Proportionality

There are perfectly normal, reasonable people who, when they get angry, will give you a stern talking to.

There are perfectly normal, reasonable people who, when they get angry, will punch you in the face.

And there are perfectly normal, reasonable people who, when they get angry, will blow up your house.

Proportionality is one of the least considered traits in the human realm. It's assumed to be part of the standard human basket of rational normality. Nice people don't blow up houses. Or so you'd think.

Nice people might be sloppy, or bad at sports, or tone-deaf, or cowardly, or color blind, or lazy, or have a nasty temper or poor taste. Nice people can be flawed in any number of ways, but proportionality doesn't seem like any separate thing. It seems like it should be baked into basic "niceness and normalcy," though it absolutely is not.

My father gave me this useful advice: "Somebody who kills a bunch of people? You can be friends with him. But somebody who suddenly kills his wife after 35 years of happy marriage; that guy you need to watch out for." Years later, I brewed up this corollary: "There's no reason to be scared of a hitman. A hitman is as unlikely to randomly kill you as an accountant is to randomly do your taxes."

For me, proportionality is even more insidious (though of course there's overlap in the Venn diagram). You might be able to get along with a murderer, but someone who lacks proportionality must never ever be your friend.

How can you know? The usual move is to evaluate a person as a whole, and, if they seem normal, reasonable and nice, feel assured that "they would never [etc]". But proportionality is not instantly observable, nor does it always accompany an appearance of normalcy.

Do you have any normal and reasonable friends who are oddly hawkish in their foreign policy opinions? That's not a political quirk. That's disproportionality. A girlfriend once told me how she'd sent an unspeakable package to someone who'd wronged her. I stuck with her, because, hey, it was just a story, and she seemed so normal and reasonable. She "would never" do the sort of thing she'd openly confessed to doing! She seemed proportional, though, Jesus Lord, she certainly was not.

Proportionality is something to watch for, and not let oneself be swayed by other aspects. People can lack it, while seeming perfectly nice...and rational...and normal.


Spitefulness is another under-feared quality. It's hard to define, but usually involves disproportionality. When spiteful people get a little mad, they might take a big bite out of someone. And remain faithful in their malice for some time. Yeesh.