Why do people take credit for their successes but blame their failures on everyone and everything else?
Likewise, why do we believe our own flaws and failings deserve understanding, while other people’s screwups are all obviously the result of evil, irresponsibility, or habitual bad choices and they deserve exactly what they get?
Why do people continue to believe that Republicans are the party of small government? It’s not like there’s no evidence to the contrary.
Why, when a bank has four drive-up windows, will everybody line up at the one closest to the building?
Why do people put “for sale” signs in car windows and not mention the price? Don’t they understand that we automatically think, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it?”
Why is the guy shouting most piously about morality extra likely to have a bimbo or a rent boy on the side? (Even if he’s moralizing because he feels guilty or fears his own inability to resist temptation, you’d think at some point he’d realize it’s wiser to shut up.)
Why do people believe the government will protect their privacy?
Why do companies offer “free demos” of their products — then erect all kinds of barriers to prevent potential customers from actually demoing them? (Complex and nosy registration processes, bad instructions, broken links, and unhelpful customer service.)
Why will people accept and embrace really bad systems, but demand that advocates of any new systems (e.g. liberty) prove absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt, down to the last jot and tittle, that the new system will 100 percent solve all existing problems and pose no new ones, guaranteed, not ever?
Why, as George Carlin observed, is everyone who drives slower than you an idiot and everyone who drives faster a maniac?
This will be so completely uncharacteristic of me, but here goes anyway:
I think it’s plain, simple inertia.
🙂
WHY…indeed! 🙂
1) Re successes/failures: Because it boosts the ego to be creditable/successful, whereas it deflates the ego to fail — and who of us wants the other fellow to see us fail? (We can, of course, hide the failure from ourselves by rationalization.)
2) Re flaws and failings: Not many people are willing or able to walk in another man’s shoes. We know what we were thinking when we screwed up; we do not understand — or try to understand — what’s going through the other fellow’s head. Besides, it’s easier to find fault then to admit mistakes and re-evaluate our own actions. And — it makes us feel good to think that we wouldn’t act that way.
3) Re banks: Because there’s usually only one teller manning the drive-in so she will get to you (hopefully) *first* when she sees you right in front of her. The guy in the second drive-in window doesn’t think she’ll see him. (Never mind that the second tube in the bank is filled with his check or deposit slip — he thinks it won’t be seen either.)
4) Re bad and new systems: Because most “really bad systems” got there (generally) like the frog in hot water, by turning the fire up slowly — so a bad system is not recognized as BAD, only “a few things should be tweaked here and there”; whereas a complete overhaul is too drastic and obvious to ignore, and might collapse the system, which is scary to contemplate. A guarantee with I’s dotted and T’s crossed is security.
5) Re the pious hypocrite: Because he thinks the louder he yells, the better cover-up for his own transgressions.
6) Re Carlin’s observation: Because those who drive faster or slower than you ARE idiots or maniacs. 🙂
(And so are the ones who tailgate… weave in and out… insist, out of politeness, that you turn first when THEY have the right-of-way (they obviously don’t know the rules of the road)… and those who keep creeping past the stop line to get a headstart when the light changes.)
Good questions.
Here’s one answer: people “continue to believe that Republicans are the party of small government” because of marketing.
The same reason they believe the Democrats give a shit about the “little guy.”
And the same reason they believe “democracy” is anything but the ruling class’s most successful scam to keep the proles in their place.
Why is it that while violations of privacy by the government is unacceptable…people are fine with employers putting a camera in your workspace, monitoring everything you do on the internet, hiring PIs to spy on you when you take a sick day, etc. is all fine because “You’re on their time” and “You can just get another job if you don’t like it!”
To elaborate on the above…It’s like when you have bad .gov policy and people think that if you just vote for the other party, all will be fixed, as if that has ever happened.
“Get a different job” is really the same thing as “vote for someone else next time”. And trying to find a job is a whole lot harder than filling in a ballot…
Short version answer to all of the above; People don’t think. TaDa!
The other short version answer is; because we are human.
This has nothing to do with your post.
I seem to remember something about signing in to Amazon at one of your pages and you getting some kind of good guy credit with Amazon?
I have looked all over your blog to try to find the post that gave me that idea without success.
So, how does the Amazon thing work?
Thanks
“Why do people take credit for their successes but blame their failures on everyone and everything else?”
and some are just the opposite: Give god credit for everything, but blame themselves for failure
John — "good guy credit”: I like that. And how nice of you to ask. (I think asking gives you good-guy credits even if you never shop at Amazon.)
If you use this link to enter Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/?tag=livifree07-20 (or this link: http://www.amazon.com/?tag=clairewolfeco-20 ), anything you buy during the visit will earn me a small commission (usually about 6%) — and won’t cost you anything extra. Bookmark the link and use it every time you shop at Amazon and little-by-little, you fill up my “starving artist fund.”
FYI, I receive information on what’s purchased during the month, but never any info on the buyers.
“FYI, I receive information on what’s purchased during the month, but never any info on the buyers.”
Just curious…did you notice any recent orders totaling about $90 worth of ultra-violent comic books and such?
I placed my orders through the “livifree” link but Amazon kept redirecting the page on account of a gift card I was using…just wondering if it worked or not.
Winston, whether or not it worked (and it may not have because of the gift card, as you note), thank you for using the link.
Amazon discreetly doesn’t even give me enough information to tell whether a group of items were bought by one person or a bunch of different people, so I can’t really know. BUT … a lot of graphic novels and end-of-the world books did suddenly show up in a bunch earlier this month. I’ll send you a private email with some titles and you can tell me whether that was you or no. I’m as curious as you are about whether that gift card worked with the livifree link.
Personal Responsibility
No one wants to accept it … but will scream the loudest for everyone else to pick up their own.
[Fear of public failure ?]