psychology

The Petty People

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In reading various Taoist documents, especially some of the various comments on the I Ching (“The Tao of Organization,” and the “Taoist I Ching,” both translated by Thomas Cleary), I often see comments on “petty men” or “lesser men” and so on. I had a revulsion to these terms, but the more I saw them used, the more I started wondering what the authors meant, and that lent to some interesting conclusions. The conclusions are also instructive in analyzing such documents, so you get to read a column about it.

So in regarding “petty people” (let’s not be gendered here), the more I saw it used, the more I realized it wasn’t a simply dismissive term. Sometimes it was a simple acknowledgement that people had small moral and personal capacity – but they had a chance to grow. However most times it was very dismissive, a warning of people whose smallness was far worse, an outright danger.

Many of these discussions were also couched in terms of yin and yang, the receptive and the initiating – hardly a surprise as my two major sources were I Ching translations. In such takes on the I Ching of a social nature, yin and yang usually refer to followers and leaders. However depending on the time and place of a person, leadership or following could be good or bad.

In many cases warnings about “petty people” would come, often referring to them as yin, as followers. Yin and yang had their places, petty people however seemed to be followers, and often those were in the wrong place. Sometimes you might have a “petty person” in an appropriate follower spot, but often not – they seemed to get into the wrong place for them.

At some point as I contemplated this, it struck me why we had warnings about petty people. The dangerous petty people, the ones we got warnings about instead of “they need to grow” were followers who thought they were leaders.

Then a lot of what I was reading became clear. Or I’m arrogantly assuming I figured it out, but at least by writing it down you can put me in my place. Let me not be a petty person.

The “petty people” that we got warnings about were people who thought they were leaders, thinking they had good ideas, had authority, had something to say.. But at heart they were followers, having neither the strength to implement real leadership, but also probably easily led by other people and forces. Not just people of small capacity, but small people acting large.

That realization quickly catapulted me to looking at history both recent and in the past. How much horror was inflicted by people who were small but in positions of leadership? Who were led by emotions, manipulated by others, perhaps even knowing how small they were and angry about it. Insecure and arrogant and of limited ability and understanding.

I also thought about annoying internet personalities and influencers. Watching people put on performances, acting like they had something to say, but down deep they were mouthing platitudes or repeating what others said. They were acting like leaders while just following trends and imitating knowledge and characters. Many suffered audience captures, so-called leaders slavishly following their viewers or readers.

Leaders who are really followers. People who were, essentially, lied to themselves and to others. Those were the petty people various Taoist authors had warned me about. OK, that I assumed they were warning me about.

And perhaps my take is spot on and I’m brilliant. Or perhaps I’m off, but had a useful insight. Either way that’s an insight that helps me understand the world, all inspired by some Taoist writings and two big takes on the I Ching.

Which is why, to loop it all back, thinking over books like these are useful. You make the effort to think and analyze and learn a lot – and it may not matter if you went a bit off the rails or not. You learned something.

I suppose if I can keep learning, I’m at less risk of being one of those petty people.

–Xenofact

The Blind Hunger of Nothing

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As I write this in 2025, I’ve become fascinated by the amount of people in our culture that are Performative (capitalization intended). They want attention, internet clicks, regard, and engagement, so therefore do whatever gets them that. The Influencers, many a politician, no small amount of media personalities, and way too many social media addicts are Performative; some seem to be only Performative.

OK actually all of those kinds of people are Influencers. Anyway, let’s go on

A peculiar thing I keep noticing among these people for whom Performance is a lifestyle, is the only thing in their life, is an anger that burns inside them. It seethes beneath the surface, it bursts out in conflict far beyond something for attention. It’s seen in the glowering, contemptuous eyes and the edge in the voice that disregards most everyone if not everyone.

I’ve wondered as to the nature of this anger, as there are times it seems outright inhuman. The Performative people are all image, all anger, and in some cases seem barely human. There’s an emptiness there.

So, let’s talk desire.

Desire is the cause of suffering, a we are all too aware from our studies of psychology, Buddhism, Taoism, or just being alive and unhappy. Dealing with desire is a major part of mystical and not-so mystical practices.

Desire cannot truly be sated, it always comes back. It can be satisfied temporarily, perhaps enough for regret or enough to move on. One may recognize the temporary nature of the satisfaction and employ that awareness for wise choices. However many desires have at least the illusion of satisfaction, and in turn there’s some chance of definition.

We want to get laid. We want a drink. We want to get that promotion. Desire has at least some definition, even if we’re deceiving ourselves.

But for those who are Performative, I think satisfaction is elusive. You may engage in Performative behavior to make money or sell something, but the Performative nature can overtake your life. Some people just want the attention – or end up that way – and their entire lies are just about putting on the act to get the clicks, the praise, what have you.

The desire for attention is inherently unsatisfying. It’s temporary, it has to always been maintained, and it’s easily challenged. It also doesn’t relate to anything. You may become Performative to achieve some other goal, but your goal is to be someone else for people you don’t know to get ephemeral attention in order to get advertising dollars or something. You end up abstract from your goals – to achieve solid goals you must be epehmeral.

And that’s if there’s even much of a goal beyond a desire for attention.

I think the Very Performative people are so angry because there is nothing that can satisfy them even temporarily. The become only an act, without even the solidity of the illusion that they can feel satisfaction. They exist as pure performance, always on, always for the ephemera of attention, always empty.

Imagine walking around knowing you are nothing inside. Whatever was there rotted away as you worked on The Performance. You can’t even feel right. Even your anger is just a bitter resentment of everything because you’re nothing.

This insight is helping me understand the Very Performative, that look in their eyes, their instability, their sudden outbursts. They’re a giant yawning gap of desire with no chance of satisfaction because they’re empty of even something to desire. Their a ghost haunting the empty house of their own lives.

–Xenofact

Community Or Conspiracy

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Conspiracy Theorists fascinate me, as regular readers know and as any new reader is about to unfortunately find out. One thing that really intrigues me is how Conspiracy Theorists somehow turn out to be power-hungry, bigoted, and all too ready to serve existing power structures. No matter what “Conspiracy” they’re fighting to save the world, the end result is just creating an oppressive system, or serving a new one, and going after whatever minorities are convenient to hate.

If you’ve ever followed any serious Conspiracy Theorists, they often seem to veer into a kind of monarchism and outright racism. “We need a leader for the Ultimate Awakening, we’re genetically descended from the Super Aliens. Also buy my supplements/book.”

Now this is not to say, as often noted, I do believe in conspiracies. It’s just that people don’t want to deal with real conspiracies, because ultimately they may not be aware of them, want to be aware, and benefit from them. It’s easy to ignore mass financial fraud when, say, you work in finance or are in an overhyped industry driven by stock price . . .

I’ve wondered how we deal with and prevent Conspiracy Theorists from arising and inflicting their damage to sell books and boner pills. Something that keeps coming back to me is one word – community.

Having connections to people, having roles, having relations gives one a sense of the world. You have to understand and work with people. You have to be something and someone. You’re maintaining the community and understand a bit of how the world works as you have to.

I’m not talking just one community, I’m talking networks. Clans of interrelated and interacting people. Being in a professional association and working in your city library. Real community isn’t just one community, but it’s having community including a community of communities.

It’s community all the way down – and up.

This also means that Conspiracy Theorists have a harder time causing destruction. When people are connected to others they’re less likely to turn on them. They care about people. They know they’re not evil, even if they’re a-holes. They also have people giving them feedback that they might be under the spell of a Conspiracy Theorist.

When I think of my own past, I was not always the most social person. Working with zine groups, fan groups, RPG games, etc. gave me a surprising amount of social connection. I’m used to a matrix of connections, so much so I’ve missed that I have it. I’m used to it – and it’s also helped me keep a perspective on How Stuff Works and a sense of connection.

(And perhaps, explains more on why I’m a Project Manager).

Conspiracy Theorists are driven by The Theory and whatever opportunities it provides. They may have a community or communities, but that’s not the point of the communities to them. The goal is to fight The Thing or sell things about The Thing, or whatever. Real community would mean you fight for real things for real people because they are right there in part of your life.

I think this is one reason that Conspiracy Theorists so often attack communities – especially minorities and outgroups. They’re not just easy targets, but such people are often networked and have community because they have to. The Conspiracy Theorists may instinctively know Community is the enemy – and they view everything Not Them as Conspiracy anyway.

Hell, maybe the Conspiracy Theorists are jealous. Seeing people happy? Seeing people fulfilled? Without a giant complex flowchart explaining why you’re right? Imagine the seething jealousy they feel at people who can be happy without selling seminars on alien conspiracies?

This is where I can say we need more community – that works for us. The Conspiracy Theorists are a continuing danger to humanity, every technical innovation is one they may turn to their twisted fantasies and psychological needs. The Conspiracy Theorists can’t fight that because they don’t really get how community works.

No wonder they’re afraid of it. How do you turn people to your cultish behavior when they don’t need you and they have something real and someone will warn you?

It also means we need to remember our roles in our community – that protects others from being co-opted.

–Xenofact