You Are Not The Problem

I've been witnessing lots of people play the "if you have a problem with the majority of the people you interact with, you're automatically the problem". This is a horrible, gut-wrenchingly simplistic, world view. It's an Ad populum, in other words it is a fallacious reasoning which automatically assumes that because it's the opinion of the majority, then it must be correct. If you've lived long enough and have seen enough you'd understand that there are plenty of fucked up cultures out there. Plenty of fucked up religions, communities, and creeds. Many Sodom and Gomorrahs around the world, who may be inhabited by a few.righteous people. To play the popularity card is to remove all necessity, all responsibility, to be rational and analytical. To be sane.

 

This would have made a good start to a blog...

 

I probably am the problem.

 

talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill.....

The point that was/is being made by those comments is that very often people who ALWAYS have issues with others are the source of those issues.
Whenever you hear of someone having issues with myriad types of people and personalities, you do have to wonder what the common denominator is.

this transcends all cultural, societal and religious boundaries

 

True, but this is often applied to people who rather than being difficult and obstinate all the time, are just kind of strange or an outcast. People who are then made to feel that they need to change who they are just to fit in. I definitely get where op is coming from.

 

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

Donald Hoffman is a game theorist who spent ten years studying all the neurological evidence and running one computer simulation after another before finally concluding that if the human mind and brain had ever resembled anything remotely like reality we would have long ago become extinct as a species. In other words, he proved that even his own conclusion is just so much useful but, otherwise, meaningless bullshit along the lines of quantum mechanics. We are the belief makers, we give it all meaning, and the issue is never how irrational we might be, but what is the more useful and appealing way forward. Debating what is sane and insane, moral or immoral, is merely how cultures demonstrably justify using whatever rationales they prefer. Countries such as the US were founded upon thousands of years of men with long beards walking in circles and mumbling about what freedom means, only to immediately enslave some ten million blacks and require another century before women were even allowed to inherit anything and vote.

 

I agree with the overall premise of the OP but i do think most of the time those who dont play nice with others are actually the problem.

I am making a very clear distinction between people who dont fit in with society and people who just dont get along with anyone, of course. You can be a misfit and not be an asshole.

 

Obviously it's applicable *some* of the time, I'm not referring to those cases. What I'm seeing is an overuse of the phrase being employed by certain people/advice outlets in such a fashion that I question if they even understand it themselves. Being used more in a spirit of vilifying and stomping out individuality and free thought and promoting conformity.

 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

 

Sharp post, and much better than the "Its not you, it's me." offering I was going to put up.

 

Oh btw, those societies where the mumbled about freedom had fields slaves as well. Also women legally were limted there too. We were truly free of slaves until relatively recent.

 

Its related to the book I'm writing which is a metaphorical theory of everything and nothing. Websites like this one help to inspire me.

 

This idea is fairly subjective, really. Depends on who is involved in your life. Spouse, their friends and family, your friends and family, etc. and what type of people they are.
If they have an agenda that doesn't match yours. How much influence they have/ want to exert. But depending on the circumstances, maybe we are the problem.

 

Mostly what I'm highlighting is the misuse of this axiom which I am witnessing being misapplied with alarming increasing frequency. In a culture plagued by intellectual decadence, where ignorance abounds more and more, we have individuals who, consciously or not, demand everyone sink into the abyss - single file. There are individuals who genuinely do not know the difference.

 

Most true individualists that I know don't seem to piss people off or have a problem with most--they just quietly do their own thing.

I think the particular axiom you mentioned in the OP is largely true. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "have a problem" with others. Do you mean that they cause conflict or inspire intense distaste from folks? Personally have feelings of dislike towards people, but don't necessarily express them?

Honestly, if you can't at least interact with most people and display basic kindness and politeness, then you probably are the problem.

 

I don't have an issue with it as long as the "probably" is properly recognized, however listening to the tone often utilized with this axiom, that part seems to be hardly emphasized, being employed mostly in such a dismissive and diminutive sense, that it might as well have excluded altogether.

 

I totally get what Yggdrazil is saying here. I've seen this principle at work most of my life, in many situations. There are many different kinds of personalities, a couple of
which, seem to be intentionally troublesome to others. I'm guessing this is to support their own issues, and inflict their inner pain onto others.

This usually occurs when someone has been treated badly in the past and didn't have the ability to step up and take responsibility in their own lives. Then when given the freedom or
power to be intentionally crappy towards someone and get away with it, it becomes their first rate of action, or defense, if you will.

This phenomena can occur with all types of people. There is no certain foreseeable stereotype. It is basically a choice. All people who face this issue don't become this way, only
the ones who take the shortcut to everything in life.

 

Nobody needs to tell me I'm the problem. I'm a young outrageous loud spoken woman! If anyone is the problem, it's me!!