Articles

The Underside of Like

By Mark Antony Rossi

Whatever could be wrong about liking someone? Nothing comes to mind at face value. The world needs more positive examples of people caring about one another. The problem stems from how “like” blinds people from making an otherwise accurate judgement. The unintended ramifications of this dysfunctional behavior produce discord, distrust and incremental steps towards chaos.

No doubt you have been in a situation where the ultimate unfairness of like has challenged or changed the order of things in your workplace. Repeated tardiness swept away under the rug. Mistakes and misuse explained away by the brush of a hand. One standard for the liked; quite another for everyone else. It rattles calm people precisely because it’s not the stereotypical profile of wrong you can easily place your finger on.

The world is a hard place spinning in and out of control by the negative repercussions of hate and harm. Why add to our worry by allowing the underside of like to suffocate the environment of fair play? The rampant recklessness of like contributes mightily to the reduction of quality of life. A classic example of misguided good morphing into a terrible tool of bad.

This damaging behavior usually belongs to the good person convinced their good intentions bring about a minor measure of justice. Yet if the true goal is equal treatment we must not allow extra allowances based on sentiment to muddy the waters of clear objectives. The most disturbing discovery of the underside of like is the routine violation of rules, codes and principles to achieve its ends.

The true nature of these “likable “actions are outside the boundaries of propriety and belong closer to clumsy vigilantism than to anything considered noble. Like if you must for this is human nature and I do not advocate suppressing our better angels for random warning but we owe it to civility to cease tampering with the commonweal in order to satisfy a personal crusade. Laws are not made to be broken they are made to protect us from the people that like us as well as those who cannot.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York. http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/ 

5 Comments

  1. love and hate are two sides of the same coin, which is exploited for ulterior motives by those with whom we disagree on certain issues
    yes, this is often beheld at work places where prejudice towards earnest workers is sidetracked on flimsy reasons…. what i would call base attitude and mentality
    comradeship and cooperation is highly lacking where bias rules
    … rules and justice are far fetched for the common man

  2. As always thank you for the support

  3. I am not going to debate with you on this as you are far too bright, however you know as well as I do that some people deliberately act in such a manner as to encourage dislike.

  4. Ha. Good point. Thanks for stopping by.

  5. Hate culture we hate for its negative association ;
    Disliking leads to animosity,rendering the situation with loss of peace and harmony.
    ‘ Liking ‘ on the other hand,spreads an aura of positivism in the relationships ;
    It creates goodwill very much necessary for sustaining the relationship for long.
    But a ‘ like ‘should not be a breeding ground for favoritism to flourish attahing sentiments to the liked;
    Such a like is capable of serving the purpose in letter and spirit;
    Let us go for this pattern!