It’s pretty simple, putting someone else down makes you feel powerful. That’s really all there is to it. It’s the same kind of thing kids do when they kill random bugs they find, they’re asserting their power over them.
I know nothing about you, but there are probably analogues in your life as well:
- bragging about a good score in school
- comparing how many books you’ve read vs others
- comparing your income to someone worse off
Basically, you want what you have to feel better than what someone else has, because that means you’re “better” in some way. It’s just pride at the end of the day, and not a constructive form of it since you usually feel worse afterward.
My life has been so consistently in the shitter that I just only feel shame all the time about those things
I am a bit surprised to hear that’s how you feel about those things. I’m not completely neurotypical but I present that way, and I’m missing a lot of knowledge about most divergences. If you don’t mind my prying in turn: do you mean you feel shame when you score higher on an exam than someone else?
Anyway yes, the other commenter nailed the primal urge to assert some form of dominance. Whether through instinct to better one’s tribal standing or society raising people to constantly beat other people in something, I think a lot of people feel some reflex to shit on 4chan’s OP even though he was just being honest and vulnerable. There should be little to no tribal advantage in a “higher standing” person acting that way. Nonetheless we still see children distancing themselves from bullied peers, or joining in on it to prove they’re part of the winning side so to speak. I strongly believe it’s due to base instincts from a time where being near the bottom was a large threat to one’s ability to reproduce.
I said to the other guy that his negativity would benefit no one. In a progressive society where a person thinks about human progress instead of temporary satisfaction from “beating” someone else, this is completely true. The forward-thinking know that 4chan’s OP (and other downtrodden) can help move humanity forward, and Lemmy’s culture is progressive enough to not reward the primal desire. Without the approval of other self-minded individuals, he actually lost social standing, leading to a rare situation where truly no positives existed.
Mostly unrelated and unwanted speculation, but when you say your life is so consistently in the shitter, I wonder if believing so is part of the neurodivergence since you’re definitely doing better than people who are proud. Being neurotypical isn’t objectively right— it’s just most common, and thus typical. I don’t know your life and I won’t make assumptions, but I wonder if you lack the self-minded instinct and thus don’t feel the need to be prideful. Taken to an extreme that could lead to a hurtful opinion of oneself. It’s just, I know you have value and I bet I’d find stuff to be proud of in your shoes.
Sorry for waxing philosophical. I hope that was slightly useful anyway.
I can’t speak for other people but I have what I think is a similar impulse occasionally to OP. There is certainly a power dynamic to it but it’s not exactly what you describe, because it doesn’t present itself in response to weak individuals acting in prosocial or “healthy” ways.
I believe it’s a subconscious determination that an adult male member of the tribe is unsafe or mentally unwell. The instinct is to protect the weak and drive the danger elsewhere. Provoking a social confrontation could give the other male a chance to prove they have the willpower and social skills to remain in the tribe.
That is entirely my subjective parsing of a soup of hormones. The more aware of it I am, the better I can be at overriding the instinct and using empathy.
Yeah, that idea could certainly have some merit to it.
I think there’s a difference between “weak but desirable” (e.g. grandma, small children, etc) and “weak and undesirable.” You feel justified in attacking the second for whatever reason, whether that’s some “protect the tribe” motive or a simpler discomfort avoidance strategy. The discomfort is what I was getting at, but perhaps there’s more nuance to it.
Regardless, it’s a pretty common impulse to punch down on people you dislike.
Weakness isn’t factored in here consciously. A greasy guy with a knife would trigger a similar response. I think the linkage is that the same issues that cause someone to register as ‘undesirable’, as you put it, also reduce a person’s social network, which compounds their issues with integrating into society.
I am sorry if this seems pedantic, it’s not on purpose, but punching down implies a desire to increase social status by reducing the status of other members, implying they remain part of the tribe but subordinate. The impulse is existential rather than social - eliminating a threat as opposed to gaining social power.