Practical Philosophy, Monday

[endsthegame]

"There are those of us who come here believing very strongly in duty," Ender said. "Others who come here to escape it - and some to who it's absolutely not a part of their lives."

He smiled a little.

"I had a mentor, once," he said. "I was told that people were free, unless humanity needed them, and that humanity never asked us to be happy, merely to act on its behalf - for its survival. Happiness, he felt, was a luxury that at times we could scarcely afford. To opt out of doing our duty at such a time was the worst crime imaginable: a crime of stupidity."

He took a sip of water. "I've met people who disagreed, since," he said. "I've also met people whose lives were so intricately bound to these rules they didn't even know where they stopped and the rules began. Some of you have already made your views fairly clear already, but I'm curious as to everyone else's input, too.

"How important is duty? Do we people all carry some grand responsibility to our species, or should we exist only for ourselves and the development of our self? And if we live for duty, then when does that end? Is there some point where all of us may be afforded personal freedom, or are we perpetually tied to our responsibilities, whether we flee from them or not?"

Comments

Re: Talk.

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"If you're coerced into something, it's not really a duty, now, is it?" Joker responded. "I mean, not unless you're one of the whackjobs who uses that kind of logic to refuse to pay taxes -- you're not, are you? But, I mean, if you're stuck having to do something against your will... what do they have on you? What'll happen if you don't?"

Re: Talk.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Shunning. Exclusion. Guilt," Celia supplied. "Plenty of people are coerced into things because their parents want them to do them, aren't they? And it's often presented as a duty to your family name, or the like. At least, in my experience, that's what it is."

Re: Talk.

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, tell me about it," Joker agreed. "Back home, at least half of the kids I went to school with were the children of soldiers. If the kids wanted to be actors, or poets, or even scientists... There was a lot of yelling. Sometimes in public. It got awkward more than a few times."