otrdiena, 2011. gada 3. maijs

Compulsive Ultimatums

It occurs to me that value of a compulsive action has a strange inversion in the minds of those performing the action; I call it the compulsive ultimatum. Take, for example, the neat freaks. In their heads they hold the idea that their sense of cleanness is full of value and intrinsically superior to a more lessaiz-faire attitude. They also go to great lengths to impose their sense of worth on others. I postulate that this desperate need to impose value judgements on others has a distinct utility to give justification for having the compulsion and it turns into a vicious cycle. Here is an example: Person A cleans the floors once a month, person B does it every two days (each person representing an extreme in either direction). We will hardly ever find A that admonishes B for cleaning the floors (too often), since clean floors are good, even though cleaning too often can be seen as compulsive and preventing B from enjoying other activities like watching a movie or going for a walk. However, it is often that we would find B admonishing A for not having as high a standart for clean floors. This is partly because B has to give value to their compulsive behaviour and the best way to do this is to invoke value-recognition and faux guilt in others wia compulsive ultimatum. The absurdity of this predisposition can be illustrated like this: A water supplier and a client have a contract that stipulates that the supplier supplies whatever is demanded and then is compensated. If, however, the supplier becomes compulsive and starts to supply more water than is demanded, the client will be bewildered, even angry. Then the supplier would admonish the client for not consuming enough water and rising complaints (imagine that!). Of course, in interpersonal relationships, there are no clear cut lines of agreement and rarely ever any contracts, which is why recognizing compulsive ultimatums is difficult. 

Now, it could certainly be said that A could have higher standards and that B can be genuinely distressed by the amount of dirt on the floor, but here is the question, is it moral for B to demand higher standards from A, if, all things being equal, A has no discomfort from status quo and would inherit a more neurotic predisposition if pushed herself to more B-like standards? In the end it boils down to a mere comparison between the contentment lost for A and contentment gained for B. I posit that for a compulsive B the gains would be minimal and for a lazy/unmativated/male A the losses would be massive. The two states of affairs are unreconcileable and will only result in hurt.

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