We want you to be one of us

You were adamant last time that we do not, or cannot, change our views of the world unless we experience something ourselves that makes us re-examine our views.

I still am. But now I realize that there are exceptions to that. 

Did you know that you sound just like señor Hipocresía?

Ahhhh, never, ever compare me to him!

How can I not? You laid out the principle rather categorically, and used it to validate your argument. After doing so, you are conceding the existence of instances that do not follow the rule.

Tell me, is there any rule that does not come with exceptions?

Another demonstration that you are like señor Hipocresía.

Honestly, I would not trust a rule that does not have any exception.
 

What about the law of conservation of linear momentum?

All right... it's a physical law, though. Even some physical laws have exceptions. Think about the law of conservation of mass.
 

True, it holds under the condition that speeds are non-relativistic and that no nuclear reactions take place.

Personally, as much as I abhor señor Hipocresía, I hate exceptions.
 

You mean, you are ready to strangle exceptions?

Comrade, I wouldn't. Strangling can get messy, and I don't want to clean up the floor. Anyway, the very existence of an exception invalidates the notion of a rule, particularly because there is no limit to the amount of exceptions that rules may have.
 

What happens with señor Hipocresía and friends is that whenever they do not want to go by the rule, they make the case in question an exception.

That certainly works in this world, where no two cases are truly identical. We can list all the attributes of our case of interest so that no other case would match with it. That way, we can guarantee the singularity of that case.
 

By emphasizing its factors that we did not list in our rule, we can safely claim that it is an exception and that the rule does not apply.

Hmmm... señor Hipocresía may be much cleverer than I thought, because he is practicing all this unconsciously.
 

Let's get back to your exception, bearing in mind that even in physics, there are exact laws and approximate laws. So, what is your exception?

We are more prone to change our minds when we are at an impressionable young age, and for that we do not have to experience what would support our world view.
 

Isn't that because when we are young our minds are empty and ready to be filled with something?

Bravo, comrade! That is why the first experiences, especially when we are children and adolescents, are very important in our lives. It is also quite scary, because we can believe in anything we are told.
 

We lack the experience to judge the value of what we are taught. And that is precisely why we can learn effortlessly the ideas that may appear dramatically alien to the grown-ups.

Another great exception is that we regain that malleability when we encounter someone whom we think we can trust completely as an adult. The curious factor here is that this type of trust seems to come about only through romantic associations.
 

History is replete with wives and mistresses who influenced their husbands and masters...

Robert's current wife, Grace, is reported to be quite different in nature from his first wife, Sally. It has been pointed out that the turning point in Robert's policies came around when Sally passed away. Siti Hartinah, the wife of Suharto, was called Ibu Tien, but apparently 'tien' also stood for 'ten' in Dutch. Ten percent of any foreign aid to Indonesia was rumored to have gone to her.
 

Ferdinand and Imelda are in the similar league, I guess.

It is said that Habib promoted education and female emancipation in order to win Western support during the Cold War, but I have also heard that it was his first wife, Moufida who had great influence in that regard.
 

Going back in time, we would find Madame de Pompadour, etc.

What is funny to me is that they needed romantic attraction in order to establish very strong trust that allows influence at an advanced age, but once it was in place, the power couples became more like business partners.
 

After all, all of the guys that we mentioned here either remarried, had mistresses, or both.

If we move into the realm of philosophy, there is Harriet's influence on John Stuart Mill about women's rights.
 

Honoré de Balzac could write precociously about marriage while he was a bachelor, thanks to his liaison with Ewelina who was married. 

Two treatises on the subject to boot! Anyway, those were my exceptions to the rule. The second one goes to show that you'd better choose well whom you go out with.
 

But if romance is involved, we don't have much control over it, do we?

That is the very illusion that we get from romantic feelings. We feel we cannot do anything about it, but that lasts only as long as we are in love. Many people cannot understand how they could have been in love with a certain person when the affair is over.
 

We also hear about love from years ago that people cannot forget.

I'd come to believe that those are even bigger illusions.
 

You're jaded, comrade...

How we transmit ideas, behavior and attitude is strange, to say the least. We know that child abusers are very often those who were abused as children.
 

We may naively deduce that they would become crusaders against child abuse, but not so. In fact, some brothels are maintained by former-prostitute mothers and prostitute daughters.

The same with in-laws. In many societies where big families are still common, abuse of brides is fairly common. It is almost a tradition. Apparently, people do not think what was so unfair, unjust and cruel should not be repeated. They want to replicate the actions onto others when they are given the opportunity, namely, when they become in-laws themselves.
 

It is a way of seeking revenge, but since the targets are not the same as the perpetuators, we are effectively passing on hatred from generation to generation.

I was horrified when I read a folklore about a clever bride circumventing sexual advances from her father-in-law. 

It means that such abuse by fathers-in-law is, or was, widespread.

It is more hideous because she will never become a father-in-law herself.
 

I thought we were against passing on pernicious practices.

The above cases are easy to observe, as we first become the receiving end. Another case that I come to notice lately is that we expect others to treat us as we treat them.
 

That's also obvious, isn't it?

If we alternate being the receiving end among those concerned, yes. The latest one that I encountered is that bootlickers want their subordinates to act as bootlickers toward them.

They would go along with anything their superiors say, and expect their own subordinates to do the same for them?  

It beats me why we are so good at corrupting others...
 

Do I smell señor Hipocresía here, too?

Let's say it was a general observation about humanity.