Relativity

This might be alto­geth­er too vague to make any sense.

Rel­a­tiv­i­ty seems to be all the rage at the moment. Every­thing is all about ‘read­ing things in con­text’ and ‘under­stand­ing the vic­tim.’ And while zero-tol­er­ance and rigid­i­ty are often very bad things, too much rel­a­tiv­i­ty is just as bor­ing. I’m tired of hedg­ing, hear­ing about fac­tors and rea­sons that mit­i­gate a strong stand on any­thing. I’m not talk­ing specif­i­cal­ly about pol­i­tics, so don’t think that I am. I’m talk­ing about dis­course in gen­er­al. Few peo­ple seem will­ing to stick to their guns on a posi­tion, and if they do find a posi­tion to stick to, all too often it is a posi­tion filled with mit­i­ga­tion. ‘I believe in this, only as long as this and this occur and I might change my view if this hap­pens.’

I’m as guilty of this as the next per­son, but thank­ful­ly I real­ize that find­ing excus­es by com­par­ing a sit­u­a­tion to pos­si­ble oth­er sit­u­a­tions or com­par­ing it to the intent of folks does not qual­i­fy as a mit­i­gat­ing fac­tor. I’m won­der­ing if sym­pa­thy and empa­thy have been con­fused with jus­tice. Or maybe that is far too grand an idea. Maybe I should won­der if this type of rel­a­tiv­i­ty results in an inabil­i­ty to come to a dis­tinct and firm con­clu­sion because too much time is spent in an end­less com­par­i­son loop.

Maybe its a desire to not take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­se­quences of a deci­sion. I hope I nev­er fail to do this. I guess what I want to aim for is an abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize and weigh things based on rel­a­tive com­par­isons, to under­stand the motives and feel­ings and con­se­quences of what­ev­er is involved, the con­se­quences of any deci­sion I can make and the wis­dom and integri­ty to choose what I feel as the best deci­sion, have con­cise, def­i­nite expla­na­tions for my rea­son­ing and the deter­mi­na­tion to stick to my deci­sion once it has been made.