Bad Actors
A soccer player who takes a dive. Not only because their melodrama is abundantly transparent, but also because it is cheating.
Virtually everything in life is a game and a negotiation. Humans, among many other mammals, possess a ‘play centre’ in the brain. We seek out games, establish rules, and strategize to win them. Furthermore, our development into well-adjusted and healthy individuals appears to hinge on our ability to navigate these games effectively. They are social by design and by necessity, although the rules and context vary greatly.
The important thing is that games do not function correctly unless we are all following and subject to the same rules, regardless of how arbitrary they seem. When bad actors fail to win, they break the rules. We perceive this as an injustice, because it is. This is the genesis of the divide between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, both of which are inspired by equity.
We do not need to win all the time, but we need to feel as though we are a reasonable competitor. When we are unable to compete, or if we fail to meet a perceived standard of competitive output that we impose upon ourselves, we are left with four potential options.
We can invest more time and effort in order to improve our ability to compete, which is becoming increasingly unpopular in wealthier nations because it demands individual effort and thankless hard work.
We can create a niche within the game that gives rise to new rules.
We can exit the game and play an adjacent one.
We can insist that the game is broken or unjust, and demand that the rules be changed to suit our preferred objectives and talents. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to this as ‘slave morality,’ and it has seen a meteoric rise in the last few decades.
Whatever strategy we employ, a game is always being played, and we are engaged in a never-ending series of negotiations in an attempt to convince others that the one we have selected is worthy of their consideration. As a result, reading and effective communication skills are incredibly important, because they assist us in our ability to effectively persuade others in adopting our rules.
Bad actors do not feel the need to persuade others or make their own games, they will simply exploit the weaknesses of the games they play that were built upon an understanding of common humanity and reciprocity. Being a bad actor is a maladaptive strategy and it should predictably end in their failure. A sign that our system has become corrupt is that bad actors are more common than ever, and worse, they seem to be winning.
The reason we experience moral injury after observing a rules violation is precisely because they are often arbitrary. The world could be a lawless jungle where the most exploitative and aggressive reign supreme, but an existence comprised of zero-sum games will be reduced to rubble and human suffering will be maximized. We uphold rules, arbitrary or not, because our shared history has taught us the value of games framed by mutually agreed-upon rules. Because most of these games are voluntary, when participants cheat, they remind us of a nature that we believed we had acknowledged and addressed. We find it offensive.
The argument at the heart of systems governed by rules is an egalitarian one, proposing that fairness and justice only have meaning within a context of an equal application of standards. This is a nearly ironclad position and defeating it is an uphill battle. How can we justify having different rules for different people? If so, based on what criteria? If one criterion is deemed appropriate, then why not another? And another after that? Who decides which criteria are suitable? How is this person selected? Are they now responsible for any disparate outcomes that will occur as a result of this change? How well do the parties involved understand the complex system being modified? Everything has a trade-off, have these been properly identified and measured against the potential benefits of the change?
A concise encapsulation of addressing these concerns is to try our best to discover their answers through an uncompromised democratic process. The problem is finding one that is governed by representatives that are mostly immune to perverse incentives and consider it a priority. This is why the argument is so hard to defeat, because pretending that any institution will be able to carry it out effectively is virtually impossible. Our institutions simply cannot bear the weight of our fatuously idealistic expectations. As a result, bad actors will join the game and do as they please.
All we can do is try our best to punish their flagrant disregard for the rules, and avoid making EXCUSES for them. Alternatively, we will lose every game as we permit our compassion to be preyed upon, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
People are not equal, but we ought to have access and be subject to the same rules. All other models are inferior and introduce far too many opportunities for abuse.
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
