# How important is character? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462 "2010-04-08T22:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/1 "2010-04-08T22:23:18Z")
‘Do unto others as they would have do unto you’ is a fantastically elegant rule of the universe, yet is the Golden Rule valid? Somewhere there exists a man or woman who would say, “Yes, he was charming and complimentary. I would say that Adolph Hitler was always kind to me.” If the Golden Rule was on the right of a slide scale and the Old Lady Gossip Network was on the left where would someone like Spock put the optimal expression of the human condition? i.e. How important is character? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/2 "2010-04-08T22:30:42Z")
_What_ is character? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/3 "2010-04-08T22:30:42Z")
Read up on the “monkeyverse”. It’s perfectly possible, indeed quite typically human, to be nice to the hundred or so people in your immediate circle while utterly indifferent to (if not happily accepting the deaths of) the billions who are outside that circle. “Sure, his policies sent millions to an agonizing death, but he sure loved his dog.” ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/4 "2010-04-08T22:35:56Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > _What_ is character? To what extent do you have the right to judge others for things they’ve done to others. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/5 "2010-04-08T22:40:07Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > To what extent do you have the right to judge others for things they’ve done to others. Heck, I reserve the right to judge anybody for anything they’ve done or not done to anybody for any reason to any degree of accuracy I desire. But that still doesn’t define “character”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/6 "2010-04-08T22:42:20Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > To what extent do you have the right to judge others for things they’ve done to others. I have the right to judge anybody for anything they do. To deny myself this right based on my own actions would be to engage in ad hominem argument - against myself! ETA: and I _still_ don’t know what character is. Seriously; what’s this thread about? It sounded interesting from the title but I can’t find my footing. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/7 "2010-04-08T22:44:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heck, I reserve the right to judge anybody for anything they’ve done or not done to anybody for any reason to any degree of accuracy I desire. > But that still doesn’t define “character”. Don’t get pedantic on me this early. The commonly used definition: [The aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/character) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/8 "2010-04-08T22:48:15Z")
Ah. Depends on the features and traits in question, then. If you have the trait of collecting ceramic bunnies, no biggie. If you have the trait of sneaking out and murdering people in their sleep, that’s somewhat worse. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/9 "2010-04-08T22:51:45Z")
Please, dance around if you want to. Have you ever maintained a best friend that cheated on his wife? Or anything even remotely similar? If you deny it, I’ll just ignore your posts from now on. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/10 "2010-04-08T22:52:05Z")
Well, in that case, character is important to the extent that you get credit for the good things you do and don’t get blamed for the bad things others do, i.e. your individual characteristics are sufficiently distinct that you don’t get lumped in with others (i.e. considered just another faceless interchangable member of some racial, ethnic or national group) when it’s to your personal disadvantage. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/11 "2010-04-08T22:55:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, in that case, character is important to the extent that you get credit for the good things you do and don’t get blamed for the bad things others do… That’s not the question. The question is how important is it that those good and bad things happen to you specifically. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/12 "2010-04-08T22:59:34Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > That’s not the question. The question is how important is it that those good and bad things happen to you specifically. Well, it’s important to _me_ that good stuff comes my way and bad stuff doesn’t, but I have no illusions. I’m sure that people who don’t know me couldn’t care less, selfishly absorbed in their own lives and all. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/13 "2010-04-08T23:08:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, it’s important to _me_ that good stuff comes my way and bad stuff doesn’t, but I have no illusions. I’m sure that people who don’t know me couldn’t care less, selfishly absorbed in their own lives and all. I think my statement wasn’t complete. My question is really 'How important is it that those good and bad things happen to you specifically versus the good or ill they’ve done to others". ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/14 "2010-04-08T23:08:35Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Please, dance around if you want to. Have you ever maintained a best friend that cheated on his wife? Or anything even remotely similar? If you deny it, I’ll just ignore your posts from now on. Um, I don’t _know_ anybody who cheated on his wife, at least not to speak to. As for remote similarities…my brother has an ex-wife who screwed him over in a divorce, and I don’t really speak to her. Is that enough to make me worth responding to? 😕 Seriously, what are you asking here? The degree of empathy that I have for complete strangers? The level of empathy that I _should_ have for complete strangers? The degree to which humanity would be improved if everybody _had_ empathy for complete strangers? (And what the heck does any of that have to do with “character”?) Personally I and everyone else have a marked tendency towards that monkeyverse thing. We assess all events based on the effects they have, multiplied by the amount we care about the people they happen to. This facilitates various bad things - the war in Iraq is barely a blip on the radar for me and many americans - and a lot of them that do care, care a lot more about the americans getting hurt than the locals that go down. This is a decidedly non-global way of thinking that favors isolationism. However it also serves to limit the scope of one’s worries to the level that they can manage - if a person sympathised with _every_ person in pain everywhere, they’d probably drown in their tears of sympathy. So this selfish tendency to only care about those we care about would seem to serve some small purpose, by my thinking. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/15 "2010-04-08T23:08:49Z")
The whole point of the Golden rule is to point out the inconsistency of humanity. We tend to forgive ourselves for things that we would not forgive other people for. We have an excuse, they don’t. The idea is that you should treat other people how you’d want to be treated _in that same situation_. Do you think that, if you and they were swapped, that you would feel that the other person was being fair? Viewed like that, I think the Golden Rule is optimal, and problems come from us not being able to reach it. I think Spock would agree, even before he started embracing his emotions. He was always an optimist when it came to evaluating other life forms. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/16 "2010-04-08T23:14:28Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The whole point of the Golden rule is to point out the inconsistency of humanity. We tend to forgive ourselves for things that we would not forgive other people for. We have an excuse, they don’t. The idea is that you should treat other people how you’d want to be treated _in that same situation_. Do you think that, if you and they were swapped, that you would feel that the other person was being fair? > > Viewed like that, I think the Golden Rule is optimal, and problems come from us not being able to reach it. I think Spock would agree, even before he started embracing his emotions. He was always an optimist when it came to evaluating other life forms. Would Spock like Hitler if he was nice to him? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/17 "2010-04-08T23:15:33Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I think my statement wasn’t complete. My question is really 'How important is it that those good and bad things happen to you specifically versus the good or ill they’ve done to others". Okay, I gradually understand this… Whose character is being examined in the Spock/Hitler thing? Do we think less of Spock’s character if he doesn’t think less of Hitler’s character, or something? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/18 "2010-04-08T23:17:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Der… uh… huh? Parsing error. Really? You don’t understand? Are you being obtuse? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/19 "2010-04-08T23:18:29Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Would Spock like Hitler if he was nice to him? Do you have a theory on why he _would_? Are you presuming Hitler to be so personally charismatic that people would vote for him because they think he would be fun to have a beer with, _knowing_ everything he did? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462/20 "2010-04-08T23:19:50Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Really? You don’t understand? Are you being obtuse? Actually, you’re being incomprehensible. Seriously. No offense, but I’m having to try and _tease_ your points out of you. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-character/535462.md?page=2)