Eh, we all have areas where we've established what we think should be universal standards of behavior towards which everybody should strive. And we think them failures (at minimum, sometimes we think the failure should be punished) if they don't.
Different people just include different things in that category.
There really isn't any way to say (whether publicly or within a community of similar thinkers, or just to yourself) "there are standards of behavior that are good for reasons completely external to myself" without being viewed as judging the people who don't live up to it, even if they don't agree in the first place.
I do agree that it seems to odd (I'm judging scaeagles for falling short of my view of ideal behavior) to commemorate this one point in what he tries to teach his children. But then I think celebrating birthdays is wildly narcissistic, wedding rings are odd (yes, I wear one but only because it is important to Lani and that makes it important to me), hanging your high school graduation tassel from your rear view mirror mildly pathetic, tombstones kind of creepy, and war memorials shallow gestures.
All in all I find the personal and societal urge to look backwards and to publicly proclaim the private to be a pathology to which I'm immune (and, yes, I recognize that technically it is not society that is pathological but me that is too some degree sociopathic).
I don't really care that other people do these things (I find it odd, but they aren't hurting me so I don't really care) and don't view any of it as a judgment on me, even if it is. I'm sure that I do many things scaeagles would consider immoral and I'm pretty sure he does at least one thing I consider immoral.
Maybe we should all wear jewelry professing all our beliefs and behaviors so that we can properly and immediately judge everybody else. Or maybe stop making public declarations of our personal beliefs and behaviors so we don't feel compelled to judge and be judged.
|