"I saw a family today and had to give news of an Intellectual Disability. Over the many years I have worked in this field most parents ask "Will he/she finish high school/go to University?" Today for the first time ever the mother said "I don't care about school or University, what I really want to know is .... will he know right from wrong?" My answer was "Yes, he will", she looked so happy and then we both got teary"
Over the last few months this question of knowing right from wrong has been foremost on my mind. I've researched to try to make sense of what prevents some people from knowing right from wrong. Pondering, is it a choice, is is based on pathology, or is it both?
I have not come up with a clear answer. I have spent my life in a world of communication, love and kindness - so anything that does not look like kindness and concern for others is alien to me. I look after my family, I look after my patients and I do not think that I have caused any harm to others. This is not to say I'm perfect but I can tell right from wrong so that helps.
A few weeks ago I was at the airport and side by side were two books, one called "Everybody lies" and next to it "The power of kindness". It got me thinking, can you be kind and lie? Does the definition of kindness exclude lying? Or can lying include kindness? Kindness according to the dictionary is: the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. The definition of lying: to tell an untruth, to fib, to fabricate, to invent a story.
EUREKA! The secret may be in the word CONSIDERATE. In being considerate you CAN lie and also be kind BUT you HAVE TO KNOW what is right and what is wrong ..... so back to the beginning. When my grandmother was diagnosed with a heart condition we decided not to tell her, we were lying AND being kind as we thought she would worry. Thus lying and kind at once. The movie The Farewell is a story of a Chinese family who discovers their grandmother has only a short while to live and they decide to keep her in the dark so they schedule a fake family wedding so that everyone can say goodbye. KIND LYING - it seems to involve mostly grandmothers :)
My children CONSTANTLY check in to see if they are being considerate and kind. Last weekend #2 and I were on Robson Street and a homeless man approached a group of tourists, he did get quite close to them but they were not kind or considerate to this man, they loudly and rudely told him to stay away, to back off. It was so uncomfortable that Benjamin and I looked at each other and said: "They must not be Canadian, that is not how we treat our homeless". We went back to see if he needed anything, he asked for a coffee, we got him one.
I then thought when you are the recipient of the bad type of lying and serious unkindness from people who clearly do not know right from wrong, at least the right and wrong that falls within your moral compass, your clear ethical borders - what do you do? My scientific mind went to work! Searches and searches on pathological lying, how people make choices, how people measure gain, narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, social deviance, attachment, etc.. all in an attempt to scientifically explain the brain, explain the pathology.
Today, as I searched some more Benjamin came in and asked what I was doing, so I told him - searching the literature for the brain reasons that make people lie and be unkind for gain and he says: "That is a futile search" I asked; "Why?" and he responded "Because no matter what you find, you also KNOW that people can make choices and choices are conscious". We differ there I don't think a sociopath can really makes a conscious choice due to his/her pathology but I digress.
Nonetheless. he is somewhat right, MOST people can make choices. A choice to lie or be truthful, to hurt or not, to be kind or unkind. So I stand corrected - being a "good or bad" human is not ONLY about knowing right from wrong but about KNOWING right from wrong AND making a choice.
In the end, the keywords are wrong, right AND choice. May we all make the right, kind, considerate choices then. Oh and NO LYING, unless it is your grandma ;)
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