When is it alright to break a promise? Where can the line be drawn? Quite obviously the line is relative to the context of the situation. This means that rather than having a narrow black line against a white background, we have a wide line that is black in the middle and slowly turns every shade of gray until finally disappearing into the white of it's surroundings. The white, of course, contains the cases that might as well be superfluous to the current situation but can nonetheless be used to draw analogies, say in anecdotal form. The black is the cases which are easier to agree on a solution: for example easily determining that the person was wrong for breaking a promise. So the difficulty is in the gray areas.
These gray areas are difficult to specify because when you voice a perspective, you can only voice one perspective: yours. Whatever that perspective may be, no matter how you might mean it, the person you're speaking to could take it multiple ways. Although your thoughts are gray and multi-dimensional, your verbalization is one-sided, like a black line against a white background.
It's either one or the other.
This one-sided statement can be then interpreted by many different perspectives, making the statement appear gray and vague. Thus you are criticized and the request for further explanation must be given: You must start amending your verbalization, adding specifics, qualifications, and clarity.
By verbalizing the gray cases, you are attempting to make them black or white. In this case, we are attempting to make a unique situation in which a promise was broken right or wrong. We do this by noting commonalities, shared differences, and so on between the current case and previous cases which may seem similar in components, nature, and/or structure. We use our past experiences as guide posts to make determinations of the current situation. These determinations are completely subjective and depend on disposition and experiences.
Unknown Feisty
- 16 years, 11 months, 15 days ago
