Your irrelevancy is getting tedious......
Perhaps to you it's irrelevant. You've described the traditional model, at least your version of it. Others of us have different models. You assert that yours has evolved into the morally superior one, evaluated, of course, from within the framework of that model. Do you not have some duty to tolerate if not respect our models, particularly those that do you no harm? Why must you make libertine bogeymen out of other alternatives? To reinforce the moral superiority of your own? I don't think calling you on that is irrelevant.
I think I better understand now what you're talking about. That doesn't mean that I accept for a minute your notion that I have any duty to apologize. I apologize frequently. Sometimes I offer an explanation or an excuse or an apology. Sometimes my excuse is a good one. Usually my apology is sincere and earnest. I would have been in tears apologizing had I been that member of E's dinner party. Occasionally my excuse is a fib and my apology is just a social formality to smooth things over. I try to avoid that. I prefer no apology to an insincere one. I do not begin to accept that I have any duty to offer any explanation, excuse, or apology unless I have broken a contract nor do I require one from anyone else.
I give my seat on busses to the frail, handicapped, and very pregnant. I do so because I consider it the appropriate way of balancing use of the commons. I do it because it makes me feel good to be a good citizen and because it is in my interest to encourage good citizenship in others because one day I might be in need of a seat. I have often paid the bus fair for others who either did not have enough money or have exact change. I guess you would call that above and beyond the call of duty. I do that, as well because it is in my best interest to foster that kind of behavior in society. I try to be a net creator of good karma. I don't want to live in a dog-eat-dog world. Watching your back consumes energy I would rather spend on more interesting and rewarding things. It has nothing to do with duty or morality. I have a moral obligation not to kill someone. I do not have a moral obligation to apologize or adhere to other trivial, and might I say irrelevant, societal strictures.
Does my behavior or attitude threaten you in any way? |
