Tuesday, May 15, 2007
At
http://wjh1.wjh.harvard.edu/~moral/index.html, you can take a test on moral choices. Be careful not to add possibilities to the descriptions, like "Well, I could call 911." You have to go with the situation
exactly as described.
Taking that first test opens the portal to a flock of other tests you can choose.
My taking the tests and examining the results helped to explain to me why I find most other people to be too judgemental, too ready to punish mere thoughts, and too ready to ascribe "bad" thoughts and motives to others.
Because they mostly do.
Have fun. (You probably will not get the same questions I did.)
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Not really related to the above, a separate thought engendered by the court case on TV at the moment:
I am always amazed when someone is accused of something heinous, and friends and relatives respond to the charges with, "Oh, that's impossible. I know her, and she couldn't possibly do anything like that! She's such a nice person!" And they rally 'round, and defend, and raise money for defense, and spit vitriol and throw rocks at the accusers, and accuse them of lying - all based on their belief that the accusation doesn't fit with what they know of the person.
"I know she didn't do it because I know her and I know she couldn't have done it."
Bullpoopy.
Unless they witnessed the actual act, and saw someone else do it,
they don't really know! Everyone has parts to them that no one knows. It always pisses me off when people act like they know another that well, because they
don't. We mostly don't even know ourselves that well. It bugs me when people ignore facts in favor of loyalty.
It works the other way, too - when someone suggests that someone else
could have done something nasty, and another says, "Oh, yes, I know her and she's quite capable of it", and next thing you know, she
did do it, regardless of the lack of any evidence that anything of the kind had ever actually happened!
I don't understand either bunch. I don't understand why it's so difficult to reserve judgement until the facts are in. I'll decide something is likely or unlikely, but not with the passionate sureness of those others.
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This has personal application. An old friend was recently accused of a serious crime. The friend and I had only shortly before reestablished contact - I hadn't seen or heard from him in 40 years. I knew him as a nice and thoughtful guy, and in the forty years since we had been acquainted he had established himself as a pillar of his church and community. The accusation almost destroyed his life, costing him his job just before retirement. (The charges have since been dropped, but his record has not been expunged. This will hang over him for the rest of his life.)
I reserved judgement. I actually felt guilty doing so. He's an old friend. I should stand by him, right? I should have written letters to the court praising him, shouldn't I? That's what everyone expected me to do, wanted me to do. Along with everyone else who wrote letters saying he couldn't possibly have done it because they know him as ... blah blah ... and therefore he couldn't have.
But I really truly don't know him now. I have no basis for judgement whatsoever. I was given some of the facts in the case, which seem to absolve him, but I am too aware that I don't have all the facts.
I don't know what happened, and I have no basis on which to form an opinion or take a stance, and for that, I feel guilty.
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Perhaps this all goes back to our frustration when we kids tried to tell teachers, councilors, doctors, policemen, neighbors about our father and what he did to us, and we got laughed at and pushed away and ignored, because "I know your father, and he's a nice guy. He wouldn't do that. You must have just made him mad."
Anger had nothing to do with it. And he wasn't a nice guy. Not really. He was insane.
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