I am sure that everyone has been eagerly awaiting the conclusion to my thoughts yesterday. Well, you will not be disappointed!
I was talking about morality and whether it's biological or learned, and I was going to somehow weave that back into our perceptions of self and others. I'm not sure if there's a way for us to know how morality works, but speculating anyway is an exciting exercise! If we are given a sense of morality intuitively, is that sense the same for every person? Even if it were, it would be hard for any person to maintain their moral compass at the same level for their entire lives. Humans are social creatures. Unless a person is permanently sequestered, they will have some sort of influence in terms of morality...or anything else for that matter.
Let's use Back to the Future Part II as an example here. Marty and Doc travel to 2015 to try and keep the McFly family from falling apart. If you recall, Marty goes to the Cafe '80's disguised as his look-alike son to stop Marty, Jr. from going on a fool's errand with Griff and his gang. Marty, thanks to the time machine, already knows the ramifications of Marty, Jr.'s terrible decision and tells Griff that he will not be joining in on any criminal activity. Looking beyond the obvious morality issues present in time-traveling in the first place, Marty is meddling in Marty, Jr.'s perception of right and wrong. Marty wants to do the best for his son and protect him as much as he can. But who is Marty to interfere like that? Marty, Jr. should have his own unique sense of morality, removed from that of his father. How do we know that Marty's version of "protection" is considered right? We are conditioned, I believe, to think that way. Marty, as a parent, is supposed to know (or give off the illusion of knowledge) what is best for a child. It's something about past experiences giving way to informed decisions. But...that causes another issue to arise. If a parent made a poor decision, and wanted to teach his/her child to not make a similar choice, wouldn't it be for the best to allow the child to go through the pain? At some point, the parent will not be there, as much as he/she wishes it were so. As such, the child should be allowed to develop a personal sense of morality, rather than following along on ideals of a parent. However, it seems we may be getting a little off base here...this sounds like a blog for another time - perhaps entitled "Do We Have Free Will?" or something a little snappier. At any rate, that would be the topic for the day.
Let's get back to the task at hand here. Which perception is more "right," or to be better used as an identifier? We've already discussed the issues that come to light when we think about our personal perception as being the most important, so what about in terms of others' perceptions of us? Again, we are social creatures. We strive for interaction, approval, love, and care. We cannot get those things solely from ourselves. If I go to the store and buy a new shirt because it looks darn good on me, do I do it to feel better about myself, or so that others can have a better view of me? If we say that it's to look and feel good about ourselves, where did that negative image of ourselves come from in the first place? We wouldn't need to buy a shirt to make ourselves feel better if we already felt better, correct? So at some point, the perceptions of others played a large part in the formation of ourselves. Is this a bad thing? Are we to be held at the mercy of everyone else's opinions, attempting to fit into that box that they've created for us? Hard to say. It would seem, however, that no person is immune to ingestion of others' perceptions. So if everyone is privy to it (and I mean everyone, in the most literal sense of the word), how could it be wrong? Is there really someone out there who really does not care, and never did care, about other people's perceptions? That would mean, I would imagine, zero human interaction. Every time we interact with a person, whatever the reason may be, we pick up on their perceptions. At least I do. I hope I'm not the only one in this!
So what's the conclusion here? Did I delve into the topic enough? I'm sure there're many salient points that I'm leaving out here. My mind works in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, and that's how I prefer writing. I hope ya'll remember that for the ensuing 360 blogs that are going to be coming your way. But anyhow, did we come up with a definitive answer? I think most people would like to be comfortable with their own skin and not worry about what other people may think. It certainly seems like a noble goal. But the reality, unfortunately, appears to be a bit different. We are part of a society - a society of many different thoughts, feelings, ideals, and moralities. With every interaction, we take a bit of the other person(s) we are interacting with, and vice versa. We are no longer filled with our own "pure" thoughts. We are made up of thoughts and perceptions from all over the societal spectrum. Those perceptions, I believe, continue to meld us on a daily basis. The only thing we can do is to maintain some modicum of personal identification.
Reading through this once more, it seems like I'm advocating some form of Orwellian-style dystopia that delineates the area between freedom of thought and implanted ideas. That topic, as discussed above, is going to be another day. What I'm simply trying to say tonight (and yesterday) is that it's okay to try and live up to other people's perceptions of us...the most crucial part is choosing whose perceptual opinions matter in the first place.
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