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Level Four: The
Good boy / girl
People at level four morality follow the letter of the
law, in the legal, religious, and social sense.
This moral stage has many negative facets.
First, blind adherance to rules and the law is inherrantly flawed, as people
often can't see the forest through the trees. They are too busy worrying about
carrying about the literal meaning of the law, that often the reasoning behind
the law, or if in fact the law is just or moral to begin with, are often
overlooked. People wonder how the Hollocaust, Segregation, Appartheid, or
the like happend and why honest 'law abiding' citizens let it. The answer
is simple: the law said certain ethnic groups are bad and should be treated
in a certain (racist) manner. People at this level followed through because
"It's the law" and doing otherwise would be "illegal".
Keep in mind, these crimes against humanity also worked with other levels
of moral moron. The guilty made it in the interests of (non discriminated)
citizens to discriminate (level 1). There was punishment for those who didn't
(level 2), and eventually the remainder of the sheep followed because everyone
else was (level 3). But the so called "honest law abiding sheep" - sorry -
citizen played their part too.
REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
While the above is the extreme example, idiots who follow
the literal rules are everywhere. One example off the top of my head was in
high school. I was on a train one time I was asked, by a ticket inspector
for my student ticket. Now along with your ticket, you are supposed to keep
your "Concession Card" with you at all times to prove you are a student. The
spirit of the rule is simple, to stop mum & dad buying a student ticket
'for little Sally' and then using it themselves.
So after showing him my student ticket, he asked me for my concession card,
which I didn't have on me at the time. Because I had 'broken the law' I had
to go to the effort of filling out a bunch of forms and, if it was my first
offence (it was) I would get off without a fine.
The spirit of the law in this example is fairly straight forward. And given
the fact that I had gone all of ONE STOP, getting on IN FRONT OF A HIGH SCHOOL,
IN UNIFORM, with a bunch of people from THE SAME SCHOOL in the SAME UNIFORM,
and I was talking to people in the SAME UNIFORM at the time, who got on at
the SAME STOP in front of the SAME HIGH SCHOOL, most people would be smart
enough to work out I was probably a student at the high school. Especially
given it was at about HALF PAST THREE, which is about the train that students
who FINSISH AT THREE CATCH TO GO HOME.
Maybe the gumby was overcompenating for something. Maybe he's just a little
man looking for a power surge. Maybe he's a 50 year old who somehow thought
it was a good way to get the attention of a 15 year old girl. Or - most likely
- he's just another one of these Level 4 morality morons.
I'm sure you can think of your own examples... think
cops, judges, and religious fanatics who follow the literal rules rather than
the spirit of the rules they are following; or the ideals behind them; or
simply what is truely moral and just in any given situation.
[Doing that is immoral!]
"Yeah, but it's the law!" *BANG*
So what should be done according to idiots like this? Anyone who's read
the reactionist junk tabloids will tell you the answer: PUNISHMENT! That's
right (in fact, it's often very right... right wing that is); "Harsher Sentences
for Criminals" (even if they were doing the moral thing and / or are victims
of a crime themselves and / or committed a crime of necessity).
And aside from taking little power trips and taking a sadistic pleasure
in the punishment of others (whilst taking the literal meaning of "Turn the
other cheek"), these morons and little men brown nose. I mean think back to
high school; inevitably there was the teacher's pet, and the poor kid. Inevitably,
the teachers pet followed every single rule, now matter how inane and power
hungry the teacher or school authority was in its rules. The poor kid, however
(despite quite possibly being more intellegent than the teacher's pet by
a factor of 10), was often forced to break rules (wrong text book, no calculator,
couldn't afford a jumper so they jsut wore a t-shirt underneith).You inevitably
ended up with a situation like this:
TEACHER TO POOR KID: "You're out of uniform! You're not supposed to wear
T-shirts under your shirt! IT'S AGAINST SCHOOL RULES!"
*Poor kid is humiliated, but doesn't want to make too much noise*
TEACHER TO POOR KID: "And where's your calculator?"
Poor Kid to teacher, quietly: "I don't have one, miss"
TEACHER TO POOR KID: "Then you're breaking school rules! You'll have to
do without!"
TEACHER'S PET: "Gees Ms. Lowke, you should have given him a detention, especially
because his shirt's even untucked!"
*sigh* And just think... the teachers pet has grown up. And their still
a little man. And they're still a moral moron. In fact, let's call them 'sposta's,
because they're always doing what they're "'sposta". And just think, if someone
made the law say that you were illegal because of how you look, you can bet
you'd get an army of these teachers pet-esque morons, with their tabloid
newspapers, doing what they're "'sposta", claiming you don't get "Punished"
enough, and sucking up to authority.
[Hey look, someone is doing something moral but illegal]
"Harsher sentences for criminals!" *BANG*
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