The last few days haven't really been much fun. I've been wrestling with the unpleasant situation two of my closest friends have put me in and it's made me realise a lot of things not only about them but about myself too.
Friend one is my flatmate and closest friend. Friend two is a fairly new friend but also close. Friend one and friend two have hooked up on a couple of occasions now. Not a problem. Except friend two has a girlfriend already and friend one knows this. Yet she's let this continue knowing full well that friend two is unavailable. Not cool, I said. Not cool at all.
I don't want to bore you with any more detail (there's a lot of detail). My main problem with this is the cheating bit. Yep, it makes me pretty angry. Not "Hulk smash!" angry. But angry enough. And the reason for this? They don't really see too much of an issue with it. And don't really want to do much about it.
This all led to a big argument between me and friend one. I mean an hours-long argument. It sucked but did make me realise how different my morals are from other people's. Especially friend one's morals as it turned out. And I came to a conclusion as to why this might be. I seemed to have learnt my morals from sci-fi.
I tend to see things in a very black and white way. Right and wrong. If you doing something right - YAY, the Earth/universe is safe again! If you do something wrong, you need to fix it. If you've wronged someone, you need to fix things with them, either with the truth or by finding some way to right it. These are simple rules and if you look at a lot of sci-fi this is what you see. Even if the righting part isn't easy or means some sort of self-sacrifice. In Stargate, the main characters are forever sacrificing themselves so the world can stay saved. In Star Trek, Janeway enforces the Prime Directive even when her crew is thousands of light-years away from the Federation. In comics, superheroes stand for everything that is right and yes they get it wrong sometimes but they will always endeavour to right that wrong. In Doctor Who, the Doctor is always urging us to do the right thing.
So I guess my question is, why is it so wrong to think like this? Why can't we apply these kind of rules and morals to our real lives? People will say that things aren't as simple as that, that you can't be that naive but I say why not? If you do something to hurt someone, make it up to them. Be honest as much as possible. Don't intentionally set out to hurt people in the first place.
Of course we always have our morally questionable heroes in sci-fi - Mal Reynolds for one. But isn't he always as honourable as he can be? He does bad things but he either rights that wrong or owns up to it. The example that's really sticking in my head at the moment is Kara and Lee in Battlestar Galactica. We are desperate to see them get together but when they eventually do get some action it's when Kara and Sam are together and Dee and Lee are too. So they are both cheating. Is it ok for them to be together because we know they're in love? No is the short answer but we're happy for them none the less. Until Kara gets an attack of conscience and runs off and marries Sam. She does the right thing so I'm happy for her, there's even a bit of sacrifice we all know it's wrong for her and Lee. But it doesn't stop there, they carry on cheating until it comes to the point of them needing to leave their partners to continue their relationship guilt free. Things do stop though when Kara admits she doesn't believe in divorce and Lee won't cheat on his wife anymore. We want them to get together but understand that their morals won't let them. And let's face it, BSG was about the best sci-fi show around for showing humanity in all its glory. Or not.
This question obviously extends into other areas as well, not least religion. And it has been dealt with in various ways but that's not my point.
I want to know why friend number one thought I was being judgmental for thinking about what they'd done by my own set of morals. I think I was waiting for some sort of reaction from them that would show me that they regretted what they'd done and had realised what a horrible thing it was. But I haven't got that reaction from either of them. And because of this, my view of them both and their morals has shifted. Probably towards the worse.
I'm sorry for the ramble but I needed to say this. I will continue to try and do the right thing in my life. I hope you do to.
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