Why do people entertain poor behavior?

I’m going to go with the idea that people have such different ideas about what is acceptable or poor behavior, that there really aren’t any standards any more. As you can see, even by us fairly reasonable Flutherers on that thread from a few days ago about the “hot profile picture” we all had wildly different ideas about what is acceptable, reasonable, provocative, helpful or good or bad. I don’t think any of us Flutherers are bad people (except for a few bad apple trolls here and there) but we all have very different up bringings, different cultural back grounds and come from different time periods where the standards and norms were different and have now changed.

Even with politics and religion or one’s lack of faith. One man’s ideas of what is good, worthy and correct is another man’s idea of what is bad, worthless and wrong.

I don’t like what the people in the examples are doing, but to play devil’s advocate I will give some examples of what people on the other side of the coin might say about each situation.

Laughing when the baby throws something.
It’s so cute, why can’t you just lighten up, she didn’t hurt anybody. It’s none of your business how I choose to raise my child.

Egging people on to fight.
Some things could get solved so much more quickly, if all the wimpy people would just stand up for their rights and kick some ass. Those people deserved to be put in their place.

Saying “whatever” when your SO is drinking vodka at breakfast.
I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’ve done everything I can for him and he won’t quit. I’m tired of all the fighting and bickering and name calling. From now on, he can just do whatever he wants and I’ll do what I want. We’ll probably both be happier that way.

Continuing to be friends with a person who has expressed hatred or some other negative emotion or action towards you.
I believe in turning the other cheek. This person wasn’t in their right mind when they said those things to me. I did something really awful to him/her first and I’m just getting what I deserve, but I think we can work things out and everything will be OK. Plus, I really love this person and I think my life would be really horrible if I just walked away.

Like I said, I’m presenting ideas from the devil’s advocate side. I don’t like what the people in any of the examples did, and I would do something very different. Probably each of us would do something different, depending upon our point of view and our backgrounds.

People entertain poor behavior by the very act of watching any reality TV show.

@BarnacleBill What about Diners Drive-ins and Dives? That’s reality TV.

I love Guy Fieri and food.

I think it’s because normalcy isn’t much to be talked about? People would rather hear about road rage than the good old 5pm traffic jam. “That Sandy girl was really throwing a fist during English” gets immediate attention, where as “Samantha gets straight As this semester” doesn’t.

It’s too hard to deal with a lot of things in life. Most people don’t like confrontation, so they will not deal with a problem until they are forced to, and even then, they might still find a way to avoid it.

The baby throwing things—the parent might be too exhausted to cope. Vodka drinking? Well, alcoholism is extremely difficult to deal with. Especially if it’s an angry drunk. Not dealing with a person’s anger towards you? As I said, a lot of people want to shove anger under the table and pretend it isn’t there.

As to egging people on to fight—that seems to be a more puerile thing. Sometimes guys want to see a fight, so long as they don’t have to be involved in it. It’s like entertainment. People always circle up around the fighters. Far too few try to break it up. Maybe most people don’t think fighting is that much of a problem.