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...even those who claim to revel in it.
It's always fascinated me, the number of people who act out in fashions ranging from the merely self-centered, to the borderline sociopathic, who feel the need to justify their actions.
I mean really.
I suspect that they know, deep down inside, that they're the ones in the wrong. They just don't want to admit it, even to themselves. So they construct elaborate excuses to make their actions somehow more palatable, and occasionally even attempt to assume some mantle of nobility for fucking over the people around them.
In gaming, you'd see it in the people who exploit those around them, either their trust or their naivete, and justify it as "You deserved it for not being more careful with who you trusted", or "I'm just keeping the noob population down LOL". It's not "Hey, I'm an asshole and I screwed you over for my own profit and/or entertainment", they attempt to shift the blame to the victim, rather than accept what they've earned. Or they'll steal something on the grounds that they claim it was owed to them, or they'll make use of some blatant exploit in a game on the grounds that the designers fucked up and it's not their fault that it can be abused, or any number of actions, all of which are morally reprehensible on some level, and all of which will be justified in an attempt to assuage their guilty conscience.
And, of course, it's hardly unique to gaming. Hell, of the four hyptheticals I posted above, three of them still apply to real-life situations. If you find the tactics of the sniper unappealing, even the last one. And the same excuses will be used, the same shallow rationale to shift blame anywhere but where it belongs.
Some people do it instantly, others like to wait a while; rather than be upfront about their evasions, they accept blame initially, usually to some minor extent, but ultimately shift things around in their head after the fact, so that their actions are less culpable. There's something even more contemptible in this for me, somehow. I suppose it's that these are the people who can't even lie and pretend that they really are as sociopathic as they present themselves; instead you know that they're aware that they wronged someone, but simply can't bear the guilt, and rather than expiate it like someone should, they simply attempt to rewrite the past in their own head until what they did is no longer something worthy of scorn.
Sometimes I wonder who they think they're fooling.
I don't know... I suppose we could consider this the latest installment in the "You people make no damn sense" series.
I don't like screwing people over, or doing nasty things to them. I can justify competition; someone has to lose when you're playing a competitive game, after all, and I'm not going to feel particularly bad about it, though I would (and have) if the game was one where I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the person I was playing had no idea what they were in for, and no way of winning once the game began. But most of the time, I just accept that that's the way it is, and that some of the people I'm busy beating are going to be upset about it.
Of course, exceptions can be made to the above. Noncompetitive games with limited resources, ie, the one all of us have played at one time or another (FFXI) will see scenarios in which, rather than compete directly, people will instead choose to form orderly systems by which to govern access to the limited resource (see: Dynamis, BCNMs, etc), and there will be those who buck the system.
And you can bet they're saying "Fuck you, I didn't sign up for that, and you're stupid for doing it." Deny blame, shift blame, avoid accepting the fact that, by the rules of the society to which they are a member, they're an asshole.
But anyway.
I'm not a saint. I've done bad things to people, and to be honest, most of them probably didn't deserve it. Even with the handful with whom I have some measure of valid justification for my actions... it still bothers me. Even at the instant that I took whatever action it was, beneath that sparkling tide of anger that probably drove me toward whatever reprehensible deed I just did... it still bothers me. Decades later, in some instances.
Which I suppose is part of the other problem I have with this business of rewriting the past to justify the present. It falls into that puzzling inconstancy that I mentioned about six months back in this very blog. That transient nature that allows people to do bad things, and then just... leave the guilt behind.
I can't do that, and I often wish I could. It would make things so much easier. I can go out of my way to stay angry, of course, but that takes effort, and it's not exactly healthy. It just clouds the issue really; makes it easier to bear whatever burden I'm working under.
Anger is a hell of a drug. It can assuage pain of all kinds, emotional and physical, guilt or heartbreak. But like most drugs, it takes a toll.
And I'm tired of being angry.
It's always fascinated me, the number of people who act out in fashions ranging from the merely self-centered, to the borderline sociopathic, who feel the need to justify their actions.
I mean really.
I suspect that they know, deep down inside, that they're the ones in the wrong. They just don't want to admit it, even to themselves. So they construct elaborate excuses to make their actions somehow more palatable, and occasionally even attempt to assume some mantle of nobility for fucking over the people around them.
In gaming, you'd see it in the people who exploit those around them, either their trust or their naivete, and justify it as "You deserved it for not being more careful with who you trusted", or "I'm just keeping the noob population down LOL". It's not "Hey, I'm an asshole and I screwed you over for my own profit and/or entertainment", they attempt to shift the blame to the victim, rather than accept what they've earned. Or they'll steal something on the grounds that they claim it was owed to them, or they'll make use of some blatant exploit in a game on the grounds that the designers fucked up and it's not their fault that it can be abused, or any number of actions, all of which are morally reprehensible on some level, and all of which will be justified in an attempt to assuage their guilty conscience.
And, of course, it's hardly unique to gaming. Hell, of the four hyptheticals I posted above, three of them still apply to real-life situations. If you find the tactics of the sniper unappealing, even the last one. And the same excuses will be used, the same shallow rationale to shift blame anywhere but where it belongs.
Some people do it instantly, others like to wait a while; rather than be upfront about their evasions, they accept blame initially, usually to some minor extent, but ultimately shift things around in their head after the fact, so that their actions are less culpable. There's something even more contemptible in this for me, somehow. I suppose it's that these are the people who can't even lie and pretend that they really are as sociopathic as they present themselves; instead you know that they're aware that they wronged someone, but simply can't bear the guilt, and rather than expiate it like someone should, they simply attempt to rewrite the past in their own head until what they did is no longer something worthy of scorn.
Sometimes I wonder who they think they're fooling.
I don't know... I suppose we could consider this the latest installment in the "You people make no damn sense" series.
I don't like screwing people over, or doing nasty things to them. I can justify competition; someone has to lose when you're playing a competitive game, after all, and I'm not going to feel particularly bad about it, though I would (and have) if the game was one where I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the person I was playing had no idea what they were in for, and no way of winning once the game began. But most of the time, I just accept that that's the way it is, and that some of the people I'm busy beating are going to be upset about it.
Of course, exceptions can be made to the above. Noncompetitive games with limited resources, ie, the one all of us have played at one time or another (FFXI) will see scenarios in which, rather than compete directly, people will instead choose to form orderly systems by which to govern access to the limited resource (see: Dynamis, BCNMs, etc), and there will be those who buck the system.
And you can bet they're saying "Fuck you, I didn't sign up for that, and you're stupid for doing it." Deny blame, shift blame, avoid accepting the fact that, by the rules of the society to which they are a member, they're an asshole.
But anyway.
I'm not a saint. I've done bad things to people, and to be honest, most of them probably didn't deserve it. Even with the handful with whom I have some measure of valid justification for my actions... it still bothers me. Even at the instant that I took whatever action it was, beneath that sparkling tide of anger that probably drove me toward whatever reprehensible deed I just did... it still bothers me. Decades later, in some instances.
Which I suppose is part of the other problem I have with this business of rewriting the past to justify the present. It falls into that puzzling inconstancy that I mentioned about six months back in this very blog. That transient nature that allows people to do bad things, and then just... leave the guilt behind.
I can't do that, and I often wish I could. It would make things so much easier. I can go out of my way to stay angry, of course, but that takes effort, and it's not exactly healthy. It just clouds the issue really; makes it easier to bear whatever burden I'm working under.
Anger is a hell of a drug. It can assuage pain of all kinds, emotional and physical, guilt or heartbreak. But like most drugs, it takes a toll.
And I'm tired of being angry.
