Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Bully

  • The Pig

    The Pig

    The Pig is really a most unfortunate combination of every absurdity known to modern man.

    For a start he is ill educated and stupid but does not appear to realize it. The Pig seems to get through life by the twin weapons of bullying and dogged persistence.

    No sooner have you got his horrible, greedy snout removed from your front door than you discover he has gone round the back for a another attempt to swindle and bamboozle you with his ridiculous, pompous, self serving bullshit.

    The mailed fist is the only way to deal with the Pig. Metaphorically speaking of course. Because the Pig is unable to understand rational argument. Or if he has a glimmer that what you are saying might have the merest seed of truth, he will choose to ignore that truth.

    The Pig is a conman, a liar, a cheat. In a small, mean and chiseling way. He will engage in petty swindles wherever and whenever he can. He is “Dell Boy Trotter” without the charm.

    The Pig is also a terminal and petty snob. He bolsters his ego by mixing only with those he considers the great and the good.

    He is also an arse licker of the first order, with a nose so brown you know exactly where it has been.

    In more charitable moments one is tempted to ignore the Pig. As long as your paths don’t cross that is an eminently possible and sensible solution. Trouble is when you are forced to confront the Pig, he brings out the worst in you and makes meaningless your very best intentions.

    The New Testament tells us that the meek shall inherit the earth. We are told to turn the other cheek. When faced with the Pig we are ashamed to say all our good intentions fly out of the window. We are tempted to say “bollocks to the New Testament”. Oh dear, we really wish we didn’t have to admit that.

    I wish I could behave myself better. I wish that I need not yield to the temptation of anger. Should I give in then? Should I let the Pig trample all over people? Victimize them with his petty swindles and larcenous ways? Well, probably I should. But I am only human, alas.

    The only way to deal with the Pig is to wipe him out of your life as you would remove excrement from your shoe. If only it were that easy.

  • How should you deal with a pig?

    How should you deal with a pig?

    I have come to question my behaviour when dealing with a pig over the past couple of years.  Well, pigs actually.

    How do I know I’m not the pig and the others perfectly innocent and reasonable people?  First and foremost I think it is right to ask the question even if the answer is less simple.  I am deeply suspicious of the self righteous and those of deep unquestioning certainty.

    I have been trying to help a couple of waggy labradors who tend to turn the other cheek and suffer in silence when assaulted on all sides by creatures of apparently great malice.  Said labradors are unfortunately natural victims – pleasant, happy go lucky people who tend to get trampled on by the selfish, the malicious and the venal.

    The particular pig in question has tried to short change the labrador couple for the past couple of years on a transaction.  The other pigs in question, for reasons best known to themselves, turned against the waggy labradors and made unforgivable and slanderous accusations of theft and all sorts of other unpleasant nonsense.

    The property pig has been on a land grab. He was buying one half of a property, the labradors the other. Said pig first tries to claim the labradors are only entitled to a island of land in the middle on which sits a crumbling cottage without access to any roads.  Said pig claims the deeds say he is entitled to the rest.

    Once said pig is seen off, he turns his attention to restrictive covenants and insists he will only contract to buy the property if he gets any and all covenants he requires: the labradors will be able to do nothing with their property other than sell it to Mr Pig for twopence.  Again Mr Pig was largely seen off.

    Unfortunately Mr Pig insisted on having ownership of the access road and obtained planning consent without consulting the labradors or thinking of their needs.   If carried out the planning consent would be in breach of covenant but said Mr Pig refuses to concede.  So the labradors’ access to their cottage is to be narrowed if Mr Pig has his way  and it would be very difficult for the emergency services to get in.

    I have dealt sternly with Mr Pig and all the other Pigs. I have let them get away with as little as possible. And yet pigs have a habit of trying to make you feel the dirty one.

    Could I have handled the situation better? Yes. Could I have been more tactful and less abrasive? Probably. Am I wrong and the pigs right?  No, I really don’t think so.  If I had been fighting my own corner I would probably have felt far less sure that I was right.  Happily I was only trying to help the labradors.

    But what should I have done? Is it right to “fight”? To stand up for people’s right not to be dumped on? Or should I too have turned the other cheek? Walked away?  Let the labradors get swindled and cheated?

    Well I suppose it would have made for a quieter life and saved me a lot of effort, soul searching and anxiety.  My wife is also a waggy labrador – or Pollyanna. She believes that the meek inherit the earth and also tends to let herself get trampled on.  What would she have done? Who knows, I didn’t ask her.

    If pigs treated labradors as they themselves would like to be treated, the whole world would be fine and dandy. But if the pigs hear such a message they trample the message bearer to the ground.  Pigs will always be pigs I guess. Thank heavens most of them eventually get turned into bacon.

  • The Schoolyard Thug

    The Schoolyard Thug

    He is an odd character the bully, a difficult one to work out sometimes. When combined with bumptiousness, lack of education, near illiteracy and an over inflated ego the puzzle deepens.

    What drives this self important, self anointed titan?  Underneath the overconfident exterior there lies all manner of vulnerability.  He is a figure to be pitied perhaps rather than derided.

    As ever it must, presumably, be a joint product of nature and nurture which combines to produce such a preposterous figure.  The endless name dropping is a sign of insecurity, an effort to boost an inflated but at the same time empty and needy ego.

    While things are going his way the bully may seem jovial and congenial; cross him, deny him what he wants to take from you and a petulant, foolish child emerges.

    There is nothing wrong in being not very bright. We are all born with certain characteristics and intelligence or its lack is simply one of those. The bully will attempt to hide his achilles heal  with bravado. He can not and will not bow to reasoned argument – he will have his way, it is his right. He will baffle with meaningless words anyone who stands in the way of his desires.

    Or rather he will try. When it comes to a dispute with an adult bully you need a psychologist on your side not a lawyer or accountant. Because it does not matter to the bully what a contract says; the law is not relevant to the bully.  What matters to the bully is his will, his way.  And he will pay his advisors to spout his nonsense for him even if thereby making clowns of them too.

    It becomes therefore a battle of will.  In the playground a thump on the nose will usually ensure the bully never bothers you again and regrettably in adult life the bully has to be treated in the same fashion.

    As an adult you will hopefully have eschewed physical violence.  Hopefully it no longer forms a part of your world view, if it ever did.

    As an adult you must still wave an iron fist in the face of the schoolyard thug, but that fist must be a metaphorical one.  The bully has cajoled and cowed countless others who have stood in his path: shopkeepers, garage owners, restaurant proprietors, estate agents and credit card employees to name but a few. He may attempt harm to their business and livelihood if such mere mortals dare to offer him opposition.  He may even succeed in a few cases.

    So you wave a metaphorical mailed fist in his face and eventually he realises that your life, your business and your property will be stoutly defended. He is forced to move on to his next victim.