Ethics of Convienience

Occassionally one person wins enough influence in the world to change it; whether their intentions be for good or for evil. Everybody does exercise a small amount of influence upon the world around them, and from humble beginings something quite large can grow.

If you believe in a principle of basic human dignity and God given rights as I do, then we should be forced to exercise tollerance. We should show no preference to one person or another on the basis of thier beliefs or how strongly they feel about those beliefs. But when a person's attitudes and behaviour differs from our own, it is not safe to simply ignore them. If we are kind-hearted we must make an effort to persuade other people to see the world in a different light than they are ordinarily accustomed. And this is how one person can change the world, by getting other people to adapt to a different point of view.

Ethical considerations can become very inconvienient to us at times; and we may easily discard them in favor of accomplishing our own personal goals. If someone interfers in our sense of justice, we may easily become angry or hateful in our response. Practically everybody is subject to the vageries of an emotional response because we are animals of a kind. We are biological entities and subject to our own body chemistry. We each believe that we know what course will be in our own best interests, yet some people still manage to behave in opposition to their own interests. Some people on occassion have shown markedly self-destructive behaviour. There are many frustrations in life that we must face on a daily basis and sometimes it becomes overwhelming. If we don't get enough good quality sleep or rest we will suffer from mental fatigue, resulting in poor judgement. In order to circumvent all of these problems of basic human nature, we must learn to exercise patience toward getting what we want, and never to be in a big hurry.

Modern Society; in the western world at least, seems to be all about instant gratification. If there is a job to do, we care very much about accomplishing it by the most efficient and least labor intensive way possible. Organizational skills are highly valued, and the people who are knowledgeable about methods highly sought after. We don't enjoy life when its hard, when life is too hard its not fun. But the people who learn to view situations as challenges to overcome will apply thier intellect to solving every problem. There are battles to be won in life, if there were no opposition there would be no battles. Before we can apply ourselves to solving a particular problem we must be aware of what the problem is, we must get some understanding of the nature of the problem. But for every problem there is always a solution, at least one possible solution and very likely many possible solutions.

Yes there are problems in the world today, but we didn't create them and we are powerless to do anything about them. Its not my problem, its other people's problem. My attitude and my opinions are good, I like my own opinons the best, doesn't everybody?

Do you want to decide what the rules will be, or are you comfortable to let someone else make those decisions for you? We would all like to enjoy as many privledges in life as possible, we would like many and diverse opportuities to experience things. The more people that we have in our network of friends, the more opportunities should present to us. We must take advantage of one another to get the things in life that we really want. How can we reach our own personal goals without causing another person to become dissadvantaged in some way? Is it possible to deliver all the advantages to all the people around you and still WIN, and still be successful? What would you be willing to sacrifice personally, in order to improve the welfare of the whole human species? What personal sacrifices would you be unwilling to make if the welfare of your very species were at serious risk? Most of us are not trying to change the world so much as earn a comfortable livelyhood within it.