JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

Brad and I were recently discussing the belief of judging an argument by its merits. As far as I know, this is a basic and well-known belief. In order to gain footing, some people use the belief as a means to manipulate social situations. It is not uncommon for these people to disguise negative behavior under the category of (among other things) fun, thereby presenting a positive or benign face. In doing so, a person who sees through the disguise is manipulated into either letting the negative behavior stand or confronting it and taking the risk of being seen as the aggressor in the situation. In this way, the perpetrators achieve the goal of presenting a negative public image of the target as either weak or aggressive, depending on the chosen reaction to the behavior. This is one of the reasons I’m not really into images or politics. I would rather discuss the issues not waste time with tactics that accomplish very little other than give the persons involved a game to play.