Monday, April 21, 2014

Attitudes of high status people

According to the values I grew up with, we are all equal.  According to the values I grew up with, it is morally wrong to treat a high status person better than you treat a low status person. I think I got this outlook from Quakerism, but I don't maintain it out of a desire to adhere to Quaker values.  I maintain it because it's part of my beliefs.  It's ingrained in me, and I choose to keep it.

I see some people in high level positions who seem to take the same attitude.  They are humble. They don't act like they are better than anyone else.  If they ask you to do something, they explain why.  If you  make a mistake, they seem to take the attitude that we are all fallible.

But then there are other people in high level positions who have a smugness to them.  They act like they advanced to that position because they have greater ability and hard work than other people.  If you make a mistake, they seem to take the attitude that you are incompetent and/or malicious.

Well, not all are that bad.  There are some who don't look down on others, yet there is still something about them, something that says they have a determination to succeed.

It seems to me that those who are humble, who are in a high status position but act like they are the same as anyone else, are often people who came from an environment in which it was taken for granted that they were intelligent and could pursue whatever they were interested.  Many of those who seem to have a smugness about them, or at least an attitude that they have succeeded due to their personal determination, seem to come from backgrounds in which it was not expected that they would succeed.

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