Narcissism of Small Differences
I guess I should start this off by saying that I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. I don’t study Freud or other influential people in the field of studying human minds. But I can recognize when a famous idea plays out on our very website. What idea is that? The “narcissism of small differences.” Without getting into the work and writing of Dr. Freud and Ernest Crawley, the basic idea behind this term is that small differences are likely to cause virulent arguments, derision and narcissism amongst groups of people whereas large differences do not inspire anywhere near the same sort of emotional response.
Where, in the real world, do we see this play out? The answer is pretty much everywhere. I am also an active reader of many exercise science forums and it is absolutely amazing to see people completely blow up at each other over small differences in how to train. What they forget is that they all agree on the basic tenet that you need to stress your body in some way so it can heal and comes back stronger. At the end of the day, everyone knows that is the only natural way to get stronger, but you find still find mile-long threads about whether to do sets of 3 reps, 5 reps, etc. That, by itself, is not the problem.
In fact, I think it’s great that people debate. In my opinion, the problem is that those threads often end up with respected members of the community getting very derisive and angry with each other. The thread gets off track quickly and people resort to acting like immature children. They forget they agree on almost everything and that in many ways, they’re on the same side. They want to get stronger, faster, fitter and they believe in the same basic tenants. The same scenario plays out on other internet forums and even in politics, sports and pretty much any other community you can think of. PocketFives is no different.
When you step back from PocketFives for a second and think about what it really is, hopefully you can see that at the end of the day it’s a collection of people who play and, hopefully, enjoy poker. Even the OTers who proclaim to hate poker used to, at one point, enjoy playing poker on at least a casual basis. It’s few-and-far between to find active non-spouse PocketFivers who have never played at poker at all. Some PocketFivers are high volume MTT pros, some are weekend poker warriors, some are mainly homegame players who play once a month online when they can’t make their live game. Whatever it is, poker connects all of us.
So why is there a fair amount of bashing and hatred going on in some threads? Well, the “narcissism of small differences” would have us believe that some of the derisive posters are simply eager to create their own sense of individualism within a relatively similar group of people and point out the small differences that help to set themselves apart from the poster who they perceive as being wrong. These posters are not eager to debate, argue and work through an issue. They are simply interested in being hostile from the get-go. Especially if they see what they perceive as an opportunity to set themselves apart.
If someone makes a thread about some check raise semi-bluff they made and you would have done the exact same thing but check raised a different amount, what we’re really talking about is a small difference. There’s no need to call the play “horrible” or anything like that — just contribute your thoughts to the thread and keep in mind: you two are similar. You’re both poker players. You’re posting on the same forum. You are even taking a similar line in the hand. It’s just a small difference. I know that many posters will say “but a different size check raise totally changes how the hand plays out! His raise size was AWFUL!”. Yes, of course. No one is saying everyone is right. Of course people are wrong all the time. But, in the end, it’s a small difference in the grand scheme of things. Don’t feel the need to separate yourself from other posters by putting their play down. Whatever you might think about it, an angry narcissistic post does little to make you unique and prove your superiority. It’s natural to feel frustration and maybe even a little bit of anger when you read a thread you don’t agree with. Don’t prove the psychiatrists right and blow up over small differences.
Some might say: Nat, isn’t the whole point of a forum to discuss, argue, analyze and hopefully get better? The answer is yes, of course. The difference between debating and getting virulent, derisive and bitter is quite significant. Keep it civil and think of it as if you’re simply debating amongst your peers, not your enemies. Disagreement is fine. Offering alternatives and your opinion is, of course, fine. Just don’t go on tilt and try to bring down the level of discussion. Nothing ruins forums faster than a few bad apples clogging up every thread with their derisive nonsense. At the end of the day, all this shrink babble can really be reduced to one simple statement that we have all heard before: don’t sweat the small stuff.
Nat N 82 50 24 Arem is the Chief Technical Officer and Vice President of PocketFives.com. He is the co-founder of thepokerdb and the founder of PSDollars.
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