"Red-blooded"
"No red-blooded American would stand by while
that happened!"
It was the kind of phrase I heard most often
in movies or TV shows when I was a kid, though it did come up from time
to time in the conversations of people I knew. I remember asking why
the red-blooded part was important. Wasn't everyone's blood red? I
think it was my paternal grandfather who would up explaining what a
metaphor was in the course of trying to answer my question. The blood
was symbolic of authenticity or integrity, he said: A real man is brave
and strong. A real patriot would never leave a fallen comrade behind. A
real Christian would tell the truth, even if it was inconvenient.
When I mentioned a counter-example or two, he
explained that it wasn't about facts. It was about what is proper and
just. We live in an imperfect world, where people don't always live up
to their own expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't still keep
shooting for those higher goals.
It made sense at the time, as most things my
grandfathers told me did.
As I got older, I found myself having to
adjust the definitions more and more, to accomodate my own failings and
the frailties of people I admired. I kept finding myself falling out of
the boundaries of other people's notions of the proper way for some one
think or be. It was impossible not to, because a lot of those ideals
are contradictory. Or at least very hard to define. Everyone agrees
that justice isn't served if a criminal gets away with their crimes,
but it's just as injust to drag an innocent person through the legal
system---particularly if they wind up being punished for something they
didn't do. Yet, we cannot find out who committed a particular crime
without investigating people who might have done it. Or, a real friend
would never lie to you, but a real friend won't needlessly hurt your
feelings, either. Unfortunately, sometimes the raw truth is very
painful---and frequently not that important.
So I started feeling less comfortable with the
whole idea of ideals.
Don't get me wrong; I think having standards
is a good thing. Many times I wish more people would hold themselves to
some kind of discernable standard. Problems arise not from having
standards, but for how they are applied. If you reject people for the
slightest infraction of your standards, you'll soon drive away all your
friends. If you hold others to strict standards that you routinely
violate yourself, you'll notice friends distancing themselves from you.
Both situations leave you feeling abandoned and alone. You can find new
friends, but if you never realize that you are the cause of the
problem, the cycle will just repeat itself indefinitely.
It's not just how the standards are applied,
but who is applying. It's perfectly okay to demand certain levels of
behavior of yourself, less so for other people. How okay it is varies,
depending on how well you know the person, how much you interract, and
what sort of commitment you have to one another. Which isn't to say
that you're only allowed to have expectations of people with whom you
are intimately involved. Even a casual friendship has some level of
commitment, even if it's only that you'll say "hello" when you see the
person, and inquire into their well-being every now and then.
Even then, we have to make the boundaries
reasonable. It's one thing to expect a friend to refrain from yelling
at you or taking advantage of you. It's quite another to demand that
they never express an opinion that varies from yours, or never talk
about any topic you are less interested in than they are. Demanding
that they deny a trait or belief that is fundamental to their
personhood is right out.
When I've made this observation to some
people, they've responded by saying, "But I'm deeply offended by [fill
in the blank]! It's not fair to expect me to pretend I approve!"
Politely refraining from belittling or assaulting a person is hardly
pretending to approve. If you don't want to be around something, you
can choose to remove yourself from it. The key is that choosing not to
be somewhere is very different than forcing someone else to stay away
from you.
We have the right to take care of ourselves.
But not at the expense of others.
--Aristotle
.