When expectations are set low, people, especially children, aim low and perform lower. I wish to make a distinction between moral rules and moral standards.
Rules, moral or legal, are, more or less, obligatory, although compliance is voluntary, but disobedience will be punished in this world or in the next or both.
Standards as expectations do not carry retributive justice attached to noncompliance with them as with moral rules or legal rules, but expectations an invitation to rise to the occasion, and, so placed, people will often meet such expectations, if the case is made to them. If not, they just stumble along mired in sin and commonality.
Here is what Norman Doidge wrote on Page viii in the introduction to Jordan Peterson's book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE, An Antidote To Chaos: "And the story suggests something more: unchaperoned, and left to our own untutored judgment, we are quick to aim low and worship qualities that are beneath us--in this case, an artificial animal that brings out our animal instincts in a completely unregulated way. The Old Hebrew Story makes it clear how the ancients felt about our prospects for civilized behavior in the absence of rules that seek to elevate our gaze and raise our standards."
Both Doidge and Peterson are psychologists, and both believe that humans are born evil, beasts that can become angels, but require training with moral goals and standards set before the young. Absent such modeling, the young revert to the jungle morals of the beast that they are. Without civilizing expectations, the young will run in packs, satisfy their urges and passions, and generally riot and run amok.
No comments:
Post a Comment