I apologize to one and all reading this who may think at some point in time "wait I've done that before", congratulations, you're a crab too! In today's age of hyper-competition at all levels, sometimes we miss looking at the more minute exchanges we have with each other. Maybe a comment passed back-handedly may do much more harm than you expected. Maybe you intend on denting someone's interest in a thing to maintain your position out of fear. Since change is constant, people need to be considerate. So today, to make my point and call out some of the forms of crabs I've seen, been, or experienced, allow me to play the devil's advocate.
When I refer to people being crabs, I'm not being literal. Unless of course, it's your lifelong dream to believe that you are a literal crab then I guess you could take it that way, live your best life friend. Crab mentality or the ‘crab-in-a-bucket’ effect has fascinated me for the longest time. The phrase or terminology comes from the core idea of "if I can't have it, neither can you". The crab part of it comes in when you think about freedom being just within grasp only for your crab-mate to pull you back down to earth. I've been an onlooker at different points in life, someone who has actively taken part in pulling people down, been pulled down myself, or occasionally aloof from the entire situation occurring at all!
Participation in discussions:
If you know me, you already know that I love putting my point across. If you didn't before, now you do. I've had my fair share of people coming up and calling me names through the years for the simple point of education; learning and expressing that a lesson has been learned. Even during open discussions, one can be berated for knowing more than others. Although it is said that being proactive is a great skill, many of us still frown at those taking up new perspectives
Berating upskilling:
When people go out of their way to pick up new skills, there's often a few types of resistance they may face. The more common one would be the natural bit of adapting that a person has to do when learning something new. The other more important one would be where people are stacking themselves against this person trying to grow. It's not uncommon to see within school settings or workplaces, maybe even in daily life. The source could be a sense of insecurity, maybe that this new person would enter their domain and outperform them, or it's just a behavior that they faced before and got coerced into internalizing it and they wish to practice it themselves.
Negative Herd Mentality:
As a student, I've seen a general sense of 'hatred' towards those who don't conform to the norm. For instance, the norm could be to study only right before the exam and those who have been stereotypically good students studying throughout the term, often bear the brunt of the frustration of those who couldn't manage the same. Especially when those who worked hard reap rewards for the time and effort they sowed, in the form of insults or maybe passive aggression. The herd has a hive mind and if any single one from the herd calls someone’s activity out to be separate from the herd’s, they’re in for an unsolicited barrage of opinions.
Positivity for self; negativity for everyone else:
The average crab does not see oneself as an aggregator. The average crab is a hypocrite through and through, full of paradoxes in their reasoning hailing from preaching the best for themselves but pulling down those around them. They may indulge in practices such as blaming a group member for the group's failure, scapegoating instead of providing support, treating their teammates as competitors rather than collaborators, they either lack empathy or don't know how to be compassionate, in either case, they would hate to be the one being put on the spot.
How to boil the crab?
These are but some of the types of activities that crabs undertake. I could be considered a crab for not letting others be crabs, maybe that is a touch too meta though. There are a few ways to boil the crab that is pulling you down. The direct way could be to first privately address it. If the crab still doesn’t acknowledge it and make changes in its behavior, feel free to address it more openly. The more indirect way could be to make a passive-aggressive blog they clearly won’t read. This is effective to address your issues whilst sharing them with your crab-mates. In a more genuine approach, prioritize the crabs in your life. Not all crabs have nothing to offer, some do bring the meat to the table and it is up to you to extract this meat.
The following questions could help you understand if one of your peers is a crab, either in general or to you. A crab checklist, if you may:
Do they purposefully target only one person?
Is there a common pattern to them latching on to people?
Do they bring in a group into the fray to target the person?
Do the comments have venom in them, beyond plain banter?
I keep this crab checklist handy to see that I am not turning into a crab and that I can see if anyone around me is on that path or not. People may not want to be crabs but it does become second nature at some point to see what’s easier. Won’t it all be dandy if your starting position was 10 points ahead of another and you wouldn’t have to work to keep progressing? Maybe that’s how crabs think - “If I don’t grow, I won’t let you either”. Maybe I’m all wrong and people are much better than I believe them to be. I could simply be conceited by how I think others may be jealous of me, of how I have got this all wrong and maybe I simply am, just extra. But, this is how I have felt about being pulled down, about pulling others down, and about seeing it happen all around me, all the time. This was Alliteration Articulation, see you soon!
Kinda reminded me of the “Parable of the redwoods”
= Redwood trees are in an evolutionary battle against each other to compete for light. (so if one tree grows, the other has to grow in order to survive.)
This competition is analogous to the social status and zero sum games that humans engage with throughout society.