• Question: Why are people mean sometimes?

    Asked by page6 to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Leisha, Seyyed on 19 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Chris Kettle

      Chris Kettle answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      If you we to ask Richard Dawkins he’d be straight in with the selfish gene theory – that genes only ever want to pass themselves on to the next generation and that by being “selfish” you can ensure that this happens ( very over simplified explanation). So if people are mean they may be trying to put others down to make themsleves look better.

      I prefer the bumble-bees outlook where it will sting an attacker to protect the hive. Here the hive is all related so the genes effectively will get passed on, just not by the alturistic bee.

      Being kind to people is better than being mean. When you are kind you feel happy and happy is good 🙂

    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Mean like unkind or mean like tight with money?

      Unkindness can happen for many reasons. Human behaviour is really complicated and we don’t seem to have as strong a ‘community’ feeling as social insects like bees and ants. Life might be nicer if we did, as Chris says. If people are mean to you and it gets you down, be sure to find someone to talk to (a teacher or parent, maybe?). I always find that makes things seem much better.

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