What makes a thief a thief?

[Bullfrog]

Understanding the grooming of a thief.

This is as must a purging of my soul as it is a study in human nature. What makes a person become a thief? People are not born bad, sometime circumstances just steer them in a particular direction. I was born into a poor family of immigrants. I have very mixed feelings about my father, I am proud of him for his service during three wars and what he made of himself but I also have some hard feelings from what he became in later life.

An alcoholic who drank away the money that should have went toward our groceries. The milk in the refrigerator was “his milk”, we could not have any, we drank powdered milk. My own sweet mother, God bless her, groomed me to become a thief out of need. After a long night of drinking, my father wound return home and go to bed. He hung his pants on the corner of the headboard and the money was in his pockets.

I was the smallest and the most light on my feet and the only boy. After she was sure that he was asleep, my mother would coach me on exactly what to do. I would open the door after she turned off the lights and slip into his room. The wooden floors creaked when you stepped on them so I chose my steps slowly and very carefully after my eyes adjusted to the low light.

One careful step at a time I would put my small weight on each floor board and approach his bed while he snored. My mother and sisters held their breath in the living room hoping that I wouldn’t get caught. At times, I would make a board creak and he would stop snoring and roll over. I would freeze while my young heart pounded in my chest, to get caught would mean to feel the sting of his belt.

Finally I would make it to the headboard and slowly, very quietly reach into the front pocket of his pants. There were always dollar bills stuffed in there along with lose change that would jingle if I was not very careful. I would remove some of the bills while holding my breath and then very slowly retreat out of his room and close the door as quietly as I could.

I was the hero of the moment and saw the joy in my Mother’s eyes as well as my sisters. My sister would run one block to the store and get a half gallon of ice cream and we would eat it then hide the container deep under the trash which I took out the first thing the next morning. I became very good at this at an early age and became quite bold. It got ingrained into my young mind that it was OK to steal from those who had and give to those who had not.

It followed me into my adolescence after he died and we were left destitute. I thought nothing of stealing food or even creeping into a garage or a window while the residents there slept. It was taught to me at a very young age, by someone whom I really knew was goodhearted. But I went too far and eventually it caught up with me.

It may be hard for someone who was born more blessed than I was to understand what drives a person to steal, but I hope that I have given you a glimpse into what goes into the grooming of a thief. I would also imagine that other criminals also get started very young by what they are exposed to as a youth. If they are raised with violence, they become violent. If they are raised with cruelty they become cruel. No child is born bad, they are a product of their environment, I think.

[ponderer]

I was not in an environment like that. I was, and still am privelged , I guess. However, I can relate. I know I would be right there with you BF.

Mary

[ponderer]

I did not mean that to sound as if My family ,then or now was wealthy. Just middle class and hard working.

[Bullfrog]

Thank you for understanding Mary. I did hesitate to make this confession/post. I now know that stealing is just wrong but still to this day the thought tugs at my mind when I see something at work that will just be thrown away. It was a short leap from stealing to drugs, breaking the law is breaking the law after all. At an early age I identified with the bad guy on TV. I copped an attitude very early in life. I was treated very special by my Mother because I was the only son after three daughters. I thought
I was really something, a bright kid who could run like the wind.

Elementary school in southeast Texas in 1961 was a rude awakening for me. There were no black kids and worse yet, no Hispanics. One kid held his arm against mine and said "You look just like a n*gger" Strike two, not only were we poor but we were different, darker than all of the other kids. I met a friend named Jay and we liked to make small boats to float in the ditches when it rained hard. One day I took my boat to his house after a hard rain and he ran out to the end of the driveway. His father was working under the hood of his car and Jay was very afraid. He told me "You have to go! You can't come here anymore."

I asked him why and he said "You are a Mexican." I asked him "What is a Mexican?" He said "I don't know, but you are one, now go before I get in trouble and don't come back here." I went home and my mother was sitting on the porch. She could see that something was troubling me and asked me what was wrong. I told her what happened and asked her "Are we Mexicans and is that bad?" I had just had my first taste of prejudice and in her own simple way, she understood.

She took me in her lap and told me that Mexicans were just people from Mexico, but we were from Spain. Still, some people didn't like us because of that. She said that it was OK, that Jay could come and play at our house. She rocked me and sang to me and made me feel a lot better but I still didn't understand why his father hated me. Later in life, it became more apparent. If I was playing at one of my friend's house and wanted a drink of water, their parents got up and watched me, like I was going to steal their forks or something. My mother always told me that sometime people will put a dollar on the table just to see if you will steal it, she had been subjected to the same thing and never to do this. If I showed up with a group of kids at a white girl's house it was OK, but if I showed up alone, the door was shut in my face.

They weren't all like this, there was one girl named Elaine Bloomefield and her mother welcomed me with open arms and made me feel special because she realized that she was introducing her daughter to a person of another culture, but she was one of the few. Little by little my life's path was carved out by the poverty and prejudice that I was born into. I can't even begin to imagine what black kids went through, even to this day. I think that if 10 kids of different races were all put into a laboratory setting and raised together without their parents prejudice influencing them, they would never even see the difference and love each other. It is a shame that kids suffer the hate of their parents and can't move on without this influence in their lives.

I do understand what makes a thief, or a wife beater, or someone who is cruel to animals. But I cannot for the life of me understand what makes a child molester but who knows what torment perverted parents have thrust upon their kids? It's shame that you have to pass a test to just drive a car, but any sick puppy can have and raise kids. Kids are just the sum of their upbringing. I think.

[Esther]

I was a thief also. Maybe not in that way you were. But anybody who takes something that doesn't belong to them is a thief. Granted, the little things I have "lifted" here and there maybe aren't so bad but still I have stolen. What about the times I used the copy machine to make personal copies of things at work? I stole from the bank where I worked by using supplies for my own purpose. What about the times I showed up late for work and put down on the time card I was on time?? Granted, in the end I probably worked more minutes on my lunch hour that what I shorted them but still-----------. I remember stealing change from a drugstore when I was in junior high. I never had any money, NEVER. But we could go to the stores from school on our lunch hour. I began to notice there was a pile of change in a certain spot every time I went there. I began to take it. One day someone came and said to give it back and don't come in the store again. I about wet my pants. I knew if my parents found out, I'd be in big trouble. I have never been in trouble for stealing but still----I am a thief.

I am a lier also. I still lie today from time to time. Just ask me my weight and you'll get a sample. I have lied by leaving out part of a story to encourage my side. That's the same thing. Scary thing is that even today I struggle with theft and dishonesty.

Noone taught me to steal. I figured it all out for myself.  If anything, it was the opposite. Honesty, responsibility, and hard work were always pounded into my head.  Do children have to be taught to be naughty? Does someone teach them to lie? What about smacking their siblings and teasing? I'm afraid that I disagree with you about the source of bad behavior but cannot go into it here.

I guess that in the end, there has to be something in our lives that shows us a good reason to not lie and/or steal whether that be faith as in my case, or whether we finally realize that behavior doesn't pay in the end, or for whatever reason, hopefully we eventually come to the conclusion it is WRONG so choose to not do it. Whatever that reason, thank gooness, BF you turned your life around.

Oh as for prejudice, I do believe that is taught, disgusting as it seems, it is taught. I struggled to not pass what I was taught on to my children.  I remember the first time I heard my 5  year old doing the little kiddy rhyme. Eeny meeny, miney, Moe, CATCH A -----------------(I held my breath),  tiger by the toe. WHEW!! So relieved he had learned an acceptable way to say it at school.

[Bullfrog]

Esther, I am impressed by your honesty. Your transgressions seem so small compared to mine but you do admit that you have also done some wrong. I have stolen cars. We all fall short in one way or another. But I really think that my former life of crime actually made me a better person now because I understand and owe more in a way. I became a smuggler and a dealer so I know what this side of life is like.

Luckily I have lived long enough to see the error in my ways. It's funny, I used to dream of winning the lottery simply for my own greedy gain, but now wish that I could win it so that we could give another underprivileged family a leg up in life. It is better than thinking of the gain that we would have. Strong iron is forged in fire. The iron is heated until it is white hot and then pounded into shape. Dipped into cold water, it is again heated and struck over and over again until it's core is strong and solid. But it does take a lot of heat and a lot of hits until it becomes strong.

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”

J. R. R. Tolkein

[jw]

I was raised as an only adopted child spoiled pretty much in a middle class family and never went w/o anything that I needed but I did have friends who came from low income levels. They wanted to have what I had and I wanted to be in a family like they had w/ lots of brothers and sisters. Of course I really didn't understand at a young age that they went w/o a lot of things that I was privileged to have. But it's not just the lower income families that have the problems with the theft. Some of my middle class friends were stealing things left and right just because they could. They would brag about it and some would get caught and some wouldn't. I don't really know why they chose to do it deep down inside. I suppose they weren't getting something from their family life at home and it was a filler for that. I know my one friend had an alcoholic father who would get drunk and fall on the floor when I went to stay over night at her house. She would love to stay at my house all the time but it made my mom upset that she was always there hanging around. We never told my mom about her dad and yrs later after we were both grown I told my mom about her dad and my mom said if she would have known about her dad she would have understood better and let her stay. She stole some things and finally got caught and I don't think she ever did it again. She grew up to be a good person who cares deeply for others in need. Lots of people steal for all kinds of reasons and not just out of need. Wish I could figure it out but I'm no psychologist but it's got to be from a lack of something growing up IMHO. And I'm not saying that I never tried it either and I did have a rather strange family life even tho I had what I needed. My mother was domineering but she had a hard time ruling me as I was quite stubborn and independent. Nothing I could do was ever right. I wore the wrong clothes, hung w/ the wrong people, just liked all the opposite things that she liked. She was an unhealthy person who had asthma and would party every weekend w/ my dad and their friends and smoke cigarettes and then the next day lay in bed and complain about not feeling well and blame me for not feeling sorry for her and waiting on her hand and foot. I have a hard time now sometimes w/ people who don't take care of themselves and then want you to feel sorry for them because of her. The people who are really sick and didn't get that way by abusing their bodies I can really feel for but I still need to work on the rest. Even tho I myself abused drugs at an early age and ended up w/ Hep C I can only blame myself and don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me. I was just fortunate enough to be cleared from the virus and start over with a clean bill of health. I do not smoke, drink (maybe once a yr or so) or do anything to abuse my body anymore other than sometimes eat food that isn't quite too nutritious and I feel guilty when I do. Now how did I get into this spilling my guts story to you Bullfrog? I think I have said enough...............now it's somebody else's turn to spill their beans if they like.

[jw]

I posted before I read your post Esther and after reading it I believe you have hit the nail right on the head. I think we are born with the ability to be bad and it is up to us to make the right choices and if we don't have the right figure in our lives to put our trust into then we may go down the wrong path. Why does it seem that there are so many people out there who seem to be always doing the right things? Is it because they are good at hiding the truth and just want you to think they are not capable of doing wrong? I don't know. Maybe they just make the right choices out of fear of the result and that is not a bad thing. Fear is good isn't it? I don't think I can continue with this subject as it's too hard to speak what you want to say for fear of getting into trouble. Wish we had a spot here for people who wanted to discuss certain things where others need not enter unless they choose. Guess we have to go somewhere else to do that eh?

[Bullfrog]

It's strange how once you open this Pandora's Box people speak up. People who you like and respect like Esther and JW. People who you might fear will think less of you and then you find out that we all have our own shortcomings. It takes courage to bare your soul like this and put yourself up for the judgment of others. But is is also cleansing in a way, you see that you are not such a black sheep, not a such a bad person after all. I do thank you both for speaking up and making me realize that I'm not so different after all. That we all struggle with our own demons. I have many more sins that led to me being finally locked up at the age of 14 but now I see that I'm not alone. We all share this thing that we call life and all fail in a way. That is what makes us human I guess.

I love living, it's easy to do.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3PbbeUL5SI

[jw]

Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I cant let you slide through my hands

Wild horses couldnt drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldnt drag me away

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

Wild horses couldnt drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldnt drag me away

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I dont have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Lets do some living after we die

Wild horses couldnt drag me away
Wild, wild horses, well ride them some day

Wild horses couldnt drag me away
Wild, wild horses, well ride them some day

Someone on the internet wrote this about the song Wild Horses: I can relate to this persons idea on what this song means for my life but I'm sure others will be able to relate it to their own lives.

Might sound weird, but I think this song could be a parent singing to her older, troubled daughter. Sounds dumb at first maybe, but bear with me:

"Childhood living is easy to do, the things you wanted, I bought them for you."
When the subject of the song was young, the parent could placate her with toys and "stuff", maybe at the expense of being an actually good parent. But now that the child isn't actually a child, it doesn't work any more.

"Graceless lady, you know who I am. You know I can't let you slide through my hands."
The daughter is fighting against the parent (as teens/adolescents often do), and the mother is telling the daughter that she loves her unconditionally and won't abandon her, no matter how badly the daughter acts. The daughter also knows deep inside that her mother will always be there.

"I watched you suffer a dull aching pain. Now you decided to show me the same."
The parent was helpless to solve the daughter's emotional problems, and now the daughter is acting out because she "blames" them for not helping her (again, as adolescent often do). The mother is suffering watching her child suffer.

"No sweeping exits or off stage lines could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind."
Again, the parent is professing their unconditional love, no matter what the troubled daughter does or what she says they are going to stick with her. They aren't going to get angry or blame her for what she is doing and going through.

"I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie. I have my freedom but I don't have much time."
This makes me think (again) that maybe the singer wasn't the best mother when the daughter was young. The mother "has her freedom" (she didn't spend enough time/energy on the child when she should have, and now the child is nearly grown)- but the mother is regretting it. Now the parent wants to make up for it, but she doesn't have much time because her child is growing up and growing away from her.

"Faith has been broken tears must be cried. Let's do some living after we die."
The mother has disappointed the daughter and wasn't there for her in the past. The daughter has to get her issues out of her system and move on. The second part doesn't mean "die" literally, but more die to the past. In other words, the daughter and mother moving beyond the pain of the past and "living" again in new happiness.

"Wild horses, couldn't drag me away. Wild, wild horses we'll ride them someday."
Unconditional love again. The wild horses are the daughter's issues. The mother is promising that someday they will overcome, and be in control of those problems, and the relationship will be mended at last.

Well, that is my interpretation. It might sound weird but it makes a lot of sense the way I look at it It also adds a lot more bittersweetness to the song than if it were just about plain old romance, in my opinion.

[Bullfrog]

Very deep and well thought out JW. I have always related to this song but I'm no longer a child so now it's "I love living, it's easy to do." Many of us wonder if through our inexperience we didn't quite come through for our children as we would if we had been older. But my kids turned out just fine so I am comfortable now. I do have some great kids and I am very proud of them. Thank you for your thoughts on this.

[Julles]

"I think that if 10 kids of different races were all put into a laboratory setting and raised together without their parents prejudice influencing them, they would never even see the difference and love each other."

If you put those kids together with no outside influences, yes, they would get along famously, without prejudice or knowledge of differences.

But, as those kids got older - and I mean just a little older, like 3rd grade - they would feel the need to better themselves by ostracizing others.  They would start picking on one of the kids, because he has freckles, or is fat, or has a gap between his teeth. 

As the kids got even older, like teenagers, this behavior would get worse.  And when they reached adulthood, they would have all sorts of ways to seperate themselves from others, and to judge themselves as better than others.

Sorry to burst your bubble.  It's just human nature.

I used to work in Corporate America, in management, and it always intrigued me how, in every place I worked, there always had to be a "low man on the totem pole."  The employees would always have one person they picked on, left out, teased, humiliated, and basically made life miserable for.  As soon as that person would leave, they would find someone new to pick on. 

Sorry to burst your bubble.  It's just human nature.

[Bullfrog]

"I think that if 10 kids of different races were all put into a laboratory setting and raised together without their parents prejudice influencing them, they would never even see the difference and love each other."

If you put those kids together with no outside influences, yes, they would get along famously, without prejudice or knowledge of differences.

But, as those kids got older - and I mean just a little older, like 3rd grade - they would feel the need to better themselves by ostracizing others.  They would start picking on one of the kids, because he has freckles, or is fat, or has a gap between his teeth. 

As the kids got even older, like teenagers, this behavior would get worse.  And when they reached adulthood, they would have all sorts of ways to seperate themselves from others, and to judge themselves as better than others.

Sorry to burst your bubble.  It's just human nature.

I used to work in Corporate America, in management, and it always intrigued me how, in every place I worked, there always had to be a "low man on the totem pole."  The employees would always have one person they picked on, left out, teased, humiliated, and basically made life miserable for.  As soon as that person would leave, they would find someone new to pick on. 

Sorry to burst your bubble.  It's just human nature.

You may have a good point, even dogs establish a pecking order of the Alpha Male or the patriarch of their group. But do you really think that cruelty is inherent in people as well or just another trait either influenced by their parents or not corrected at an early age? My point was prejudice, that children are not born with the hate for another race in their heart but that hate is learned from their parents.

Fat, ugly, and other unattractive traits are also exploited by the media and ingrained into our kids at an early age. I do wonder that if not for the influence of past thinking, if people would not be so quick to judge another person by the way that they look. I think that we are all the product of our upbringing, not just by our parents but the ilk that is spewed by the media.

Sure, kids can't be raised in a laboratory so we will never know. But we can do the best job that we can to raise our children right and then they are exposed to the crap that fills this world. I don't think that cruelty and hate are inherent traits, I think they are passed down from other ignorant people.

[Esther]

But sometimes, you can look at a family of several kids and 1 will turn out to be a rotten @%^&#&**$ and the rest are all upstanding respectable people so that can be hard to understand too.

[Julles]

I admit, when I go to Jason's Deli, sometimes I snitch something off the salad bar, even if I didn't buy a meal that includes the salad bar.

[Bullfrog]

But sometimes, you can look at a family of several kids and 1 will turn out to be a rotten @%^&#&**$ and the rest are all upstanding respectable people so that can be hard to understand too.

I know Esther, kids are truly a miracle that they are even born in the first place. So many genes and chromosomes coming together at once, so many blueprints. All children start off as a female and then truly miraculous changes take place that make some boys. To say that we understand it all is a lie or an assumption that we know it all when really we don‘t.

In my way of thinking, some people are just born gay or even warped, evil or just bad from birth. I’ve seen families who have 2 normal kids nice as can be and then one who is just a disturbed, bad seed from day one.  Who can explain this? Who actually knows the genetic footprints that are passed down, skipping one, two or more generations only to crop up again?

Genetic memory is still a largely unexplored field. The theory that memories can be passed down through the generations, skipping some and then erupting in others is plausible and has been tested. Instinct is a great example.

A baby chick can be hatched in an incubator never having a parent to teach it anything. They passed a “V” shaped shadow over the chick backwards and then sideways. The chick had no reaction. But when the “V” shaped shadow was passed over the chick forward, the chick panicked. To the chick this meant a hawk, a predator and danger. No parent ever taught this chick that this particular shadow represented danger.

That memory was imprinted into it’s genetic memory. Many cases of reincarnation have been studied. A young girl remembered so vividly living in Germany and insisted that she did. Her parents investigated it and sure enough there was a young girl in that small town who had lived and died exactly where she said that she did. They even took her back to the place where she said that she lived and died.

She took them up to the third story of this orphanage and pointed at a wall and told them that she was pushed out of a window right here. The officials were aghast, records proved that in fact a young girl by that name had been pushed out of a window there in that precise year. The window was plastered over and everyone cried “reincarnation, this is proof.”

Yet who is to say that this memory was not passed down through many generations and then imprinted on another person maybe not even from the same family? It just made such an impression on someone’s great grandmother that this memory was somehow passed down?

My X wife’s family had several people who were obviously gay from birth. They were all raised the same way but for some reason some of them seemed to be hard wired like this from birth. This was way before VCRs and DVDs and “The Wizard of Oz” only came on once a year. All of the kids gathered in front of the TV to watch it and after the movie was over they all wanted to role play.

She had a male cousin named Savio, everyone called him “Poppy” and while the kids chose the Tin Man or the Scarecrow, Poppy wanted to be Dorothy, he related to her. Later in life, he became Dorothy., it was just born into him it seems. So I can understand how a family can have three kids who grow up “normal” and one grows up different. There is a lot about genetics that we don’t really know, I think.

[Johns]

Well,
I never stole anything, never took illegal drugs, and never did anything like that. But, I smoked cigarettes for 18 years and always loved alcohol (still do).  My family was never religious, but somehow it was instilled in me at a young age that there was nothing to be gained from taking from others that which was not mine.  Of course, I was not really in a position to do so as a child since I was small for my age and not athletic.  I am 100 percent Caucasian, but I fully understand prejudice and its effects.  This is after being born in a suburb of Chicago, my family moved into the south in 1942.  This was exactly 80 years after the end of the civil war, and we were considered damn yankees from go especially in the elementary school years.  My folks were into raising and showing Collies and one of their “dog people” acquaintances was a woman who always brought a young negro boy (This was in the 1940's and that's what they called themselves then)to all the shows and events as a helper.  He was the same age as me and we became close friends.  I was confused by some of his worrying about where we could go together.  He was very aware of the color of his skin and its ramifications, while I was incredulous.  His name was Carlton, and I have lost touch with him over the years and wonder what his life has been like.
As to my own “integration” as a yankee into the deep south social structure,  most of my classmate’s families worked in textile mills for subsistence wages and were not well acquainted with the social graces, such as not beating up a kid simply because they could, and this went for the girls as well as the boys.  As a result, I got to enjoy the experience of having the holy crap beat out of me just about every day that I couldn't outrun my tormentors. Now not to give the wrong impression I will tell about just one of my classmates:  His name was Leroy S. and he was the best looking boy in my 7th and 8th grade classes (He was not in my class before that because he was attending Stonewall Jackson Training School [reformatory].)  During the 8th grade Leroy had his 20th birthday and left school. The last I heard of him was from our retired grade school principal in 1965 that Leroy was in Sing Sing and likely would remain there.  That was just one of the delinquents I was subjected to in elementary school.  There were many others.  John Henry D. and Gene Autrey D.  (not related) also come to mind, so you get the idea.
As to the "nature vs. nurture" core that I think Bullfrog is hinting at, I believe that genetics actually is most important simply because it determines that we are human to begin with, and you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  Add to that the fact that intelligence is an inheritable characteristic.  But then again a "perfect" child can be ruined by destructive forces in their environment, such as an abusive parent.  We are not all born equal except under the law.  Each of us must work with what we inherited as well as having to learn and deal with the environment in which we find ourselves.

Esther also noted an important point above.  I know intimately a "normal" family that had a male child who began at an early age treating his mother and others with unbelievable disdain. He has been in and out of jail more times than I can remember and as far as I know, is in jail somewhere right now.

Julles made a good point above that reminded me of William Golding’s "Lord of the Flies".  If  you have not read it it is a must read.
Bullfrog, you commented above that you understood how someone becomes a thief or wife beater, etc, but not how someone becomes a child molester.  If we believe the news reports, many molesters were themselves molested as children.   It would seem logical to me that having been subjected to molestation, the victim would vow never to visit such degradation on anyone else, but the human mind is not always logical. For me, the individuals that really creep me out are those that are pathologically unsocialized.  For some of these individuals, the cause can be traced to a lack of nurturing, especially during the first three or four years of life.  For others, the cause is less obvious, and may be the result of some gene malfunction, such as the "violence gene" ( L version of MAO-A).  For information on the "violence gene", see http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web2/apatel.html .  A description of Pathological Antisocial Personality Disorder can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/8762933/Pathological-Antisocial-Personality-Disorder- .  Ted Bundy is an infamous example of the condition.  In current events, I believe that Garrido, tormentor of Jaycee Dugard, is also a prime example.  Man's inhumanity to man.  A human totally indifferent to the life of another human that they use the other person for their own pleasure or entertainment without regard to norms of human decency and consideration, are the worst possible personality outcome.  Whether by genetics or environment, we are left with human predators, who are really anything but human.

Now, Bullfrog, regarding you wondering about why prejudice is so common.  As humans multiplied and spread out over the world, they formed tribes. Many times tribes rarely had contact with other tribes.   Over centuries, it became important to always support and care and defend one’s own tribe.  This can easily be seen in the histories of native American tribes.  So it has evolved that we are imprinted with always supporting our own tribe, no matter what, and deriding and criticizing the tribes of other that are noticeably different.  An easy example is the fervor with which alumni of a specific college support their alma mater's teams and deride the teams of other colleges. Or high schools.  Or whatever.  It's ingrained in us as humans and it may take millenniums for it to go away.  In the meantime, as Randy Travis sang: “We all have to walk our own road.”

[Julles]

Thanks for those threads, Johns.  I'm intersted in all that psychological stuff... will read later.

[karen J]

Johns that was brilliant.

Understanding the tribe mentality helps a lot when trying to understand politics, fashion, sports, religion, even science. Voltaire said "Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time." That is just as true for south side Chicago poor folks as it is for Harvard scientists, as it is for D.C. politicians; all groups in their own "tribe". No one can be confused by the facts when their mind is already made up. South side Chicago residents often resort to crime because they feel trapped, with no opportunity for success (opposite from the facts), Harvard scientists think they've got it right (when they couldn't have it more wrong), D.C. politicians doom America (more votes). All because all groups must do as the tribe dictates for self preservation.

My Dad used to have his buddies over for a friendly game of poker in the basement, they used loose change to bet with. I'd sneak down there early in the morning when my Dad was still asleep upstairs, and steal from his pile of change. It wasn't much, enough to buy a bag of chips or a candy bar at the school store. In my little mind it was payment earned for serving drinks & food the night before.

[Bullfrog]

A lot of good points John, the tribal thing speaks volumes.

[Esther]

I rise above my "brother" by stepping up on him. Been going on since the beginning of time.