Meeting on "Duty"

We had our meeting on "duty" last night.  It was an interesting discussion.

We struggled a bit with the various notions of duty; those we gladly do, those we do to avoid penalties, then those we feel obliged to do.

Rafi pointed out that we are indoctrinated by our parents and other authority figures from a young age and this influenced us on what we feel is "proper".  It is difficult to change after that.

We also all feel obligated to keep in touch with our mother even though we may not enjoy the telephone calls with her, we know that she appreciates it and we want to do what brings pleasure to her. 

So a source of duty is to look after those we love.

The sense of duty also hit harder when one is in a position to make a difference.  One way to convince ourselves that it is not our duty to do something is to say that others will be doing it or that our action will not make a difference.

People who see a variety of perspectives and therefore are not so definite in their sense of right and wrong will also hesitate more before taking action, not sure that their action will help or hinder a cause.  This in turn lessens their sense of duty to act.

We form our ethics and moral compass in many ways.  Whether it is early indoctrination by parents, boy scouts, teachers, priests, etc.  The more clean cut these ethical standards are, the clearer we see where things "should" go.

Combine that with an occasion when we are thrust in a position to affect real change to correct or help events to move towards our ethical believes, and the sense of duty is heavy on us.

I was watching the Charlie Rose television interview program where he interviewed Clive Hill, the security agent on President Kennedy's limousine when the president was assassinated. Fifty years later, the agent still feels guilty that he did not perform his duty.  He was supposed to get above the president and take the bullet to protect the president.  His mission was clear, he was there where he could have done it and he felt the guilt for not doing his duty.  Only now, 50 years later and analyzing video and ballistics, is he beginning to accept that there is no possibility that he could have moved fast enough to protect the president and he is beginning to come out of his depression.

Crime bosses are powerful and they feel a sense of duty to be honorable in their own way for their community when they are looked upon to do something.  We may not agree with their ethics but duty also motivates them when their ethical standards are violated.

Bob said that the ability to act in a crisis is more a matter of training than analyzing.  There is no time to think.  Maybe it is a sense of duty or maybe it is just compassion but people act because something obviously needs to be done and they are on scene to do it.

So, very often it is the simple minded that take action while the thoughtful is assessing the situation.

Sometimes fast action save the drowning victim, sometimes the water is so violent the rescuer perishes with the victim.

It is not so simple to say we should just respond to the call of duty.

But we can always make a start by examining the origins of our ethical believe systems to make sure it is not just there because someone told us about it at an early age.

With a better founded ethical basis, our sense of duty will be that much better directed when the occasion calls on us.