People and Relationships

Kurt: You know, recently, I have begun to convince myself that I have an ever decreasing opinion of human beings in general.

Claire: Now there is an opening statement...

Kurt: I know, I have been aligning my thoughts for quite some time now, and choosing my diction accordingly. Anyway, I seem to find myself growing ever more despondent at the state of people, and their interactions with one another. In other words, Hobbes really did get it right when he said the natural state of humanity is "nasty, brutish and short."

Ethan: Alright, I'll bite. Why do you say that?

Kurt: Well, it seems to me that consideration for one another is a short commodity in our everyday lives. The centric attitude to ourselves is overwhelming, with its fundamental tenent being either selfishness, or a blind ignorance to others. And before you say it, I know that some of you will point to all those altruistic people out there who work the communities, and generally dedicate their lives to others. They are a vast minority, when compared to the ordinary average person. Consider the way that people treat one another, blithely trampling on another's feelings, with remarkably little thought. So often, I see "so-called friends" treating one another with the barest consideration to another, and in fact with a rather appalling lack of thought. And don't get me started on family. Personally, I just see the whole construct as an excuse to treat one another badly.

Claire: So what particularly tragedy occurred in your life to prompt this? Another girlfriend leave you?

Lester: Someone withholding conjugal privileges?

Ethan: Well, I sort of agree, actually. I often wondered what it is that causes people to seemingly be so oblivious towards one another. It is almost as if there is no pathos, a failing to be able to convert one's own feelings into a comparative experience for another.

Stuart: A product of the capitalist society to which we have all become accustomed?

Ethan: Well, possibly. But I sort of wonder whether it isn't perhaps an inevitable result of loneliness. Consider the idea that as people become more lonely, they become entrapped in a spiral which is marked by an increased suspicion of others. This leads to people finding it harder to make friends, and hence become increasingly lonely in a perpetual cycle. Now, to further that thought, what if one considers that as the world has become larger, and the population has increased, this has led to a number of realities for people today? One of these is that the world has become far more dangerous. There are few places left where one does not have to enact vigilance as a survival imperative, and this has meant that people, and especially the younger, are necessarily restricted in their youth and experiences.

Lester: Trust you to put a rational spin on it. I just think all people are assholes, so one must do what one must.

Ethan: (ignoring Lester) In the event that the child is unable to have the youth of the parent, the child becomes ever more streetwise and, as it were, wary of the world. In other words, there is an erosion of childhood naivety. People become accustomed to loneliness, and hence innately suspicious of others.

Kurt: So you think that our failings of society can be attributed to a fundamental breakdown in the notion of community? God, I can actually smell the Coupland-esque thought underlying all this. I take back what I said, I agree with Lester. All people are assholes, so everyone has complete licence to behave in whatever manner they please. Feelings be damned.

Stuart: A fiction to be accounted for.

Claire: The quote is actually, "The past is a fiction to be acounted for." But, really, is it that far-fetched? I find that my circle of friends seems to be ever diminishing, with very few people ever really becoming close friends, other than those that I have known for a long time. For the most part, I have a number of acquaintances with whom I keep a carefully maintained, and polite, distance.

Kurt: Well, I have to admit that my patience for certain qualities in people has severely waned in my later years. I abhor certain tics people have, or a certain manner in which some deal with the world and other people. And no, I am not going to enlighten any of you.

Ethan: I have also wondered whether it isn't an elitist failing. In other words, by being unable to relate to others, one creates their own world by compulsively focusing on very specific things. Those specific likes and dislikes then serve as an isolating tool, as it immediately discards others who are perhaps not similarly inclined.

Stuart: I have heard you make this argument before, and I am sorry, but I completely disagree. One's interests can never be an impediment. Rather, it is a stubbornness and intellectual dullness that rankles.

Ethan: I have to concede that. Anyway, we're getting off point. Do people agree that in the world of today, many people have become accustomed to living in manageable pockets, which are often defineable only by geographic location, and history, as opposed to being constructed in accordance with an overall design plan? In other words, friends often become those with whom we have a history, or an obvious physical connection, such as living close to one another, as opposed to having anything at all to do with actually sharing interests, or even remotely similar life experience?

Claire: To a certain extent, I think you are correct, although I think your view on friendship groups is overally cynical. Many people are friends due to the fact that they share a common interest, and hence find themselves inhabiting similar worlds. For example, due to a specific interest, one may find one's self working in a specific field and hence meet like-minded people.

Ethan: Fair enough. But will you at least admit that over the years, there are few among us that have vast numbers of "true" friends, and in fact, most tend rather to inhabit and socialise within small groups. Call it the "Friends Effect" if you will. And now think how hard it is to break into one of those circles. If you are not a loved one, it is fantastically difficult, which must mean that people are becoming ever more nervous around one another. We learn basically how to be polite, but ultimately we are incurably suspicious of new faces.

Claire: "Must mean..." ? I can think of any number of ideas to refute that.

Kurt: But within those small groups of friends, people tend to treat one another with an assumed attitude, often being very cruel and inconsiderate. This supports my original view that people, as a species, are not actually very nice. We are all incurably driven by our self and our own ends.

Ethan: I have to say that I can agree to the extent that there is perhaps a selfish tendency in many people, but it is one that I attribute to a lack of pathos, and an inability to logically consider another. In other words, there is a lack of thought by the one person in the relation to the other.

Lester: You cannot expect everyone to try and predict the future.

Ethan: No, not predict, but only consider the effect of an action. I think that the world would be a far better place if more people simply took a moment to think about they are doing. The value lies in asking the question, and rarely in the actual answer.

Stuart: You live in an admirably rigorous world, but one which is, sadly, an idealistic dream.

Claire: Doesn't the problem lie in our own insecurities? It is a base instinct to lash out at those that threaten you. And if we take Ethan's idea at face value that if people are increasingly suspicious of others such that friends are hard won, then one can only rely on one's friends to frankly speak their mind. If we rely on our friends to tell us the truth, then it is a necessary trade to expect the occasional cruel world or behaviour.

Ethan: In other words, are you saying that it is an inevitable tension that arises from our being rational entities? As we are unable to ever get into another's head, we never truly know what another person is thinking. Combine that to the societal norms and tensions that are derived from our existence with other such beings, and one has an extraordinarily complex scenario that few people have ever considered, let alone know how to navigate.

Claire: Yes...well, sort of. I wouldn't have put it so philosophically.

Ethan: In other words, the simple idea is "Let's be nice to one another". But as we cannot ever know what another is thinking, we become trapped in this realm of self-doubt and fear, that plays upon our own insecurities and weaknesses as a person, and hence prefer to conduct a wary, and often cruel, off-handedness with one another. The wise man simply holds his tongue, but we then have a barrier that we erect between everyone else, and we find it very hard to let those walls down.

Kurt: That, and more often than not, laying one's self bare before another leads only to heart-ache. Let's face it, one pretty much is consigned to an unending string of bad- break ups, and poor relationships. People treat each other badly, and just get hurt as a result.

Stuart: I always told you that abstinence was the solution.

Kurt: And which leaves you as a prudish monk.

Ethan: Well, there is nothing like getting close to someone to result in agony on what opinions to dispense and which to keep close to the heart...

Lester: Does my bum look big in this?

Claire: Careful boys...

Stuart: But if we are going to acknowledge that we all employ defence mechanisms to protect ourselves, doesn't that explain the problem, as opposed to attributing it to societal decay, and innate failings within all of us?

Ethan: Well, I sort of. I think that perhaps are defence mechanisms have become exacerbated by the world that we live in, and furthermore by our lack of thought as to those mechanisms. They have become so ingrained that often people just react without thinking. And there is nothing like a close friend to allow one to relax and act impulsively. People then come across as selfish, and lacking in pathos, when in fact we are simply acting in terms of a survival instinct that we have had to self-program as a result of our experiences.

Kurt: Well, I do think that people are very suspicious of one another, and often regard each other with all the courtesy of a dog-sniffing another's arse. It really pisses me off when one sees movies where the nerdy guy asks the beautiful girl, who he has never seen before, to go out with him, and she smiles and says yes. That never happens. People are just too scared of one another, and often, far too cruel on the basis of superficial first impressions.

Lester: I knew there had to be a girl underlying all of this.

Kurt: When was the last time you met someone when you were not in the throes of an alcoholic haze? Its all about the hasty kiss, which people usually remember only with embarrassment when the alcohol has worn off.

Lester: I think someone needs to join the Pick Up Artists Community. Learn a trick or two.