Wonder why we need to put others down to prove a point

putting others down
Summary: Do you really need to put others down to prove your point? Or Assert superiority?

Lately I have realised in many of the blogs and articles that I am stumbling upon directly or indirectly are putting down others who have spoken about a topic and this dude claims that he knows better than the others.

Why did I have this realisation now? Well – four instances created this awareness.

One was an article written in Linked In (can’t find now as it is quite difficult to search Pulse on ‘lost articles’ – when I recover the same I will update the link) which talked about another writer who had written about Robin Williams and a “no asshole policy” in Linked In. The point of view of the former writer has been to honour the unwritten code of not speaking bad about fellow writers. According to him it is OK to voice disagreement and counter points but one should not resort to personal attack.

The second was an article on a design site on how so many of the websites are getting it wrong. A look at some of the names however gave me the impression that many of them are doing great business wise.

And the third was this book called “The Org” which talks about how an office or a business works and how things make sense (and how it does not). The anecdotes give me one lasting feeling- things will happen the way they are supposed to without a proper logic and hence you probably can’t say which is the right way for the growth of a business.

Finally there was one article (again on Linked In) on why the writer amongst other things was so fed up with Ice Bucket challenge that he decided to close his facebook account and now is ‘living happily”. But I am not sure if it is going to be “ever after” though.

…and I can say there is nothing wrong and right about it.

Its just instances like the second one happens and you feel ‘who is this dude who thinks he knows it all?’ On mulling over that it seems that he may be just following some methods propagated by some other dude. I read many a article which propagates exactly this methodology – take a dig at somebody else or his/her opinions, create controversy and see how your viewership goes up. Sometimes controversies are ‘plotted’ by the ‘victim’ themselves. When you are marketing yourself or your business, this is one of the low hanging fruit as per quite a number of experts. You just need to manage the controversy in a way that it does not work against your intended purpose.

Many areas are ‘Grey’.

Take Design and Leadership – a couple of mostly read topics. What is a good design to me may not be a good design to you. You can use all those great terms like Design 2.0, form and function etc. but at the end probably it does not matter if your user is buying it in large numbers. I hear many tobacco companies spend millions of dollars designing their cigarette packet. But does it really matter to the smokers? Similarly how many people can really agree to one single framework of leadership. The framework driven approach has always created divergence and not convergence. Is it not an irony that convergence is one of the key outcomes of leadership? (At least it is to me)

But to take it from “The Org” – that’s the way we are. Human beings by nature. And it is reinforced in every possible spheres like business, politics, sports – you name it. Except for true spirituality. As you will find in many citings and articles on human psychology that when we are insecure we tend to put down others. And I guess most of us are insecure about something or other or in extreme case about everything.

By this time you must have realised I am guilty of the same – I have put down those who put others down. Irony or human nature? Love to hear your comments.

Image courtesy: http://badboylol.deviantart.com/

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