It would be a perfect world if all people were sugary nice to each other. However people are different. There are highly intelligent people and people who like to think they are highly intelligent. There are cruel people and there are kind people.No two people think alike. What appeals to somebody as art would appear to somebody else as the scribblings of a six year old. A person who is very selfish would appear to be cruel to most people but may appear just to be frugal to somebody else. In short if is difficult to label a person. To do so is simply expressing one person’s idea of acceptable behaviour as the one and only form of behaviour.
If some of the traits mentioned in the previous paragraph were combined into a single person then there is no doubt that person would be someone who enjoys belittling other people. That person would like to think they are intelligent. From that aspect it is important to draw attention to the failings of other people rather than be the focus of anything that would show up their own lack of knowledge. The appreciation of art really is in the eye of the beholder. A person well versed in belittling other people would deny any other person’s personal opinion of what constitutes art and what doesn’t if it the opinion differed from their own. A person who belittles other people shows no consideration for other people’s feelings and is likely to be selfish and cruel with their comments.
It is all to easy to have a laugh at someone else’s expense. The feeling of being superior to someone else is a trait common in most people. Words are powerful weapons in the hands of those people who go about belittling other people
“You really are a clumsy person aren’t you? For the twenty years I have worked for this company I have never broken a cup. You on the other hand have only been here a week and already you are causing loss to the company”
These words spoken by a supervisor to a new employee in front of the entire staff seated around the company lunch room clearly exemplifies those traits found so often in a person who likes to belittle other people.
For the supervisor who has lasted twenty years in a company it would be hard to imagine how they survive without being assaulted. For some reason however a person who has seniority or is in a position where there is little chance of a comeback seems to be everywhere, not only in the workforce. It would be fair to say that most people in that lunch room would be well aware of the supervisor’s traits and sympathy would most certainly be extended to the new comer. It would be fair to say that most people in the lunch room would see that as another example of the supervisor’s many instances of belittling people. In acting the way the supervisor did it would also be clear that the supervisor belittled him/herself. No doubt the staff would see that as yet another example of how not to talk to staff and their opinion of the supervisor would edge a notch lower.
How does the perpetrator always seem to get away with inflicting pain and humiliations on victims time and time again? In most cases the victim is on the “back foot” so as to speak. The perpetrator has the advantage of being in a superior position and takes great delight in shifting the focus away from their own shortcomings. How could a victim regain face so that it ends in a “win , win”
Perhaps the victim could say , “If only I was as clever as you.”
Really though it depends how the those words are spoken. The role of the perpetrator and victim could be so easily reversed with just the right amount of inflection in the voice.
