If those things are different, then you have chosen your commitments poorly.
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My commitment the responsibilities of my birth has never wavered. Nor were those responsibilities chosen.
Thatâs â â â â â â â â . Pretty â â â â â â â â , but â â â â â â â â . Plenty of people are trying to make the world a better â â â â â â â place. Hel, the whole â â â â â â â warzone is full of people thinking theyâre doing the right â â â â â â â thing. Saving lives, protecting people⌠theyâre all â â â â â â â teeth on the meat grinder. Plenty of perfectly decent people doing perfectly decent â â â â are part of the â â â â â â â problem. Itâs not about â â â â â â â perception.
Not like anyone else is changing â â â â by ignoring it either. â â â â if you donât know that; you called out plenty for not stopping the killing by killing, and itâs not like anything else is going to change it. Itâs not even a circle of â â â â â â â violence, itâs just a vortex. Itâs inescapable misery that there isnât a thing you can do to avoid or avoid contributing to.
Once you make peace with that, you can start appreciating the â â â â â â â music. But thereâs no point in trying to pretend the universe isnât just shivering with entropy, and weâre all playing our â â â â â â â part.
So you were born into the Order of Garrulor? You never chose, for example, whether or not to enlist in the militia?
Whether those were choices or judgments is debatable, as is I suppose whether that distinction matters.
My obligation is to my family, liege and empire. In time, should it please God; that obligation will include my holding. Those I have chosen to take on are not only subordinate to what came before, but built upon it.
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Well said.
And this illustrates the difference between the following statements:
These lend themselves to different inferences. The first construction gives ârightâ the primacy. A thing is needed only if it first is right. In the second, the impresson conveyed is that what is needed determines what is right.
If, for example, the Empress were taken with a fit of cruelty, and ordered you to murder everyone you care about in a particularly painful and merciless way⌠if your obligation begins with what is âneededâ⌠then you must do it. If, on the other hand, your obligation begins with what is ârightâ, then you instead have a duty to judge for yourself if casual cruelty and murder is, in fact, ârightâ. And if not, you must question the order, see if there isnât some other course that satisfies the Empressâs needs without inflicting such negligent harm.
And that, too⌠is a choice: beyond the matter of which specific obligations you assume, we each choose precisely how we see the overlapping and interwoven net of our commitments.
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Though fealty is not by its nature equal, it also is not completely arbitrary. There are obligations also to the vassal, and for oneâs liege to demand what you suggest for the reasons you suggest, would be by their betrayal a severance of reciprocal obligations.
Oh Aria.
There is no âHolier Than Thouâ, there can´t be âmore enlightened than youâ. This is not a race, not a competition, everyone will get there, no one can escape.
I´m not better nor worse than you or anyone else. There is no competition, no parameter for me to cling to that would correlate in any form with you or anything. This human suit i wear is a Monk from Saisio III, who happened to be born in a privileged place where certaing cognitive tools invite you to let go of certain things that you hold dear/sacred/holy.
Iconoclasts those monks with all the âIf you meet your forefather, kill him.â, but there is a lot of fun to be had in a monastery.
In the end this is all an illusion. I never bet against illusion, house almost always wins.
People that have been around for a long time have been writing over and over again: Preconceptions, Hearing what you want to hear.
It doesn´t matter if your cup is full, nor empty, nor half whatever, but if you claim to want to understand what is different from you, you got to give something, kill yourself a little to become something else.
Otherwise you just take take take like a hungry void on a long night.
And yet, according to the statements made by many of the Amarr capsuleers, there can be no true reciprocity.
âthe Throne of Amarr exists as the ultimate authorityâ
âRemember that it is not when we understand and agree with our betters that we accept their orders.â
This position renders any idea of reciprocity entirely an illusion, allowed to persist only so long as it is convenient for those on the top. After all, there may be âobligations also to the vassalâ, but âthe Throne of Amarr exists as the ultimate authorityâ, and so can, at will, determine that it is perfectly alright for the Throneâs obligations to be set aside for the moment. The Throne will totally make it up to its loyal vassals later. Maybe by awarding them the demense of those obviously disloyal vassals whose murder the Throne required.
However, itâs also important to note that I never claimed it was arbitrary. Do you consider your decisions to be arbitrary? Thatâs not a trick question or anything, either, Iâm completely serious.
People keep insisting that they know how I think, and then make these assertions that make absolutely no sense to me, or say something that is utterly incomprehensible and/or obvious nonsense to me, and then insist âyou know what I meanâ⌠So at this point, I really do have to wonder if maybe the fact that I donât make my decisions in an arbitrary way, and take pains to be accurate in what I say and how I use language⌠maybe thatâs decidedly abnormal, and thereâs serious neurodifferentiation at work.
So, do you consider your decisions arbitrary? Mine arenât. If Iâm trying to determine how my overlapping obligations interact, where conflicts are, and how I can resolve them⌠that takes a lot of very careful, deliberate consideration.
The joke part. ⌠âJokeâ is a little bit of an imprecise word for it, though.
One who âgetsâ the joke stands amid what I just said, eyes open, and laughs in delight at the beauty of the world. Or at least smiles.
You take your world, your people, your grievances pretty seriously. You carry a lot of weight. It bares down on you. Itâs hard to face with equanimity. You see the inequities that your people, your cause, faces, and they upset you. A nattering little nuisance like me nearly drove you from this forum after only a short time.
You canât look on this world with equanimity. You see wrongs, and they hurt. Thatâs maybe to your credit in some sense; you really seem to believe in your cause. Youâre not a fickle poker-about in other peopleâs causes like me. But thereâs little lightness about you.
The punchline isnât such a bitter one as that, though.
Incidentally, itâs a tiny bit hard to find someone who truly considers themselves evil. Even most of the darkest, like the EoM and the Sabik, usually think of themselves as some species of enlightened-- believing that theyâve noticed something critical that others missed.
In my case, at the far end of this line of thinking is the understanding that I, myself, donât exist as a separate being to begin with-- Iâm just an eddy in the flow of what is, an the borders of âmyselfâ get surprisingly hard to define. And the same is true of everyone.
âAll around me, coming and going, are naught but dreams.â
Even me.
(Thatâs the kind of insight laypeople on Achura often shake their heads over: âtalking like a monkâ is a term for someone speaking in an abstract and cryptic way. Itâs not usually meant as flattery.)
I was raised to understand the plans that really matter are measured in centuries. Like anyone else I can lapse, but on the whole. No, I do not consider my decisions arbitrary.
Itâs worth noting, that with regard to arbitrariness I was referring to your scenario. Not my perception of your opinion, that it was such a clear betrayal detracted from the point I believe you were attempting to make.
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And yet, in that situation, would you disobey the Throne? Even if you felt yourself betrayed?
The reason I ask that is the same reason that prompted me to insert the âfit of crueltyâ bit into the original example:
You wonât know the âwhyâ of such a decision. No-one who rises to the position where they can give such an order will be reckless enough to tell you that itâs just coming from a place of sadistic glee or what have you. They got where they did, after all, so clearly, theyâre very good at politics, including coming up with justifications and obfuscations. And, being in charge, they have a large support structure pretty much built on the idea of âsellingâ their whims to people lower down the ladder.
So whatever the reason is, you canât know itâs the truth. Instead, you have to be able to judge the morality of the action itself. As you say, you were raised to understand the plans that really matter are measured in centuries. Maybe you donât see the whole picture. Thatâs always possible.
But I was raised to recognize that the ends donât justify the means. Anything built on a foundation of cruelty, of oppression, of mistreatement⌠itâs poisoned by that. Those actions and attitudes perpetuate themselves. It starts off as âjust this once, for the greater purposeâ, but then⌠once youâve done it once⌠âwell, this was how X responded to the situation in the past, so in this similar situation, thereâs precedentâŚâ and it gets easier. It gets easier to be immoral and cruel, to be⌠well, evil. And each trespass justifies the next even moreâŚ
And thatâs a thing Iâd think someone raised in the Amarr faith would understand. You guys see it as âsinâ and âtemptationâ, whereas I, as an atheist⌠just see it as laziness and short-term avarice triumphing over long-term cooperative self-interest. Some people just arenât patient enough to see that in the long run, the more just and equitable solutions always benefit the group more.
So the ends never justify the means. The corrosive effect, over time, of letting them do so⌠it just canât be over-stated. And if the ends never justify the means⌠then while sometimes there might not be a âgoodâ choice⌠that never makes a bad choice ârightâ. Just⌠âleast wrongâ.
Now, how does that come back to oneâs obligations and commitments? Because if you have an obligation to your family, to your liege, to your empire⌠then they are not served by allowing that corrosion, that corruption to take hold and/or to deepen. You are not meeting that obligation by refusing to stand up for what is right, rather than simply what is âneededâ by the declaration of those in power.
And if you have an obligation to your god⌠then I donât see how immorality can meet that obligation. I donât see how doing evil can be in service of what you consider the ultimate source of good. It would seem to me that you have an obligation to use the judgment and critical reasoning your god has given you to be alert for immoral acts⌠just in case, for example, a Blooder like Karsoth is running the Empire.
Because after all⌠itâs happened. âEvilâ has run the Empire in the past, and not being omniscient, you cannot say it will never happen again. You have to be wary. You have to be alert. You have to question⌠because if you donât⌠if youâre just obedient without holding those above you as accountable as they hold you⌠then youâre asking to be a tool for the next Karsoth.
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Probably I do some of that; most do. Only, a lot of those people youâre talking about have a certain agenda. It usually involves me dishonoring myself. That might not matter a lot to you, Ms. Tsukiyo, since thereâs no code that binds you but your own whimsy. Itâs important to me, though.
The scenario is difficult to engage with, had you spent any time at any imperial court I suspect youâd understand how jarring the lack of subterfuge in demanding someone torture their loved ones is.
In the wider scope of requirement and right, for Karsoth to accomplish what he did required problems within the empire. There will always be challenges, but remedying them gives corruption less⌠camouflage.
In short, within any normal parameters. No act of rebellion or disobedience is needed to use oneâs judgement and insight, when the parts that constitute the empire are strengthened and purified. So is the whole.
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Problems, it should be noted, that you have no way to be sure were correctly identified or resolved.
The example I gave was extreme, yes⌠but itâs not exactly far from whatâs going on. Should it matter who is being tortured? Is it more moral to torture someone if you donât know them? Is it more moral to commit cruelty and abuse on the orders of someone of lower rank, like an admiral or general?
Maybe some questions can only be properly and sincerely answered when theyâre not hypothetical?
Or maybe divorcing the question from a specific, actual example, allows a clearer examination of underlying principles.
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It does. But maybe a lot of places the principles arenât quite how it would go in practice? And thatâs more or less fine?
Obviously.
And there, we strongly disagree. You speak often about leaving the cluster better than it was, about how we should avoid chaos and rampant destruction because it endangers that⌠but chaos and rampant destruction doesnât present nearly the danger that abandoning principles in the name of making oneâs own life and decisions easier and more comfortable does.
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Thatâs a pretty strong statement.