Character Revealed by Actions

The character is revealed by the works, not by occasional good deeds and occasional misdeeds, but by the tendency of the habitual words and acts. EG White, Signs of the Times, 1884.

Some wisdom has been around for a very, very long time. What is unfortunate is how often the wisdom of ages is lost, ignored or outright rejected. Take the words above by a Christian writer written 124 years ago. How often are Christians today befuddled and kept enslaved to evil because they are told they aren't free to judge the weight of evidence provided by the deeds of someone's life? Far too often.

In my post titled "Is There Good in Everyone" I used the extreme example of Hitler to illustrate how a person's character must be judged on the "tendency of the habitual words and acts"; that an occasional good deed or trait will not mitigate against the weight of evil outcomes of a person's life. In my post "The Mask of Evil" I again talk about Hitler and also Jeff Dahmer in this context. I even loosely use this quote above in my post on the Mask of Evil.

I recognize the general reluctance of many to judge people by the accumulated words and deeds of their lives so I revisit this subject today.

Where do we find the record of someone's deeds?

In their past. History.

No historical record is more important for you to reference than the history you yourself have witnessed. Chances are very good that you've attempted to hold the narcissist to account by not only referring to a behavior in the present but by also pointing out how this behavior has been acted out time and again by them. What is the consistent accusation of the narcissist when you attempt to hold them accountable especially to their past behavior? "You ungrateful, judgmental wretch! How dare you talk about the past. You have only proven how unforgiving you are!" Then the distraction tactics come at you fast and furious. Usually this includes history revisionism along with calumnies of your own character. Perhaps I should note here that the "past" that you are not allowed to reference can include what they did ten minutes ago.

The narcissist reviles, and therefore revises, history. It is obvious as to why. History condemns them. Basic logic is hard to refute, and that logic being that the consistent behaviors we have engaged in are the demonstration of our character. Cumulative history proves who we are. Narcissists must and do reject this logic and demand the same of their victims towards them. We must lose our naivete. I'm talking about the naivete that doesn't understand the wisdom of old as quoted at the top of this post: The character is revealed by the works, not by occasional good deeds and occasional misdeeds, but by the tendency of the habitual words and acts.

It is easy enough to see how effective this rejection of the historical record is in getting the narcissist off the hook of accountability. Without being able to judge them by their past deeds we are left with only this moment. We usually don't feel that it is fair to judge a person by one thing. And, usually, it isn't fair to judge a person on one deed when it falls short of an overt and prosecutable crime. So, there we are. Stripped of an essential truth. The truth of the character of the person in front of us as demonstrated by them over time. When we can only judge one moment in a vacuum then we are rarely allowed to make the right decision.

If you are never allowed to judge a person's character and intent as revealed by history then you are caught in an endless loop. Narcissist does bad act. Narcissist demands forgiveness for bad act. Next time narcissist engages in a bad act you are not allowed to reference the previous bad act of a similar nature because the narcissist demands to be judged by this moment only otherwise you prove that your forgiveness for the same crime in the past was all a sham. Your fear of seeming unfair and judgmental means you offer up another pass to the narcissist.

I say "pass" because you are not offering true forgiveness. As I have said here many times before: you can't forgive a crime in progress. The perpetual do-overs narcissists demand are proof that they are not repentant for their crimes. (A truly sorry person never demands forgiveness, they request forgiveness realizing the request may be rightfully denied.) When you carefully examine the times you thought the narcissist was asking for forgiveness you see they lacked the essential elements of true remorse, repentance as demonstrated by coming clean without blame shifting or excuses, a sincere effort at restitution, and a firm resolve to never repeat the bad act. All of these steps must be present for a true forgiveness transaction to occur. Many if not all of these were missing from that so-called forgiveness transaction with the narcissist. Therefore what you gave them was cheap grace. They happily take your cheap grace and slap you with it in the days and years to come. The only thing you guarantee when giving an unrepentant criminal your cheap grace is that they are emboldened to do more of the same. You only succeed to confirming the creepy criminal in his evil ways. Say 'no' to cheap grace if you truly give a damn about justice and morality.

We are all fallible, and we all have done things to hurt others. What separates you from the narcissist is a willingness to completely own what you did and make it right; being willing to change your behavior when you realize it is hurting others (or yourself). You don't blame the other person for what you yourself chose to do. Knowing that we are not condemned or redeemed by our occasional misdeed or good deed we can take comfort in the quote above. When we can see that the overall habits of our deeds and words are good then we won't be overwhelmed with discouragement when we mess up. We will make it right and move into the future with a firm resolve to be a better person. History is not a fearful reality to the truly good, decent person.

Remember that one of the primary hallmarks of NPD is playing fast and loose with reality. Reality is what the narcissist decides to make it. They revise reality on the fly. The reality of history (i.e. the facts of history) are just as likely to suffer the revisionism of the narcissist as is the present. Don't allow yourself to be talked out of what you know about the truth of history by the narcissist. Good people must recognize their right to judge others by what they do. Good people will not harshly judge the occasional misdeed, but they will correctly judge the overall tendency of a life.

Narcissists demand we disengage our brain's logic centers in order to have a relationship with them. Do you really think you must give yourself a frontal lobotomy in order to be 'fair'? Does it honor God when you allow a narcissist to tinker with your brain like that? God gave you that brain...use it.

Accessing the historical record in order to deal with the narcissist in the here and now is fair play. Do not be baffled with all the B.S. the narcissist will throw at you to shame you into pretending to forget the historical record. You need to be honest with history of their actions. You need to admit what the "the tendency of the habitual words and acts" have been. You need to judge accordingly.

"You can tell what they are by what they do."
Matt. 7:16, Contemporary English Version

"It's Good to Be Judgmental"

IRONY UPDATE BELOW

I am linking to the guest article on Violent Acres because I resonate completely with this young woman's argument for being judgmental. I, too, am a judgmental bitch. Which is why I have been able to extricate myself from the pestilential and tyrannical narcissists in my life. I highly recommend being judgmental. In fact, I insist on you using good judgment all the time on my blog. Engaging your brain in order to assert some order and control over your life is called using judgment.

I dedicate this article to the last commenter on the post "But Wait, There's More!" who went way out of their way to excuse Shrek in order to make me into the bad guy. There is no time when it more obviously paramount to use judgment than when dating. For pete's sake, the whole reason for dating is to determine (i.e. JUDGE) if someone is a good match for you. You can't determine that fact without using judgment. I am so sick and tired of people thinking judgment is a bad word I could SCREAM. Instead, I am calmly pointing you to the eloquent rant of the above blogger. My sentiments exactly, sista.

"Anonymous", I have good judgment. I can't account for your bad judgment. You apparently have an ax to grind with me; someone you've never met and who is minding my own business here on my blog. Your comment says a hell of a lot more about you than it does me.

[IRONY UPDATE INSERTED HERE]
Seems to me that "Anonymous" gets pretty high on her/his judgmental horse while deciding that I've been too judgmental. Come on. Where is the logical consistency?! Anonymous gets a pass on their inconsistency and judgmentalism by the idiocy of mainstream non-logic. It is okay, nay, good and righteous, to judge those who are judgmental. Kind of like it is permissible to be racist as long as it is whites that you hate. Bahhh. Mental and moral midgets all. Yeah, that's a judgment.

When Good is Bad

This quote is from the site I mentioned in my previous post:

The most dangerous predators among us are ingeniously veiled. They carefully surround themselves with people entirely unlike themselves, that is, with deeply empathic human beings who wish to please others, who are slow to judge, who are excessively tolerant and who have an eye for the good to be found in others. They know how to exploit to their own advantage such character traits. It is their association with such people that maximizes their chances of perpetuating the facade and keeping themselves from exposure. "Narcissism & the Dynamics of Evil"

The underlining is mine. I want to focus your attention for a moment on the kind of good person, good qualities, and good intentions which are used to support and hide "the most dangerous predators". If good is used for the evil purposes of predators then good itself becomes dangerous. We really must make determined efforts to not allow good to be used as a cloak for evil, especially if that good resides in ourselves. We are responsible to others to make sure our good natures and qualities are not used by predators to get within striking distance of their victims.

A group of people who are admire and cultivate the qualities of being "deeply empathic", people pleasers, reluctant to judge, "excessively tolerant" and who choose to see only the good in others, are Christians. You do not have to be a Christian to value and hold these qualities, but as a group Christians tend to value and emphasize and reward these qualities. So I'm talking especially to Christians. I hope the rest of you stay tuned, because I'm still talking to you, too.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our idea of how "good" people should be if we are not discriminating enough to make sure our "good" is not used to facilitate evil. If the "good" qualities we boast of are used as weapons in the hands of a predator then our "good" is actually turned to evil. This is very serious business.

Let's consider for a moment the quality of "slow to judge". It is easy enough to imagine why a predatory narcissist would find these people very expedient to their ends if you pause to think even for a moment on it. The day of inevitable exposure of the narcissist is long postponed, perhaps forever, if the narcissist is able to surround himself with people who will suspend all judgment of the narcissist's behaviors and ascribe non-malevolent motives to the narcissist for his bad acts. When the day of exposure arrives, the narcissist has these ardent supporters who will protest with all the vehemence and conviction of their good souls that the narcissist is misunderstood and hastily misjudged. This makes it difficult for others to maintain their just assertions against the narcissist because the good reputations of the narcissist's supporters are now used to make the accuser look bad by contrast. It can be nearly impossible for a victim of a narcissist to press their claims when so-called good people form a protective ring around the evil-doer and divert the slings and arrows back to the victim. This behavior of the "good" people actually guarantees the narcissist will continue to have access to his or her victim as well as access to new victims in the future. If that isn't evil in itself, I do not know what is. If we do not exercise our frontal lobes, that is, our ability to judge between things, then we guarantee that evil will prosper in our presence.

Let's look again at the list of qualities that the predatory narcissist looks for in those he surrounds himself with:

deeply empathic
people pleasing
slow to judge
excessively tolerant
belief in the basic good of others

When we bestow these graces upon evil people we can safely state that these qualities become evil themselves. These qualities, by themselves, are neither good nor evil.

Chew on that for moment.

What determines whether or not they are good qualities is upon whom and in what circumstances we exercise them. This goes against what most good people believe. They see these qualities as unqualified virtues regardless. It is this kind of thinking the narcissist exploits.

The least virtuous of these qualities, in my opinion, is the extreme reluctance to judge. All the other qualities spring from this one. So I will state here that judging is absolutely necessary if we are going to avoid being used by evil people. The word judgmental has gotten an extremely bad rap over the years. The psychologizing of our society has led to this idea that everyone is basically good and that all forms of guilt are deleterious to individuals. This is because everyone is construed to be some form of victim, therefore they can't help how they behave. Pop psychology has done more to facilitate narcissists than any other modern philosophy. Pop psychology preaches that all the badly behaving person needs is a empathetic ear (i.e. talk therapy). Pop psychology relies on an extreme reluctance to judge any kind of behavior; it preaches that we must all be excessively tolerant of others; and underlying all of its dogma is the fundamental belief in the basic good of humanity. So, as you can see, Christians aren't the only ones prone to over-value (and misapply) the qualities listed above. In fact, Christians used to be a lot better at holding evil doers to account, but pop psychology has infiltrated Christian thought which means Christians and secularists are thinking very much alike on this. "Nice" is now the "virtue" a vast number of people are pursuing and competing to have ascribed to them. "Nice" now equals "good" in the minds of many. "Nice" people think it is not nice to hurt people's feelings. They bend over backwards to never hurt anyone's feelings. This, of course, is impossible to accomplish. Someone is always going to get their feelings hurt. Shouldn't we strive to make sure that if someone's feelings get hurt that it is the predatory ones among us who get clobbered and not their victims?

It is no small thing to let your goodness be exploited, used, and manipulated by predatory narcissists. Your good qualities are only good if they support good. All too often people fall for the notion that their eternal patience and determined belief in the good of all people will cause others to rise to the occasion. The narcissist will never rise to this occasion in the way you hope. They will only see opportunity for protective coloration by standing very close to you and letting your goodness hide their badness.

It is imperative for you, your family, and your social circle that you engage your rational powers and start discerning between good and evil. Discernment = judgment. Not a bad word. I have said before that "nice people suck". In this context, of how "nice" people often let themselves be used by evil people, I am speaking. There is a time for everything. Always being "nice" is a sign that you do not understand there is a time to not be "nice". There is a time to judge. A time to take an unpopular stand. A time to hold evil-doers to account no matter the cost to you. A time to protect the innocent and abused from those who have very successfully hidden their malignancy heretofore. A time for war.

Wisdom recognizes:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. Eccl. 3:1-8