Manipulating People

Last week, my office had a staff party. And as usually happens, too many people had too much to drink.

One of these people is a female co-worker, who told some guy at the party (a male colleague she had just met) that she was single. In fact, she's married with children. The predictable occurred, and she ended up being the story of the office the next day. I'm guessing she feels bad about it, but I don't really know her. Or care, I guess.

Anyway, a co-worker buddy of mine was ruminating over the possibility of using this situation to his advantage. He doesn't want to sleep with her or anything creepy like that, he's just kind of bored, and wants to see what would happen if he involved himself in the situation. He said, "I feel like sending her some inflammatory emails, encouraging her into further debauchery. Does that make me a bad person?"

On being bad, I've often asked myself, for instance, are the seven deadly sins REALLY sins? Stuff like sloth, or gluttony - these are among the seven things that we all like to do the most. I mean, how can it be a sin to enjoy yourself? Is it immoral to experience pleasure? If something feels good, how can that be a bad thing? Did God make us to feel pleasure only when we are sinning, and if so, why?

So I don't know if this situation makes you a truly bad person. Textbook evil? Yeah, probably. Like in Dungeons and Dragons, here you'd be "lawful evil." You basically follow the rules of society, but don't hesitate to stab someone in the back for your own personal gain if the opportunity arises - in this case, your gain would be "personal entertainment." But bad? What will happen, except more exhibitions of behaviour that this person has already proven capable of? I mean, is that really your fault? I say no, because if you think it's your fault, that means that you can also be responsible for a change of attitude in this person to avoid this behaviour, and that's not possible. Everything I read suggests that real change comes from within. Does anybody have that kind of influence on a person's life? I doubt it. If that was true, fixing an incompatible marriage or curing a nasty case of alcoholism would be simply be a matter of applying your will and influence to the problem. So, nah, it's not bad. It's just kind of like pushing buttons to see what will happen, in a Professor Frink kind of way. Glaven! With the monkeys and the screaming...