wanting them to be better people because I care about them
Well; I guess the other thing is, the line there is drawn somewhere between being a decent member of society (on the one hand) and conforming to one individual's preferences (on the other). You know? I mean, you say eventually you help things to be more deeply and fundamentally better -- that's skating perilously close to who the fuck are you, isn't it? Anecdote: in high school, I had a friend who insisted on praying for me (and other non-believing friends) because she cared about us and wanted us to live better, healthier, happier lives etc. She didn't try to get us to pray or come to her church, right, but she did believe that there was some way she could help us to make our lives more deeply and fundamentally better.
Right?
Put another way: be "better people" according to whom, by whose standards? Yours, obviously. But there are issues on which it's worth stirring shit up if someone is behaving in a way I don't like (case in point: last winter, "Jews don't do Christmas music at the National Cathedral", remember?) and ones where, from my POV, face it, I'm not your wife and I'm not your mother, so there's a point past which it's not really my business how you choose to behave. (Not you you. The hypothetical "you" here.) It's only fair to tell a person if it's getting to a friendship-breaking place with something they could and would change if they knew you cared, but if it's just petty preferences, do I get to decide how and to what degree everyone should Be A Better Person?
signed, but I still spell my kind of libertarian with a lower-case L, thanks :-D
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-06-07 06:24 am (UTC)Well; I guess the other thing is, the line there is drawn somewhere between being a decent member of society (on the one hand) and conforming to one individual's preferences (on the other). You know? I mean, you say eventually you help things to be more deeply and fundamentally better -- that's skating perilously close to who the fuck are you, isn't it? Anecdote: in high school, I had a friend who insisted on praying for me (and other non-believing friends) because she cared about us and wanted us to live better, healthier, happier lives etc. She didn't try to get us to pray or come to her church, right, but she did believe that there was some way she could help us to make our lives more deeply and fundamentally better.
Right?
Put another way: be "better people" according to whom, by whose standards? Yours, obviously. But there are issues on which it's worth stirring shit up if someone is behaving in a way I don't like (case in point: last winter, "Jews don't do Christmas music at the National Cathedral", remember?) and ones where, from my POV, face it, I'm not your wife and I'm not your mother, so there's a point past which it's not really my business how you choose to behave. (Not you you. The hypothetical "you" here.) It's only fair to tell a person if it's getting to a friendship-breaking place with something they could and would change if they knew you cared, but if it's just petty preferences, do I get to decide how and to what degree everyone should Be A Better Person?
signed,
but I still spell my kind of libertarian with a lower-case L, thanks :-D