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Post by Warrigal on Sept 22, 2018 16:23:21 GMT -5
This is a maxim I'm sure we all heard many times in our childhood. Parents like mine tried to inculcate honesty in their children, urging them to be truthful and own up to our wrong doings. Punishment was heavier for lying than for the actual admitted misdeed.
Which leads to another maxim - honesty is the best policy. If we develop a pattern of lying, especially about ourselves, life becomes a lot more complicated and much more difficult than it need be.
This may sound very Leave it to Beaver but I am convinced that both maxims are useful, not just for our childhood years, but for the whole of life.
What prompted these musings?
I tuned into Twitter this morning, and read about some man who was an adviser for the Senate Judiciary Committee having resigned amid questions from NBC News about a previous sexual harassment complaint. It appears that he has also embellished his resume with regards to employment history.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/spokesman-gop-kavanaugh-nomination-resigns-has-been-accused-harassment-past-n912156
First reaction? How many more men are hiding what they were up to in the past in their interactions with women? Can all of them be true or are the women exaggerating? Doesn't everyone lie a bit on their resume?
The second question is easy for me to answer. My resume has always been 100% true, even down to including my failures at university in the 1960s. So no, everyone doesn't lie about their academic and employment history. The usual practice is to omit what you don't wish to highlight and include the facts that are important, without adding details that are not real.
The first question is more difficult. To answer this I need to apply Occam's Razor
The first explanation is that there are many men with a past history of ill treatment of women out there. The ill treatment ranges from simple discrimination, to pestering for sex, to actual sexual abuse that is criminal in nature. A culture of raising boys and girls differently has enabled the lesser actions and a culture of shame and power vs powerlessness has allowed the more serious acts to be hushed up.
The second explanation is that there are not many men with hidden or forgotten shameful behaviour that women still remember and hold against them. Women making such complaints see an opportunity to extract money from successful men and are motivated by greed. Alternately, they are motivated by anger against men in general and delight in tearing them down as an act of spiteful revenge.
Applying Occam's razor leads me to favour the first explanation.
Which brings me back to the first maxim - be sure your sins will find you out. This is more so today than in any other time in history because we live in a digital age where anyone can search the archives of the internet. Big Brother is indeed watching everything and so is little brother and little sister. Fact checking is now possible on a grand scale and men and women hiding secrets need to be worried about exposure. As Omar Khayyam expressed it: In such a world honesty is indeed the best policy.
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Post by 2old on Sept 22, 2018 17:28:52 GMT -5
Honesty and integrity seem to have been lost in today's society. If getting ahead at work... If making a vow to love and honor 'till death do us part'... If winning a game... If attaining a position of regard in society... If any "want" is out there and it requires an outright untruth or compromising your integrity, the end is worth the means. I believe much of the societal issues have their beginning in our political system. When did we begin running television commercials that are blatant lies about a political opponent? When did we see our elected officials begin putting political party loyalty over personal integrity? When did we fall so far as a society to see a thrice married person who has publicly condoned sexual assault of women elected President of the United States? When did we see our society unable to verbally communicate with one another without the use of vulgarities?
We can blame it on the younger generation. Who were the examples they followed? Who taught them lying was okay? We can point fingers at our neighbors or our elected officials or someone across town. Yet, we are reluctant to look in a mirror.
I assume our parents saw the drug culture of the 60's and wondered if society would survive. It did. Today, we shed tears for how corrupt our society has become. We fear for the very survival of our Land. Can we overcome the errors in judgement? Can we help push the pendulum back to a society of kindness and common sense? Can we retain some semblance of optimism for tomorrow?
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Post by Warrigal on Sept 22, 2018 17:46:57 GMT -5
You have posed some very good questions, 2old. I am ever the optimist. I wouldn't point the finger at the political system. I think that is a symptom, not the cause of a culture where the end justifies the means.
I have always thought that the literature (and by extension the movies, songs etc) that we consume in our formative years is a very powerful shaper of values. Parents and schools play a part here by guiding kids towards positive examples.
Another thing that I think is essential is a culture of forgiveness. As deputy principal of a junior girls secondary (catholic) high school it was my job to extract truth from the various naughty girls who were in big trouble. Naturally they did not want to co-operate and I had my ways of digging deep until all was revealed, they admitted their wrong doings and they were thoroughly miserable and sorry for what they had done. Then they served some detention time and they were forgiven. The incident was put behind them and never mentioned again. A culture of forgiveness allows wrong doing to be dealt with and everyone can move on. I don't think this is the culture that is very common today, hence the endless denials and lies upon lies as the stakes get higher and higher.
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Post by rosa427 on Sept 22, 2018 19:16:01 GMT -5
I don't believe our culture is any more corrupt than centuries of generations back and belief that is was is pie in the sky in my eyes. Only thing changes is how the dirt is hidden. Crimes against humanity, was much more brutal, we progress in some areas in some ways just to regress in others. My belief there are more sociopaths who lead the way and many simpletons who buy into what their selling. Humans have certain instincts that inherent to them, some we learn, some we learn to curtail, but, none of us are perfect, but, those who mean harm, do need to be harnessed in some form or another.
There are many at the top who could care less about the moral high ground, so any arguments against their negative behaviors mean nothing to them unless it affects their pocket, status, ability to wield power in some way. Shaming works on some people, but, not the mentally corrupt and often enough they wield the most influence and not through entertainment. Only the very feeble minded are going to grow up having been influence to make poor choices because of the music and other various entertainment they tuned into in their youth. I know way too many wonderful human beings who partake in enjoying various entertainment others would consider straight out of what many here would consider the church ladies worst nightmares.
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