How do you know if you’re a villain?
Apparently, everyone is a hero or neutral party in their own stories. So this post will delve into that realm with a quiz at the end.
This post will go over great because everyone can take criticism really well and no one resorts to name calling or crying like babies. Most people have really secure egos and they aren’t at all fragile. I can tell there’s going to be lots of applause for this post.
Why even bring this topic up? Because right now there are people who are destroying the world and causing massive preventable suffering. These people don’t realize it or they don’t care.
Let’s get on common ground and break it down some agreed upon definitions.
What do villains do?
In comic books villains are typically are guys mugging people, beating people up in a dark ally, robbing a bank, or harm society in some indiscriminate way.
They don’t care who they hurt or the consequences of their actions later on down the road.
But let’s ignore that definition for a minute and come up with a new one based on actions and your reactions.
Let’s say you lived 100 years ago. Life is a bit more simplistic.
You were born somewhere in the middle east, maybe Israel, in the middle of the desert. You lived happily in a small village when one day some soldiers from the Ottoman empire rode in on horseback and raided your village. They murdered people in your village, they stole all the food you had, then they setup camp in the village kicking you out of your home to the edges of the city. For some reason they let you live on the streets. Later they wanted to enslave you. You had to do the work they said to do or you would die. You had no options. You had to do what they said or face risk of death by starvation.
We can say there are a few things we may all agree on that villains do. Again, think if this was happening to you.
If someone starves you on purpose for no other reason than to watch you starve we can agree that makes them a villain, correct?
If someone blocks you from what you need to survive (basic necessities) that’s called reckless endangerment and that leads to starvation, sickness or death. If someone kills you or lets you die slowly in pain and suffering what’s the difference?
So if someone starved you, made you homeless, stole from you, enslaved you and so on can we agree that makes them a villain to you, correct?
So back to the topic of the post, ask yourself, “Do I support…”
- Starvation
- Homelessness
- Theft
- Murder
- Slavery
- Supporter of the people doing these things
You might ask, “Well is there some reason you are starving someone to death?”
It doesn’t matter the reasons. And it’s not me saying this, the US Bill of Rights and the Constitution are saying it.
And it’s not just a US thing. The global declaration of human rights states these are violations of every humans rights and are guaranteed to everyone.
What is a psychopath?
But let’s pretend you are a psychopath or suffering from psychopathy.
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy, impaired remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. — source
If you were dying of thirst unable to move and there was a person sitting next to a water tank where they could give you some water if they chose to if the person was a psychopath they would no feel nothing about your pain. No empathy. No feelings. In a normal person empathy activates and causes a response. But to a psychopath or sociopath it doesn’t matter if you die or are suffering. What matters to them is if it benefits them to do anything or if they will be in trouble for not doing anything.
Psychopathy is a mental disorder and like other mental disorders it often can’t be helped.
But history has shown that people in general can become psychopathic. They can and do frequently feel nothing for others.
Psychopathy and narcissism can be hidden under nicer, innocuous sounding terms like indifference.
Indifference in some situations is a type of psychopathy.
But as humans we can’t care about everything or everyone.
So what’s the point?
If you are responsible for only yourself and you neglect yourself or your responsibilities you are only hurting yourself.
Neglecting yourself may affect your health. If you don’t exercise, eat well, sleep well, overwork and so on those things will affect your health. That choice you make affects you and your life. People generally don’t care much if you are indifferent to yourself.
But if you are in a position of power and have been hired, chosen or elected for a job that puts you in a position to be responsible for others and you neglect yourself or the job you are supposed to be doing you are hurting not only yourself but others. Indifference in this case is damaging and psychopathic to everyone around you.
If you’re indifferent and in power you should do something about it like acknowledge it publicly, get help from people who do care, or resign and let others who do have an appropriate compassionate response handle it.
Whether you are psychopathic or not you can figure this out if you ask yourself, “What if someone did this to me? If someone was responsible for feeding me but instead they starved me on purpose would that make them a villain?”
Why even bring this up? Because right now there are people who are destroying the world and causing massive preventable suffering. They don’t know they are villains or don’t care and others don’t know.
It’s estimated over 4 billion people are in poverty (poverty is painful).
These people are callous, indifferent, detached, living in a bubble, complacent, psychopathic who believe that:
- starvation is ok
- homelessness is ok
- deaths and deaths of despairs are ok
- suffering from preventable illness (healthlessness?) is ok
- poverty is ok (insufficiency?)
- a system of oppression is ok (opposers?)
Poverty is simply not having enough for what you need to survive. Around 80% of US citizens are living paycheck to paycheck not able to cover a $400 emergency. If they see a doctor and can afford it they often go in debt or if they can’t afford it they simply get sick and remain untreated suffering in pain.
The belief system that many people in the US believe in is neoliberalism. They actually believe:
“Not all Americans can have homes only those with money!
Not all Americans can have food only those with money!
Not all Americans can have medicine only those with money!
Not all Americans can have education only those with money!”
Somewhere along the way they were convinced that this is ok. Somewhere they were indoctrinated with a villains belief system.
For example, farmers dumped food rather than give it away in the middle of a pandemic,
It’s not like there isn’t enough. The US wastes 40% of the food it produces. It dumps it rather than give it to those who need it.
They think that the way life is with all of its problems is ok.
There are people who have billions and billions that they don’t need to survive. They don’t need it. Others need that money to survive. They will die and do die at 25k a day from hunger related issues because people at some point in the past have setup a society in a way that neglects people.
These oppression maintainers even go so far as to defend it. They believe that starvation, homelessness, poverty, healthlessness, insufficiency is ok. These people are usually food secure and housing secure and are benefiting in some way from the way things are.
If you say it’s unavoidable, or that you don’t know how to solve it that’s one thing.
But it is avoidable! All the major problems in the world have been solved! All it takes is the will to change. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
If you lived in a society that was pro-pain and pro-pain accessories (sorry) and someone else supported and defended that society that is actively harming you causing you preventable starvation and illness and they prevent other people from making or testing upgrades they would be villains.
Look at this way. In the other parts of the world there are societies that discriminate against women and treat them as sub human. Imagine someone defending that. The people that defend oppressive systems and societies are called Maintainers of Oppression or Opposers.
What if you took a boat ride, got lost at sea and wound up on an island where the people were using square wheels where the square wheels would cause people to get sick and die regularly. Then when you tried to show them them round wheels they said no because a few of them benefit from sick people?
Or what kind of people are against upgrading apps on their phones?
Imagine someone on their phone yelling, “I love IPHONE 1.0 and I LOVE the very first version of INSTAGRAM. I’ll NEVER UPGRADE TO A NEW VERSION! The version I have with all the bugs and insecurity is the best version! I will never upgrade! I will never improve! I won’t learn from others success! No, I’m not a know it all! No I’m not a capitalist luddite!”
So how do you know if you are a villain?
Right now there are people who are destroying the world and causing massive preventable suffering. Imperfect people in the past have setup a society that we live with today that people in the present can fix.
This is a draft.
