Naturally S was outraged that the sellers wouldn't accept our offer. I pointed out that it wasn't necessarily grossly nefarious of them to attempt to make more money on selling their house. Even going so far as to suggest that we might do the same if the tables were turned. I'm not sure where this phrase originated. This application of negative intentions to people we don't know is pretty much characteristically human.
Example:
Guy cuts me off while I'm driving.
M: (Honk horn) Did you see what that idiot just did?
S: Calm down.
M: I'd like to calm down but that bleep is trying to get us both killed.
S: I don't see how you getting upset is helping.
M: Are you taking his side? Because that jerk just tried...and so on.
Example 2:
I cut off someone because I suddenly realize that I'm in the wrong land and need to get over. Car behind me honks.
M: Calm down buddy. I needed to get over. Can you believe this guy? Not letting me get over when I needed to get on the freeway. What a bleep.
I think a good portion of our educational costs should be spent on developing some sort of ethic that teaches us to not immediately attribute ill-intentions to the rest of humanity while letting ourselves off scot free.
Interpolation:
Sceot is the Old English for "a tax." Scot and lot was a medieval muncipal tax levied on residents. Someone who managed to avoid paying this medieval tax got off "scot free."
Anyhow, I'm thinking that if these people had thought to remove the toilet from the backyard, not turned the basement into a breeding ground for pure evil and buffed the floors then they might deserve multiple offers. As it stands, they don't. Times like these make me want to move back home to CA where all the houses are cheap and the jobs are plentiful and high-paying.
Here's a New Yorker cartoon that doesn't make sense and a quote that does:
-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't
work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically
fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all
know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards
or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
you're touching on a tendency called the "fundamental attribution error" wherein you judge a person's whole being based on their actions, rather than actual character. i.e.: the person's a total douche for cutting you off, but when you get into it, he or she could be having an emergency or not know where they're going or it could be an honest mistake...or they could be a douche.
ReplyDeleteProbably a douche. Good point.
ReplyDelete