A REVOLUTION IN HOW WE VALUE OTHERS
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 11-25
Human beings assign value to every other human being. This value can be based on tradition, existing social structure, family connection, similarity, propinquity (close or far away), religious belief, religion, and/or benefit received from interaction, modified by age, race, and gender. Our valuing of a person determines how we treat him/her, and the cumulated values placed on an individual by all other individuals determines his/her place in various social hierarchies (local, global), which has implications for opportunity, gain, and quality of life for him/her. We maintain our social value or seek greater value in the eyes of others by pleasing them or benefiting them in various ways.
There are several different realms in which we value others. We value a person for what we receive or could receive from him/her in our interactions, for his/her group memberships (race, religion, nation, etc.), and for his/her simply being a human being (“inherent worth”).
Currently, most people value others almost completely on the basis of their impact on him/her and the person’s hierarchy position (how others value the person), with very little value given for just being a human being. Most of us give almost no value to someone we don’t know, or we assign probable value based on a person’s clothing, appearance, and way of speaking, from which we guess at occupation, income, status, and capacities in general. We value greatly what a plumber does for us in a particular instance of need, but we assign mid to lower-level value (generally) to him overall based on appearance, manner, and speech. Most of us assume that a homeless person with poor clothing and grooming is of little value and fit only to receive charity.
While valuing a person for his/her effects on us (what we get from our interaction with him/her), will always be most important, I would like to propose that we revise our current valuing to place less value on status hierarchy position and more on just being a human being. For most of us, a person’s status hierarchy position is a compilation of other people’s valuing of a person rather than a value that we have carefully thought out ourselves. If we are thinking for ourselves (independently), then how we ourselves value a person would come from what we get from him/her and from the value we place on other human beings in general. Our valuing others simply for being human beings gives pretty much the same amount of added value to each other human being.
If we were to assign greater, equal inherent value to other individuals; we would treat each other better. We would use more empathy when considering another person; we would be more likely to feel compassion for others; we would be more likely to see others as basic equals to ourselves; and we would be more inclined to give all others respect and courtesy and treat him/her fairly. All of these outcomes would make our existence with others in society more comfortable and would position us to be more skillfully cooperative with others.
In seeing ourselves as basically equals with others, we would bond by seeing our similarities, feel more empathy for others, stop trying to be better than others, want the best for others, and have the humility to see ourselves more realistically.
Feeling more equal with others, we would naturally treat them at all times with respect and courtesy.
Seeing ourselves as equals, we would treat others fairly instead of trying to take advantage of others to get ahead.
By using our empathy, we would understand others’ feelings and actions better, be more willing to see others realistically, and be better able to share with and appreciate others.
Empathizing with others, we would naturally stop looking to take advantage of others whenever possible and stop trying to force others to do what we want.
Feeling greater compassion for others, we would feel more connected with others and more willing to help when needed.
Valuing others, we would show this by our appreciation for others and our positive attitude throughout the day toward others in all of our interactions and connections.
These changes would make the world a better place—with greater trust for others, greater connectedness and awareness of others needs and feelings, and greater comfort with others and willingness to help and cooperate.
Another way to make our valuing of others more appropriate and rational would be to value others for capacities and behavior that are really important. Valuing others for their appearance, achievements, status, or group membership (religion, race, etc.) is to look at superficials as opposed to the following more important qualities:
- taking appropriate care of those they are responsible for
- contributing positively to others and/or the community
- willingness to see the truth about things, even if it is unpleasant
- acceptance of and compassion for others
- willingness to hold themselves accountable in the same ways they do others (treating others fairly)
- openness to loving and feeling close
- willingness to take care of themselves (versus seeking care from others)
- ability to control their emotional reactions in favor of more useful responses
- preference for reaching goals via—
pleasing and working with others, rather than–
taking advantage of others to get what one wants
using power to force others to do what one wants
exerting personal status and privilege, or
doing it themselves without involving others
On what basis do you value others?
A major change in our valuing of others presents a challenge to us, since we are so used to assuming status to be important, but is it really? Our propensity to create status hierarchies seems to benefit us in that it defines how the goods of society will be divided up (those higher get more), and if this hierarchical ordering is accepted by everyone, it minimizes the fighting that would otherwise take place. We tend to think that those higher up deserve more because they are “better than” us, but we also, circularly, believe that they are “better than us” simply because they get more and have more. People adopt behaviors that indicate their status, which once again reinforces the distinctions between people (they must be better because they are different).
Since status is mostly an amalgamation of wealth, appearance, and notoriety, and since these have symbolic value (we “look up” to them or want to have what they have) but have no practical value and do not tell us what it would be like to interact with such a person, perhaps status is largely misleading. Perhaps scoring an individual on the attributes listed above would say more about his/her “real” worth (if you accept that these attributes would identify the people we think would do the most for us or that we would like to be with on a daily basis). People do need heroes and people to emulate, but most people with wealth, appearance, and/or notoriety have done nothing heroic (even though we might imagine that we would like to be them or have what they have).
I submit that a plumber who was competent, easy to be with, dedicated to his/her family, able to explain clearly to you what he/she was doing with your plumbing, and who allowed you freely to make decisions about alternatives for your plumbing with different costs deserves more value from you as a human being than your status heroes (with whom you will never actually interact). Much of our valuing of others takes place with relative ignorance; we know very little about most of the people that we are valuing, and our valuing would seem much more appropriate if we knew much more. How would you know whether this plumber was dedicated to his/her family without seeking more information? We have similar challenges with homeless persons and persons convicted of a crime. What do we really know about them?
Aside from the fairness and appropriateness of our valuing, there are some really important reasons to value others in general.
1. Your daily life depends on millions of other individual people, each doing his/her own tasks—the person who bakes your bread, the person who drives the bus, the person who arranged your car loan, the person who calmed you down when you flew off the handle, the grocery checker. If any one of them didn’t do his/her job, then your life would not be the same. It is quite rational to be grateful for all the ways that others contribute to your life (and to think seriously about how you are or are not useful for their lives), and recognizing others’ practical value to you undergirds your valuing of others.
2. For most people, interaction with others keeps them sane. Only a few individuals have enough of a developed self inside to maintain themselves and keep their mental balance alone. This is why solitary confinement in prison is OK for some but drives most crazy.
3. For the emotionally healthy and accomplished person, interaction with others is fascinating, educational, and entertaining. We find endless variation in others and see the huge range of possibilities for ourselves and others. We learn from how others run their lives and make their decisions (what’s the best way to prepare for retirement? what’s the best car insurance? where can we meet other nice people?). We find humor in their behavior (and see those things in ourselves as well).
EXPANDING OUR CIRCLE OF VALUING AND EQUALITY
As a species, we are adapted to small groups, like villages, and our feelings center on people we know. Evolution has not yet had time to help us relate in closeness to people in larger groups or at further distances. So, it is not easy to expand to the whole world of human beings concepts that we learn in our small groups, like love in the families we have during our early years. If we wish, though, we can expand this from a small village to the world!
Assuming that you want to see others as basic equals and value them appropriately, imagine the positive feelings that you have for some people you are close to now, and then hold that feeling and think of people in China or India or Ireland and continue to feel those same positive viewpoints and feelings while you contemplate all those people who are equal human beings to yourself. Imagine individuals in those large groups and not just the huge group itself. Imagine their lives including some suffering, just like yours, and feel your hope that their suffering might be decreased. Imagine that you are radiating your positivity and equality to all of them.
Every one of us “deserves” all the good things in life that are available to all, including equality, respect, courtesy, and love, and we each can treat others as equals with positive warmth and good wishes that express those feelings within us, through our attitude toward others.
It is important to see ourselves as essentially like all other human beings, having the same life goals (survival, tolerable pain, positive self-esteem, periods of positive feelings, satisfying sex, raising good children, acceptance from and some fulfilling relationships with others) and the same emotional reactions to the good and the not so good in our lives. It can also help our sense of basic equality with others to keep perspective on ourselves as a tiny spark in the huge universe and remember that we are no more important than anyone else in the larger scheme of things.
Fear and ignorance are the enemies of equality and rational valuing. If we fear someone, it is harder to feel positively toward him/her, and this fear most often comes from our ignorance about him/her that causes us to be unable to see his/her suffering and deservingness. We are all in the same boat. Some of us have the good fortune of being in much better economic conditions than others, but we did little to be in this position (being born into a relatively rich society) and do not “deserve” being in this condition any more than any other tiny spark in the universe.
Travel and exposure to others around the world through reading and videos can help us to become more comfortable with those who are different. Accepting our basic equality with others and taming our desires for more (especially the desires of those of us who live in the developed countries) and appreciating what we do have can ease our competitive feelings and help us to appreciate the good in our lives.
We can transcend our tribal instincts if we attend to our attitudes. We need and always will need our own family circles of love, but if we view others as having the same struggles that we do and as being just as needful of support and being treated well as we do, we can expand our circles of positivity and equality to include the world.
I hope you will consider giving more value to others just because they are human beings and part of your world. You might think that your little contribution to change will be worthless, but your valuing will affect all those you come into contact with, and if you don’t adopt this greater valuing of others, who will.
APPENDIX
(The following are expanded descriptions of the conditions that would both result from giving all others greater value just for being human and would encourage ourselves by seeking them to feel that greater value for others!)
SEEING ALL HUMAN BEINGS AS BASIC EQUALS
In order to increase our valuing of others simply for being human, it helps to see and feel our basic equality with all other human beings. We are all faced with the same existential problems, and we all have the same set of potential feelings about ourselves, others, and life. We are all “in the same boat” as far as our human existence goes, and we all have the same basic goals in life—to survive, to minimize pain, to have some amount of good feelings, to feel good about ourselves, to have sex and raise children, to have some gratifying relationships, to be accepted by our various groups, and to contribute to the welfare and security of our neighbors and our society. Treating others as equals communicates our respect for them, and the good will and trust that flow from this minimize conflicts and allow others to feel comfortable with us.
Being basic equals means not to be either superior to others or inferior to them. If we see ourselves as superior to them, we will also think that we deserve more rewards, love, and approval than they do. If we see ourselves as inferior to them, we will almost certainly have some resentment over this, which will restrict the free flow of positive feelings that we could have for them and our motivation to cooperate for achieving mutual goals.
Basic equality, however, does not mean enforced equality in every way. In the U.S., we say that everyone should have equality of opportunity and be treated equally under the law, while at the same time accepting that people’s status and possessions will in no way end up being equal.
Because of our insecurity and dependence as young children, we seek to be special to caregivers (and more special than the other children in the family). If we are honest, though, we know that we don’t deserve special treatment more than any other child does. This same idea applies to our status hierarchy. Perhaps none of us is any more important or valuable than anyone else. If we really view ourselves as an equal to others in value and accept the outcomes of our own efforts to take care of ourselves, then we would not have the competition and resentments that go with the status hierarchy, and we will be much more able to get along.
When we see ourselves as equal to others, we cease much of our comparing of ourselves with others in terms of status, attractiveness. money, etc., because what is really important is how we view ourselves and what we are doing to make our lives good, as well as the lives of those around us. In my opinion, society would be better off without ranking everyone in value relative to each other but instead having all members of society confident about their basically equal value to others and satisfied with having sufficient resources for a good life.
Equality calls on us to start viewing everyone, including ourselves, in terms of what is really important (how we manage our lives, how we treat others, and what we give to others). The essential and more valuable qualities or achievements of each of us are (1) taking good care of ourselves and those dependent on us, (2) treating all others decently, and (3) doing things that contribute to the welfare of the total group.
HOW EQUAL IS EQUAL?
Our society is in the midst of a valuing crisis, illustrated by our wealth inequality. The difference in income/wealth between ordinary workers and business leaders has become so great that it is inspiring revolutionary ideas and active resistance in some. This is also prompted by the lack of consequences for Wall Street leaders who invested (legally) in insecure securities that led to the 2008 financial crisis, since that seems patently unfair to most workers.
One approach to this problem would be some sort of income redistribution (taking it in taxes from those receiving what seems emotionally to us excessive and giving it to those at the other end of the spectrum). This might be possible with a return to what were our previous levels of taxation (75 to 90 percent marginal tax rate at the top end). The chief enemy of such a proposal is the unreasonable (and laughable) claim by the rich that they need all that money to have all they need in life (and the furious lobbying that would no doubt be employed to protect that).
A related idea would be to establish a reasonable minimum income level (by region) and require that all workers receive at least that much pay. (I estimate that an income of $45,000 for a single worker would be about $25 per hour. This should be enough to provide a small home, a useable car, a TV, and enough for inexpensive food and clothing for one person.) For small employers this could be supplemented with government money (tax money) if necessary. The chief enemies of this proposal are the complaints of taxpayers that they don’t want to pay for anyone else’s life needs (i.e., selfishness?) and the claim of small businesses that they would go out of business if they had to pay such high wages. This could be solved by having both government and small businesses provide the money for this minimum wage. (No one should receive this income support who is not working, though they might appropriately receive disability income.)
Another, more radical idea would be to have everyone paid the same (doctors and stockbrokers the same as sanitation workers, etc.). The argument for this is that everyone who goes to work every day and fulfills the needs of the job is contributing the same amount of time and effort as anyone else and so should be reimbursed the same.
The argument against this is usually that everyone would gravitate toward the easiest jobs, and we would have no doctors or scientists. A counterargument to that is that many people work for more than just money, and we would still have people who got higher education because they liked learning and liked being doctors or scientists enough to do what is necessary to be able to do those jobs, even if there was no higher pay for doing so. Another argument against such an idea is that our “progress” as a society would cease, but this assumes that more money/wealth is always preferable to any other goals, and this forces us to ask when we would be satisfied. Perhaps we have enough now as a total group that all of us could have a comfortable and satisfying life. Wouldn’t that be enough? Do you really have enough now to be satisfied? (Many do, whether they will admit it or not, and some legitimately would not be satisfied.)
Given the history of communism, it seems that any system of reimbursements will have to include room for greater effort and sacrifices (getting more education?, working more hours?) to have greater rewards in some way.
The more general question here is how the total income of a society is to be distributed. We are used to the supply-demand method of doing this (which involves no values whatsoever except money), and we know full well the negative aspects of this method. (1) Those who cannot work could starve without charity from the government or from private citizens. (2) Scarcity imbues those who are higher paid with greater value in our eyes, even if their work is no more valuable than anyone else’s. (3) Those who can make themselves scarce and convince us that we need them are able to blackmail the rest of us into paying them too much. The result for society is that wealth becomes more desirable than doing good for others (including our families), thus skewing society’s values toward selfishness, individualism, and taking-care-of-number-one. The supply-demand approach is easiest for all of us, since we do not then have to face the question of how much we value others and how much others value us in terms of what really matters (e.g., taking care of those who are dependent on you and treating everyone decently). There is no reason why another method might not be preferable!
USING YOUR EMPATHY TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS ACCURATELY
In order to value others in appropriate and rational ways, we must be able to “know” and understand them, which means to have at least a fairly accurate picture of what they are thinking and feeling and some sense of how these fit in with their views and their feelings and behavior historically.
As the ability to feel, know, and/or appreciate what another person is feeling, thinking, or experiencing without being directly informed of it by the other, empathy is a very important tool for understanding other people accurately. In other words, empathy helps us to understand the reality experienced by other people. It is our most helpful capacity in our efforts to have good relations with others and to live together harmoniously and productively. If we could not appreciate what others were feeling, we would not care about them as we do. If we could not intuit or “interpret” what others are thinking, we would not feel comfortable around them, because we could not predict what they would do next (and could therefore not “trust” them).
Empathy allows us to recognize our basic similarity to other people and therefore become willing to be closer to them and to give them the same rights that we have. Empathy helps us get at the deeper and comprehensive truth about human beings, which spurs us on to understand the truth about others and therefore to be better able to predict how they will treat us.
Fortunately, we are quite similar to all other people in our needs and potential feelings, so if we are knowledgeable about our own feelings and needs (if we allow ourselves to know the full truth about ourselves), we have a good basis for starting to figure out the feelings and needs of each other person. We use empathy (the ability to accurately understand another person without being informed directly) to make hypotheses about others, and we then observe or ask questions in order to confirm or disconfirm our hypotheses.
Our common human goals for living (survival, feeling secure, tolerable pain, some times of positive emotions, positive self-esteem, sex and raising children, basic acceptance in our groups, defending our groups as needed) also help us to understand others, since all of the behavior of ourselves and others is aimed at these goals. It is also useful to see others’ behavior as most often stemming from our need for security, our desire for self-esteem, our wish to be special (to enhance our sense of security and self-esteem), and our desire to be treated fairly (since to be treated unfairly lowers our self-esteem and status and threatens our place in the group). Finally, we are all desperate to feel included/accepted in our groups, since we could not survive without others.
Having empathy involves both emotional and cognitive components. We resonate with the other person’s expressions of emotions (automatically resonate with their emotions and mirror to some extent what they are feeling by observing their features and behavior), and we also perceive the other person’s situation and place ourselves in that situation in order to imagine what the other person is feeling or otherwise experiencing. We observe the cues from others in words, voice patterns, posture, movements, and facial expressions, and we put this together with what we know of the person’s history and current situation and concerns, so that we can imagine and partially experience what that person is feeling and thinking.
The typical difficulties we encounter in having accurate empathy are (1) not correctly perceiving another person’s situation, (2) not being familiar with the feelings likely to be associated with that situation, (3) not wanting to feel the same painful or unpleasant feelings that the other person is feeling, (4) being afraid of being too close to others, (5) fearing that having empathy will mean that one will always have to give in to others’ needs, and (6) assuming that others feel and think the same way we do about the world (which they, in general, do not),
In this process of developing accurate empathy, the skill of facing reality squarely and not distorting our understanding in order to feel better ourselves or to spare others is essential. Learning about other cultures and knowing that our own culture’s customs are only one way to live can also prepare us to understand a broader array of people and situations. Don’t let your likes, dislikes, and judgments interfere with your empathy. If you judge others to be either superior or inferior to you, then you will be unable to understand them accurately.
Make no assumptions about others, because each of us is unique. You must take into account all of the determining aspects of a person’s experience, including their unique combination of ethnic background, gender, age, success and failure experiences in life, position in their families, marital status, sexual predilections, religion, and other beliefs.
TREATING OTHERS WITH RESPECT AND COURTESY
When we respect a person, we respect her rights and try not to infringe on the person or cause her distress or discomfort. We try to make it pleasant for the person and try to make her comfortable, by treating her with courtesy and consideration and paying attention to her feelings and needs.
If you have a generally positive attitude toward others, enjoy positive relating, and recognize empathically that it feels good to be treated with courtesy and respect, it will make sense to you to be courteous and respectful toward others. Even treating those we do not like or approve of with respect and courtesy will have a positive outcome, because being treated with courtesy and respect makes everyone feel better, which will improve relations in general.
Treating others with respect elicits the same from them toward us, and being treated with respect causes others to view us more positively and to be more willing to cooperate with us in our efforts to reach our own goals. Treating others with basic respect makes society a more positive and comfortable place and makes all social relations go more smoothly. Disrespecting others results in conflict and even violence (e.g., gang members killing others for being disrespected), since the disrespected person must struggle to maintain self-esteem and self-respect and to re-establish basic group acceptance.
To develop your skills with respect and courtesy, be aware of others’ needs and feelings, including their special sensitivities and quirks. Tailor your words and actions to convey positivity and concern, which means that you will usually avoid words and behavior that could hurt or harm others. View yourself as a basic equal to others, which means that you won’t assert or even intimate that you are better than them and deserve more than they do.
It is not hypocritical to treat someone you don’t particularly like as if he had a high value, since his basic value as a human being is enough value to justify treating him with basic respect.
Everyone deserves basic respect at all times, since all of us are basic equals and have the same fundamental value in the group. No one is more special or intrinsically valuable than anyone else. Even when individuals behave in destructive ways, it is best to treat them with basic respect even while we are administering punishments or avoiding them.
Many people grow up learning to use disrespect as a means of inducing others to conform (implying that the other person is inferior or essentially a non-person to scare them into conforming), but more can be accomplished and more of the basic conformity by all that society needs can be gained by treating others with basic respect at all times (even murderers and rapists), thus holding open an invitation to them to be liked and more highly valued as members of the group for changing their behavior, and by making our negative reinforcements of them separate from our attitude toward them.
TREATING OTHERS FAIRLY
If we value others, we will treat them fairly. The desire to be treated fairly is a fundamental aspect of human psychology and human relations. It arises in the first few years of life, as children note how the treatment they receive compares to how they think other children are treated. Later in childhood, children are greatly interested in “the rules” and want the rules to be applied fairly (at least when it is to their own advantage!). Being treated fairly affirms our place in the social order.
Fundamentally, fairness is applying the rules and expectations to everyone equally and without bias. This means applying the same rules to yourself and your loved ones that you use with others. Doing this tells others that you realize their need for equal treatment and that you will try to give equal treatment without bias. Generally, this means treating others as basic equals, but people may also accept treatment as “fair” (even though undesirable) that stems from the generally accepted assignment of different status or value to various persons in society, if that system of assigning value applies to everyone and has been historically accepted (like a traditional caste system).
We treat others fairly even when it means that we will not get exactly what we ourselves want. We empathize with how others feel about fairness and refuse to benefit unfairly at the expense of others. If a selling price is agreed upon, we do not try to change it if the going rate for the object or service suddenly increases. As a referee or umpire, we strive to make calls according to reality, shorn of our preferences for either team to win and regardless of what the crowd wants. As a boss, we do not give preference to the vacation requests of any one employee over those of others (unless there is a rule about vacation priorities that covers everyone). As a parent, we strive to give the children equally what they need to grow up and flourish. As a sibling, we divide the candy equally, even if we would like to have more. We treat everyone with the same consideration and fairness, regardless of their relatedness, social standing, or ethnicity, and regardless of what we might wish to get from the other person at the time.
The key to treating others fairly is seeing them as basically equal to ourselves, deserving of the same treatment and benefits as ourselves. Therefore, we treat those equal others with the same consideration for their welfare and feelings that we want from others in their treatment of us. Treating others as equals communicates our respect for them, and the good will and trust that flow from this minimize conflicts and allow others to feel comfortable with us.
In a practical sense, the advantages of treating others fairly (having them reciprocally treat us fairly, having them like and cooperate with us more readily) are worth more than the advantages that could be gained by treating them unfairly, as when we take advantage of others (gaining materially in the short-run).
Fairness includes giving up favoring any person to the disadvantage of others, including family members. If we believe in the rule of law (no one is above the law), then we have to take our appropriate punishments, and we have to let even those dear to us take theirs as well, painful as that may be. (This, of course, follows only from the belief in the basic equality of all.)
TREATING OTHERS COMPASSIONATELY
If we value others, we will treat them compassionately. Compassion is an attitude and a feeling state composed of warm concern for another with regard to what we perceive as the negative feelings or life status of that other person, together with a desire for positive life status and outcomes for the person. (Webster’s Ninth Collegiate dictionary defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”) To have compassion for someone implies that you will manage your behavior so that it will not lead to negative life status and outcomes for the person of concern, and it may (but need not) lead to actions designed to enhance the life status and outcomes of that person.
The benefits of our feeling of positive concern for others is maximized if we can relate in this way to all others and not just to our closest friends and relatives. There is suffering in every life, so there is plenty of room to apply compassion in this life! If it is expanded to concern for all persons, compassion is like having a loving attitude toward the whole world, with the addition of wanting any suffering and distress to be alleviated. It might seem unbearably unpleasant to be aware of the distress of so many others around the world when it seems so impossible to do anything meaningful about it, but an individual (such as yourself) who approaches everyone around him (acquainted or not) every day with compassion, does influence those others to be more caring and compassionate themselves, and this influence can spread.
Deepening and sharpening our empathy capacities can broaden and deepen our compassion. The biggest barriers to better empathy are being inaccurate in our understanding of others, being unwilling to feel the negative feeling states of others, and judging and rejecting those whose behavior we dislike. Having better empathy calls on us to (1) understand others in greater detail and more accurately, (2) be better able to tolerate first our own and then others’ negative states and distress so that we can truly understand them, and (3) accept others as they are, so that we can feel compassion even for those whose behavior we find repugnant.
Accepting others even when we don’t like them or like their behavior is a different approach to interpersonal relations than most of us learn growing up. Most of us use disapproval, rejection, and harming others as our ways of trying to get them to change their behavior (hurting, shaming, shunning, embarrassing, criticizing, ignoring, distancing, guilt-tripping), but a more positive approach is to accept everyone basically as a person but use communication and education to seek change in their behavior.
REFRAINING FROM TAKING ADVANTAGE OF OTHERS
If you value others, you will avoid taking advantage of them. Within yourself, this depends on whether you believe that you can get more in life by treating others well and cooperating with them or by trying to take advantage of others whenever you can. Your position on this question will determine much about your relationships and therefore your happiness.
We take advantage of others whenever we try to get more than they get in life (which ends up making their lives worse). Taking advantage of others can take the form of stealing, bad-mouthing, manipulating, lying, ridiculing, putting down, or otherwise deceiving another person. You take advantage when you lie about a movie to get others to agree to go with you to see it. You take advantage when you sell a car to someone without telling them about its defects.
Unfortunately, most human beings are quite willing to take advantage of others in order to get what they want. The only factors that push us toward treating them well are our empathy for others, our valuing of others, our loyalties to those in our in-group, and our fear of negative consequences for mistreating others.
People take advantage of others because they believe that they will get more out of life that way, but the quest for more and more wealth (at others’ expense) does not work as they expect. Psychological research has established fairly well now that more money and possessions do not lead to greater happiness, above a certain moderate level of income. The same is true of status. Lording it over others gives some momentary satisfactions, but the resentment and anger that you generate in others by lording it over them will limit your connections with them and will be brought back to you by those others whenever possible.
The “take advantage” approach has definite costs, as the “winners” are trusted less and resented more and thus lose out on the quality of their relationships. People who routinely treat others badly miss out on some important elements of a happy life, such as love and having a sense of community with others.
If you treat others unfairly on purpose (for personal gain), then you may have some immediate gains from that, if those you treat unfairly are not able to fight back immediately, but your unfairness will come back to you in the form of anger, resentment, and possibly violence, and you will also be contributing to the general amount of anger in the world, which if turned to vengeful behavior has the potential to harm many, including yourself and those you love.
If you have grown up in a family where everyone was always trying to take advantage of each other, then taking advantage may seem normal to you, but having positive and enjoyable relationships with others (through treating others well and being trustworthy) will bring you greater happiness and can become your norm. If you give up some immediate self-interest by treating others fairly, sharing, and taking their needs into account, you will be repaid more in the future than you give up now by others viewing you more positively and treating you better.
The “treat others fairly and as equals” approach leads to more trust between people and to a more cooperative environment which is less stressful than the alternative and has the potential for more trustworthy, longer-lasting and more cooperative relationships. Ask yourself which kind of society you would prefer to live in—one in which everyone tries to take advantage of each other or one in which all are treated well.
The fairness/equality principle requires us to see everyone as basically equal in terms of our behavior toward them. We treat those above us and those below us exactly the same, because they are all human beings, and because we believe that this will result in more rewards for us than treating these groups differentially. We are not “better than” those below us in the hierarchy just because we are higher in the status hierarchy
Note that expecting good treatment from others as a response to our treating them well does not imply allowing others to take advantage of us! Being nice to others does not mean ignoring the harmful behavior they are capable of or trusting them unreasonably.
REFRAINING FROM TRYING TO FORCE OTHERS TO DO WHAT WE WANT
If we value others, we will not try to force others to do what we want or give us what we want. Regardless of how it is done (intimidation, shaming, induction of guilt, bullying, blackmail, extortion, causing pain), trying to force others to do what they do not naturally wish to do will result in their being resentful and angry toward you. (Extortion is promising to harm the person in some way if they do not do something you want. Blackmail is the threat of promising to reveal a secret of the person.)
Every day we try to influence others to our advantage (to do something we want, vote for something we like, buy something from us, etc.), and as long as the person we are attempting to influence still has the freedom, without penalty, to choose what will be in his/her own best interest, including the times when that will not be what we want them to choose, our society legitimizes these attempts to influence. Trying to remove or narrow the person’s freedom to choose, though, by threat or harm, is going too far and will turn them against you.
Families (and all relationships) end up with less love than they could otherwise have if members try to force each other, and if you force non-family persons to do things against their best interest they will either leave you or will never trust you enough to get maximally close. Uses of power and coercion always reduce the amount of love and closeness possible.
HAVING A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD OTHERS
Treating others well requires having a generally positive attitude toward
them, expecting and hoping for the best and treating them in a way that invites them to reciprocate and treat you well, too. Of course, you will want to let them know when they have hurt you (and even sometimes punish them), but it is more productive in general to treat them well at all times, even when they have treated you badly, rather than responding by harming them.
A negative attitude toward others consists of distrust, dislike, and distancing, even if subtle, and it is likely to result in a focus on taking advantage of others in order to get what one wants.
Our positive attitude toward others should be infused with understanding, based on life experiences that have led us to empathically appreciate the difficulties that everyone has in coping with life, the inner struggles that we are all engaged in, and the imperfections of us all. This positive attitude toward others is marked by—
- a hope of positive relating with all others,
- openness to positive relations with others,
- approaching others in a manner that encourages positive relating,
- a willingness to accept others (at least until hurt by them), and
- treating others in ways that promote positive relating (honesty, responsibility for your emotions and behavior, acceptance, fairness, equality, compassion, self-control, autonomy).
APPRECIATING OTHERS
We all appreciate being acknowledged and appreciated for our value, no matter how successful or accomplished we may be. Practice putting your appreciation into words for your partner, and do it frequently. The most common reason for not expressing appreciation is feeling like we ourselves are not getting enough appreciation, but your expressions of appreciation will encourage your partner to do the same toward you (and if you are truly not getting enough appreciation in a current relationship, you should give that serious consideration!). You may not have gotten enough appreciation from your family, but you may also need to reconceptualize how much is enough.
We all have a deep need to be understood—to be seen for who we actually are. You show this understanding by recognizing your partner’s feelings, expressing the feelings that you have in response, and showing by word and deed that you want to know your partner deeply. Don’t just listen but act in response to make your partner’s life better.
Give support when needed. We all sometimes need encouragement and understanding. Don’t give false support (automatically criticizing whoever your partner is mad at, promising that you will always take care of him/her, always saying that everything will be all right). Everything will not be good in life for your partner, but you can promise that as long as you are around, you will take his/her needs seriously and do what you can to help.
We need to feel secure, and you can help with this by being honest, responsible, dependable, and understanding. Don’t mislead or deceive. Don’t put your needs above those of your partner. Show your understanding. Show that you will “be there” for your partner.
Essays\valuingothersequally