When I was very young, everything was black and white. And I don't mean just the TV set and most movies. I mean life itself. It was "yes" or "no", "right" or wrong", everything on one side or the other. I could stay out just so late, go just so far from home, do just certain things, and so on. Pretty much clearly defined.
As I got older, my world grew bigger but things stayed black and white, right or wrong. You could be "good" or you could be "bad." I knew where the lines were drawn, all of the other kids knew too. Sure, we crossed them but we knew where they were. There were no mitigating circumstances, no excuses, no valid reasons to escape punishment if we got caught. We knew that, too.
Then something changed. And it changed throughout society. People started talking about how something wrong might be justified "under the circumstances." They started talking about "not judging someone" because you might not understand what drove him to do whatever bad thing he did. Oh, the things were still "wrong" but now you had another factor to consider. It might be his childhood, or his intelligence level, or the events leading up to the act. Suddenly, "right" and "wrong" got a little hazy. "Black" and "white" became shades of gray.
I bought into that for some time. It allowed me a lot of leeway. Rationalization helped me overcome those pesky moral issues. Drinking while underage, driving while drunk, smoking marijuana and doing a few other drugs were easily justified when everything is not simply "right" or "wrong".
Then I had a son and I was caught up in that hypocritical mode of "do as I say, not as I do." I knew I had to make sure he knew right from wrong, good from bad. I had to teach him that the shades of gray that allowed me to do wrong didn't really exist.
I did. But I also taught myself that. And now I know it never really changed, that there always was a right way and wrong way. And we all know it, we all learn it early in our lives. And it never really changes. We do.
A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
12 comments:
I think that relativism has always been around. Take a look at the questions posed by Socrates which we refer to as the Socratic Method today, or examine Kant's Categorical Imperative. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative)
I think that what has changed is that the world is much smaller through technological changes and the internet. We now know much more about more cultures which make us reassess our values. That, as with most changes, is a dual edged sword. Some good and some bad.
Virtually every generation feels that society is going to hell in a hand basket, and bemoans the future. Somehow, people manage to survive and move right along. What happens is a shift in who has power, and who become subjugated. Life. Every dog has its day. We just generally don't want to be at the bottom of the heap when we're coming along.
Log - Think in simple, everyday terms, in daily life. Think in terms of how you live your life and how you want to live it. Think of it in terms of the Golden Rule. Relativism is rationalization, something you do to ease your conscience when you violate that which you know to be "right". This is a part of my philosophy and, oddly, I don't care what the great philosophers of the past thought. I must live my life as I see it.
If you do not like a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then you will be a mile away from him.
And you'll have his shoes.
:-)
Yes. I think. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it says, "Half measures availed us nothing." So I immediately wondered if 90% measures might avail me at least 10%. Give me just a crack of gray and I can I squeeze a whole lifetime of bad through it. Another piece of good advice about morality someone gave me was, "It's right if it feels right...after you've done it."
Jules - Thanks for that chuckle.
B&B - My mother was a rationalist, a cutter of corners, you might say. Not a bad person and she never did anything I would say was immoral or harmful to others, she "justified" and rationalized" and saw the gray areas. My father was a strict straight and narrow man. If he had been religious, he might have been Calvinist. It took me many years to understand that he was right. I think we know what is "right" and what is "wrong" but we all too often choose "wrong" because it "feels" good at the moment or it is popular.
people do things that they feel are 'wrong' precisely for that reason - because they justify them to themselves. that's how genocide (eg. "these people are scum"), rape (eg. "all women are bitches"), molestation (eg. "it happened to me and i cant help myself"), swindling (eg. "they have enough money already") happen.
instead of using a person's background etc. to rationalise the crimes they commit, we need to use this knowledge to help rehabilitate them.
Yolanda - We also justify killing in war by dehumanizing the enemy. We justify a lot of things in life though we do not realize it. We might spank a child and rationalize as needed when it wasn't. Some spankings are needed, some are not. And some people may disagree with that last sentence. But to address your last sentence, I think we do try to do as you say. At least I would hope so. It is the person who must understand that he is rationalizing, accept that and change. This is not easy, I know. I knew I was rationalizing and knew why I was rationalizing and still continued to do so. I suspect that most, if not all, people also do this. I am a firm believer that no one can change another, we can only encourage them to change themselves.
totally agree with your first point douglas. and i agree that we can't change anyone. but i dont agree that we already try to use people's pasts to help rehabilitate them. if we did, then the prison system would be a very different place, where prisoners were offered the opportunity to learn a trade, to go for therapy etc. i read before that prisons should be in beautiful surroundings, and i think that's a very interesting point. prisons, by and large, just harden the prisoners even more. we can't change them, or expect them to become mother teresa, but we could at least encourage them to choose again. i'm probably going on a very specific tangent to your original post, but in general i think society operates on a system of punishment rather than rehabilitation. probably sometimes people have to be punished to learn, but it seems to me like it is grossly unbalanced!
Yolanda - For some, rehabilitation works regardless of the method. For some, simply the fear of retribution prevents them from committing crimes (or another one). For others, nothing anyone can do will prevent them from committing crimes. Society, as I see it, operates on both principles. It demands retribution (punishment) and desires rehabilitation. We do have programs within prisons that offer alternatives for prisoners; educational, vocational, counseling, and so on. But they aren't mandatory (because this does not work). People need to take charge of themselves, to want to change, for any rehabilitation to work. I would be careful about the "beautiful surroundings". For some, that may aid the institutionalization of the prisoner and cause him to want to return. Criminals, alike any people, do not fit neatly into cubbyholes so a "one size fits all" approach would work. They are as individualized within their population as any of us are.
"For some, rehabilitation works regardless of the method."
good point, all good points in fact :) and i agree with you. the only problem is that what is is being done isn't working. there has to be some other way. i don't know what this is, but there has to be one.
olanda, I think the reason the methods fail is because it is impossible to tailor them for each person. There just isn't one way to do it; a one size fits all won't work and, I suspect, there would be many different ways needed. Unfortunately, we have to deal with budgets and limitations of revenue in the world of prisons and criminal justice. The intervention and prevention programs are the best bet, I think. Getting them while young, encouraging good behavior is how it needs to be done. Unfortunately, the popular culture is working in the opposite direction.
Incidentally, you might be interested in joining the current discussion in "The View From Outside My Tiny Window", there's a link to it on my sidebar. The current discussion is about the Death Penalty but is, and will continue to, range beyond that.
Yolanda - We also justify killing in war by dehumanizing the enemy. We justify a lot of things in life though we do not realize it. We might spank a child and rationalize as needed when it wasn't. Some spankings are needed, some are not. And some people may disagree with that last sentence. But to address your last sentence, I think we do try to do as you say. At least I would hope so. It is the person who must understand that he is rationalizing, accept that and change. This is not easy, I know. I knew I was rationalizing and knew why I was rationalizing and still continued to do so. I suspect that most, if not all, people also do this. I am a firm believer that no one can change another, we can only encourage them to change themselves.
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