Disclaimer: The author’s knowledge about the legal system by no means applies to anywhere outside of his homeland. But what is legal or illegal should be similar enough for the discussion below - at least for first world countries, I guess.
That said, the author is not a lawyer and does not have accurate knowledge of any concrete laws. But one does not need to know (too many of) them for this article.
Those jerks we see everyday
Jerks are not criminals. Maybe they do break some laws in some occasions, but the “crimes” are not serious.
Jerks are those who commit offences to people near them. They do things that are barely legal but extremely annoying and even morally wrong. They know what they are doing, and they refuse to change, they got the brass neck to do awful things.
They are those who talk or play music really loud on a busy train, or those who occupy unnecessary space or standing unnecssarily close to annoy people, those who say roundabout and mean things (but right in your face), or those take a little advantages of you and act like he is right.
They are annoying not because they give you offences, they do give you offences, but the annoying part is that you don’t have a good option to make them pay without hurting yourself.
You options look like this:
The red (same as the color of the word “the jerk”) numbers in the boxes represent the gain/ loss, or how happy will the jerk be in different cases. The blue numbers are the counterparts for you. Since what the jerks do are not something seriously hurting your benifit, if you suck it, you will get let’s say $-5$. If you fight back, for examples by condemning them verbally or by any form or force (moving them out of what they should not be at; stopping whatever physical actions they are doing; or even giving them a big slap), it does offend them back, but it is also highly likely going to cost you more. Let’s say it costs you $-10$. (Note that this analysis works only for good citizens, normal people who have to go to work tomorrow so that they can feed themselves and their family. Otherwise you might be more willing to take the consequences of escalating the scene and hence more willing to fight back. We will discuss only in the case of that we are normal people.)
Some people might think there should be some ways to fight back without too much cost. I will list a few of them that I could imagine, and explain why they are bad ideas. Honestly, if you are neither a bad person nor a saint nor are pampered, you will agree with me.
- Condemn them.
Most of the jerks are thick-skinned. You only irritate yourself. - Film a video of what they did and put it on Youtube or some Facebook groups
They do get some attention and shitstorms among a small group of people, but soon they will be forgotten. Do you remember the face of the person you see the last such video? I don’t. I bet you neither. Maybe those who know them will recognize them and remember their behaviors much longer. But if they are kind and loyal enough to those who are close to them, or more accurately, those who really matter to them, they will likely be forgiven by those people. And they will still have a good life.
Some people believe that those who do jerky behaviors to them must be jerky to everyone, and hence they will get freezed out. But that is not true. They can be a great spouse, a great parent, a great son/ daughter. “Clever” jerks know who to bully and who not to. See the next section for more.
Another problem is that there are some jerky behaviors that you wouldn’t have the time to film a video or take a picture. Such as bumping people on the street for no reasons and walking away extremely fast. (Sidenote: if you are a big guy you can do this for “good purposes” sometimes. But it only works in very few occasions and does not work at all for someone not physically strong.) - Call the police.
Meh. Most jerky behaviors are barely legal as we said. Cops are either unable to or not willing to do much.
So, the “best” option here is to suck it, just like what most people do. What is so bad is that, the “best option” is always letting the good people “lose” and the jerks “win”. The rationally best choice gives the shittiest outcomes.
Understand that facing criminals is a differnt story. If someone is commiting crimes against you, you won’t be bothered by the same problem. You can legally fight back. And if the crime is serious enough, you won’t hesitate to pay the cost of time, effort and money to fight back by any means, if you are able to do so. Of cause most of the time you don’t even have the ability to fight back immediately in the case of serious crimes, but that is another issue. For example, when someone is commiting physical assault on you, assuming you are 50/ 50 with him in a fight, then you options will look like this:
A totally different situation.
Morals does not work for strangers
Certainly the legal system is not the only reward and punishment system in our society. Morals is a strong force to restrict people’s behavior
Moral system works well for a group of people who know each other and will live with, or work with, or rely on, for a significant period of time, like colleagues, families, close neighbourhood especially in rural areas. If you act unethically and get freezed out by those people, you will have a really hard time. Especially in rural areas, that would makes the whole village unlivable for you.
However, morals does not work for strangers. If someone is almost sure that he/ she will see you only once in a lifetime, he/ she can literally do anything to you without consequences (except the legal consequences). There is nothing we can do about it. You can condemn those who are not kind-hearted and curse them with the ugliest words you know, nothing would happen in reality, except that you are damaged and angry.
This is just like the difference between normal prisoners’ dilemma and prisoners’ dilemma with infinite or unknown number of rounds. If there is only one round (you only see each other once in a life time), the “best” strategy is to betray. Only when you don’t know when will the relationship with someone end, there is possibility to cooperate.
It sounds horrible to those innocent, but that is how it works.
The worse thing is that, morals of societies that are more…uh, barbaric, actually flavors jerks less (Of cause barbaric societies have other problems). Jerks enjoy more advantages in civilization.
Morals from so-called civilized world makes it worse
I forgot where did I see a sarcastic line about respects, not the exact wordings but more or less the same meaning:
Cavemen know repects better than us. Cuz if you don’t respect someone you will be still be fine. But if a caveman doesn’t repect another caveman, his head will probably be cut in half.
This is a bit exaggerated, but it does not hurt the fact modern world overly vilifies and oppresses violence.
What if minor violence against jerky behaviors is widely acceptable and is free from moral condemnation? Perhaps let’s get a bit extreme to show the effect: if such thing is even encouraged in our moral system, so most people are tend to fight back to make the jerks pay, now the jerks need to consider between acting like a jerk or not to do so.
In this case, not acting like a jerk will be more attractive.
A sidenote is that, undoubtedly violence out of control creates other problems. The solution proposed by civilization is that we all should agree to “outsource” our rightful violence usages to the law enforcement, so that the violence is easier to manage in theory, and cough HOPEFULLY cough we can ensure that the law enforcement use force the right way.
The bottomline is, moral system can’t save you from jerks. It even flavors them.
It is an unfair game
I hope I have demonstrated that how our laws and moral beliefs put them in such a situation that doing jerky things to strangers are flavored. It puts us into an unfair game - they have the option to give you (minor) offences with almost zero cost, but your other options always cost you more than that, and they are always winning.
The very reason we hate jerks is not how bad they are, but that they are just bad enough to irritate and causes minor damages, but “harmless” enough to get away from consequences so often. It is always the unfairness.
Rationality
As a single person, there is not much you can do. If you are a “rational” (which means you always pick the choices that bring you the most benifits) person, your “best” choice is still to suck it. Things will only change in either case:
- The legal and moral systems change so that they do not flavor jerks anymore.
- You give up to be a “rational” person.
In fact if everyone is “rational” the legal and moral systems change will not change. It is always some “insane” people who act against their own interest and change the tide. Of cause it does not mean that you can go on the street to slap a jerk and the whole world will change overnight and you don’t have to be arrested. No one know when will a change comes or will it even come.
As a sidenote, studying how “irrational” choices can bring good result is also an interesting topic.