Yeah, I've heard you say that before. It didn't impress me then, it doesn't impress me now. And there's more to it than that between Jutsa and I as it is.
I'm not looking to sidetrack this discussion towards that one again, so I'll just point out that you've repeatedly accused people in this thread of duplicity and let that stand for itself.
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quote:Love, honor, trust-- to me they're very similar things.
Who feels differently?
Obviously, I do.
And obviously OSC feels differently than you, so being horrified at what he said using your definitions doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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posted
I do too. There a quite a few people that I love very much, but wouldn't trust with a quarter.
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The because of. It provides a reason. It is, as porter said, a statement of contributory factors (although it is more so when combined with other statements of the same sort as porter did when he presented the example).
The first identifies it, not as something that contributes to the behavior, or that influences it, but as the thing that "made" him do it.
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quote:There a quite a few people that I love very much, but wouldn't trust with a quarter.
Likewise, there are people that I trust that I do not love in any sort of inter-personal way.
Also, I think that honor that is performed only towards people you love doesn't deserve the name of honor. As has been said, honor is a completely separate thing from love.
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posted
So have you ever needed to fall back on duty and obligation--even in part--to take care of and do the right thing by your family?
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posted
Not that I want to get too drawn into this convo., it looks like ya'll are having so much fun...
But I agree MrS. (<- regarding 2:20 post)
My take: Honor intales obligation, and if I feel obligated to do something, that makes it very unlikely that I'll do it. I subscribe to the "I do what I want. You can't make me do anything else" school of thought.
Of course, I want to help and support my family now and forever into the future, based on a variety of motivations ranging from liking them as people, loving them as family and showing general appreciation for the support they've shown me. If I felt like I was obligated to help them, as honor would imply (as far as my understanding of honor goes) it would make me resentful. I'd still do it, because I still want to do it, but it would make it more dificult on me and I'd prefer to just leave honor out of it, completely seperate. Honor's more of an anti-motivator for me.
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posted
Hmmm...thinking about how doing something (or not doing something) for someone I love feels different than something I do (or don't do) because I am honour-bound. They do seem to be very different to me. What I do for people I love is because their happiness is essential to my own happiness. Honour seems to be to be more abstract, doing something because not doing it reflects on my own character.
posted
Because of my own ideas of what the word 'honor' means, and also every definition I've ever heard used in writing or in speech.
But if you don't define honor that way, why must OSC? The word is mentioned only twice in the essay, and it was mentioned specifically alongside and seperate from the word 'honor'.
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posted
'Duty'. You say that, for you, honor does not include duty and obligation. Why do you assume OSC's definition is different from yours?
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quote:Where does that talk about duty and obligation? I thought it said honor.
You said that the following definition of honor is "close to the definition [you were] using" : "the desire to perform one's moral obligations even at cost to oneself or in the face of temptation to shirk them"
By your own words, honor and obligation are tied together.
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What part, exactly, do you object to in OSC's remarks? If OSC's definition of honor does include obligation and duty, then you're admitting that sometimes you too fall back on those things.
If it doesn't include duty and honor, then exactly how are you objecting to it?
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I think that if a hypothetical child told me that it was honour (or obligation or duty) that made him take care of me in my dottage, I would be very tempted to tell him where to shove his honour.
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Of course they are. But though all squares are rectangles, not all rectangles are squares (yeah, not the best example to get my point across. Sorry.). Honor and obligation are related, but they are not equal nor is one a strict subset of the other.
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posted
Please explain more how your definitions of honor, duty, and obligation are tied together, so that we can understand how it is possible for you to have never needed honor as a reinforcement to take care of the people you love, yet you have fallen back on duty and obligation.
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posted
They are very, very different things. As has been said, you trust people that you love, love people you don't trust, and honor doesn't have much to do with either (well maybe trust, depending).
I think honor is a very important thing. It helps govern our reactions such that we do the right thing even in situations and with people that we may not like.
There is certainly room for honor in the various familial relationships, but the idea that it is the thing that is needed to make family members take care of each other is, to me, just awful.
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quote:I think that if a hypothetical child told me that it was honour (or obligation or duty) that made him take care of me in my dottage, I would be very tempted to tell him where to shove his honour.
I believe it is my duty and obligation to take care of my parents, and I hope I am honorable enough to fulfill those obligations.
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Part of what bothered my about the section that Mr Squicky quoted was that I got the impression that, rather than being an immediate, temporary, bridge between the deeper motivation of love, that honour was the prime motivation.
That we do something out of honour instead of honour being a fallback safety net kind of motivator.
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quote:Please explain more how your definitions of honor, duty, and obligation are tied together, so that we can understand how it is possible for you to have never needed honor as a reinforcement to take care of the people you love, yet you have fallen back on duty and obligation.
If I thought that it would accomplish this goal, I surely would. But I don't see how giving people who appear to me to be acting in bad faith more things to jump on when I'm talking about a complex subject is something I have any desire to do.
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posted
If I told my parents that I felt obligated to take care of them in their decling health and would do my duty, I think that they would be very sad.
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Dagonee is right. When he says this sort of thing, he's playing games. When he speaks very specifically and carefully, limiting his comments to a specific area, somehow it's out of bounds and he should converse as you would like him to converse.
Why are you different?
At this point, please note that I'm no longer interested in learning more about what you think on this subject. You've danced around, you've answered questions with questions, and I think you've been deliberately obtuse in this thread. I wasn't--after my initial comment, in which I was, a bit--acting in "bad faith", but now I'm just illustrating your hypocrisy.
quote:I think that if a hypothetical child told me that it was honour (or obligation or duty) that made him take care of me in my dottage, I would be very tempted to tell him where to shove his honour.
I believe it is my duty and obligation to take care of my parents, and I hope I am honorable enough to fulfill those obligations.
See, honourable or not, I would take care of my parents because the thought of them suffering because they aren't taken care of is painful to me.
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Part of what bothered my about the section that Mr Squicky quoted was that I got the impression that, rather than being an immediate, temporary, bridge between the deeper motivation of love, that honour was the prime motivation.
That we do something out of honour instead of honour being a fallback safety net kind of motivator.
Why is it that that is so troubling, an impression based exclusively on a judgement of the author's definition of a very subjective word...
...and yet, for some strange reason, we're supposed to not make inferences on definition when it's Mr. Squicky doing the talking, and uses words like 'horrible'?
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posted
A friend of mine had her grandmom go into the hospital sort of around me. Her family were far away and couldn't travel for a day. They weren't getting clear answers as to how she was on the phone, so she called me up to go and see how she was doing.
She said she had no doubt that unless I was in the middle of something extremely important, I'd drop what I was doing and go. I did.
It wasn't honor that made me do this. It wasn't my sense of duty of obligation that she had faith in.
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quote:Originally posted by vonk: If I told my parents that I felt obligated to take care of them in their decling health and would do my duty, I think that they would be very sad.
You are nicer than I am. See my post on this.
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quote:I think that if a hypothetical child told me that it was honour (or obligation or duty) that made him take care of me in my dottage, I would be very tempted to tell him where to shove his honour.
I believe it is my duty and obligation to take care of my parents, and I hope I am honorable enough to fulfill those obligations.
See, honourable or not, I would take care of my parents because the thought of them suffering because they aren't taken care of is painful to me.
Like I said before, there are times where the feelings of love I have are inadequate to motivate me to my duty.
Maybe I would take care of them just because that's what I felt like doing -- I have no way of knowing.
But I hope to have the honor to take care of them even if I don't feel like it.
In this context, I guess that honor is pretty much synonymous with the word character.
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posted
Scott, If someone loves another person, say their spouse, but that spouse is abusive and treats them very poorly, do they have a duty or obligation to care for them?
I think that these are easily separate concepts.
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posted
Rakeesh, this is an interesting conversation (at least to me). It is becoming less interested because it feels like you are "meta-izing" it.
Scott, I think that may be where you and I differ. Honour, duty, obligation, to me, suggest something more abstract and less personal. Something more about my character and who I am in the world and less about my close relationships.
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posted
And I'm the only one "meta-izing" it, hmm? It's fascinating how these double-standards Mr. Squicky complains about (but never admit to) can run sometimes.
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quote:But I hope to have the honor to take care of them even if I don't feel like it.
In this context, I guess that honor is pretty much synonymous with the word character.
porter, This suonds to me like you are including many things under the definition of honor that don't necessarily belong there and, thus, weakening what I think is a very important concept.
Also, the idea of "not feeling like" taking care of your parents as anything besides a momentary lapse is a pretty bad one to me.
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posted
Why are you even saying that, if you're unwilling to discuss what your definition of honor is? If you're not willing to discuss it more in detail, then the only purpose of your post must be to disagree, and nothing else.
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quote:But I don't see how giving people who appear to me to be acting in bad faith
I wonder. What should be done when both sides of a discussion think that the other side is acting in bad faith?
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Scott, If someone loves another person, say their spouse, but that spouse is abusive and treats them very poorly, do they have a duty or obligation to care for them?
I think that these are easily separate concepts.
I know someone in the horrible situation of caring for a husband that (not a very nice person to begin with) is suffering from a brain tumor that makes him cruel and abusive. There may be vestiges of love, but it is duty that is keeping her there.
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I suspect that while we are working from different definitions, there is more agreement than disagreement about the feelings we are having such a hard time agreeing on the appropriate terms for. This includes OSC. Maybe that wasn't understood by the original poster, which led to the strong and pejorative words which led to the reaction.
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posted
Squick, I think your world would a lot happier and your posting on Hatrack a lot more productive and relevant if you started with the assumption that people are generally decent and are acting from decent motives.
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