Acting Judgement
I wrote this because I get really pissed at all the people I run into that are so afraid of choosing the wrong thing that they "choose nothing." It doesn't help that most people that do this somehow manage to ethically excuse what they WANT to do, while making everything that's hard somehow "wrong" or "interfering with another's free will" or something like that.
Life is interference. There's no way to live without affecting the people around us, and any attempt to do otherwise is either delusion or survivalism to an extreme (and probably an unhealthy one). As I've noted before, we're a social animal. Trying to be anything else is not only counterproductive but unhealthy.
I accept that I'm going to screw up sometimes. I don't like it much, but that's just tough. If I don't live so that I can screw up, I'm also not living so that I actually LIVE, and what's the point of existance if I'm going to spend it cowering in fear of what I might do? I truly believe inaction is as much a choice as action, and we are responsible for what we could do but don't.
Questions!
Why is fault irrelevant? Well, it's useful if you're trying to figure out WHY something happened .. where the problem occurred. But the blame game doesn't solve much of anything. If you're actually using it to solve a problem, that's one thing. If it's just to blame someone for the mistake, it's useless. And when you're spending your time on who's to blame instead of how to keep something from happening again, you're focusing totally on the wrong problem.
Why is inaction a moral choice and action? Well, because it's still something we choose. It doesn't always FEEL like a choice .. but it is one. (by inaction, I really do mean where you knew and didn't do something .. if you don't have the knowledge, and you've no reason that you SHOULD have gotten the knowledge and didn't, then it's just one of those things). Inaction is a copout, and a dangerous one. We live through what we do. When we choose to do nothing, that's still a choice and it can often be a dangerous one.
How do we get past confusion to action? Gods I wish I knew .. and I'm not being flippant. I often have the problem of being so overwhelmed I don't know which direction to go in. Usually I just pick one .. especially if it's multiple choices, none of which are any more clearly morally good or bad .. Just do one and go from there. It's like when it's time to clean the house .. the entire thing as a project looks miserable, but if you start with cleaning up the sink (or the bathroom, or finding the floor) you can do one piece, then the next piece, and so on. Sometimes we just need to stop looking at all that forest and look at a tree.
Life is interference. There's no way to live without affecting the people around us, and any attempt to do otherwise is either delusion or survivalism to an extreme (and probably an unhealthy one). As I've noted before, we're a social animal. Trying to be anything else is not only counterproductive but unhealthy.
I accept that I'm going to screw up sometimes. I don't like it much, but that's just tough. If I don't live so that I can screw up, I'm also not living so that I actually LIVE, and what's the point of existance if I'm going to spend it cowering in fear of what I might do? I truly believe inaction is as much a choice as action, and we are responsible for what we could do but don't.
Questions!
Why is fault irrelevant? Well, it's useful if you're trying to figure out WHY something happened .. where the problem occurred. But the blame game doesn't solve much of anything. If you're actually using it to solve a problem, that's one thing. If it's just to blame someone for the mistake, it's useless. And when you're spending your time on who's to blame instead of how to keep something from happening again, you're focusing totally on the wrong problem.
Why is inaction a moral choice and action? Well, because it's still something we choose. It doesn't always FEEL like a choice .. but it is one. (by inaction, I really do mean where you knew and didn't do something .. if you don't have the knowledge, and you've no reason that you SHOULD have gotten the knowledge and didn't, then it's just one of those things). Inaction is a copout, and a dangerous one. We live through what we do. When we choose to do nothing, that's still a choice and it can often be a dangerous one.
How do we get past confusion to action? Gods I wish I knew .. and I'm not being flippant. I often have the problem of being so overwhelmed I don't know which direction to go in. Usually I just pick one .. especially if it's multiple choices, none of which are any more clearly morally good or bad .. Just do one and go from there. It's like when it's time to clean the house .. the entire thing as a project looks miserable, but if you start with cleaning up the sink (or the bathroom, or finding the floor) you can do one piece, then the next piece, and so on. Sometimes we just need to stop looking at all that forest and look at a tree.
posted by Vieva | 10:43 AM
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