from ChaoticFate.com by qew
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http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-do-good-guys-always-win-in.html
Recently I've been reading through the ancient Chinese philosophers Mencius and Xunzi. And whenever I do, I'm struck by their repeated, seemingly Pollyannish, insistence that following the rules of morality will lead one to wealth and political success while breaking those rules will bring disaster. Their aim in saying such things is to win the hearts of vicious princes over to the path of morality.
Now maybe it's true that virtue pays better than vice in the long run -- that there's something paradoxically self-defeating about greed and something paradoxically profitable in self-sacrifice -- but that empirical question isn't what's troubling me now. The issue I want to raise is: Why is it so rare (except in the most subtle adult literature and film) to portray a virtuous protagonist as losing out because of her virtue, while still conveying the message that it's a good thing to be virtuous? (Minor characters are allowed to suffer for their virtue.)
Consider the end of Saving Private Ryan. The platoon shows mercy on a captured German, letting him go rather than executing him. The German comes back and kills one of them in a later battle. The audience seems invited to the conclusion that it was a mistake to have let him go, because of this bad consequence. The audience isnot drawn to the conclusion (I think) that letting him go had been the right thing to do and simply had a bad outcome. Now maybe it was a mistake to let him go. Maybe it wasn't all things considered the right thing to do. But it doesn't seem to me that the fact that he comes back to do harm should close the question from the point of view of the narrative. And yet it does.
One might worry that incorporating the "virtue pays" structure so deeply into our morality tales risks teaching children that if virtue doesn't pay, it isn't really virtue. If we really want to inculcate an ethos of self-sacrifice and a willingness to do what's right regardless of the consequences, why don't we offer tales in which the protagonist may suffer or be rewarded for her virtuous behavior, but is admired nonetheless?
Now, I respect folk traditions of moral teaching enough to think that morality tales have the structure they do for excellent reason, and I have some preliminary thoughts about why that might be, but this seems to me a question that deserves more attention than it gets in treatments of moral education.
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When we're teaching children morality, we tell them tales of virtue and self-sacrifice where -- virtually always -- the person who was virtuous and self-sacrificing ends up better off materially in the end the person who is greedy and grasping. Whatever sacrifice the protagonist makes, whatever goal is not pursued due to moral qualms, is more than compensated in the end. The good guy refuses to cheat but wins the fight. Cinderella gets the prince. Virtue pays -- in golden coin!
Recently I've been reading through the ancient Chinese philosophers Mencius and Xunzi. And whenever I do, I'm struck by their repeated, seemingly Pollyannish, insistence that following the rules of morality will lead one to wealth and political success while breaking those rules will bring disaster. Their aim in saying such things is to win the hearts of vicious princes over to the path of morality.
Now maybe it's true that virtue pays better than vice in the long run -- that there's something paradoxically self-defeating about greed and something paradoxically profitable in self-sacrifice -- but that empirical question isn't what's troubling me now. The issue I want to raise is: Why is it so rare (except in the most subtle adult literature and film) to portray a virtuous protagonist as losing out because of her virtue, while still conveying the message that it's a good thing to be virtuous? (Minor characters are allowed to suffer for their virtue.)
Consider the end of Saving Private Ryan. The platoon shows mercy on a captured German, letting him go rather than executing him. The German comes back and kills one of them in a later battle. The audience seems invited to the conclusion that it was a mistake to have let him go, because of this bad consequence. The audience isnot drawn to the conclusion (I think) that letting him go had been the right thing to do and simply had a bad outcome. Now maybe it was a mistake to let him go. Maybe it wasn't all things considered the right thing to do. But it doesn't seem to me that the fact that he comes back to do harm should close the question from the point of view of the narrative. And yet it does.
One might worry that incorporating the "virtue pays" structure so deeply into our morality tales risks teaching children that if virtue doesn't pay, it isn't really virtue. If we really want to inculcate an ethos of self-sacrifice and a willingness to do what's right regardless of the consequences, why don't we offer tales in which the protagonist may suffer or be rewarded for her virtuous behavior, but is admired nonetheless?
Now, I respect folk traditions of moral teaching enough to think that morality tales have the structure they do for excellent reason, and I have some preliminary thoughts about why that might be, but this seems to me a question that deserves more attention than it gets in treatments of moral education.
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