It isn't often that I'm confronted by the biases and cognitive errors of individuals, but today was an exception. First, a little background. I've noticed that people, while walking, tend to treat other people as objects, that if the correct pressure is applied, will move out of their way. The pressure can be in various forms: body language, facial expressions, or actual force. I combat this psychological trend by fulfilling the other persons expectations of my object-ness. I do not adjust my stance to defensive of offensive, I do not make eye contact and smile or frown, I do not even move when they attempt to push past me. This creates an issue for them, because if they continue treating me as an object which can be moved by greater force, they will consider themselves rude, and violating social expectations. I therefore become a person, and they move around me.
Secondly, I'm left handed. However, I live in a world that is 98% (approx.) right handed. This creates certain sociological ideas about the way things proceed. Specifically on a stairway, we stay to our right. I acknowledge this, and act accordingly, staying to my right on stairways. All people do this to some extent, but occasionally it is acceptable to violate this rule if one is sufficiently rushed, can move very quickly, or there are large crowds of people moving in one direction. However, when the rule is violated in direct action against me, this doesn't negate my need to continue motion to my destination. I simply don't attempt to move quickly, but that doesn't mean I arrest my motion entirely.
So, these two things happened today. I was on a stairway congested with people moving the opposite direction from myself and a particular individual viewed me as an obstacle to his destination. I behaved as if I were said object, and resisted the force, then continued on my way. Here is where today differed.
The man in question, followed me back down the stairs to yell at me. He told me I was rude, that he was now in pain because of an injury he sustained helping people, and I aggravated it. Asking me if I knew he was injured and that he helped people. His final words were, "I've helped a million people and you're mean and stupid." Then he walked off.
Now I would have loved to have a full conversation with this individual, but I cannot, so I'm going to think, really really hard, about everything he said, and see what conclusion I can reach about his argument.
1. He helped a million people:
Okay, even assuming this figure is accurate, what does that mean? If I had helped one million and one people, would I be right? Two million? Five million? Does the number of good deeds increase my ability to be right in situations? No, it doesn't. Hitler helped all of Germany out of an economic crisis, but the Holocaust was still wrong.
2. I'm mean and stupid:
Right, I can be mean, everyone can. Maybe I was even mean to this particular man, but it wasn't a conscious act of evil. I didn't look at him and say to myself, "Here is a crippled old man, I'm gonna hurt him." I didn't look at him at all. Also, I may be less intelligent than him, I didn't get a chance to compare curriculum vitae with him, so I cannot know. And wouldn't my lower intelligence mean that you should explain what went on, since clearly that's the crux of that argument. That I was to stupid to know what I'd done wrong. This was a learning opportunity for me, but he stole it by walking away. Now I'm left with my less intelligent brain to figure out what I might have learned from him. Nether of these points have any particular bearing on the argument as a whole.
3. He was injured:
This is a two part response.
First, I couldn't have known this without knowing the man more intimately than his shoulder meeting mine in a stairway. Okay, maybe I could have if I observed his walk, and how he moved up the stairs and had a more complete understanding of human physiology, muscle and bone structures. But this isn't really something that a lot of people have, so I think it's a fair assumption both ways that the probability of me knowing he was injured is exactly equal to the probability that I have all the aforementioned knowledge.
Second, he didn't exactly move like someone cognizant of their injured status. If your injured, you tend to take your time on stairs, and avoid strain on the injured area. This is, I understand, especially true of back injuries since most of you muscles connect in someway, to your back muscles. He was clearly rushing, since he felt the need to violate the social norm of stairways, and the need to push back against my force. If he really was injured, he wouldn't have pushed back. That would be a great way to aggravate the injury. And then to follow me downstairs to turn around and go back up the stairs, that would just be more painful for a back injury.
So in finality,this encounter was one with a person and a big old ball of cognitive biases. He viewed his argument as more valid because he had a more intimate knowledge of himself as a person and demonstrated the attribution error. His insults to me and accolades to himself demonstrated argument ad hominem. His helpfulness made him good, his injury made him vulnerable, his age gave him authority. for him, my ignoring him made me mean, my responses to him made me rude, and me defiance made me stupid. These thing became enduring characteristics of me through my actions against him. Likewise, I could view him as stupid for not considering my point of view, or mean for yelling at me, or rude for pushing me. Mostly I just find him annoyingly human.
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