I like going to parkruns. It's fun, it gets me out the house, it's exercise, and it's social. The only competitor is oneself - or, in the case of the walkers, no-one at all. Everyone is welcome. People are largely polite, upbeat and talkative.
A few weeks ago, a young boy had his hand out at the side of the track, wanting to touch hands with all the runners. I didn't notice him until I'd gone past, and looked back when I heard his disappointment. I was going to aim for a personal best, but instead I doubled back, high-fived him, and resumed my run. He was happy. That was clearly more important than running a personal best, and it was merely the right thing to do. It hopefully also resonated with the other runners who witnessed it and brightened their day.
On the other hand, I've occasionally overtaken others who have blanked me at the end when I've tried to chat with them. I've also been overtaken by people who then cut me up, blocking my path, causing me to fall behind further. They must know what effect their actions would have. In both cases, their goal is to win, and the purpose of that goal is ego. They are looking for an ego trip, and their cover - the pretence - is running.
Being social is a virtue. An anti-social runner in a Parkrun isn't a parkrunner. They're an imposter. They're not part of the event, they're there despite it. Vice masquerading as virtue. More dramatically, evil masquerading as good.
Parkrun is merely one example of many. It's not just about egomaniacs and running events. Take anti-naturists, for example, people at naturist events who just want to get their kit off. The purpose of naturism is to be closer to nature, and sometimes that involves removing clothing. That's virtuous. Nudists just like removing their clothing - meaning that there must be another reason other than naturism. Whatever the reason, it can't be virtuous. It has to be a perversion of some sort. And it's that perversion that degrades the ethos of the naturist event, and the implicit trust and goodwill that the other people have in it.
The key problem with such covert malfeasance is that it corrupts the event for everyone else. It sucks the life out of it. As more people abuse the event, whatever it is, people lose trust in it, and stop going, which accelerates its virtuous demise. Eventually, it gets a different reputation, which attracts more of the same.
Imagine a row of houses full of nice people. You just need a few unpleasant families to move in, which causes the nice people to move elsewhere, and the only people willing to move in are more unpleasant families. Eventually, bit by bit, you have a row of houses full of unpleasant people, forever: The reverse (back to being full of nice people) never happens. Bad is dominant; good recessive.
These sorts of people need a name, and I advocate virtue vampires: Parasitic people who suck the virtuous nature out of a genuinely good activity, event or place, for their own selfish purposes, at the sake of everyone else.
Tolerance is not always good in itself: Sometimes, it's the complete opposite. We need to stop tolerating virtue vampires. It's only us, the people we care about and goodness itself who will suffer if we don't. Good does not necessarily have to be recessive. Resistance does not have to be violent or malicious.
