For a certain
personality-type, character, or mentality, it is easy to blame other people
while remaining silent on one’s own mistakes (and mentality). This approach can
be particularly harmful during a pandemic, for one’s own mistakes could be
passing on the infectious illness. Such mistakes include refusing to maintain a
physical distance from other people in public places and retail stores. As
noxious as the blaming is, a more significant anthropological point may be that
as a social and habitual animal, the human being may not be mentally advanced
enough to keep a distance from other such animals even for self-preservation. I
don’t think the instinctual urge for socializing exhausts the explanation, for
the failure (and even refusal) to respect others enough to keep at a distance
even when they ask surely involves weakness that manifests psychologically
beyond merely having a bad attitude. Not even the artificial organizational-management systems our species has established are a match for the toxicity of a weakness that is even just passively aggressive toward other people. I contend that American management is susceptable to an even more severe weakness; one that foists organizational power as a club even on customers.
The full essay is at "Human Resources and Management in the American Grocery Industry."
