Learning to act right, and some right actions (2)… what’s a right action?

Learning to act right, and some right actions (2)… what's a right action?
Torrey Orton
February 24, 2010


Compare Tiger Woods apology and our government's apology to the Stolen Generations. Which one is a model of right action? The Woods event is the most recent of a series of high profile apologies in the US – a couple of governors, a mightabeen presidential candidate, a rapper - all remarked for their variable credibility. Rudd's statement was well received at the time, but the follow-up is seen to be patchy on various fronts. Which will we remember – the performance action or the action performance?


Acting right is where doing the right thing takes form and is turned into action out of right intention. Often the fulfilment of one's intentions depends on their recognisability to others. This is why understanding of one's own and others' cultures is essential.

For example, a Chinese laugh in a moment of seriousness may be a recognition of that seriousness by them while being felt as clumsiness, if not insult, by Westerners. It is a laugh whose other face may be anger at having been put without warning in such an emotionally unguarded position as exposure to others' anger, damage, hurt, etc.


Manners and politenesses are traditionally the facilitators of respect for ourselves and others. As such, they are the leading edge of right action in many situations. Some of us disregard them for their repetitive and unimaginative forms, justifying our disregard by the ease of their dissimulation in formalities. In multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial societies like ours, the opportunity for misinterpretation of actions is large, and the underlying awareness of this is part of what fires worry about foreigners, whoever they may be for us.



Social formulas of ethical competence


Acting right is doing what we should do under certain conditions – the 'right thing' we all know about implicitly, though often through its absence. Right actions are the media of doing the right thing. They are social formulas of ethical competence, failing which we may not actually do the right thing. These formulas provide the clarity (its specific object(s)) and credibility (the intent) of action(s). Their authenticity arises from their personal character expressed in tone, pace, rhythm and volume.


We now know anew what's always been known – that humans have a capacity for being in the minds of others. This is a capacity for a kind of action at a distance by intrinsic understanding of another's situation and the typical intentions and reactions that are humanly appropriate to it. This is the neurological foundation of ethics and observational learning. While exciting to the neuroscientists, and re-affirming to other humans, this discovery has always been implicit in the basic ideas of individual and social formation, deformation and reformation. We need action models to embody our collective understanding of what's right. This includes, of course, when the models are wrong, which is where this venture started for me.


'How do we learn 'right action'?'


The main source of right actions is the live or virtual (theatre, film, TV, etc.) modelling of others, mined by observing them in action. We have a two-handed word for this - witnessing – through which we express the possibility that to witness another's action is also to give witness to it. Witnessing partners with giving an account to make a complete version of events. Giving an account of oneself provides deep interpretive meaning through thorough picturing of the context(s) and complexities of an event. From this fact arises much of our constant dissatisfaction with the two dimensional reporting of many public media.


The flight simulator training standard revisited

 As I said recently, we live in times where it is regularly proposed that ethical lapses or outrages can be prevented by training courses for companies and ethics units in MBAs. Consider by contrast what training really means for serious skill acquisition – the flight simulator in which pilots are regularly and persistently grilled in high pressure challenges. Perhaps learning to act right can be speeded up with some simulator-lite training. But to the level of automatic competence which must underlie ethical reliability? …that's another thing.


Or, consider how much video time it takes to represent one man's ethical growth in late life arising from the pressure of his standards on his prejudices – see Gran Torino if you haven't yet. The exposure to models required to build our standards and prejudices is a lifetime's task for all of us. And then we have to field test them in unpredicted, as well as foreseen, conflicts of appropriate (and, eventually, inappropriate) degrees of difficulty. The learning cannot be done if we are protected from potential failure. The fact that there's a legal distinction between adult and child reflects our society's minimum expectation of the learning required to be held fully responsible and accountable for our actions – about 18 years.


Important and discretionary rule actions – times they are a changing


For a view of how what's right is changing, and how that change occurs, a look at current TV shows and films is a good starting place. These reflect and promote emerging changes in what's right, especially at the manners and protocols level of life – the points where fashion and propriety run together. Body coverings from clothing to tats are a steady study in this run.


But it is not only fashion that's changing. Foundations are, too, as we discover that ethical options are conditioned by material circumstances. Tsunami and earthquakes are type immovable circumstances. Another is shifting material resources. These lead to a kind of general social triage where life critical and sustainable (as defined by those in command) criteria are applied. We can see this happening in health care and education most obviously.


Invitation to share…again.

 Learning to act right, and some right actions will be a host to investigations of actual ethical learnings across generations, genders, cultures and a full range of classical ethical dilemmas, great and small. The following pieces in the series will be devoted to single ethical learning events. I welcome your participation by offering pieces or suggesting domains which you would like to see explored. If the theme develops I see a publication not far off. In the interim, thanks to a discussion with one prospective contributor, I may start a new blog, or wiki, devoted solely to ethical learning matters and resources. Or, we may start it!