How revolting

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People around me look down on you if you don't cheat them, lie to them, sugarcoat to them, whitelie to them, manipulate them, try to domineer them. Why? Because if you don't do it to them, then you don't do it to others either, which means you'll never get far in life. To them, if you're kind and honest to them, you're a loser, and therefore OUT.

Last edited by Greentea on 08 Dec 2008, 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think the important thing to preface this statement is with, "It has been my experience that..."
I couldn't find one kernel of truth in this statement that would apply to me so therefore, it must just be you, Greentea.

I haven't personally experienced this attitude directed at me, but I have observed it portrayed on tv and in articles.

But I definately don't think it applies to everyone... hopefully not even 'most'.

I've found that being nice is an invitation to abuse. It seems that bullies expect nice people to be too nice to retaliate to bullying, yet when the nice people do retaliate, the bullies are quick to act as if they are the real victims.

I've also found that having a prickly personality tends to keep bullies at a distance, unless they're actually looking for a fight. Then, I get right in their face.

Needless to say, I don't work in the HR or PR departments.

LOL. My brother in law is a senior network executive for broadcast TV. He was on a fly fishing trip with my husband and I once, and told us he was a straight shooter and generally followed the rules even though people were always trying to bend this or that rule to get their objectives met. He said that the people in his organization seemed to be annoyed with that, because they didn't brown nose him and butter him up as much as they did the other senior executives. I told him, "Maybe they're just not brown nosing and buttering you up because they know in advance what your decisions will be, so there is no point in there being some kind of power faction around you. People grow a power base when they know that they'll get something out of it." He just looked thoughtful at that, and said Maybe.

I think that compulsive, pathological honesty (like the kind I have) not only gets you labeled a loser (in some people's eyes) but as you rise up high enough to get power, you become invisible in the organization if everything you do and say isn't predictably within the rules. Lobbyists don't give millions of dollars who congressmen and senators who are going to vote a certain way no matter what they get. One way to rise up in executive ranks is to be just corruptible enough to make life easier or better for those who give you things or give you more power. Classic Machiavelli stuff.

Of course pathologically honest people are losers in that world.

What kinds of niches can pathologically honest people find in the world? Specialist? Be the tool of some power broker in the environment?

I've said, in another thread, that the biggest things I need to learn are how to lie and cheat. Unless you can, the white collar professional world is pretty tough to crack.

It must be the company you keep because in my little world, if you lie/cheat/steal, you don't get the good breaks. Instead you get shut out, left behind, or worse.

Your profile says you're in the ME. Does that still apply? If you are in a Muslim dominated culture, honor is measured by a different yard stick.

Yes, a lot of people are revolting in this way.

Exactly.

That's only if you lie and cheat badly. In the white collar world, there are few clear lines between the truth and deception. The whole Wall Street financial crisis is all legal and above board, even if the products being sold were deceptively marketed, unrealistically valued, unsoundly constructed and the whole structure of collateralized structure debt vehicles was based on an illusory principle that mortgage values would rise indefinitely.

There's a big difference between blue collar and white collar ethics.

I've seen both sides of it, Greentea. My family is honest to the point of drawing blood, so to speak. My husband's family believes that if you don't mention something, it never happened (at least, that's how they act). If you mention the things they don't want to address, they show no sign of having heard you. They tolerate each others' irritating qualities by pretending that they don't exist. And appearances only matter to a point... They even clean only the visible surfaces in their home, but they don't care enough to clean what might be seen by family staying there for a day or so. So for our first Christmas married, then sent a big box of Christmas presents that contained, all wrapped up, dollar store fish calendars and grocery store microwave popcorn and strings of Christmas lights instead of just sending a card like we asked them to... because the big box of wrapped objects makes a better show even though they just grabbed cheap items and wrapped them. I mean, they could have sent all that stuff but they had to wrap it for appearances. We actually needed the Christmas lights but we didn't unwrap them until Christmas, so they never got used. Not the point, I know.

They are very dysfunctional but like to keep up the facade of a loving family and manipulate you with guilt to help them look good. Fortunately, they live far away and haven't tried much with us lately, but yes, I know that there are people who value the coating above the substance and treat you like crap if you fail to give them what they consider your duty. Truth has no merit to them.

ephemerella, what you say is very true too, both behaviors go usually together. It's the big world of the clever winners, and those who are kind and honest are losers at the game. They're busy playing a game, and if you're not playing then move aside.

I personally do not experience this, lately, since I've been so out-of-touch with humanity in general.

But my friend (NT with aspie traits) has been complaining about this a lot. She's a stay-at-home mom, like me, but her kids go to a different school. Unlike me, she isn't invisible to her peers, and so people actually talk to her. Apparently, among the parents at this school, there is so much competition and one-ups-manship that it's very unpleasant. People encourage lying and cheating among their kids, and they do it themselves. My friend feels a certain amount of resentment that this is the case, because her own kids do not cheat and lie (and are truly good, worthy, intelligent kids), and they consistantly lose out on opportunities.


I, and my kids, are so completely tuned out to other people, that I wouldn't know. But I've met some of the people my friend is talking about, and sure enough, they are people who have become "successful" in the world (ie, lots of material possessions and connections) by being unscrupulous.

I'll take honesty and decency any day, even if it does mean living in a house that is a third the size of theirs and not being able to go to Hawaii every year.

Elderwanda, that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. The atmosphere of that schood, which you described so well, is what surrounds me. The ultimate value is being good at cheating your way to material possessions and connections. Because material possessions earn you good connections, which in turn earn you more material possessions, which in turn earn you even better connections, which in turn make you richer, and being richer you have better connections, and so on and on and on. If I'm with a new friend, someone influential comes close to us and I don't suck up to them, my new friend wants nothing to do with me anymore because I'll never amount to much, what with my being so silly not to grab the opportunities to make those bloody important connections.

It is said, and I believe it is true: That you cannot change people or events- but you can change the way you percieve and deal with them.

Someone I connected with at work was downsized today. No coincidence. Both the fact that I connected with her (I never connect with anyone at work) and the fact that she was downsized come from the same reason: she's not one of the players of the money-connections-manipulation game.

Is this something like Monopoly? Does Target carry it?