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After the incident and altercation outside our apartment building last night, I was thinking about a conversation I had with some colleagues only a few days earlier as we drove together. It was about problem drinking statistics and the rate of domestic violence in Finland, two things that seem to go hand in hand. Part of the reason it is so high in Finland is that there is more openness to reporting here than in other places, but the numbers are quite significant regardless. 

https://i.imgur.com/PujXrf5.jpg

Out of my circle of friends, the numbers of people (women) who have been raped, attacked, in abusive relationships and been abused verbally on the street or physically and inappropriately touched in nightclubs is extremely high. In my opinion, there is never an excuse for this kind of behavior. *Never.* We live in a strange world when this kind of behavior is normalized. 

I had a discussion with a client this morning and she brought up the people she knew directly and this is a common thread in the experience of being in Finland - alcoholism, abuse, depression, suicide and various other negative social behaviors -*everyone knows someone who perpetrates or is a victim of social disorder.* She spoke about the men who go to places like Thailand as sex tourists, and the women who go to places like Tunisia as sex tourists too. 

But, Finland is of course not alone in this as a country and the only real conclusion that can be ascertained is, people can be weird, messed up and often cruel individuals who are *willing* to inflict suffering upon others or take advantage of  economic hardships for their own gratification. *It is a strange world...*

One of the things I mentioned with my client is that we have created a world where we encourage victimhood and no matter what the position, there is always support to be found. In the past, the reference and social circles were much smaller and much more connected to the individual and the immediate environment, whereas now they are open to everyone, even strangers at a global level.

If a person tried to justify bad behavior in a small group of friends, it would be hard to garner much support, but on Facebook with 1000 "friends", Twitter with ten thousand "unknowns" and Instagram with who knows what, no matter what is said it can attract some level of support and make the person posting feel justified, even if it is met with even more resistance. People will naturally side with the views that confirm their beliefs rather than those that go against and the people that support fringe viewpoints can be very strong supporters as they are likely to hold the same perspective or desire. 

In the world of the internet where there is a home for every want, it is always possible to "feel supported" and find a community that agrees with a position, no matter what it is. This can silo and echo-chamber perspectives to reverberate and ramp up beliefs and behaviors unchecked and over time, give a very unrealistic view of the world that leans to extremes and polarization. And, because much of it is not in open discourse due to taboos, there is very little tempering of views, not unlike cultural brainwashing.

Whatever the percentage of our experience is nature or nurture, we do know that our environment has a profound impact on our behavior and when we live in a society that drives for the support of individual freedoms no matter impact to others, it creates a world of compartmentalization that disconnects behavior from consequence. People feel justified that their view is acceptable. While in a mild sense this might be healthy, many humans are prone to take their pleasures and "rights" to extremes and then cry victim if they get pushed back against. 

We have engineered a world where people feel they are entitled to act as they please - but be protected from the reaction.   It is imbalanced. 


Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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