If the feedback is about something important to me, like being trustworthy and polite, then yes. If it is not, like being a high status person with flashy clothes and an expensive, late model car, then no.
I was a bit flippant, myself. Caring a little bit is fine if that helps you to lead a good life. The thing is, I do know people who worry way too much about what others may think about them, and I think that can easily lead to utter insanity. In my opinion, at least.
One or two? Yeah, if they throw stones at you for that, they’ll be the ones going to prison, sure.
Whole town? You really, truly have a problem.
Shunning works the same way: If one shop bans you, or simply refuses to acknowledge you when you try to buy something, you can probably survive that. If every shop in the region does it? You’re really in for it. It’s part of the reason I like big chain stores and other impersonal marketplaces: The “shopkeeper” of a Walmart doesn’t have any specific reason to consider me subhuman, and even if they did, Walmart corporate isn’t going to be too happy about them trying to get all their minimum-wage employees to ignore me utterly and, uh, block my access to the self-checkout, I guess.
It’s interesting how far we’ve come from the traditional human way of life: Small communities, where everyone knew everyone, and once someone was on the outs, they could be ignored to death, because everyone knew why.
Yes.
If you want to be a productive member of society, you need to have people think you are personable and honest. You might get by without the personable part, but you will never succeed without honor and integrity.
…outside of politics.
I learned as a child that the best response to negative criticism is “It’s a good thing I don’t give a damn* about your opinion of me.” (*Back then, “damn” was considered a very bad word. Today I say “fuck.”)
This is a topic, to me, where semantics comes very much into play. Ultimately, I do not care if others dislike me, think I’m weird, have moral judgements about my lifestyle or politics, etc.
I don’t care if they don’t like the way I dress, or think I’m not acting my age or am unladylike, or if they disapprove of me because I am poor.
I do care if I hurt someone’s feelings, treat someone unfairly, break a promise, let someone down, say something offensive, etc. I try very hard not to do these things.
I do care if I behave unethically, do not tell the truth, do not stand up for what I believe in when warranted, am impolite or disrespectful etc.
Basically, of course I want people to like me, but pretty much just as I am. It is my nature to accept others as they are and welcome everyone who is compatible with me. If they’re not, I don’t hang around them. But opinions? The only person’s opinion of me that matters to me, is my own.
The OP is the wrong question. It should be: given that Humans do care what other people think and that it plays an important role is a community’s moral system, how should we manage it in our lives?
I just read a great book I heard about on NPR. The author Jonathan Haidt, is an evolutionary psychologist and the book is The Righteous Mind. It breaks down how moral systems evolve in Humans and communities, the components of a moral system, etc. If you like books like Sapiens, you’d likely find it really interesting.
No you shouldn’t care what other people think of you. You should conduct yourself in a way that gives other people no reason to think ill of you. However you have no control over how they do choose to think about you even if you conduct yourself like a saint. There are plenty of people around that I wouldn’t care if they think well of me, people that I would prefer, if anything, to have dislike me.
I’ll have to read that book, it sounds very interesting. I recall studying about guilt-based and shame-basedsocieties back in my anthropology undergrad days. The general idea being that cultures use emotions to control human behavior with the primary difference between the two being whether those feelings are internally driven or externally imposed. Haidt might have some insights into how those systems came to evolve.
I don’t think people should care what everyone thinks.
“Everyone” is comprised of a lot stupid, mean, narrow-minded people. You’ll be wasting precious energy trying to appeal to them.
Also, 99.9% of “everyone” is inconsequential to you. They don’t have any power over you and they don’t even know you exist.
But just about everyone has at least one person in their lives whose opinions should carry some weight. Like, it should matter to a person what their significant other thinks about them. It should matter to a person what their boss thinks about them, to a certain extent.
Social adept people generally do care how they come across, but they care to a reasonable degree. They don’t lose a whole lot of sleep over it, but they still care.
You’d love the book.