You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Compassion as a Weapon

in #writing7 years ago

I think this is one of the perils of being too "agreeable." It's a personality trait we can't do much about (like introversion/extroversion). And it definitely had a survival benefit, especially for women, when we were living in caves and we had to learn not to piss off the aggressive dangerous hunters who spent the day out murdering our food, so they didn't come home and murder our children.

But it can also be a trap, and a source of self-subjugation, and a way of putting ourselves at the mercy of others. Especially when paired with a strong moral code.

I think the only thing we can do is be aware of it and try to be logical when we start to act against our own interests.

My whole family is super-agreeable, and I can't get away from it. It's like a self-defeating demon. I even found an antique family crest in my grandmother's place, with the slogan "We mean well" in calligraphy on the bottom.

I burned it.

Sort:  

Wow at the family crest - that's definitely the slogan of someone high on agreeableness!

Which is actually one of the big 5 personality traits. I score fairly low on agreeableness (40% range), which is funny because I never considered myself "disagreeable" but looking back on my life I've always been fairly obstinate when I felt something unjust was happening.