The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

AS OTHERS SEE US

The Reverend Richard R. Davis,   January 25, 2009  

            Recently someone started pulling my leg – you know, leading me to believe one thing and then suddenly pulling the rug out from under me and saying “just kidding.”  It happened several times, and when a look of irritation crossed my face the person asked “Can’t you take a joke?”   Apparently not – at least not at those particular times.  Maybe never.  I’m tall enough – I don’t think I need my legs stretched any more.

            And then it dawned upon me.  Pulling other people’s legs is my stock in trade, my modus operandi, my common practice.  I’m quite good at it, too.  With my poker face I’ve been quite successful in pulling many legs in my life, including a fair number of the ones in this room.  Yet, now I wonder – if I don’t like having my leg pulled, maybe some other people don’t like it either.  Perhaps I’ve been oblivious to my impact upon other people – I haven’t realized how others see and experience me.  So I’d like to apologize to all of you who don’t like having your legs pulled any more than I do.  

In fact, I was feeling so remorseful about this I was pondering a major character overhaul when I stumbled across an article on “the trickster” and this passage leaped up at me:  "Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth"

So there you have it – I’m a trickster.  It’s a vital role in the great cosmic drama, so I will continue playing my part.   

Yet I am still left with the realization that I am only dimly aware of how other people see and experience me, as opposed to how I think I appear to others, and that is something to think about.  Here is one reason:  Consider housework (or any common endeavor).  When couples are asked what percentage of the housework each does and the percentages are added up it comes to 120%.   There is a dynamic of unconscious over-claiming – a self serving bias - at work here.  Each of us is acutely aware of our own contributions and efforts, but the contributions and efforts of others often fly under our radar.  So you may think you’re pulling your weight but others may have a different opinion entirely.

The disconcerting truth of the matter is that other people are more likely to have an accurate perception of you than you yourself do.   Social psychologists have conducted numerous studies in which people are asked to assess themselves and others.  The results show that, in general, we’re pretty good judges of other people’s characters but not so good at judging our own.   As the social psychologist Jonathon Haight puts it:  “we see ourselves in a rose colored mirror.”  The American poet Longfellow tells us why this is:  “We judge ourselves by what we feel we are capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”   In regard to ourselves, we have a skewed subjective perspective and in regards to others we have a more objective perspective. 

            This is not new information.  Two and a half millennia ago the Buddha noted that “It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one’s own faults.  One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one’s own faults as cunning gambler conceals his dice.”  Buddha.

            So those most often fooled in this game are ourselves.  And such self delusion often turns into a very dangerous game.  Roy Baumeister, another social psychologist studied what we would consider evil acts from the perspectives of the perpetrators of these act.  He learned that these perpetrators did not regard their acts as evil at all – there was some subjective narrative playing in their minds which convinced them that they were good reasons for doing what they were doing.  Most murderers can tell you a tale of how they were either righting an injustice or protecting themselves or serving some larger good.  Most liars and cheats can tell you how they had to do what they had to do to survive in a world full of bigger liars and cheats.  Osama bin Laden certainly does not think he was evil to plot and help execute terrorist attacks that killed so many.  Except in pathologically extreme cases, it is extremely rare that anyone consciously sets out to do evil.  

Yet Baumeister also interviewed victims and discovered that they, too, often had a distorted perspective and could not acknowledge their own complicity in many of these acts. 

In other words, everyone – perpetrators and victims alike – have a self serving bias that protects their own self esteem.  It’s always others who are to blame.  Out of this comes what he (Baumeister) calls “the myth of pure evil.”  This myth says that evildoers are pure in their evil motives and victims are pure in their victimhood – it’s a black and white world.  The myth of evil says that all evil comes from outside and is associated with others who threaten our way of life.  Consider our current world scene.  Our nation is embarked upon a “war on terror” in which we seek to eradicate the pure evil of terrorism.  Meanwhile, those whom we call evil terrorists look upon us as “The Great Satan” – servants of evil and infidelity.   Furthermore, anyone who questions the “moral clarity” of this pure good vs. pure evil scenario becomes instantly suspect – they’re not patriotic or faithful.

There is a great irony in all of this.  Individuals and groups who have high self esteem  (the brittle, narcissistic variety) and who are the most idealistic pose the most danger.  Those who go around trumpeting “We are the greatest nation, the one true faith, ours is the most righteous cause” and who are the most idealistic – “we truly want to make the world safer, we want to advance our ideals (i.e., democratic, nationalist, socialist, Christian, Islamic) we want to purify society” and since our goal is so lofty, the means by which we get there are secondary.  – do pose the greatest danger and are most likely to do things we call evil.  They cannot recognize their own failings. Consider that the greatest evils of the past century were carried out by those who had visions of creating a perfect society or a pure homeland.  Normally, we think high self esteem and idealism is good – but without a good dose of humility it is a volatile mix.   Without that, all evil will be projected onto something or some one else.  It’s human nature.

This I do know – whenever I accidentally smash my finger with a hammer my “inner lawyer” jumps to the rescue to prove that I am an innocent victim - it is someone else’s fault that I am suffering such excruciating pain – either I was feeling rushed by others, or someone distracted me, or I got roped into a project I never wanted to do in the first place and really don’t have time for or maybe the hammer itself (or those who designed it) are to blame – anyone but me.   For your own good, stay far away from me when I’m working with tools – the blood and the blame could flow freely.  Above all, if you are close by and see me or some other writhing in pain after an accident, never ask “Does it hurt?” 

Here’s what this all boils down to – I am biased and, most likely, so are you and everyone else.  Widespread cognitive psychological testing confirms people have an inherent self preserving bias.  Anyone who doesn’t believe that’s true probably just proves the point - they are led by bias to reach the conclusion that they are not biased.  Don’t misunderstand - I didn’t say people are bad or evil or unworthy – I just said that people in general are distinctly biased in regards to themselves – we can easily spot the faults of others and be blind to our own.  We have cognitive processes that predispose us to be so.  Perhaps there are sound evolutionary explanations for why we needed to be like this to survive, but it does result in hypocrisy, self-righteousness and moralistic conflict. 

It’s easy to cast blame, harder to accept responsibility, to acknowledge our own role in the bad things that happen in our world.  Yet if we cannot surmount that challenge we’ll forever be stuck in cycles of conflict and recrimination.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns knew this.  One Sunday in church – sometime around 1785 - he looked over at a fine young lady and saw something she could not see –  there was a louse – “an ugly, creepin’ blasted wonner” - crawling on her stylish bonnet.  This set the poet’s creative juices to flowing, and he wrote a funny poem, mostly addressed to the impudent louse who was daring to crawl on such a fine young lady’s bonnet.  But Burns shifts at the end to address the young woman, Jenny, and tell her not to be so vain and imagine she is flashing her beauty out to an admiring world – that there are things others can see about her that she cannot.  Then, Burns turns his focus to all of us and notes:   “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us/ It wad frae monie a blunder free us/ An’ foolish notion/ What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us/ An’ ev’n Devotion”  (Oh, that God would give us the very smallest of gifts/ To be able to see ourselves as others see us/  It would save us from many mistakes/ And foolish thoughts/ We would change the way we look and gesture/ and to how and what we apply our time and attention.)

Well, actually, we can give ourselves this gift to some extent – we can learn to be self aware of our natural proclivity to be biased and factor that in to the way we interact with others.  It’s not easy.  Our inner lawyer doesn’t like this – it always wants to get us off the hook, to maintain our innocence and make us look good.  Really, it’s an exercise in genuine humility.  

This is not a call to crippling self consciousness and perpetual self doubt – it’s not a recommendation to drive down the road of life with the brakes on always asking yourself if you’re going the right speed or direction.  Rather, it’s a call to live with some  awareness of your impact upon others in the world.  How DO others see you?  What impact ARE your having upon them?   It’s something to think about.   

After all, who do you think your are: God’s gift to humankind?  Well, come to think of it – I’d say you are.  It’s just that you’re not THE ONLY gift, but one among many.  As someone has noted:  “It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”  Yet each of us is the center of our own world and this gives us a skewed perspective.  Each one of us is a gift to the world– unique and wondrous, each of us bearing gifts that no one else could ever bring. 

Which brings me to this observation:  The thrust of Robert Burn’s poem is that if we could see ourselves as others see us then we’d also see our faults, flaws and foibles and foreswear our foolish ways.  That may be true, but don’t let this cloudy observation block out the light of a sunnier truth. 

Consider the work of local photographer Jill Cannefax (who we hope will come speak to us some Sunday).  Jill has gotten local elementary school students to draw each other’s names out of a hat and then spend time photographing each other for a period of time. 

As these children photographed each other over a period of time something amazing happened - their mutual trust grew, they saw the goodness in one another and they were able to capture this in the photographs.  Through this creative process the children learned not only to see the beauty in others but to capture it in their photos so that each child could see their own photo and begin to see the beauty and goodness that others saw in them.

Each one of us is so unique and original that we should be regarded as appreciatively as a work of art.  Our culture is so obsessed with the superficial characteristics of appearance that deeper, truer beauty goes ignored. 

Too often, we recognize such beauty belatedly, after someone is gone.   Why not recognize the unique and beloved beauty in each other now while we have each other?   Realize that others may see faults and flaws you cannot see, but also consider that they can see a deep down goodness and beauty we too often doubt we have. Yes, indeed, “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us”  - We’d be both wiser and more joyous.