requiring surgery and months of rehab, permanent neurological damage, permanent physical paralysis, and of course death.  Of course, getting in street fights can also have life-changing legal consequences.

When someone is properly trained and are taught these consequences, they are more likely to avoid violent situations, unless their and their loved-ones safety are threatened.

This kind of exposure also prevents verbal abuse and bullying at a young age.  Learning that being verbally abusive can quickly escalate into physical aggression and its consequences is a great deterrent for this kind of behaviour.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but exposing your kids to controlled, violent situations and clearly explaining the potential consequences will lead them to avoid violence.  Teaching kids martial arts is probably the best way to do this.  It would stop bullying, it would stop disrespectful behaviour, it will develop physical and mental resilience, instill discipline and hopefully prevent future violent crime.

Who Really Should be Checking Their Privilege?

There's been a lot of talk in North America, the EU and much of Western society about privilege.  How the privileged have too long been in positions of power.  There's talk that people with privilege should stop talking and let the less privileged have their time.

Fair enough.

But who exactly has "privilege" when taking the entire world in context?  Let's look at a few examples:

If you live in a place where you can poop and pee in a shiny bowl indoors and you won't have to worry about it coming back up or running through the streets and causing massive cholera outbreaks, then you're privileged.

If you have a temperature-controlled waterfall (a.k.a. shower) inside your home that you can use on a daily basis to clean yourself with, then you're privileged.

If you can pull out a small electronic device in your pocket and push some buttons to access the entirety of human knowledge in seconds, then you're privileged.

If you can get all the food you want brought to your home without having to set foot outside and interact with a human being, then you're privileged.

If you're able to read this blog on any device that would have been considered "magical" by people from 100 years ago, then you're privileged.

If you live in a society where the illnesses that kill you are mainly due to an over-abundance of high-calorie foods, then you're privileged.

If you live in a society where you can proselytize that YOUR dietary choices are morally better than others', then you're privileged.

If you live in a country where you can protest and criticize your government in any non-violent way without fearing reprisals against you, your friends and your family, then you're privileged.

If you live in a country where you can openly express your membership in the LGBTQ+ community without having to worry about being killed and thrown off a roof, then you're privileged.

If you can be a student in an institute of higher learning and can loudly complain about the cultural insensitivity of Halloween costumes worn by your fellow students, then you're privileged.

If you can be a teacher in an institution of higher learning and can present your pseudo-scientific ideologies as legitimate academic research, then you're privileged.

If your definitions of "violence" and "victimization" include terms like micro-aggression and misgendering pronouns, then you're privileged.

If you can buy and get a Che Guevara t-shirt delivered to you from Amazon to show how much you care about social injustice and income inequality, then you're privileged.

If you have a job that pays you at least $34 000 US dollars per year, then you are part of the privileged 1%.

Of course, where we live isn't perfect even if you have most of the things mentioned above.  However, the next time you start complaining about how you want to stop the oppression caused by the privileged in society, take a few seconds to think about who the "privileged oppressors" really are.

If Your Boss is an A**hole, Then We're All to Blame (Indirectly)

The same can also be said about your a**hole co-workers

It's almost stereotypical.  Some of you have even seen it in person: the executive or even a middle manager of an organization losing their temper.  There have been CEOs yelling, bullying, berating and being overall jerks to their employees.

A former, now deceased, CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world (company name rhymes with "grapple") was notoriously aggressive at publicly berating employees who didn't "live up to his standards of quality".

You've also got managers who expect you to be constantly connected on weekends and holidays. They end up shaming you if front of your peers if you decide that you'd rather spend time with your family instead of answering the email they sent at 11:45pm.

Another famous CEO who runs the largest online store in the world (no, it's not Amazon) is making it a requirement for his employees to work from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Anything less will get you shamed and fired, despite how well you perform while working less hours.

Yes, it's abusive behaviour.  Yes it creates a hostile work environment and a bullying company culture. It causes stress and burn out.

Guess what: we are all to blame for these terrible work environments. Here's why.

Admiration for "Getting Sh*t Done"

One of the problems is that humans as a society seem to have evolved to want to follow the alpha monkey as our leader. 

We end up admiring the conqueror (unless you're the one being conquered), the assertive/aggressive boss who won't let "useless processes" become roadblocks to their goals.  We like the person who isn't necessarily worried about hurting feelings or being a bully to "get the job done".  We see their seemingly demanding traits and interpret that as a leader having a high standard that we should all strive for.  

At the same time, we are captivated by a confident, charismatic public speaker who will be falsely self-deprecating to make themselves seem relatable and authentic. They make mild jokes in an attempt to get their employees to see how likeable they are when they're not being bullies.

To us, these characteristics are signs of the strong leader.   Incidentally, these are also some of the main characteristics found in clinical narcissists and sociopaths.  In any case, these are the kinds of traits that we like to see in our leaders.  

Because we, as a collective society and culture like those traits, people like that end up getting hired in those positions of power in the companies we work for.

The"Hustle Culture" Fetish

 
If you spend enough time following "entrepreneur", "motivational" and "influencer" accounts on social media, you'll see that a lot of them are posting about hustling and "rising and grinding".  It's not unusual to see these highly successful people showing videos and pictures of themselves getting up at 4:30am so that they can start lifting heavy kettlebells and running hill sprints.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with having goals and working hard to reach them.  I'm all for people wanting to work as hard as they want, as many hours as they need to feel great about themselves and to make their business successful.

The problem is that the constant stream of these social media posts has led to the creation of "hustle porn".  Hard work has become so fetishistic on social media that we as a society have come to admire the business leaders who get up early, work so hard late into the night on a daily basis to the point of burn out while wearing stress as a badge of honor.

The narcissist/sociopath business leader then sees this as an example to emulate, you know, because the Instagram post is getting so many likes.  And of course, if they're doing that, then they expect all of their employees to be "hustlers" as well.  It becomes inexcusable for employees to be unreachable on evenings and weekends because they want to spend time with their kids. In their minds, there's no excuse for being sick in bed not working because you can have a laptop or a smartphone with you on your bedside table.
Doing less is just being a lazy employee.

Overly Coddling Customers

In the end, all of these bullying behaviors stem from every businesses' fear of losing clients to the competition. As consumers, we've been spoiled to want every thing yesterday. If the toilet paper ordered online doesn't come within 24 hours, negative reviews get written and complaints are sent to customer service.

We as a society are all customers with these "immediate gratification" expectations at the lowest possible price from the businesses we patronize. Is it really a wonder that businesses then need to transfer that kind of pressure on business managers who in turn put pressure on their employees to deliver?  

In short, our attitudes as demanding, spoiled consumers who won't do anything inconvenient are partially to blame for our abusive bosses.  Instead of immediately writing a bad review or complaining to a manager because you received your double-shot grande caramel macchiato with soy milk 37 seconds longer than you expected, we need to take a step back and have a bit of perspective on how easy it is for us now to get whatever product product we want in the first place.