Would you be late, if it were Barack or Hugo?

... You're late.

Sorry, I wasn't quite prepared for another meeting in less than two weeks. I know that we used to meet weekly, but it has been every other week for over half a year now.

Would you be making the same excuse if the appointment were not with me, but with Barack?

Are you saying that I should have been here an hour before our agreed meeting time?

My question is: why are you casual about being late to see me, but probably would not be so if it were Barack?

Well, he has other important engagements and I don't know if I would be able to have a meeting with him again very soon.

I, too, have other activities that are mighty important.

I didn't know that you were going to attend the meeting with senior advisers at the White House.

How do you know that my activities are less important? Plus, this may be the last time that we meet.

You didn't tell me that we were going to terminate our project without reaching our goal!

I asked you to come over today, because the café will be closed for a month or so for miscellaneous repair works. The owner informed me a couple of days ago.

I take it that you do not wish to carry on at other venues in the meantime.

Where else can you find mandazi, halva, cendol, and hot chocolate made from chocolate and not cocoa powder, all on the same menu?

I tried hard to be on time today, though.

I think you would have tried harder if it were Hugo.

All right, I admit that it depends on the temper and the character of the person whom I am to see. I know that you wouldn't start accusing me of bourgeois habits and so on.

You are another victim of the intimidation-and-fear equation.

It's natural! Wouldn't you take more precautions if Sonja, Graça, or Angela were waiting instead of me?

No, I will make sure to be on time whether it is Lula or you.

Why wouldn't you be more careful with them?

We are all human beings---nothing more, nothing less. That fact alone says we should be on time.

Regardless of the official title, political and financial power, you mean.

Of course. If any of them makes difference in observing punctuality, you are classifying human beings into several categories and that based on how much damage they can do to you. As I pointed out, it's intimidation and fear.

Just as you wouldn't pat Al on his shoulder for a good job, you wouldn't be a nano second late to our meeting. Is this it? I suspect you are one of those who would ensure not to wear kid-gloves when dealing with people in power. You wish not to be affected by any privilege that you happen to lack.

Bravo, comrade! You have a pretty good grip of my thoughts.

But suppose Sonja is your sister. You wouldn't mind being a bit late, would you?

I would. We should not abuse a relationship, just because it is one that we are obliged to keep: in this case, siblings.

True, we tend to be more careful with friends than with family members.

That is exactly what I call abuse of relationships.

We are more careful with lovers, but less so, once they become spouses.

It happens because the relationship is transformed from one that can be easily terminated to another that cannot.

Isn't there a honeymoon period for any relationship, though? When you are in the process of getting to know each other, you tend to be more considerate.

When we face someone whom we favorably view, but whose details are unknown to us, we exercise caution with the hope to establish a good relationship with that person. It can happen with something not so organic, such as a new city that we move into or a new position that we take on.

Lack of familiarity also means that we do not know the unpleasant aspects.

That is why a honeymoon period is possible with anything that we deal with; something new and different can bring us excitement, and some of the pitfalls are not evident at first sight.

Sadly enough, enthusiasm almost invariably wanes over time, even if we do not find anything grossly wrong with it.

That is indeed a sad fact of life.

I have heard of couples who met when they were 18 or so, immediately fell in love, and carried on with the same intensity for the rest of their lives.

Such anomalies aside, we tend to lose respect and care that we had at the initial stages of getting to know someone or something.

Some people cast all respect aside once they find out that I am not going to, or cannot, do any harm to them.

If you do not make them fear you, they would make you fear them. "I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."

Thomas Hobbes!

People whom I trust without reservation are those who pay sufficient respect to all others in a constant and steady manner. The other side of the coin is that I do not trust people who are unnaturally nice to me at the beginning of relationships. Life would not be so bad, if it were easy to come across trustworthy people.

Is the temporary closing of this café also meant to be a sort of time-out for me?

Why do you think so?

I remember your telling me about the cough-cough, wink-wink, nudge-nudge strategy. Since then, you have been going back to it quite often. It has made me paranoid, even terrified. I think your favorite tactic belongs to what you have been condemning, namely, intimidation and fear. And my feeling is that Thomas would agree with me...

Dignity, and nothing else

Do you remember talking about relationships based on intimidation and fear?

I do. Your assessment was that some people are so used to the mode that they do not see it as anything bad.

It is convenient for many---which is rather scary, in my opinion---because it spares people from making judgments on their own. Some others have done the thinking for them, and they are willing to follow suit without careful consideration.

I'm afraid such people will always be with us. It does not necessarily have to be intimidation and fear; it could be crowd psychology which has its uses. Without it, we may never reach some kind of consensus.

I beg to differ. Every one of us can think independently, and still reach agreement through compromises. That is what democracy is all about. If we do not discourage crowd psychology, that amounts to allowing seedlings of totalitarianism to grow among us.

What about the problem of personality, though? You have implied that, in the end, what matters is personality, and that the strong ones dominate the others. We have to learn to live with that imperfection.

I agree. In other words, the problem is how to deal with strong characters which tend to steer the system to their liking. We should be equipped with penalties for dictator types.

Ah, that sounds like another avenue to totalitarianism, though, because in the ideal situation, nobody should be dominating or dominated, which suggests that everyone should be alike.

What we need is diversity and value criteria that do not favor the loud and the manipulative over the rest.

I can see that the loud is obviously so, but detecting the manipulative may not be as easy. It will be similar to asking a liar if s/he lies.

Talking about manipulative persons, I have noticed that most people don't mind being friends with them. First of all, manipulation requires intelligence, and that can be useful to the manipulated.

The manipulated is so, precisely because they are less cunning or smart than the manipulating. The manipulating can use their intelligence to the true good of the manipulated, if they wish so.

In other occasions, they use the intelligence to do damage. The interesting thing is that the manipulated count the manipulating as friends, even good friends.

Oh, s/he is sometimes not so nice, but other times s/he is. Is this how the thinking goes?

I presume so. They take it as a fact of life that people are not nice all the time.

But it is.

That may be so, but the problem here is that the manipulating is in total control of the emotional ups and downs of her/his targets.

Isn't that one of ignorance-is-bliss cases?

Could be. For me, it is painful and frustrating to see that some people's happiness is subject to the whims of the manipulating, who belong to the category of the wicked and the evil.

When you are smarter than others, it's difficult not to be manipulative, even if you are against such behavior. We know that one, right?

Children are manipulated by grown-ups, I think we can say that.

I'm not sure whether manipulation is a good term. We make use of child psychology, and that is different from manipulation.

On paper, they are not the same, but in the real world, there are many borderline cases.

Borderline cases... your favorite!

Think about a parent who wishes her/his child not to take up horse riding. The parent can complain about the bad smell---existent or nonexistent---after riding lessons until the child is totally convinced that s/he should stop going to the stable if s/he wants to keep her/his friends.

But then again, isn't the outcome dependent on the personality of the parent versus that of the child?

It is, but that does not take away the fact that there is manipulative element in what we call education and discipline. Recommendation alone can be used to encourage or discourage children to think in certain ways.

Well, education and discipline are, after all, imposing on children what adults think best; we cannot get rid of what could be considered manipulation.

We should, however, recognize that factor and try our best not to force any idea down the throat.

It sounds almost impossible. How can you teach ethics, for example? Usually, our minds are not negotiable when it comes to what is good or bad.

You could present your ethical values as the best possible system that you know, which could be improved upon. Certainly, it should not be taught as the universal truth.

Isn't that rather weak?

I think not. It is always good to know that your thoughts may have some unknown shortcomings. And, it is possible to openly admit so while maintaining firm belief in them.

Are you trying to tell me how to graciously change my ideas, if need be?

Not allowing leeway for yourself could put you in a quite awkward or ugly situation. Plus, it is difficult to trust people who go from one extreme to another, I think.

But extremes are attractive because of their simplicity.

Certainly. Extreme positions are often crowned with the adjective, 'pure'... Getting back to relationships, it surprises me that most people seem to think that slighting and hurting each other is a normal element in any relationship.

If people could stand psychological manipulation, it's not so surprising, is it?

True, the biggest surprise for me may be that people fail to recognize the manipulative and the abusive motives. They are also ready to go on as if nothing had happened after they hurt each other. That astonishes me as well.

Let me guess, you do not want any slighting or hurting, needless to say manipulating. That's not quite possible, you should know that.

In my mind, slighting, hurting, abusing, manipulating, etc. preclude close relationships if they know what they are doing. What if someone puts you down because s/he wants to feel better about her/himself?

That one again...

If someone is capable of doing so even once, trust for that person cannot be re-established, I would think. Consider a rather complicated case in which a friend of yours and you talk about relationships and you agree that such an act would destroy any relationship forever.

Good that we have like-minded people around.

What if that very person engages in that act of taking out her/his insecurity on you?

If we have talked about it explicitly, that is indeed serious.

What if s/he happens to be one of your best friends?

Does that change how wrong the act is?

It doesn't, but the impact is bigger, because it is someone whom you trusted. There is another case which happens, I suspect, more specifically to me.

Which is...?

They start with an assumption that I am ignorant and stupid.

What can I say---who can blame them?

In my mind, they have made an inexcusable mistake at that point already, namely, they have violated the rule of treating every person so as to preserve her/his dignity.

Tell me the next offense.

They are very aggressive toward or dismissive of my opinion, until one day, they realize that I am not that dumb and start treating me a bit more nicely.

Shouldn't they be forgiven then?

I would say this is a variant of intimidation and fear. Only after they learn that I have the mental capacity that is equal or superior to theirs, I emerge as a full human being in their world.

At least, they acknowledge it.

There is another problem. If they happen to put me in their very-smarty category, they start taking my views as the best without examining them.

From one extreme to another, eh?

We do more or less the same with the information that we have no means of verifying. We all have favorite television and radio programs, newspapers, and websites, and we take what they present as accurate, unbiased description of the topic, most of the time.

How can we be absolutely sure that it wasn't Bill's double who went to Pyongyang? The rumor has it that the one who talked to Kim Jong-Il did not crack a single joke.

Comrade, that is not worth pursuing... Anyway, if the concern is something to which we have roughly equal access in terms of relevant information, we should not cede our right and duty to think and make a judgment on our own.

I see, they turn unnecessarily submissive from being wrongly dismissive. In short, they commit three grave crimes.

There's more.

Oh, no!

What if they become frustrated because I do not want to be friends with them?

You may have to forgive, you know.

Forgive? Should I be friends with people who turn nice only after I was able to appear---and that in their eyes---not as a total idiot, and who are most likely to commit the same crimes against others?

Perhaps some of them have changed for good.

The soul of a three year old until a hundred. What is learned in the cradle is carried to the grave. Ce que poulain prend en jeunesse, il le continue en vieillesse. Lo que se aprende en la cuna, siempre dura.

Shhhh, calm down. Shall we talk about experience, learning and all that next time?

It's about dignity, the most important thing in our lives. How come that most people don't care, their own or others'?

That may be because dignity as the most important aspect in life is your universal truth, and not the universal truth, you see...

The backstage of morality is dark

Some time ago, you talked rather disparagingly about people whose interactions are driven primarily by intimidation and fear.

I can't talk about such people with admiration. Is that what you think I should have done?

On the same day, you also said role models are quite useful in steering our lives.

Did it have to be on a different day?

Can't we say that these poor people who operate on the basis of intimidation and fear have not had exposure to other modes of human interactions?

We could.

Then, can't we further say that they have become what they are as the inevitable result of the environment?

Do you want to say that it is not their fault?

Especially, if we take into account that they had no choice over their environment.

Suppose you are born into a family of mafia, and you grow up in a culture which allows murdering your enemies. Does that make you less of a criminal when you do commit a murder?

Why have you chosen an example that makes the matter more complicated? You know, murder has two aspects, legal and moral.

Anything that involves law comes with morality. Most of the laws have been put in place long before we were born, and hence, we have not explicitly agreed to all of them. However, it is a kind of a contract we have with the communities and the states that we live in. It would be immoral to breach any contract that you have made.

What about a law that prohibits jaywalking? I know that total defiance of red lights is your favorite pastime.

All right, let's exclude misdemeanors from our discussion. Back to the child of a mafia who has committed a murder, would the childhood environment be a good argument for a lighter sentence?

I think it would. The murderer did not have any choice over which family to be born into.

We have to draw a line somewhere, because otherwise we can put the blame on the environment whenever we do something wrong.

It will be difficult to say where that is, for example, in cases such as being trapped at high altitude after a plane crash. The living passengers of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 resorted to cannibalism of the dead ones in order to survive.

We should focus on the particular case that you mentioned at the outset. Namely, if people act mainly by intimidation and fear, because they do not have been in any other environment, should they be forgiven for their behavior?

I think they should be.

What if they think such culture is the best in the whole wide world?

Ahem, I know what you are getting at! Let me remind you that they have not been exposed to other ways of life. That is why they cannot act differently, and that is also why they can believe that their culture is by far the very best.

I know that their morality is none of my business. What is my business is with whom I mingle. I would like to keep interactions with such people to a minimum.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

But they do! I let them be, so that they would let me be, but they don't. They take offense in the approach.

Well, you can't do anything about that one. As grown-ups, we should respect each others' preferences without being judgmental.

Ah, no such sweeping statements, please. What are you going to do with people who have certain preferences in the area of gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, and so on?

My point is that you may judge their ideas, but that should not be reflected in how you treat them.

My dear comrade, I have long ago made clear that I try to be nice to every human being. If I am nicer to someone, that is because I know her/him better than others and that gives me many more opportunities to be so. That does not prevent me from saying that I want to stay away from people whom I consider puerile.

You are judging people based on your own notion of maturity, but they may have a different idea about it.

We're going in circles! Difference in the notion of maturity is precisely why I have problems. They cannot be considered mature in my world, and I want little to do with them. In other words, their concept of maturity allows them to behave in the way I can hardly tolerate. To make matters worse, they are not mature enough to understand why I take issues with their ways of life.

It looks like there is no solution that would make everyone happy.

I take your statement as an endorsement of my strategy vis-à-vis intimidation and fear.

I think the problem is that you can't hide your feelings. They are written all over your face.

You seem to advocate a version of tolerance that comes close to forgiving. But have you ever thought why it is easier to forgive children?

That's because we know that they have insufficient experience and intelligence for better judgments.

Have you ever realized that to view your enemies as children is the best way to forgive them peacefully?

To think that they are limited in their capacity?

Yes. And, did you know that you can judge someone as limited only if you are less limited?

Put differently, if you think your enemies are a rank or more lower than you are as human beings, you can forgive them most easily?

It amounts to that. And, that is why I have to hold the intimidation-and-fear bunch in contempt. It's all about forgiving, you see.

I told you that you shouldn't be judgmental!

If I am to forgive their behavior because they did not have any choice over which environment to live in, we are admitting that environment has enormous power to mold who we are.

Correct.

That, in turn, means that the intimidation-and-fear environment is trying to pull me in with the great force that it has applied to others.

I guess you can say that.

The pull is so powerful that they could not resist it. Or alternatively, we could say that they were sucked in before they could even think of resisting. I, on the other hand, am aware of the force, thanks to my culturally méli-mélo upbringing, and wish to fight it. In order to do so, I need to put up a tall and thick barrier against that tide.

Let me guess, the barrier is called 'contempt'... No, no, you should put your hand down. I'm not sure if this is an occasion for high-five.

Why not? I proved the very necessity of not-so-pretty feelings on the grounds of protecting my own lofty morality!

Spare me, I'm stuck-up

What is your immediate reaction in an instance of insolence?

I get terribly angry.

Do you express that anger verbally or physically?

Neither.

You bottle it all up?

I want to show anger to let the offending party know that their action is immoral. At the same time, I do not want to, because anyone---save the offender---should not suffer from my anger. In fact, I prefer not to get angry, because I don't enjoy it myself.

So, what do you do?

As I said, nothing. I don't slap or stab anyone. I don't blurt out anything on the spot. I don't start talking more because of it, or less, and keep my voice the same.

Hmmm, is that your honest assessment? I think your voice changes and you tend to talk much less. Plus, your face reminds me of how to draw angry cartoon figures.

Let's say I am much better than most people in controlling myself. But apparently, it shows quite a bit, because people around me become tense.

Wasn't humility your credo?

Somebody has to say the truth out loud, especially when... Anyway, it's inconvenient, because even when I contain myself, the gossip version would be that I became angry. And, I can get quite upset over what may be trivial matters to others.

Like people giving you the smallest piece of cake?

I got upset when one person gave me a huge piece, although I asked for a small one. It seems that he thought that was funny. When we talk about dignity, we tend to think that it concerns heavy-duty moral issues. However, we are capable of hurting others' dignity by ignoring, mocking or deriding their wishes, desires, gestures and thoughts.

Does that mean that our dignity could be hurt by reactions to anything we do in our daily lives?

Exactly. It can be as simple as a comment on where you are from, which languages you speak, where you live, etc. I am always amazed how little imagination people seem to have. Some of us have complicated lives, and even seemingly innocent questions should not be posed care-free.

Are we allowed to ask you anything then?

It all depends on how you ask. Talking about manner of presentation, many of the rumors we hear are stripped not only of context, but also of how each line was enunciated. No wonder gossips get juicy as they are passed on.

Incidentally, I heard that you blew up the other day when someone assumed that the weird tasting cookies in a bag with weird characters were your contribution.

I did not blow up, but certainly took offense. The question was, "Did you bring those cookies?", and that in a tone which would have been justified had I brought in a bag of cookies with worms crawling in and out. It looked like she was going to tell me how weird the cookies tasted, had I been the culprit.

It doesn't sound that bad.

I think she should have been appreciative faced with a person whom she thought had made the contribution. She showed zero respect for the good-will gesture. That is already pretty bad, but for me, it was offensive because the description of the package was in characters that she could not read.

Doesn't it mean that she values your linguistic skills?

I give benefit of a doubt, even after all these years of abuses related to off-the-mark assumptions based on my appearance alone. This incident was not an exception to that rule.

What made you think that it was an offense, rather than appreciation?

Her manner of presentation. You see, if this exchange travels along the grapevine, I am sure that it will soon become monstrous, because an important element will be inevitably left out, namely how she articulated the question.

"You know what happened? I simply asked if s/he brought in these goodies, and then..." Like that?

You have already used the more positive word 'goodies,' in place of more neutral 'cookies'!

It was for the purpose of demonstration.

I have my sense of morality, and it tells me that I should be polite to people, including her and the like. Politeness and friendship are two different animals.

Is that why you are considered stuck-up?

I suppose so, and I don't mind at all. What amazes me is that such people engage in hefty rounds of hurting and offending each other and still think they get on well.

For example?

They would lose temper over misplaced items and send nasty notes about it. They even get into a shouting and yelling match.

Isn't it shouting again that is bothering you?

As I may have said before, I don't know any good occasion for yelling except for asking for help in emergency situations. Another thing that I find incomprehensible is that they want some kind of a pecking order and that is established by intimidation and fear.

Isn't there an official hierarchy?

What on earth makes you think that this is all about my work place? Anyway, they follow what the more forceful one says at the expense of the other less forceful ones.

Don't they believe in collective decision making, a pillar of democracy?

Apparently, not. Mind you, if you ask them whether they believe in democracy, the answer would be an astounding 'yes.' Back to the issue of pecking order, if you don't intimidate them, they think you are not confident enough. Further, it amounts to self-acknowledgment on your part that you are not competent enough.

Don't they want to follow the one with the most reasonable opinion or strategy?

That used to be my question, too, until I found out that they don't want to think and they simply want to be told what to do.

They need a forceful person, who is even intimidating, because that is the only way to obtain reassurance that they are doing the right thing, and that without thinking on their own.

That's why I have very little tolerance for non-independent thinkers...

I'd say they have thought enough to realize that an intimidating person would defend them if they pledge allegiance to her/him.

They are so used to the situation that they are unaware of the intimidation-fear equation. The same kind of unawareness must be at work when they think they get along well, although they yell at and insult each other.

You know, ignorance is bliss, and they may be happier than you are.

Let them be!

Hey, it's a happy ending, did you know that? They are happy the way they are, and so are you!