This is an issue that really bothers me: I believe it is one of the biggest reasons why we keep repeating same stupid practices in almost every area of society. An example: You see a bad practice in your line of profession. You know it is wrong, because you have been told by the professionals, read about it and observed the negative results. Now, tell this to your colleague and/or line manager. If the colleague is experienced, he or she will tell you this: - "I have been doing this job for x years, I know what I'm doing, nothing happens, don't worry..." What the hell are you trying to prove? Why are you trying to satisfy your personality using your profession? Go and find yourself a hobby or sort out your problems with your partner, I don't care. But no it doesn't stay there, if you share your observation with your line manager or your boss, you will mostly be ignored -sometimes with a smile-especially if there isn't any "cost" factor involved, because you will be considered as "trying to prove himself", "stirring the shit" or "licking the company's ass". Just because humans are highly alerted towards a wider and more general social showing off activities, people will judge you from this mental state and will remind your position instead of seriously thinking about the existence of a possible problem. And some other people will tell you this: "ignore what they are saying"... Ignore? Why the hell we have come up with so many instructions, better practice methods then? Why "in theory" we are trying to benefit from experiences, trials, statistics, and shit loads of documents in terms of improving what we are doing? We give bloody medals just because someone does his or her job properly; what a shame! Of course, if I catch these ass-holes trapped in a burning building I will not do anything at all to save them; just because I don't want to be "seen" as a "clever ass". The regime of showing off doesn't stay there; it's in everywhere, in every country, in every area, and its multi dimensional. People of same occupation act according to a secret code of show-off, just because they try to convince others that they belong to a certain clan; billions of posing people images have occupied our entire civilization nevertheless. Yeah, "we live in a form of ape culture and these sort of things are unavoidable", is that so? I thought we were trying to transform ourselves into reasonable creatures, I didn't know we were satisfying an anthropological heritage, sorry my mistake. Will we ever create a culture of modesty, will we ever accept that individuals are just parts of a bigger picture of humanity, will we ever see that the things that we are proudly showing off are mostly don't belong to us at all; an occupation, a body shape, a position, they are all organised, valued and created by a society, we are just filling the requirements. Oh, maybe that's the thing: We thing we are actors: "We all act all right, this has been proven by behaviour specialists and philosophers, we play our roles in a given society..." No, I'm not confusing acting with showing off. I'm just pissed off at my fellow humans, that's all...
I think most of the time people are not willing to do things differently just because we tend to avoid change unless completely necessary. Bad habits are hard to break. I don't think showing off is the main issue with people doing things wrong professionally, I think it is ignorance. People are ignorant everywhere at all levels of society and I guess the reason is just because it is easier to be ignorant. It would be nice for people to take pride in what they do and give everything their best, but in our current society most people are just waiting for their shift to end to get back home and do what they really want to do.
