Is it possible to be a decent person?

Decent is such a vague word, subjective to everyone. I believe it can even be gender specific because a decent man is not necessarily the same as a decent woman and the two genders may not see each other as decent at all.

I’m not going to bore you too much with the ‘everyone is different’ speech but its true and it is impossible to define a whole group of people whether that is a good or a bad definition.

To make it topical, men have started favouring the term ‘lad’. This to them is practically the same as decent, praising themselves as some hero like figures for drinking heavily or pursuing a ‘right sort’ or both. However back to my previous point, ‘lad’ can also be subjective as some men don’t like the term and see it as a rolling eyes moment whenever mentioned. Either way who can judge whether this is decent? God? The Queen? A celebrity?

I just don’t know.

It is exactly the same with idols, what makes someone an idol is entirely subjective. Some people have political idols; others admire members of the community or even celebrities. But does it make you not decent if you favour a celebrity over a more traditional icon?

Personally, I feel that everyone is a decent person in their own unique way and no one should be able to judge that. Maybe sometimes the ugly traits of humanity arise but we all have our off days. If you believe you’re decent I’m more than happy accepting that.

Is it right to obey the law?

So philosophy has never been a significantly big interest of mine. For me it seems to be on a sort of spectrum, you get the eat, breathe and survive on philosophy people that thrive from any mention of Plato and have justifiable arguments for each baffling topic or you get the people that don’t care for philosophy that much. Don’t get me wrong, life’s questions are definitely fascinating but I find it easy to over think the subject and get completely muddled in a big tangled net of new questions.

We are programmed into thinking that the law should always be obeyed, like a Bible for both the religious and non-religious. I too held this view until Chris had questioned the idea in my first HCJ lecture.

There are laws that should unquestionably be enforced and complied with to keep societies in some sort of order and to prevent absolute chaos that can currently be seen in the Middle East demonstrations. We must take into consideration the circumstances of how laws have come into place, for example during authoritarian regimes oppressive laws can be created with a clouded view of society’s best interests and thus can be quite easily questioned.

Motives behind these laws can be greed which is a part of human nature, without any restrictions in place who is to say we wouldn’t constantly desire more? Leaving society always in a state of unrest, a time bomb for this previously mentioned chaos. Mad Max is one example, although somewhat exaggerated, of the negative traits of humanity when law and order collapses.

Law isn’t created as some sort of joke for the authorities or for people to like but it’s just there. In my opinion, it should therefore be unquestionably adhered to. The idea of a law and order safety bubble is a very comfortable one for me.