One double standard I encounter regularly as a psychotherapist is one that can be summed up as "You deserve a break, but I don't." Many of the people I work with perceive themselves as less deserving, less capable, not as smart, not as good as other people --- people they know and those they have never met. They frequently hold this low opinion of themselves in spite of much evidence to the contrary. I refer to this as "negative arrogance," the solid belief not that I am better than you, but that I am much worse.
The
good news about people who feel this bad about themselves is that they just
might get to feeling bad enough to reach out for some help. These people,
perceiving themselves to be the problem, just might show up in a therapist’s
office to ask for help. Then we can go to work on this “dangerous double
standard" by which they live.
It
is not easy to recover from this self-deprecating belief system, but with
dedication and hard work, we can leave it behind.
There
is a double standard, however, that is far more dangerous. It is the double
standard of "I deserve a break and you don't." It is a double standard
that ranges on a continuum from "insensitive and selfish" all the way
through "narcissistic" ultimately to "anti-social personality
(psychopath)." Unfortunately, these people, not perceiving themselves to be
a problem – or even part of a problem – do not tend to seek help. When they
do land in a therapist's office, it is usually because external circumstances
have pressured them into it. Even when the selfish-or-psychothatic show up for
help, they are not likely to be helped. After all, you have to define a problem
accurately in order to solve it. When someone consistently sees problems as
stemming from external circumstances, caused by other people, the likelihood of
effective resolution is slim.
The
position these selfish-to-psychothatic people occupy in society largely
determines the degree of harm they will do. The smallest social units of
marriages and families are constantly harmed and destroyed by individuals who
show little or no empathy and who do not take responsibility for themselves.
Since these people are often highly intelligent and charismatic, they create
more wide-ranging havoc in the corporate environment.
When
someone has succeeded in accumulating significant power – be it in a family
system, a business, or in government – it becomes very difficult to intervene
to stop the resulting abuses. The difficulty to intervene is multi-faceted, but
in the simplest terms, there are two primary problems:
1. DENIAL - Some people are captivated (entranced) by the charismatic aspects of
the person, which often includes believing lies they have been told --- and
therefore live in denial of the actual problem. We'll call these people
"the blind."
2. FEAR - Some people are afraid – consciously or unconsciously – to confront the problem because of potential personal consequences. We'll call these people "the ostriches."
Productive, positive change in our world – from the families all the way to global relationships between nations – depends on the existence of a third category of people: people with clear vision who think for themselves and who are courageous enough to confront a bully when they encounter one.
Please take these thoughts into the lives you lead and put them to good use. Stand up to bullies. Stand up to the bully within your own mind who is the source of the double standard that tells you that you are less than any of the rest of us. Genuine humility, after all, is the understanding that we are neither better nor worse than anyone else.