One is the act, the other is the agent
Hmm. I’ve spotted a possible addendum or amendment that could make the apparent disagreement disappear like a popped soap bubble. I think getting it right – the gerund, the activity, the verb – is praiseworthy; but that doesn’t mean I think people who get it right are necessarily praiseworthy for doing so. I don’t really think that, I suppose – I just think they ought to, we ought to, as we ought to be civil and considerate as opposed to rude and troublesome. Maybe that was the point. I can buy that. Sure – I get it! The smugness and self-congratulation comes in if people preen themselves on simply doing the right thing. Now that, I think, is a reasonable point, and rather interesting.
“There are entire professions (of sorts) which do not value getting it right, and they can do a great deal of damage. Think advertising, PR, lobbying, political spinning”.
Think Irish Machiavellian Taoiseach’s past and present. Think Fine Fail/Progressive Democrats present squabble in the wake of an important Irish election. Think Irish law firms, who ripped off victims/survivors of institutional child abuse who went to the R.I.R.B… Think countless smug religious orders such as the Sisters of Mercy who ran Goldenbridge Industrial School who made children with severe injuries hold pliers in said injured hands for a whole childhood. Think, again that the Irish government puts very little value on those who spent inordinate amounts of years cooped up child prisons. Think Irish judiciary who in the past incarcerated in industrial schools defenceless children and of, who primarily – by it – denied them their human rights to be – by solicitors represented in the courts. Think Irish government who did not see fit to abolish the industrial school system until the seventies. It was albeit abolished in Great Britain in the early thirties. Think again government /senior politicians, etc using spin-doctoring tactics to escape their truthful responsibilities to the electorate and to those who suffered at the hands of them. THINK, think, and think again sheer complacency, conceit, self-righteousness, complacency, self -satisfaction arrogance, and haughtiness superciliousness, superiority egotism condescension when contemplating the actions of these very, very powerful people. There are not enough words to describe their mendacity and integrity. Think BALLOT BOX ON THE 24TH MAY 2007 AND VOTE – FOR THE PARTY WHO WILL WIPE OUT CORRUPT/SMUG POLITICIANS – EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GO THERE IN YOUR BARE FEET?
Completely off topic: your posting of a story from the Dayton Daily News about a woman who was offended by an atheist statement on a Starbucks coffee cup has caused quite a stir here in the hinterlands of Ohio. It is currently the number one e-mailed story and is setting a new record for readers’ comments.
See what you’ve done, Ophelia. The good god-fearing people of southwest Ohio are offended! Have you no shame? All these atheist types writing their views in a public forum and they haven’t the decency to “respect” their cherished fairytales.
God will get you, and your little dog too!
Oh now Barney, you’re so kind, but how could I be the cause of that? Surely the Dayton Daily News must have had a good deal more to do with it.
Lots of love to the dear people of southwest Ohio.
Oh, crap.
“Getting it right” is a lot like driving safely. One isn’t due praises for doing it, but a whole lot can go wrong (like ending lives) if one doesn’t do it.
I’m all for it!
Perfect analogy. Nothing to preen oneself about; simply an obligation.
Another good one would be doing one’s share of the domestic work (or any other shared task). It’s not praiseworthy, it’s simply your duty.
I think you are collectively mistaken here, in a way. Doing the right thing is praiseworthy precisely because the way we become habituated is demonstrably effected by positive reinforcement. If you want me to stop commenting, just ignore me for long enough and see what happens!
I think you are confusing praiseworthyness with self-congratulation. I find smug self-congratulation for doing what others reasonably expect of us; Mr Anthony Blair regularly demonstrates this kind of behaviour; quite nauseating, and I try to avoid doing it myself. On the other hand I know that one of my worse failings is that I too infrequently give praise when people do things of which I approve. Oh, and by the by, I think that ‘duty’ is a weasel word unless its meaning is very clearly defined.
Doing the right thing was indeed praiseworthy with respect of the judge in the Miss D abortion case. He praised the girl for her honesty and integrity. Those with power/authority were coercing her to be untruthful but she stood fast and held out and allowed truth to rise above. She showed not only the Irish HSE for what it was – but also the government for the way it hid itself in the sand during the whole abortion debacle.
Out of the mouths of babes…