Absolutes

       A person who uses absolutes, for instance, someone who says, "People are unfair" brings attention to certain qualities of their character. Those qualities include:

1. Being unaware of the importance of being exact

2. Lacking control of their emotions in their exaggerating

3. Immaturity in believing they can summarize the rest of humanity so easily

4. Insecurity in creating a false bad name for a group of people due to their own fears, for instance, often related to fears of socializing

5. Due to a fear of realizing their own weaknesses, they make claims that all people are some despicable thing in order to create a false sense of superiority in themselves

       This list includes a number of examples in which a person judges all people of a certain group or even the whole Earth. It seems that using absolutes to label groups is the most common: All teachers, all Catholics, all scientists, all liberals, all children, etc. Of course, "All" is not generally included but it is definitely implied. "People are untrustworthy" is one statement that is said often. If a person who said such a declaration thought beforehand how inaccurate this statement is, perhaps they wouldn't say it. All people are untrustworthy? That is not a correct statement. The statement is said as an emotional reaction to events which effected an individual and they are venting their anger about whatever happened and are expressing it in a very exaggerated way. To realize that oneself is speaking wrongly and did so in the process of venting is somewhat admissible, but if one is so ignorant that they go about in a frenzy believing the whole population of the world would steal food from an orphan's mouth to feed their own, they are terribly mistaken. To take an absolute this far is an attempt to self-glorify, to make everyone else seem to pale in moral comparison.

       An extremely defensive user of absolutes will defend such a claim as "People are untrustworthy", for instance, by arguing "Well, is there anyone who has not done something wrong at some point?" This is a shameful way to argue because the person defending the absolute knows full well what the point of the absolute was. The point in saying that "People are untrustworthy" was to say that people will take advantage of you if you do not watch their every move. Is there no one that can be trusted? Of course there is. That proves this statement wrong immediately. There are many people throughout the world that will not snatch off your belongings if you walk away from them.

       The defender of the absolute may still refuse to admit the fallacy in their statement (at this point it is best to just give up trying to make them understand). This person, in lacking creativity will likely repeat the argument they already stated, "Is there anyone who has not done something wrong at some point?" The answer is no, of course, an answer the dim-witted person set up to win the argument in their mind. The argument may be analyzed in that people's "wrongs" are of various degrees from murder to failing to return someone's pencil. Now, failing to return someone's pencil is not much to worry about and so the many people who have never committed harmful acts of a serious degree against another can be noted on one extreme of a scale. Other people have caused another harm but are considered trustworthy because their wrongs are so few and that sort of behavior is very rare for them. This sort of person is, for the most part, trustworthy.

       A whole spectrum of behavior can be seen in the various people of the world. The point in going into this detail is to say "So what?" in regards to the argument "Is there anyone who has not done something wrong at some point?" because although we assume everyone has done something others consider "wrong" at some point, many of them are still considered trustworthy without question. There is no reason why a person would not be trusted when they have done nothing to warrant suspicion. And so, there are many examples of people that can prove this absolute wrong. If this person continues to argue that someone must be "without sin" to be trusted or something else just as preposterous you know you have probably wasted your time speaking to them. Hopefully you learned something in that process.

       People who make such broad claims about groups of people must have some proof to back up their claims. There are certain traits that group members sometimes share but this is a very particular sort of thing. To the person who declares "All people are untrustworthy" they have probably surrounded themselves with many untrustworthy people and may at least somewhat untrustworthy themselves. This person should just find more trustworthy friends/acquaintances and quit complaining. Don't be surprised if you are robbed when you spend your time with thieves. Don't be blinded and think the whole world is just as the part before you is.