When I was younger, I saw things as very black and white. There was good, and there was bad, and they never overlapped.
This afternoon, I visited a Jewish museum as part of a class activity. There's nothing like reviewing the bare, awful facts surrounding the Holocaust to remind you that if you see injustice being done, you should step up and speak out against it immediately, before it is too late.
But what about when it's something less costly? An ethical dilemma? What if stepping out against it will likely cause greater harm to a greater number of people than not doing so? Do you still take sides against it? Or do you try to reform it from within? Or do you let it go?
And then what if you observe other people who step out against it, but you believe them to be untrustworthy? Do you then believe their allegations? Where do you place your loyalty when neither side is doing what is right?
For, as Shakespeare reminds us, that is the question:
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?" (Hamlet III.2)
I miss the naivete of childhood.
4 comments:
I was going to leave a deep, insightful comment, but I think it will be too long. I think I'll blog on it, instead. So, if you want to read my thoughts, they're there.
me too.
"Where do you place your loyalty when neither side is doing what is right?"
That about sums up the entire situation. Ego fills in the gaps created by the monumental disconnect between subjective and objective reality.
I miss you and entire department. Email me if there's anything I can do.
Ana Maria, that is the most profound explanation of it that I have heard yet. And completely accurate in so many ways. But, of course, you know that. You were there long enough to know.
Whenever I think about this situation, I find myself going back in time to an Eppersonian discussion of show vs. substance. Funny how, once more, literature reveals to me a reality so much clearer than the surreality in which I abide.
Ah, well. We keep on...hoping that maybe somewhere, on the other side of this mess, there will be a greater good. Hoping that we won't fall apart in the process of finding it.
I miss you, too! Though I somehow suspect that you are probably happier far away than you would be if you were here.... :)
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