This is where Stoicism comes in handy for me, because the stoics didn't think highly of much of the human race. They believed in practising kindness as a virtue and not judging individuals, however as a whole they said humans are ignorant, petty, jealous and cruel-- but believed it's not their fault because they cannot tell right from wrong. Thus the Stoics believed in not taking people's bad behaviour seriously, and especially never judging yourself by what anyone says about you.

For me this is a counterpoint to what I was taught growing up, that everyone has good in them and it was up to me to appeal to that by being evangelical and trying to make everyone see the good in Christianity, in kindness, etc etc. I've always been shocked and hurt by nasty people.

If I had kids I would teach them the Stoic view so they will not be upset by people being jerks. Some awful people may have some small amount of goodness buried deep inside but from an external perspective if they're not going to be accessing that goodness it may as well not exist.


Basically people are jerks so it should not stun us when they act like jerks. I need to always remind myself of this too so I can move on.