Image courtesy of Veronica Villa Agudelo
Did you know that you have political stances? And, that you have a religious perspective? Beliefs about different corporations? Views on today's social quagmires? Name an issue and you can bet that whether you are outspoken about it or not, your life decisions point you in a certain direction on it. Even ambivalence or agnosticism is an angle.
Through many invigorating discussions and sometimes via lost arguments, I've learned that on most issues, it's impossible to truly be neutral the way we sometimes hope to be. Although that'd be a whole lot easier. Think of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. If you were an American living during this major transitional period, it would have been difficult to have no opinion on its outcome. But, let's just imagine you or I were one of the many to make this claim and attempt neutralized non-action. As members of that society with it's pretext of power balances and norms wouldn't we have been essentially siding with the status quo? British philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill explained it well in his work On Liberty when he said, "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
Whether we like it or not, we are going in a certain direction, and it's not always the one we say. We call this the say-do gap. This is normal, and it can't just be written off as a lack of integrity. Many times, we aren't clear ourselves with what we really think. The recurring debate over Walmart's business ethics sheds light on this point. Many people say that Walmart has a bulldozer approach to business, cutting costs to an extreme and disadvantaging many employees with cruel compensation packages. Countering that, many would also say that Walmart is a capitalism shining star providing millions of jobs to the global workforce and remarkably low prices for consumers. What do you think? Recently, I asked a friend this question. They showed outrage over Walmart's distasteful management approach, but ironically, they later referenced a recent trip to a local store. So, however nice their employee sympathies seemed, their true direction on the issue was revealed when they cast their consumer vote in favor of "Always low prices."
Big or small, on most issues, we each have a an angle we're influencing toward, and our behaviors indicate our primary direction. In follow-up, here are a few questions that could be worth thinking about.
- Where do I have say-do gaps that I should match-up?
- What topics do I tend to express ambivalence or agnosticism over? What impact does my inaction have?
- What agendas do I most push for in every-day life? Why? Is my method of pushing proportionate to how I prioritize its importance in relation to other agendas I value?