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I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who
by ksdale 6y ago
I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or homeless, or otherwise away from people. So that leaves us noticing the strange pattern of people who are publicly kind and privately abusive. It's like, the most remarkable pattern that's actually present for us to remark upon.
- throwaway713 6y ago> I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind Gordon Ramsay perhaps?
- Frondo 6y agoI've watched a lot of his shows and have developed a kind of celebrity respect for him, enough that I've gone on and read interviews with him and with people in his orbit (like the restauranteurs featured on his shows.) Turns out a lot of people say he's actually far kinder than you'd think, off-camera, to all the people he's seemingly abusive to! All the yelling and vitriol is kind of a spliced-down highlights reel, is the impression I've gotten, the stuff that makes for good tv. It's there and it's real, but it's a smaller part of a guy who's generally nice and genuinely cares about the people on his shows. Good suggestion though.
- tekromancr 6y agoI think you can find people who are publicly abusive and privately kind in online communities. I just finished listening to a podcast called My Year in Mensa, which centers around an unmoderated Mensa facebook group, and the author's interactions with them. As you can imagine from an unmoderated community, it sucks and a lot of people say shitty things there. A common refrain the author heard from people defending the group is "They're the nicest people in real life!", which may absolutely be the case, but publicly, they are presenting abusive versions of themselves.
- ksdale 6y agoOoh, that's a great example.
- adrianmonk 6y agoThere could also be a survivorship bias of relationships. The friends you still have are the ones who are willing and able to put up with your shit. The others are no longer in your life. So when you're around them, you know you can let out your bad side to some extent. You don't know that with random strangers.