I'm not sure if I ever put it in the article but I touched on a similar topic a while back. I don't think I used this example but consider the following quote:
"A sound and energetic mind is only found in a sound and energetic body."
It sounds reasonable doesn't it, a reminder to look after your body and your brain will follow, that type of thing. Advice that you could take on board.
But if you then learn it's actually a Hitler quotes, it turns sour. The advice still rings true, but knowing the author sullies it.
There's also a band I used to like called Lost Prophets. I went to see them live several times in my youth. The lead singer is now in prison for some absolutely horrendous stuff, I won't elaborate but I haven't listened to any of their songs since then, the band have been pretty much deleted from the internet, you don't hear them on the radio and I feel sorry for the band members who are entirely innocent but had their careers derailed having never been able to reach the same heights they had fallen from.
I like to think that you can separate what is good from a person who has some bad things but in practice the link always remains.
Mark, thank you for sharing this. The quote example really shows how knowing the source can shift how something is received! And I agree, in theory, we might believe we can separate the good from the bad, but in practice, that connection is hard to unsee. What you said about the band also captures how far-reaching the consequences can be, even for those who weren’t at fault! There’s no simple way through it, is there?
I cant help but think that a lot of people cannot help but to assign values to things I consider to be wholy unrelated. In the example of the Hitler quote, good advice is good advice; where it came from, just doesn't carry much weight in this context for me. I think it's largely automatic unfortunately for many people to feel differently in such a situation, but I truly do not fully understand it myself, having never been so afflicted that I can recall.
As for the band, it's a similar situation. I guess I just do not equate the actions of the lead singer outside of making music to be important to whether or not I like the music. It's sort of like judging a person for the worst day, in every future interaction. Which I try not to do. Again, this is largely automatic I think, we cannot help but to feel what we feel.
You're right it's automatic, and I think it's a lot about others perception to it too. If I drove down the street playing lost prophets songs most people probably wouldn't even notice, a product of a generation that just got deleted. But the few who recognised it would be very judgemental and I just don't think there's a way around that.
I think I'd be more likely to follow the good advice than listen to the music again.
The question “can we like people who’ve done bad things?” It’s something I’ve wrestled with too, but I think the weight of that question really changes depending on what the bad thing is.
For example, when it comes to something as serious and devastating as murder or child abuse, I don’t think it’s about “liking” at all. These aren’t just moral lapses…they’re acts of deep, irreversible harm. And yet, sometimes those same people created art we once loved, shaped memories we hold close, or meant something to us before we knew the full story
That’s where it gets deeply uncomfortable. Because no, I can’t like someone who’s committed such acts. But I also can’t always erase the emotional imprint they left behind. It’s not about excusing or forgiving far from it but it’s about reckoning with the mess of it. That unsettling clash between what we once felt and what we now know.
Some contradictions aren’t meant to be resolved. They’re meant to be held with honesty. And that, I think, is the real work…sitting with the discomfort without rushing into a tidy answer just to feel better
Salwa, your comment is reassuring in so many ways. It aligns with much of what I find myself thinking when wrestling with this topic. Especially what you said about sitting with the discomfort: the space between what we once felt and what we now know. It’s a challenge not to rush toward resolution!
I used to work on criminal defence cases when I was younger. Many people who admitted committing heinous crimes were extremely charming. One of them had been accused of stabbing his girlfriend multiple times. I visited him in prison every day. He behaved with me integrity towards me than some people I have worked with since in companies. There can never be enough mitigation to justify a crime like that, but he had been provoked and there were addiction issues. She had also been a bully. Context is everything.
Another observation I have had :
I often warm to people with very difficult political views. Now that things have got so polarised I find many people veering towards the centre, but I certainly used to find that I did not necessarily like people with whom I agreed politically and vice versa.
It makes me want to know more about what it is that makes us like people in the first place. Or the reverse. And why those factors might be different for different people. That isn’t always easy to explain. Many people like people who smile and say nice things to others. I do too, but an excess of it can also make me nervous. It can feel disingenuous. As one person once said, too much sugar can give you a cavity.
Thank you for your insights, Joanna. I'm interested in your view that context is everything. I find myself leaning toward something slightly different. For me, while context can certainly deepen our understanding, it doesn’t always erase the discomfort. Sometimes, even with the full story, a tension remains. Well, at least for me :)
As for what draws us to someone in the first place, for many of us, liking can happen before judgement and is strongly shaped by familiarity. But that’s just a broad framing. Individual differences, such as personality traits, also play a significant role here, as do shared interests or background. While “opposites attract” may hold in physics, in psychology it usually doesn’t!
If I understand what you said correctly, context isn't the most important factor for you, but rather the act of doing something you find to go against your own moral framework? For example, in the case of Joanne's criminal, it's the fact that he did the thing, and to a lesser degree, the reasons behind it?
I beat this dead old horse often, but, scale. We might stand a kid in the corner for a few minutes for misbehaving. I do not have a good example in that..damn. When I was in elementary school I got suspended for 3 days once for fighting. My parents, furious as they should have been, gave it to me when we got home. They had to come and get me in the middle of the day, taking time off work they couldn't afford to take.
Needless to say, I got my ass busted pretty good and a rather long speech about bullying other kids. Then I was given the chance to tell my side of the story, which was that there was a child at our school who had seizures. Back then the apparent solution was to have them wear a leather helmet. There was a 6th grader that was slapping him on the head and the much smaller 3rd grader was crying and flinching. So I took my 4th grade little self other than and punched the 6th grader in the ear, to which he then cried and ran and told the teachers on me.
For me, context matters far more than the fact that someone did something.
SInce I posted this, it occurred to me that I should also make it known that while I think context matters greatly, I was not wronged in being punished for what I did. Just because I did what I considered to be right, as well as hopefully taught the bully a valuable lesson, I still did something wrong. Doing wrong has consequences, I just dont begrudge them because I think I understand their purpose.
Yes, context isn't the most important factor for me, but not because the act goes against my own moral framework. Rather, it's that wrongdoing is still wrongdoing, even when context explains it. As I tried to convey in the post, certain behaviours, once contextualised, can become more digestible, but that doesn't make them acceptable.
For instance, let's say I find out my former supervisor is now a bully because she was seriously bullied as a child. That might help me understand her behaviour, but it wouldn't make it acceptable to me.
In my head, this feels like a very nuanced point, and I am not sure I am conveying it exactly as I think it. I do think your point about context not erasing consequences, in a way, touches on something close to what I'm trying to understand.
The most heinous of crimes are normally committed by people who were responding to a strong emotional conflict. But what qualifies as a "heinous crime" is subjective I suppose. Pedo's in my view are the top of the list because they not only hurt those without defense physically, but also damage them long into the future mentally. Essentially, poisoning the well before it's even begun to fill.
I think that for me, the "liking someone" happens so very rarely that I recognize the mechanism behind it more readily than others. First impressions are the gold standard. Not the first interaction, but the first time I see someone, or hear them on the phone, whatever the case my be. How a person conducts themselves is what seems to matter to me. If my first experience is to see someone putting money into a donation thing, and then looking proud of themselves immediately afterwards I will more often than not, be less than eager to allow them near me.
Weird right? On the surface it may seem that way, but as you probably deduced, it's about the feeling of pride after the donation that makes me far less inclined to like a person. I only gave the example because it's probably more nuanced than many people would recognize in their own evaluations, and it's also one that many people would think is an arbitrary method of same.
Point is, determining what makes us like another person or not is situational based upon our own lived experience. Or maybe it's a simple matter of seeing or expecting someone to behave or value the same things that we do.
Brilliantly thought provoking post, Dom. For me, I think it would depend on the action and the reason behind it. When I was younger, a good friend of mine took part in a house robbery. He had an abusive father and an injury caused by his father (never reported out of fear) had left him only partially sighted in one eye. Maybe I could have forgiven the robbery (maybe). But one of the lads he was with threatened to cut off the old ladies finger if the husband didn’t open the house safe. I can’t recall how, but they were caught. It was my friends first offence and he was put on probation. I told him never to speak to me again. It wasn’t the robbery that was unforgivable, it was taking part in what must have been terrifying for the victims.
Thank you for sharing this, Sue. What a difficult experience that must have been!
A common thread in many of the responses to this post seems to be about the degree of the wrongdoing, but your perspective clearly adds something especially important: consideration for those directly harmed. That empathy for the victims brings another layer to this whole question. It’s such a vital piece of the puzzle, and it shows just how complex this really is!
Hey Dom, I really liked the thought-provoking narrative, and also your question, “Can I still like her?”, hit hard. I think many of us have that one person we once admired, only to later learn a version of them we wish we didn’t know. And then we’re left in the in-between space, feeling both things at once. Its's complicated but such is LIFE.
Hey Dave, thank you for the nice words and taking the time to read. I like your wording 'in-between', it comes across as non-judgemental. That's a nice space to find ourselves in.
I had not known about the authors....activities. However, I am also not surprised. This seems to be such a common practice anymore that I am having difficulty in believing my own good fortune at only being messed up in other ways, and that my parents or some other adult didn't put me through such nonsense.
I at first typed "Yes, you can like people who've done bad things" and something witty directly after, but, I broke one of my own rules and deleted the remark because of some unidentified doubt that crept in.
I have no idea if anyone else can like people who've done bad, but I'd suspect that if they could not, then nobody would like anyone at all. We've all done bad things. Without exception. It might have been something so simple as putting a tack in another childs seat and giggling when they sat on it while in elementary school, or maybe something slightly more diabolical like not tithing last week at church.
For me, it's literally impossible to accept such a blanket coloring of people. For me, as in all things, it's about scale. I myself have done wrong. I do not like myself, which is curious now that I've realized it. I am also a bird to shiny objects though and my self love could change shortly. Who knows. For other people though, I assume everyone has transgressions in their backpacks, and still find a few I can tolerate, maybe even.....like.
So, it must be about perception then, for the rest of the world. Not knowing a person is a piece of garbage allows us to see the good qualities, but as soon as the stench of Oscar In His Trashcan hits our noses..."No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs get put on our doors.
Or at least, that's how it is in my worldview. ;) The only other factor that I am aware of within my own method is whether or not it's an ongoing evil. Like the bully you mentioned. I could not like them because they actively hurt other people in some way. I could probably like thier positive qualities, if they have them, but I could not maintain civility around such behavior for long.
Ryan, you highlight all the nuances involved in trying to answer the question I posed here. From how serious the wrongdoing is to the fact that most of us have done things we’re not proud of, it becomes clear this isn’t something with a straightforward yes or no. It’s complex, and the road to an answer, if there is one, feels anything but direct.
Perhaps the moment you retracted your "yes" speaks to just how tangled this question really is?
I think I had in mind but didn't directly state that I think it is a very nuanced topic but it's also one of the rare things for me that is both complex, and very very simple at once. I have a cousin that did some evil things when he was 14. He's been in prison since then, nearly 30 years now. I do not like him because of that. Yet I also have a friend who just got out after doing 6 years, whom I do like.
The crimes were different, sure, but that is only one part of very complex equation, still easily solvable in that I don't seem to question myself. My cousin did things I find unredeemable while my friend did not.
I can be civil to them both, but I'm only spending time with one of them. Basically, I just go with what my gut tells me. I'm uncomfortable around my cousin, but not my friend and that's good enough for me. So I suppose that means that the ability to like someone who's done wrong is directly related to my worldview of everyone doing wrong, mixed with a sprinkle of not caring about social acceptance.
Perhaps people just get in their own ways. Anyone that's had a dog can tell you that they seem to know pretty accurately the moment someone walks in the door whether they are a potential threat or not. This is very close to what I mean.
Sure, as I have been conditioned to tolerate people who have been to prison, they do not make me uncomfortable in the same way as other people might be. However, I think it's important to note that there is at least a few instances where I like a person who's been to prison more than I like people who have not.
I am curious, do you think the same would hold true for you? Can you like someone less than a person who'd been to prison? I think thats a question many people would jump too quickly towards "Yes! Of course I could", but since they hadn't put my thought into it, are likely not giving an answer they've actually considered.
It's understandable, but also shows another frustration I have. The people who would quickly answer in the affirmative but not truly have considered it are doing so because most people do not want to be perceived as being dishonest, or unfair. But in the very act of answering before thinking, they are doing just that.
For me, the fact they've gone to prison doesnt move the bar very much, if at all. Drug dealers who've not been caught are no different than the ones that have, and gone to prison for it within my way of thinking. They both get an equal measure of "like" or "dislike" added or subtracted to the equation. But, that is directly from the exposure you mentioned.
The world must be a more difficult place for people who consider such a thing as this. In fact, I think it'd drive them a bit nuts. I am glad that I've taken paths throughout my life that allow me to basically sit in the passengers seat without grabbing for the wheel. At least when it comes to this particular topic. I am way crazier than many people in other domains though.
Dont get me started on chickens overthrowing mankind or the bio mass of ants. I'll go on for days.
What a fascinating article. Both parts are interesting to me. People unconsciously put part of themselves into their art. Also, your main question, "Can We Like People Who’ve Done Bad Things?"
It was so thought-provoking. I found myself thinking of people that I know and asking myself the question. I think that I came up with it, depending on what type of bad thing they have done. But then again, as you point out, it is not a question one can answer without a specific example and the context around it.
The point you made about art touches right at the heart of the dilemma: Our creative work carries something of ourselves, whether we intend it or not. So then, does becoming invested in a given work of art mean I’m also, in some way, invested in parts of someone who’s done horrific things? And is this even the right question to ask?
As for the central question, I mentioned in another reply that (for me) context can certainly deepen understanding, but it doesn’t always ease the discomfort. Sometimes, even with the full story, a certain tension remains.
But then again, liking doesn’t equate to moral approval!
It's always wonderful seeing you around Dr. Karen. Thank you for taking the time to share your views & take part in this discussion <3
This is an interesting perspective, Dom, thank you for writing it. Maybe it's because of my profession but I generally try to approach people with a relatively neutral mindset. With some individuals I find it difficult to move from neutrality to genuinely liking them, even though I make the effort.
One thing worth noting, which you also touched on, is that people sometimes confuse liking with approving. That confusion can lead to tolerating abusive behavior, which is something to be cautious about.
I always appreciate the idea of becoming more comfortable with inconsistency and flaws.
Hello Selda :) Your neutral stance toward people seems to require a certain discipline, an ability to stay present without being pulled too quickly into preference or aversion.
Yes, distinguishing liking from approving is essential. Without that distinction, we risk mistaking warmth for endorsement, which can blur important boundaries!
And indeed, becoming more at ease with flaws opens a space for accepting both ourselves and others, with fewer demands for consistency or resolution.
I'm not sure if I ever put it in the article but I touched on a similar topic a while back. I don't think I used this example but consider the following quote:
"A sound and energetic mind is only found in a sound and energetic body."
It sounds reasonable doesn't it, a reminder to look after your body and your brain will follow, that type of thing. Advice that you could take on board.
But if you then learn it's actually a Hitler quotes, it turns sour. The advice still rings true, but knowing the author sullies it.
There's also a band I used to like called Lost Prophets. I went to see them live several times in my youth. The lead singer is now in prison for some absolutely horrendous stuff, I won't elaborate but I haven't listened to any of their songs since then, the band have been pretty much deleted from the internet, you don't hear them on the radio and I feel sorry for the band members who are entirely innocent but had their careers derailed having never been able to reach the same heights they had fallen from.
I like to think that you can separate what is good from a person who has some bad things but in practice the link always remains.
Mark, thank you for sharing this. The quote example really shows how knowing the source can shift how something is received! And I agree, in theory, we might believe we can separate the good from the bad, but in practice, that connection is hard to unsee. What you said about the band also captures how far-reaching the consequences can be, even for those who weren’t at fault! There’s no simple way through it, is there?
It's part of what makes life so interesting I suppose!
I cant help but think that a lot of people cannot help but to assign values to things I consider to be wholy unrelated. In the example of the Hitler quote, good advice is good advice; where it came from, just doesn't carry much weight in this context for me. I think it's largely automatic unfortunately for many people to feel differently in such a situation, but I truly do not fully understand it myself, having never been so afflicted that I can recall.
As for the band, it's a similar situation. I guess I just do not equate the actions of the lead singer outside of making music to be important to whether or not I like the music. It's sort of like judging a person for the worst day, in every future interaction. Which I try not to do. Again, this is largely automatic I think, we cannot help but to feel what we feel.
You're right it's automatic, and I think it's a lot about others perception to it too. If I drove down the street playing lost prophets songs most people probably wouldn't even notice, a product of a generation that just got deleted. But the few who recognised it would be very judgemental and I just don't think there's a way around that.
I think I'd be more likely to follow the good advice than listen to the music again.
The question “can we like people who’ve done bad things?” It’s something I’ve wrestled with too, but I think the weight of that question really changes depending on what the bad thing is.
For example, when it comes to something as serious and devastating as murder or child abuse, I don’t think it’s about “liking” at all. These aren’t just moral lapses…they’re acts of deep, irreversible harm. And yet, sometimes those same people created art we once loved, shaped memories we hold close, or meant something to us before we knew the full story
That’s where it gets deeply uncomfortable. Because no, I can’t like someone who’s committed such acts. But I also can’t always erase the emotional imprint they left behind. It’s not about excusing or forgiving far from it but it’s about reckoning with the mess of it. That unsettling clash between what we once felt and what we now know.
Some contradictions aren’t meant to be resolved. They’re meant to be held with honesty. And that, I think, is the real work…sitting with the discomfort without rushing into a tidy answer just to feel better
Salwa, your comment is reassuring in so many ways. It aligns with much of what I find myself thinking when wrestling with this topic. Especially what you said about sitting with the discomfort: the space between what we once felt and what we now know. It’s a challenge not to rush toward resolution!
I used to work on criminal defence cases when I was younger. Many people who admitted committing heinous crimes were extremely charming. One of them had been accused of stabbing his girlfriend multiple times. I visited him in prison every day. He behaved with me integrity towards me than some people I have worked with since in companies. There can never be enough mitigation to justify a crime like that, but he had been provoked and there were addiction issues. She had also been a bully. Context is everything.
Another observation I have had :
I often warm to people with very difficult political views. Now that things have got so polarised I find many people veering towards the centre, but I certainly used to find that I did not necessarily like people with whom I agreed politically and vice versa.
It makes me want to know more about what it is that makes us like people in the first place. Or the reverse. And why those factors might be different for different people. That isn’t always easy to explain. Many people like people who smile and say nice things to others. I do too, but an excess of it can also make me nervous. It can feel disingenuous. As one person once said, too much sugar can give you a cavity.
Thank you for your insights, Joanna. I'm interested in your view that context is everything. I find myself leaning toward something slightly different. For me, while context can certainly deepen our understanding, it doesn’t always erase the discomfort. Sometimes, even with the full story, a tension remains. Well, at least for me :)
As for what draws us to someone in the first place, for many of us, liking can happen before judgement and is strongly shaped by familiarity. But that’s just a broad framing. Individual differences, such as personality traits, also play a significant role here, as do shared interests or background. While “opposites attract” may hold in physics, in psychology it usually doesn’t!
Take care <3
If I understand what you said correctly, context isn't the most important factor for you, but rather the act of doing something you find to go against your own moral framework? For example, in the case of Joanne's criminal, it's the fact that he did the thing, and to a lesser degree, the reasons behind it?
I beat this dead old horse often, but, scale. We might stand a kid in the corner for a few minutes for misbehaving. I do not have a good example in that..damn. When I was in elementary school I got suspended for 3 days once for fighting. My parents, furious as they should have been, gave it to me when we got home. They had to come and get me in the middle of the day, taking time off work they couldn't afford to take.
Needless to say, I got my ass busted pretty good and a rather long speech about bullying other kids. Then I was given the chance to tell my side of the story, which was that there was a child at our school who had seizures. Back then the apparent solution was to have them wear a leather helmet. There was a 6th grader that was slapping him on the head and the much smaller 3rd grader was crying and flinching. So I took my 4th grade little self other than and punched the 6th grader in the ear, to which he then cried and ran and told the teachers on me.
For me, context matters far more than the fact that someone did something.
SInce I posted this, it occurred to me that I should also make it known that while I think context matters greatly, I was not wronged in being punished for what I did. Just because I did what I considered to be right, as well as hopefully taught the bully a valuable lesson, I still did something wrong. Doing wrong has consequences, I just dont begrudge them because I think I understand their purpose.
Yes, context isn't the most important factor for me, but not because the act goes against my own moral framework. Rather, it's that wrongdoing is still wrongdoing, even when context explains it. As I tried to convey in the post, certain behaviours, once contextualised, can become more digestible, but that doesn't make them acceptable.
For instance, let's say I find out my former supervisor is now a bully because she was seriously bullied as a child. That might help me understand her behaviour, but it wouldn't make it acceptable to me.
In my head, this feels like a very nuanced point, and I am not sure I am conveying it exactly as I think it. I do think your point about context not erasing consequences, in a way, touches on something close to what I'm trying to understand.
The most heinous of crimes are normally committed by people who were responding to a strong emotional conflict. But what qualifies as a "heinous crime" is subjective I suppose. Pedo's in my view are the top of the list because they not only hurt those without defense physically, but also damage them long into the future mentally. Essentially, poisoning the well before it's even begun to fill.
I think that for me, the "liking someone" happens so very rarely that I recognize the mechanism behind it more readily than others. First impressions are the gold standard. Not the first interaction, but the first time I see someone, or hear them on the phone, whatever the case my be. How a person conducts themselves is what seems to matter to me. If my first experience is to see someone putting money into a donation thing, and then looking proud of themselves immediately afterwards I will more often than not, be less than eager to allow them near me.
Weird right? On the surface it may seem that way, but as you probably deduced, it's about the feeling of pride after the donation that makes me far less inclined to like a person. I only gave the example because it's probably more nuanced than many people would recognize in their own evaluations, and it's also one that many people would think is an arbitrary method of same.
Point is, determining what makes us like another person or not is situational based upon our own lived experience. Or maybe it's a simple matter of seeing or expecting someone to behave or value the same things that we do.
Brilliantly thought provoking post, Dom. For me, I think it would depend on the action and the reason behind it. When I was younger, a good friend of mine took part in a house robbery. He had an abusive father and an injury caused by his father (never reported out of fear) had left him only partially sighted in one eye. Maybe I could have forgiven the robbery (maybe). But one of the lads he was with threatened to cut off the old ladies finger if the husband didn’t open the house safe. I can’t recall how, but they were caught. It was my friends first offence and he was put on probation. I told him never to speak to me again. It wasn’t the robbery that was unforgivable, it was taking part in what must have been terrifying for the victims.
Thank you for sharing this, Sue. What a difficult experience that must have been!
A common thread in many of the responses to this post seems to be about the degree of the wrongdoing, but your perspective clearly adds something especially important: consideration for those directly harmed. That empathy for the victims brings another layer to this whole question. It’s such a vital piece of the puzzle, and it shows just how complex this really is!
Thank you for stopping by :)
i thought you asked me if I could go a little deeper so I just wanted to clarify. That was a great article.
Oh I see :) ❤️
I like to know the deeper part you were going for in this rticle
I'm sorry Dr. Kare, can you please clarify this question a little further?
Hey Dom, I really liked the thought-provoking narrative, and also your question, “Can I still like her?”, hit hard. I think many of us have that one person we once admired, only to later learn a version of them we wish we didn’t know. And then we’re left in the in-between space, feeling both things at once. Its's complicated but such is LIFE.
Well written.. Cheers.. 😁
Hey Dave, thank you for the nice words and taking the time to read. I like your wording 'in-between', it comes across as non-judgemental. That's a nice space to find ourselves in.
Take Care Dave <3
I had not known about the authors....activities. However, I am also not surprised. This seems to be such a common practice anymore that I am having difficulty in believing my own good fortune at only being messed up in other ways, and that my parents or some other adult didn't put me through such nonsense.
I at first typed "Yes, you can like people who've done bad things" and something witty directly after, but, I broke one of my own rules and deleted the remark because of some unidentified doubt that crept in.
I have no idea if anyone else can like people who've done bad, but I'd suspect that if they could not, then nobody would like anyone at all. We've all done bad things. Without exception. It might have been something so simple as putting a tack in another childs seat and giggling when they sat on it while in elementary school, or maybe something slightly more diabolical like not tithing last week at church.
For me, it's literally impossible to accept such a blanket coloring of people. For me, as in all things, it's about scale. I myself have done wrong. I do not like myself, which is curious now that I've realized it. I am also a bird to shiny objects though and my self love could change shortly. Who knows. For other people though, I assume everyone has transgressions in their backpacks, and still find a few I can tolerate, maybe even.....like.
So, it must be about perception then, for the rest of the world. Not knowing a person is a piece of garbage allows us to see the good qualities, but as soon as the stench of Oscar In His Trashcan hits our noses..."No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs get put on our doors.
Or at least, that's how it is in my worldview. ;) The only other factor that I am aware of within my own method is whether or not it's an ongoing evil. Like the bully you mentioned. I could not like them because they actively hurt other people in some way. I could probably like thier positive qualities, if they have them, but I could not maintain civility around such behavior for long.
Ryan, you highlight all the nuances involved in trying to answer the question I posed here. From how serious the wrongdoing is to the fact that most of us have done things we’re not proud of, it becomes clear this isn’t something with a straightforward yes or no. It’s complex, and the road to an answer, if there is one, feels anything but direct.
Perhaps the moment you retracted your "yes" speaks to just how tangled this question really is?
I think I had in mind but didn't directly state that I think it is a very nuanced topic but it's also one of the rare things for me that is both complex, and very very simple at once. I have a cousin that did some evil things when he was 14. He's been in prison since then, nearly 30 years now. I do not like him because of that. Yet I also have a friend who just got out after doing 6 years, whom I do like.
The crimes were different, sure, but that is only one part of very complex equation, still easily solvable in that I don't seem to question myself. My cousin did things I find unredeemable while my friend did not.
I can be civil to them both, but I'm only spending time with one of them. Basically, I just go with what my gut tells me. I'm uncomfortable around my cousin, but not my friend and that's good enough for me. So I suppose that means that the ability to like someone who's done wrong is directly related to my worldview of everyone doing wrong, mixed with a sprinkle of not caring about social acceptance.
Perhaps people just get in their own ways. Anyone that's had a dog can tell you that they seem to know pretty accurately the moment someone walks in the door whether they are a potential threat or not. This is very close to what I mean.
It seems to be also down to comfort then, just as proposed by the mere exposure effect!
Sure, as I have been conditioned to tolerate people who have been to prison, they do not make me uncomfortable in the same way as other people might be. However, I think it's important to note that there is at least a few instances where I like a person who's been to prison more than I like people who have not.
I can understand why that might happen.
I am curious, do you think the same would hold true for you? Can you like someone less than a person who'd been to prison? I think thats a question many people would jump too quickly towards "Yes! Of course I could", but since they hadn't put my thought into it, are likely not giving an answer they've actually considered.
It's understandable, but also shows another frustration I have. The people who would quickly answer in the affirmative but not truly have considered it are doing so because most people do not want to be perceived as being dishonest, or unfair. But in the very act of answering before thinking, they are doing just that.
For me, the fact they've gone to prison doesnt move the bar very much, if at all. Drug dealers who've not been caught are no different than the ones that have, and gone to prison for it within my way of thinking. They both get an equal measure of "like" or "dislike" added or subtracted to the equation. But, that is directly from the exposure you mentioned.
The world must be a more difficult place for people who consider such a thing as this. In fact, I think it'd drive them a bit nuts. I am glad that I've taken paths throughout my life that allow me to basically sit in the passengers seat without grabbing for the wheel. At least when it comes to this particular topic. I am way crazier than many people in other domains though.
Dont get me started on chickens overthrowing mankind or the bio mass of ants. I'll go on for days.
What a fascinating article. Both parts are interesting to me. People unconsciously put part of themselves into their art. Also, your main question, "Can We Like People Who’ve Done Bad Things?"
It was so thought-provoking. I found myself thinking of people that I know and asking myself the question. I think that I came up with it, depending on what type of bad thing they have done. But then again, as you point out, it is not a question one can answer without a specific example and the context around it.
Hi Dr. Karen,
The point you made about art touches right at the heart of the dilemma: Our creative work carries something of ourselves, whether we intend it or not. So then, does becoming invested in a given work of art mean I’m also, in some way, invested in parts of someone who’s done horrific things? And is this even the right question to ask?
As for the central question, I mentioned in another reply that (for me) context can certainly deepen understanding, but it doesn’t always ease the discomfort. Sometimes, even with the full story, a certain tension remains.
But then again, liking doesn’t equate to moral approval!
It's always wonderful seeing you around Dr. Karen. Thank you for taking the time to share your views & take part in this discussion <3
Thank you for your interesting article and kind words
This is an interesting perspective, Dom, thank you for writing it. Maybe it's because of my profession but I generally try to approach people with a relatively neutral mindset. With some individuals I find it difficult to move from neutrality to genuinely liking them, even though I make the effort.
One thing worth noting, which you also touched on, is that people sometimes confuse liking with approving. That confusion can lead to tolerating abusive behavior, which is something to be cautious about.
I always appreciate the idea of becoming more comfortable with inconsistency and flaws.
Hello Selda :) Your neutral stance toward people seems to require a certain discipline, an ability to stay present without being pulled too quickly into preference or aversion.
Yes, distinguishing liking from approving is essential. Without that distinction, we risk mistaking warmth for endorsement, which can blur important boundaries!
And indeed, becoming more at ease with flaws opens a space for accepting both ourselves and others, with fewer demands for consistency or resolution.
Thank you for stopping by!