Own It

Today I had to deal with a situation in my guild. Two of my guild members have an arrangement for kills in one of the cross-server events. This is a very common practice and one people tend to ignore. However, my guild member is also very good at getting other kills and things, so he often ends up on the Leader Board.

This angered some of the old lions and today they started attacking him over and over again, claiming he was cheating for having a prior arrangement. He asked me about it, worried he would be kicked from the guild. I told him he'd done nothing wrong.

I see this kind of thing happen a lot in the game and in real life, of course, but I see it most often in the game. People will look for any excuse, any small infraction, even imaged ones, and use that to justify their actions. 

"I see what you're doing as cheating so I'm going to target you."

"You killed someone who agreed to let you kill them and that makes me mad so I'm going to kill you without your agreement just to show you how right I am. Over and over again."

"Someone didn't properly thank me for helping them so now I'm going to be selfish."

Whatever, people.

Look, if you want to be selfish, if you want to kill other players, if you want to do whatever else in the game that makes you look like an asshole, do it. BUT OWN IT. Don't try to justify the behavior that is benefitting you by saying you're doing it to correct someone else. That isn't your place and you have no right to do so.

This is like people justifying raping someone based on that person's behavior beforehand. This is like terrorizing someone and then claiming you did so because of their actions. No matter what these people did, no matter how horrible it may have been, you are still doing things that would make you a rapist and a terrorist. There are no actions done by someone else that justify you doing that kind of thing.

This is part of human nature, of course. I'm just as guilty as anyone else. If someone starts targeting me in certain events, I'll target them back. I'll smile when they attack me and lose. I'll laugh with glee when their plans go awry. However, I always remind myself that I am in no way the better person for my actions.

I'm just as spiteful, selfish, and sneaky as anyone else.