The Concept Of A Human Caricature

Before I start I would like to say that nothing I am about to say comes from a place of superiority. I am not ultimate judge when it comes to human nature or how people act and this is simply me giving my opinion on a concept that was brought to my attention earlier today.

This week I started following a Youtuber by the name of Satchbag’s Goods. The content of this channel consists of in-depth video game analysis with connections to rich themes and the real world. It is a great place to check out if you are a diehard gaming fan; or just want to expand your mind. Anyway, plugging aside one of his videos brought up the concept of a caricature and it struck me as interesting. The basic idea he brought up is that humans have a habit of defining others by the one thing that stands out about them most. For example, say if someone robbed you, then you might go out of your way to say that person is “nothing but a thief”. That seems correct right? They wronged you in a specific way so you respond by remembering and defining them by their specific action. The problem with this is that in thinking this way we no longer treat that person as a whole, but as a caricature of what that person really is.

By Caricature I simply mean that the person is treated as an exaggerated representation of who they really are. It is not possible for someone to be “nothing but a thief,” because for that to be the case they would literally have to be stealing something every minute of every day. Now I know some of you may argue that that is simply a figure of speech and not meant to be taken literally but think about it this way, how many people do you define by one specific thing? How many people have you burned bridges with because of the one time they cheated on you, the one time they lied to you, the one time they made a mistake? We are so quick to write people off for one thing without having in all of the information present, but when we do this we are writing off the person for something their caricature did to offend us. The way Satchbag put was “taking a 2D view of a 3D world”. We are all guilty of this, hell I do this all the time, but why does this happen Why are we as humans so able to categorize others by their most bare traits and then decide what kind of person they are based off of that? Part of my thinks it is a defense mechanism and another part of me thinks it is just a refusal to relate.

As a defense mechanism it makes sense that we make caricatures of people and use that to keep them in line. Life is dangerous and we simply do not have the time to learn everything about everyone. We need to think quick and make decisions about people on the fly so we pick out what is important (or not important) about them and use that to define them.  He stole from me  therefore I cannot trust him, she abuses children  so I will not leave my children with her, he has always been there for me so maybe now I will give him a chance, etc. It makes perfect sense and you should not feel bad if this blog has suddenly made you aware that you do this. The only downside of this natural phenomenon is that is horribly unfair to the people we strip the personalities of. If you are in a bad mood and you yell at your significant other because of it, then you KNOW why you did it. You know it was because you woke up and were late for work, stubbed your toe, whatever. You have a 3D view of yourself because you know yourself. However if your significant other gets all at your throat you may not be so quick to dismiss their temper  as  “just a bad day”. We can never know someone as well as ourselves and this very fact leads us to not be able to understand everyone else’s 3D personality. We can try but it will always be easier to take the high ground and confuse a caricature for a person.

Now in response to all this I ask the question of what can we do to change this. Is there a reason to change this? I am sure this skill has saved us all the annoyance of a bad friend, annoying roommate, or a terrible date. But does that make what we do right? Is it possible for us to take the time to get a 3D image of all the people in our lives? I personally think it is, even if we cannot know anyone like we know ourselves, I think it is worth it to try and understand everyone you love as much as you are personally able to. It will help if a strain is put in your bond to know that Blank person is more than “that guy who lied to me once”, or “the girl who is overacting”. This is personally why I make it a point to not talk trash about my Exes. No matter where we may be now there was something that attracted me to the people I was with and we shared bond that kept us happy for some time. Even if the times change I honor that that person is still someone who was able to make me happy at some point in history. Now, there are some people whom even when you learn everything about them, they will still not be worth your time and it is okay to realize that. I am not saying you should be a saint and try to give everyone a fair shot, because some folk genuinely do not deserve it. What you might want to try next time you are arguing with someone or talking ill about someone you care about, is to consider the whole picture. Consider what that person is going through or how they might have felt, and make sure that you are not just mad at the caricature of a person you have stripped down in your mind.

Star World Thoughts.