I am trying to get you all to admit that given that there are standards of decency, and that you do not get a pat on the back for behaving decently, but get blamed for not doing so,
I can "admit" that. I don't think it's at issue that society has standards of decency. They aren't perfectly clear or the same from subculture to subculture or interpreted the same by each individual, but society does have standards. I also agree that you don't get a pat on the back for behaving decently. Well, sometimes you do, but I would agree that you're not entitled to it, which is what I think you meant. I would also agree that you can expect to get blamed for not meeting the standards. Of course, you can get blamed whether you do or don't because there's always someone out there wanting to blame someone for something regardless of the validity of it. And you can often escape blame when you fail to meet the standards. And then there's the caveat about different interpretations of the standards. But yes, I would agree that blame often comes from failure to meet the standards.
that you have no cause to disagree with me........
But that's not what I was arguing about. You were arguing that the above necessarily means that there is some duty to follow the standards. I disagree with that. We choose what we will do. We can choose not to follow the standards. We must recognize that we risk blame for that. If we are blamed, we haven't grounds to protest the blame. But we needn't feel guilt over the act unless it violates our own standards. Blame vs. guilt. We have no obligation or duty to meet those standards, which I "admit" exist, thus no guilt or shame. That's where we disagree. I recognize that having a bunch of iconoclasts in society is disrupting to your scheme and that is distressing to you. But I have no duty to conform to spare you that distress. As a "nice" person, I will do what I can to ease it, but I accept no obligation. I will even offer to spare you distress by converting you to my way of thinking about it, if you'd like... <g> |
