Why are there mean people?

Question

For example, one girl last year decided that she didn't like me, and starting to do everything in her power to- well, be mean to me! Its not like there was any benifit in being mean, or that it would help her in any way...at least I think. But anyway, I try to be nice to everyone, though I have to say that i've been mean before. But there are people that seem like they're mean 24/7, its like, what they DO. And thats why i wanted to ask this question- Why are there mean people? Can they not help it? Do they enjoy it? Share your thoughts.

Answer 1

I think that some people's behavior is a direct reflection upon how they feel about themselves -- if they are miserable, they will be mean. I once knew a woman who would go into a restaurant at lunch every day just to take her job frustrations out on the waitresses. This girl who is mean to you probably is jealous of you, although she'd never admit it.

Answer 2

As a former mean-girl target (actually, I still get the occasional mean-girl moment every now and then, and I'm almost 30!!!) I have thought a lot about the very same question, and here is what I'm thinking. I think most of the mean people out there are mean because they feel like they can't compete with others unless they run them down somehow. I don't know if your mom ever said this to you, but my mom used to say to me about the mean girls, "Oh, they're just doing that because they're jealous of you!" I sincerely doubted that at the time (I mean, who's jealous of a frizzy-haired dorky girl with braces?), but now I'm thinking she was right. My looks were nothing to be jealous of, but I was a very successful student and things like school just came easy for me, so they might have felt threatened by that, for example. Or, another idea, they may have seen the very fact of my niceness as a threat- think about it, who would you rather be friends with, the mean, bossy girl or the nice, friendly one? The mean girls probably had to start picking on me and making me feel bad early on just so their own friends wouldn't desert them to come sit with me instead.
Also, I think most mean people are born, not made. Every mean girl's parents that I ever met were sort of mean themselves, you know? In some households, things like being rude and mouthing off to elders and such are actually tolerated. I've heard some moms describe their mean-girl daughters as "feisty, headstrong, fearless," etc. implying that their girls' bad attitudes are somehow a credit to their personalities. So I think the way they were raised has a lot to do with it.

I'm sorry you're having mean-girl troubles. Just know that we've all been there, and you'll get through it too. Hang in there!

Answer 3

In addition to the several good answers you've already gotten I would say that they provide a constrast to niceness. After all, what would kindness look like if there were no cruelty to compare it to? Opposites require each other.

As to why particular people are cruel, I believe it comes from a lack of imagination. All human beings are innately selfish but we're supposed to grow out of it. Every toddler thinks of himself as the center of the universe, because to his meager experience and extremely limited reasoning ability it's entirely true. As he grows older he has to share the spotlight more and more until he might find himself in middle school playing wallflower or timid loner--not only no longer the center of attention, but barely noticed at all. This change makes for some real confusion, and a large part of growing up is forming a new identity to replace the center-of-the-universe image of babyhood.

Unfortunately some people never grow up, and never quite realize that other people are real. The extreme version of this is Narcissism, but the milder form is just plain meanness. The inability to understand that other people are just as real as oneself is a failure of imagination, and one that is often taught, and perhaps sometimes inherited. Being able to imagine what somebody else feels when treated cruelly is a check on this sort of behavior, and the better your imagination the more easily you're able to understand how deep those verbal barbs can go.

The worst part is that cruel treatment can sometimes wake cruelty in those who DO have that higher level of imagination, and that's a dangerous thing. Your garden-variety bully/mean girl can't hold a candle to somebody who can look inside other people via imagination and find the perfect spot to land a perfect shot. Those who stumble onto that road end up revelling in imagining the pain of others, and that is not only wrong, it's unhealthy and leads to loneliness that regular mean people can't imagine.

Meeting cruelty with kindness intimidates the unimaginitive quasi-narcissists and often causes them to redouble their efforts to make sure you orbit them properly. While their word-missiles will still sting, refusing to acknowledge them as centers-of-the-universe by refusing to respond in kind is the best possible revenge.

Answer 4

Mean people are brought up by mean parents.

Now I don't mean that good parents are overly-permissive, I'm referring to the mean and destructive variety.

Of course some people run with the crowd, and that's tribalism. If the tribe is trending towards being mean, that sets the tone for everybody to be mean in order to be accepted.

Kind of sick, ain't it?

If you can be nice to everybody, and stick by yourself, and manage to guard your goodness, you'll be a lot happier when you look back on these days. I did a couple of somewhat mean things to people back in highschool, and I regret those actions to this day, and often wish I could contact them and apologize.

Answer 5

You did something wrong. At least in her eyes, you did. She likely believed in the concept of revenge. Since you did something wrong, she went about punishing you for whatever she believed that she did.

To you, she is being mean. To her, she is merely exacting revenge, carrying out justice and seeking to make the world fair again. (I'd like to know who promised her that though.)

You've chosen not to seek revenge and not even the score. You took a step to ending violence and aggression in life. She didn't not.

Answer 6

They don't understand that they are Soul, a divine being. The don't understand the law of karma that what they put out will return to them. Life will teach them. In the meantime, just be kind, from a safe distance.

Answer 7

since this is a philosophy question I will answer from a philosophical standpoint:


all humans have a purpose in life. mean people are mean because that is what they are supposed to be; i.e. it is their function in life. their actions may or may not serve a clear purpose to them or anybody else.

Answer 8

it makes them feel big. among other things.