So here we sit on this life boat that is currently spinning on its axis in its orbit around the Sun. The numbers of people on this great planet are just to vast to truly comprehend thus we create in-groups and out-groups so that heuristic thinking makes it easier to save cognitive energy, thus making shortcuts in decision making and judgment calls. This makes it easy to discriminate between judgment calls, Not between peoples but between causes of action. Ethical calls do have a lot to do with in-group and out-group discrimination.
Both Cunningham (2008) & Wells (2004) brings to the fore front the importance of Learning, & Modelling that shapes, moulds, and drives the formation of Character through experience and schemata building, while we are immersed in society.
All of us are born into a world that imposes values upon us, the values, beliefs, and social taboos, all in under the concept of socialization training, so that we may fit into the society, with its prebuilt values & beliefs. Thus our home, school, peers, and media is the "Eton" and formative social group, the mask that we are covertly forced to wear from birth onward, until the self becomes that which was once a mask. Eton was the training ground for the solders that went to Waterloo to fight against Napoleon under the command of Duke of Wellington. Wells (2004) uses this metaphor to illustrate the importance of preparation for one's own life's ethical decisions. These decisions are thus a product of years of preparation so when an action is needed, no decisions is needed, because the decisions was made years ago.
The Mask of conformation & socialization does come in the stories and narratives that are told to us and about us (also see Joseph Campbell) and the labels we live with have their own story. Working in Drug and Alcohol doing contingency counselling they are the self-schemas that I confront on a daily bases. Working with 2nd and 3rd and sometimes 4th generation addicts I see firsthand the Eton these people had to endure. The cost / benefit analysis is about immediate physical pain or getting the next shot. The justification used to overcome any cognitive dissidence with respect to morality or law is the social group they live with it is "normal behaviour in their social group. You may think the “birds of a feather fly together" but as Cunningham (p.30) points out the fundamental attribution error awareness is paramount when working in such an industry of human service, Many people with addiction are self medicating for other reasons and some have been given an addiction from horrific incidences for which they needed surgery. Though with other addicts come pushers, Cunningham addresses this as well, "the torturer has come to think of his work as the natural thing to do" and I would ad would take pride it their work. I would ask you to read about Milgram's experiment study of Obedience < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment > and think about the ethics of the experimenter and the participants, you will be amazed.
Thought leads to behaviour, behaviour leads to repeated behaviour, repeated behaviour leads to habit, and habit becomes Character, so too emulated behaviour has the same outcome. The use of reward and punishment to guide behaviour (Cunningham, 2008, p. 29) would have been used at Eton in training the soldiers for the desired outcome. May I argue that we also use more subtle methods of obedience through reward and punishment on people around us, by the way we talk, facial expressions, and acceptance of others or ostracising them. These subtle methods are now used in horse training or horse whispering. With practice and imagination that improves practice for what may be unexpected shows the love in the endeavour. Goleman (Emotional intelligence, 1996) talks about how love and practise of ones profession can place a person in the "zone", a Surgeon was operating, during which an Earth Quake shook the building and part of the Theatre fell to the floor. The Surgeon's love of perfection was so present in the operation that he did not know that there was an Earth quake and did not notice that part of the ceiling had fallen.
Both Cunningham (2008) & Wells (2004) brings to the fore front the importance of Learning, & Modelling that shapes, moulds, and drives the formation of Character through experience and schemata building, while we are immersed in society.
All of us are born into a world that imposes values upon us, the values, beliefs, and social taboos, all in under the concept of socialization training, so that we may fit into the society, with its prebuilt values & beliefs. Thus our home, school, peers, and media is the "Eton" and formative social group, the mask that we are covertly forced to wear from birth onward, until the self becomes that which was once a mask. Eton was the training ground for the solders that went to Waterloo to fight against Napoleon under the command of Duke of Wellington. Wells (2004) uses this metaphor to illustrate the importance of preparation for one's own life's ethical decisions. These decisions are thus a product of years of preparation so when an action is needed, no decisions is needed, because the decisions was made years ago.
The Mask of conformation & socialization does come in the stories and narratives that are told to us and about us (also see Joseph Campbell) and the labels we live with have their own story. Working in Drug and Alcohol doing contingency counselling they are the self-schemas that I confront on a daily bases. Working with 2nd and 3rd and sometimes 4th generation addicts I see firsthand the Eton these people had to endure. The cost / benefit analysis is about immediate physical pain or getting the next shot. The justification used to overcome any cognitive dissidence with respect to morality or law is the social group they live with it is "normal behaviour in their social group. You may think the “birds of a feather fly together" but as Cunningham (p.30) points out the fundamental attribution error awareness is paramount when working in such an industry of human service, Many people with addiction are self medicating for other reasons and some have been given an addiction from horrific incidences for which they needed surgery. Though with other addicts come pushers, Cunningham addresses this as well, "the torturer has come to think of his work as the natural thing to do" and I would ad would take pride it their work. I would ask you to read about Milgram's experiment study of Obedience < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment > and think about the ethics of the experimenter and the participants, you will be amazed.
Thought leads to behaviour, behaviour leads to repeated behaviour, repeated behaviour leads to habit, and habit becomes Character, so too emulated behaviour has the same outcome. The use of reward and punishment to guide behaviour (Cunningham, 2008, p. 29) would have been used at Eton in training the soldiers for the desired outcome. May I argue that we also use more subtle methods of obedience through reward and punishment on people around us, by the way we talk, facial expressions, and acceptance of others or ostracising them. These subtle methods are now used in horse training or horse whispering. With practice and imagination that improves practice for what may be unexpected shows the love in the endeavour. Goleman (Emotional intelligence, 1996) talks about how love and practise of ones profession can place a person in the "zone", a Surgeon was operating, during which an Earth Quake shook the building and part of the Theatre fell to the floor. The Surgeon's love of perfection was so present in the operation that he did not know that there was an Earth quake and did not notice that part of the ceiling had fallen.
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