Stop, Nazi Wineglass Thief!
If you've ever stolen a bathrobe from a resort, salt and pepper shakers from a restaurant, soap from a motel, or one of those Mont Blancs from Ducasse, the Times is on to you. Today's (discomfitingly hetero) Thursday Styles looks at otherwise law-abiding people who swipe stuff from public places — restaurants, hotels, wineries, airlines. And, natch, it finds a professor who studies such things to weigh in:
Benoit Monin, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, said a lot of attention has been paid to "major moral failures" like those of Nazi prison guards who committed atrocities by day but went home at night to pamper their families. But far less attention has been paid to everyday moral behavior, which he finds just as interesting.
So remember: Don't steal anything from the Stanford psych department. Because then you'll also be killing six million Jews and annexing Poland.
Or, at least, confronting wildly inappropriate analogies.
