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I only realised today after two years of playing and two years of writing I never did a piece on the title of my newspaper. I chose this name because I am very much aware of the double standard people constantly use in their regular as well as their eLives.





A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for similar situations, or to different people in the same situation.





Not so the act but the profile of the author and any relationship with the judges, makes a striking difference in the assessment. Not one’s actions but one’s position on the social ladder largely determine the outcome of a judgement call. The key question is not whether something can or can’t be done but why this person can and that person can’t.

I see it happen all too often. Let us look for example at immigration rules. The rules state you can not accept anyone without prior approval of the people in charge. Yet this is still a regular occurence and where one person gets a simply slap on the wrist, another is ostracised. In Dutch we call it “met twee maten en gewichten meten”, ruling with two measures and two weights.

But while we have to wonder how the admissions departments sleeps at night, there are some much more common double standards that we rarely complain about since we're too busy obliviously believing in them.


"That article is funny because it is about other people!"

For instance …
We tend to imagine a divide between people who "can take a joke" and people who "take everything too seriously," which isn't too inaccurate as a general personality trait, but doesn't give a complete picture.
Some of the very same people that are always telling others to "lighten up" and stop being so "butthurt" when they're the butt of jokes will suddenly begin complaining about their own backside when their group is targeted.






When it is not the act but the actor himself that is the object of moral assessment, it is not a question of fundamental cultural differences in moralities but a morality within a pragmatic distinction between the less, equally or more worthy position of the agent.

It has already been pointed out that the actions of a person with a higher status will be condoned faster, while those of a lesser person will be condemned without hesitation. In contrast, by his or her example the smallest transgression of a moral leader will soon be magnified outrageously. The extensibility of morality, where all people are regarded as equal (before the law), is determined by a double standard in both directions. The double standard is strictly a triple morality.Those who find that the favoured party should be judged on an equal footing will naturally react with indignation. The advantaged party will find that they were respected because of their better relationship, position or qualities and will enjoy the preferential treatment which they find all the more fitting. However, this preferential treatment may seriously undermine the credibility of the evaluator if there is corruption, discrimination, overt partiality, nepotism or hypocrisy, namely when one requires others to hold themselves to standards one does not honour himself.

When I look at this assessment I can only look at myself. Where I get a lot of credit just because I am a known person and further more a woman
on the Internet.



Many conflicts are said to be reduced to double moral issues and if they drag on, it is not because the principles of morality are challenged, but because the existing hierarchy is no longer tolerated. So the the minority position or the majority position for the counterpart are judged as unjust and been brought up for questioning. The conflict last as long as the taboo lasts or until the final word is spoken.

As seen in some bias studies, even after all this has been spelled out, there's still going to be some people who have read all the points above but remain convinced that none of them apply to themselves. Maybe they recognise what I’ve brought up and have just the person in mind to whom it applies, and are eager to show it to that person. Maybe they hope that some group out there, that clearly has a problem with it, will read this and "learn a thing or two."



I figure nothing can really be done for such a person. Warning them just adds another layer to that infinite recursion: "Yep, I hope whoever I am writing that for realises that they should give up their obvious double standards."



Yours truly,