How To Choose Your People Chapter 10

Chapter 10 — No Sympathy (1.2)

NO SYMPATHY (1.2)

"I don't know, Frank, which one of these girls do you think I should marry?"

Puzzled by the unexpected confidence from his fellow worker, my somewhat conventional friend asked, "Well, which one are you in love with?"

"Who the hell's talking about love? I'm wondering which one will do me the most good."

This young social climber later married a beautiful girl from a wealthy, prominent family and worked his way to the top in the entertainment business, ruthlessly trampling his trusting benefactors.

Meet No Sympathy. He's cold, blunt, uncaring, unfeeling. You aren't going to like him. A man without a conscience, he appears to be totally emotionless. He's the person for whom most of our explicit swear words were coined.

On this level we find an intriguing mixture of the characteristics of 1.5 and 1.1. Displaying more animosity then the 1.1, not quite blasting off in Anger, he dwells in a narrow band where he can be identified by his cold control.

"Don't tell me your troubles." He puts up a black curtain before himself to prevent experiencing any compassion for those he's hurting – and he will be hurting somebody.

When people get upset by his actions (and many do), the 1.2 is genuinely surprised. Such emotions are unreal to him. His aloof rigidity is the result of tightly holding down a violent charge of Anger. He's using so much effort to suppress Anger that he shuts off all emotions – high and low. This creates a paradox: a person who appears unemotional because his emotions are actually too strong. Of course, he is suppressing all remorse for his past actions. He doesn't dare unbend, because "emotion" to him is violent and uncontrolled Anger.

At a party once each person was giving a brief description of himself. One man indicated his tone with the remark: "Most people think I'm snobbish, but I just wasn't born with the gift of gregariousness."

Later the same man said to me, "I'm usually cool and unemotional, although sometimes I do lose my temper and I suffer for it. It's pretty terrible."

THE LOVE GAME

Some 1.2s are completely turned off to the whole love scene. Others are compulsively promiscuous. If No Sympathy decides to play the lover, he is usually a heartbreaker, because he is able to turn on enough of the 1.1 charm to captivate his victims; but his subsequent indifference leaves them miserable and mystified.

If he's carrying on with more than one girl at a time, he may nonchalantly tell them about each other. He'll get perverse enjoyment from their jealousy.

Some (not all) 1.2 women are bluntly masculine in behavior. However, when we find the 1.2 aloofness accompanied by femininity and beauty, the combination devastates men.

A young man was successfully playing a 1.1 Love-em-and-leave-em game until he met a No Sympathy girl. He found her icy beauty and standoffish attitude an intriguing challenge to his talents. Surely, he convinced himself, beneath that glacial exterior there is a warm heart. He was confident of ultimate victory. But he'd met his match – a better games player. She accepted his attentions for a while (in a go-awaycloser manner) before casually dropping him. Bewildered and crestfallen, he dropped downscale. He recovered enough to become successful in his field, but he retained a beautiful sadness about the loss of his only "true love" until years later when he became acquainted with the tone scale.

"I'M IMPORTANT"

He states his views abruptly. If you disagree with him, that's too bad. He'll probably ignore you. He appears strong. If he's ambitious, he's often successful (by certain standards, anyway), because he'll mercilessly stomp on anyone to get what he wants.

His super-confidence usually attracts lower-tone persons to him. They think, "Here's a man who really knows what he's doing." But before long, they find themselves confused and upset by his attitude and they wonder: "How can he be so heartless?" But he maintains his frosty, unsmiling attitude toward those less fortunate. He's a mixture of the blunt "I'm too good for them" of the 1.5 and the selfconscious ego of the 1 .1 . He may sometimes be an exhibitionist, in which case he'll embarrass everyone around him; but he couldn't care less. His own insensitivity makes it almost impossible for him to feel embarrassment himself – or to understand it in others.

"IT'S MINE"

He may own a great deal or little; but he will have the 1.5's attitude "It's mine!" about anyone's possessions. So he can be quite unscrupulous about appropriating the property, time or money of other people.

COMMUNICATION

While this tone is higher than Sympathy (he's more alive and more capable), the person who remains at 1.2 is extremely aberrated. Instead of needing to sympathize, he can't. Callously immune to pleas for pity or understanding, he lives in his locked-up world between forced "niceness" and smashing hate. If you tell him of some difficulty, he replies, "Well, you got yourself into it." He refuses to help, "You made your bed. Now lie in it." He usually ignores communications from other people – except those close to his own tone. If you're telling him something, he may tap his foot impatiently or otherwise rush you, unless the subject matter is scandalous or turbulent enough (he's fascinated with stories of violence).

ANGER IN ABSENTIA

Often we see this person act bold or angry in absentia. Unable to throw his Anger straight at someone, he expresses it indirectly. He says, "They can go fly a kite," but he says it to someone else. I've even seen the No Sympathy utter sneering asides to a third person in front of the person he's talking about. Once I saw a 1.2 waiting in line at the bank. Annoyed at the delay, he started loudly remarking to the room at large: "They sure have a bunch of cretins working here. What's the delay anyhow? Did they wait until the place filled up so they could all go out for coffee?" This indirect Anger is a characteristic peculiar to No Sympathy. A 1.5 on a rampage would blast the bank teller directly. A 1.1 would make critical remarks after leaving the bank. No Sympathy, trapped between bravado and cowardice, makes the negative remarks, but not in direct confrontation.

AS A FRIEND

You'll never develop a close, mutual understanding with 1.2. He can't share your joys or comfort you in the boo-hoos. He may forget to call you if he breaks a date; he may unexpectedly depart for Hong Kong with out saying good-bye. He gives no thought to amenities. Inconsiderate to an extreme, he operates like a horse with blinders seeing only the path ahead of him – unaware of the upsets and wretchedness he creates.

If he bothers to cultivate your friendship at all, he's probably using you.

"I ONLY WANT TO KNOW ENOUGH TO DESTROY"

Each tone has its awakening point – some acceptable activity that permits the person to fully dramatize the characteristics of his tone. When an individual finds a compatible profession which allows him the full play of his emotional tone (with public sanction), he usually operates effectively and industriously.

If the 1.2 finds his way into the field of journalism, he can become a crackerjack expose writer. Such work calls for the guile of the 1.1 and the impartial hatred of the 1.5. The guiding attitude is: "I only want to know enough to destroy." The expose writer, operating with disarming friendliness to get the confidence of his victims, prides himself on his ability to ferret out the "real truth." Using the spying talents of the 1.1, he can start with a hint of a story and carefully piece together elusive facts, rumors and reports extracted from informers.

He blatantly insists on ethics and morals for others, although his own destructive actions are excused with: "The public deserves to know the truth."

One such writer says he resorts to flagrant impersonations in order to get information or documents. He considers that the end always justifies the means, because "democracy entitles people to know; it is to the public benefit."

Waiving responsibility for any harmful result, he asserts that a good journalist must absolutely never worry about the aftermath of the news he's reporting. "Use any guile you can, bluff your way along if necessary, but get the facts. Then report them, good or bad, to the public without concern over the consequences. We must satisfy the public's right to know. To do otherwise, would mean the destruction of free journalism."

His biased viewpoint is close enough to the truth that it is believed and accepted by many intelligent people. We should know, however, that low-tone people selectively report only low-tone "news," the sordid and sensational activities of a small minority. They actually do not see uptone, high survival activities.

You could take a survey in middle-class suburbia any evening and you'd hardly find anybody who was committing murder, rape, robbery or scandal. Instead, you'd probably find Mom at the PTA meeting engaged in a warm debate about hot lunches, Dad falling asleep over the newspaper and junior eating a pound of cookies, watching TV, listening to the blast of a stereo and doodling in the margins of his history book.

"But none of this is news," the journalist tells us. It's an interesting commentary on the tone of our whole society that the word "news" has come to mean mostly low-scale sensationalism.

LIVING BY ROTE

It always seemed to me as if Beverly studied other people to find out how she should react herself. She was like a teenager at his first formal dinner, watching everyone else to see which fork to use.

On the day of her marriage, she asked me, "I never could figure out weddings. Are they supposed to be somber like church or fun like a party or what?"

"I think it depends on how you feel yourself," I said.

"But I don't feel anything. I don't know how to act."

As she matured, she gradually acquired the accepted social gestures, but there was never any spontaneous originality or graciousness. Once she said to me: "My husband says I'm not sensitive enough. I never seem to know when people are upset or disturbed about something. I guess this is true, but how am I supposed to know what's going on in someone else's mind?"

I never could understand her strange uninvolvement with life until I became familiar with the tone scale. She was so thoroughly walled in at 1.2 that she experienced no natural responses. It was necessary to acquire them, by rote, from others.

THE CRIMINAL

The good-looking young man sat mute, expressionless. Throughout the long trial he showed no emotion, no worry, no tears. When the jury convicted him (on circumstantial evidence) of the brutal sex slaying of a young girl, he still showed no response. Many people wondered if he was really guilty. Former neighbors said, "I can't imagine him doing anything so violent. He always seemed such a quiet fellow."

I didn't know the man was guilty either; but I knew from his tone that he was capable of such a crime.

Not all 1.2s are sex killers (you might also find on this tone the crusty dowager who doesn't even believe in sex), but such killers are usually in this tone.

He's a sadist. He likes to maim and injure for kicks. He's the kid who picked the wings off the fly. He takes pleasure in hurting someone who lies helpless. Incapable of the aggressive brutality of the 1.5, he operates behind the scenes (Nazi war crimes and cruel treatment of war prisoners were examples of 1.2). His balance of secrecy and brutality is seen in clandestine crimes where there is little chance of retaliation.

SUMMARY

Should you attempt to call down a 1.2 for his heartless actions, he'll be unmoved: "I do what I do. If that bothers you, it's your problem." He's afraid to know what others are feeling because he must avoid responsibility for the effect he creates on them. His unpredictable actions may be unsettling to others. But, of course, "That's tough."

The 1.1 often pretends to be sympathetic, understanding, or even griefy (to achieve some covert ends), but the 1.2 seldom bothers with such deception. He turns an indifferent back on someone else's weaknesses or troubles. Paradoxically, however, he will fully expect his own harmful acts to be understood, overlooked or forgiven . At this level you often see a stubborn refusal to talk. He sulks in silence, refusing to listen to others unless they are encouraging his own attitude.

To No Sympathy there is only one viewpoint: his own. Let's get out in the open now.