home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!emory!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ursa!jmd
- From: jmd@bear.com (Josh Diamond)
- Newsgroups: soc.singles
- Subject: Re: Honesty, Your word, and Trust -- a crisis?
- Message-ID: <JMD.93Jan25151632@lion.bear.com>
- Date: 25 Jan 93 20:16:32 GMT
- Article-I.D.: lion.JMD.93Jan25151632
- References: <JMD.93Jan22123711@lion.bear.com> <1993Jan23.054644.17038@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
- Sender: news@bear.com
- Organization: Bear, Stearns & Co. - FAST
- Lines: 82
- In-reply-to: tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu's message of 23 Jan 93 05:46:44 GMT
-
-
- In article <1993Jan23.054644.17038@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
-
-
- in <JMD.93Jan22123711@lion.bear.com>
- jmd@bear.com (Josh Diamond) writes:
- ]
- ] [Extract of my post on honesty eliminated for brevity]
-
- This reminds me of someone I know who has severe, debilitating attacks
- of anal retentiveness; this tends to result in conversations along the
- lines of
-
- "I'm going out to pick up a couple of CDs; want to come along?"
- "Which two CDs are you going to buy?"
- "I haven't decided yet; I'll probably figure that out after I have
- a chance to see what they have."
- "Then how do you know you're going to buy two?"
- "I don't; I feel like buying some, but I might not even find any
- that I like."
- "You said you were going to buy a 'couple'--that means two;
- exactly two. So you lied."
-
- As a result, we don't go shopping together very often.
-
- That is a bit extreme, and there is a limit. We mustn't forget the
- vagaries and ambiguities of coloquial english...
-
- I think the great majority of people let the feelings of others
- influence their actions and whether or not others are hurt is much more
- important in deciding what to do in a given situation than whether or
- not what they do is exactly what they had initially remarked that they
- were going to do. In most people's value structures, being faithful to
- a spouse is much more important and deserving of much more attention
- than whether you happen to show up five minutes later for a party than
- you had said because it took a little bit longer to finish decorating
- the hors d'oeuvre tray you're bringing. The latter incident can't
- really be called a 'breakdown in honesty' and it's fairly unlikely that
- affairs are that much more common among those who have miscalculated how
- long it will take them to get ready for a party and have shown up late.
-
- [ other examples of marginal cases skipped ]
-
- Trygve -- I agree with you here. There are cases where priorities of
- committment come into play, and it becomes inevitable that you break
- your word either entirely or partially. And thats ok.
-
- You see, the problem is _not_ that we break our word. It is that we
- break our word and do not acknowledge it. And also, that we are so
- unwilling to confront people that we lie (i.e. Dave Fuller's point
- about saying that we're going to the party when in fact we just dont
- want to tell the person that we're not interested), or that we are
- unwilling to confront and thus do not tell someone that their broken
- promise bothered us.
-
- BTW, you seem to be attaching a little to much meaning to the example
- I used. I intentionally chose a trivial, yet common and obvious
- situation -- one which all have experienced.
-
- ] It seems to me that this can only lead to a breakdown in trust. If
- ] our relationship with our word is like it is, how can we trust each
- ] other? How can we expect others to trust us when our word does not
- ] matter to us?
-
- How about on the basis that we expect other people to behave in a
- manner that respects our feelings and expectations, with the importance
- on living up to their words depending on how important it is to us for
- them to do so?
-
- This seems perfect to me -- and is exactly what I had in mind. But it
- is important to be certain that we are _completely_ clear on just how
- important the action is.
-
-
- Spidey!!!
- --
- You don't hunt ducks with a turnip!
-
- /\ \ / /\ Josh Diamond jmd@bear.com
- //\\ .. //\\ AKA Spidey!!! ...!ctr.columbia.edu!ursa!jmd
- //\(( ))/\\
- / < `' > \ Do whatever it takes.
-