Those of you who know me well know that I am not an especially Christimas kind of person. I’ve heard the music, watched the movies and I am quite familiar with all the trappings. I have said for a long time that we’ve wandered too far from the original idea of Christmas and I started to think about it again when Jennifer was watching the classic Christmas movie, “Miracle on 34th Street.” I see these movies as an attempt to remind us that we are all part of a large and complicated community of people and this community really falls apart when we start to distrust in ourselves.
A while after the movie ended I was off doing something else when I remembered the old expression, “Nice guys always finish last.” This saying plays into and reinforces our overly competitive natures and the culture we have built around “winning”, especially when it comes or amassing large amounts of money or materials. “Finishing last” means that you don’t get rich, don’t get the McMansion on the hill and don’t get the internationally recognized supermodel that all over men hide pictures of from their wives.
Being nice, then, is seen as weak, un-ambitious, even un-American and something to be pittied or ridiculed. Nice people must have some sort of character flaw that makes them unable or unwilling to claw their way to the top of whatever dung pile they’ve been dumped into.
Of course, this perspective is completely false. When you only care about yourself, which is why people attempt to accrue vast weath, power or property anyway, your decision tree is significantly more straightforward. You make the choice that gains you the most advantage. This is analogous to the computer opponent game design strategy called “Min-Max” where the computer attempts to always grab the most amount of game pieces, or potential future moves, while minimizing the number of pieces, or moves, of the opponent.
In game design, the min-max strategy is considered one of the most basic strategies because of how single-track the program becomes. It does not take long for a human player to learn how to play against and readily beat the program.
Of course I believe that most humans are far more complex even when they seem to be employing a version of the min-max strategy. The reason that people get away with it better than computers is because they were with others who too are applying the same strategy. They build groups, clubs and institutions around themselves that protect their self-interests. At the root of these connections though is the self-interest of the participants. When you’re only thinking about yourself you don’t need to consider anything else. Therefore, it’s a very easy, even lazy strategy. Og our favorite mythical caveman which his wooden club would approve.
On the other side of the spectrum is the person who is “nice”, that is someone who cares about the welfare and feelings of others, has a much more complex path to walk. There’s no ladders to climb here because the nice person doesn’t feel that they are any better or worse than anyone else. People aren’t challenges to overcome, they are people with complex feelings, needs and desires that need to be taken into consideration.
There is no game design analog until we get to games which offer the player, or a computer player, to play the “diplomat” card. My first introduction to this stategy was in the old Civilization computer game. The diplomat will defend itself when attacked but puts most of their energy into making friends of its citizens and neighboring entities. Diplomatic countries in Civilization make the best trade partners and can help you make great advances in the game but because of their great advancements and popularity they soom become targets of others who want what they have and will take it by force.
All of this should sound familiar because we see analogous behavior every day and especially on the news. It makes me ask the question, “If being nice is so weak and helpless, why are you wasting your time attacking nice people?” The answer is simple. Being nice, helpful, diplomatic and caring is not a weakness but a proven, highly successful survival strategy. It is also very, very hard.
When you take the needs and feelings of others into consideration you have to build a matrix of relationships to everyone else. The nice person attempts to give everyone what they need, sometimes even when that is completely impossible.
Balancing this web is hard enough, especially when the nice person also includes their own needs. What makes this lifestyle even more challenging is the number of ways they are attacked. Nice people see in real life and movies not-nice people getting ahead, getting all the attention and, I do like this expression, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. In business, the highest paid people got there by stomping down the competition, even though it is a well-studied reality that these very same people are bad for business in the long run.
Nice people are ridiculed for not being on top, not owning the latest and greatest things and teased for their life choices, such as not being a rich doctor or lawyer and instead chosing to go into social work, teaching or journalism.
That’s just from the outside. Nice people also get attacked from the inside their own circle of people they care about. They can get harassed that they aren’t effectively providing for their family, money troubles will always be a big factor for shake-ups in even the most loving of families.
Even when that is not an issue, when you care about other people, you try to walk a line where you are supportive, helpful and otherwise innoffensive. Sometimes though, the nice person steps on someone’s emotional trigger and gets attacked.
So, this Christmas season, think about the holiday as we see it now. I see the American Christmas holiday as an aggressively marketed, fabricated event that has the simple goal of making certain people richer. I can not support that holiday. What I do support is us remembering all the nice people who are just trying to live their lives as best as they can, supporting their friends and family with whatever they have.
The truly nice people are the first to get persecuted in our uncaring world. How is that finishing last?