A strange and terrible weekend

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by warch
Why is your integrity a hot button?

That's a question with a truly complex answer. I'm not sure if I can answer effectively.

Some people say that they don't care what anybody thinks about them, but I think such people are fooling themselves. On some level, conscious or otherwise, they care about the opinions of others. One of the easiest, and most ironic, ways to prove this is to watch such a person defend their "I don't care what people think" attitude when you question it. They won't necessarily get emotional, but they will make a significant effort to make you believe them. Why try to convince anybody of anything if you don't care what they think?

Humans are social animals, and interaction with others is a necessity for survival, helpful for finding happiness, and obviously unavoidable in procreating. I assert that a healthy psyche MUST value the input of others, though the weight given to any outside opinion should vary depending on the source's trustworthiness, awareness of key facts, state of mind, etc. Society is the product of opinions, and society gives us a yardstick against which to measure our success, allowing us to strive for improvment. Everybody wants to have value.

So... I think one's hot buttons are tied to those personal traits which one holds most valueable, because for another person to question those traits is to risk losing one's perceived value. Basically, for the benefit of my own self-worth, it is important to me that I am trusted... so to question my integrity triggers a strong defense mechanism.

Another possibility... trust is a kind of power (not in a negative sense). If everyone trusts me, I have greater power, because my word is enough to get me much of I want and need. For someone to call my trustworthiness into question jeopardizes that hard-won power to some degree, so my reflex is to defend it with an equal but opposite intensity.

Too deep? Sorry.