A person cheats another one in relationship and yet people don’t judge him or brand him cheater or dishonest. On the other hand if someone cheats another one financially, the person is readily branded cheater or dishonest by society. Is it that society has become so much materialistic? Is it materialism at display in such different treatment of emotional cheating Vs financial cheating?
I think people have not become so much materialistic but they have become skeptic Even people who are very honest and ethical in personal life, when asked to talk or share opinion about honesty and ethics, may speak negatively or may avoid talking about it, or think of other aspects (e.g. financial as you said), because of skepticism…
So I am in a bus and an old lady is fighting with the conductor, telling that she does not have money to reach the destination but please allow since she has no other means to go. I see the scene but decide not to help the lady with a 20 or 50 rupee note. One person watching this can say that this is materialism’s victory over emotions (since I did not pay and old lady) but actual reason can be different (I doubting whether she was genuinely poor or faking it). Since no one can be sure about others emotions (people fake it most of the time), we ignore giving emotional responses. As a spectator, we can never know who actually cheated in any relationship; it may be that only one side of the coin was visible to us. So we tend to ignore and not judge people by their responses to emotions. On financial matters, it is easy to judge and hence we can call people dishonest easily…
For cheating in general, from personal experiences I see seldom a person cheats another twice financially. One can take legal recourse or break the friendship with that person forever. Now on emotional cheating or personal cheating etc, we never know why the person cheated in the first place. Was it a revenge for some other cheating received? Even if the person cheated, the other person may decide neither to take legal action nor to break off the relationship forever, because of various reasons like dependency or need. So as a society or community or observing individuals, we can seldom be sure what cooked up, what led to what, and even if we are sure that A cheated B, there is high probability that A may not cheat C or D (or us) since each relationship by their nature are unique . Since it is very difficult to judge relationships, in general we don’t call people honest/dishonest by how a particular relationship turns or ends… If one cheated another financially, one, it is easy to prove and be sure about, and second since financial transactions are not really unique like each relationship, we may decide to label a person as a fraud or cheater with confidence…
E.g. a person has piled up credits in his grocery bills. If I am a medical shop owner, I would know that the person is very much likely to default on medical bills also and hence I won’t sell anything to him on credit. But a friend fighting with another friend and being insensitive towards him, does not lead me to also breaking off with him fearing the same to happen with me. I can be cautionary but since his ability to hurt me is also decided by my ability to react, or his actions are guided by other person’s actions, I may not feel threatened. Financial transactions are give OR take. Relationships are give AND take. So both are very different…
No comments:
Post a Comment