Double Standards
I often think about double standards. Sometimes I think about the standards we apply to others, often without their knowledge, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. Sometimes we look at others with disapproval, criticizing their behavior or their thinking. Usually when we do that, we're saying, at least implicitly, that those others don't meet our standards for them. In those situations, it's perhaps better to help them create their own standards and help them to meet them. I also think about expectations we have for ourselves and about the higher standards we sometimes apply to ourselves. We also don't want to become excessively self-critical. The higher our standards the more likely we'll sometimes fail to meet them. But lately I've been thinking about those who apply lower standards to themselves, who adhere to the notion that they are exempt from the standards they apply to others, from the standards society applies to others. We see it in politics, in business, in many aspects of life.
The occasion for thinking about this has been the wave of business executives facing prison for various misdeeds. These executives have enjoyed the best material rewards our society offers, they have often been acclaimed as business geniuses, yet they didn't live up to the standards our society requires, standards of honesty, in some cases standards of common decency. I believe these are cases of double standards: These executives believed that the rules, the standards intended to be applicable to everyone, didn't apply to them.
At one level, the people who believe this, who act in this way, hurt only themselves. Generally, these people end up rejecting all standards. In effect, they reject the notion of standards. Everything becomes situational: If they feel like doing something, they do it without regard to consequences. They end up without standards of their own and they are heedless of the consequences of their behavior. Sometimes, they even resent others who have and try to maintain standards of their own.
On another level, however, they hurt all of us in a variety of ways. They confuse us about standards. Since many of these people are superficially successful, they make us question our own standards and society's standards. Since there appear to be no consequences to their low standards or rejection of standards, others begin to wonder if high standards are useful. Also, even if we maintain high standards, their scorn for standards causes us to be defensive about our own standards. But worst of all, they contribute in a meaningful way to the general decline in standards that plagues our society. Everyone who rejects standards, who applies lower standards to him or herself, or indeed to anyone, lowers standards. Little by little, people who refuse to apply high standards to themselves lower the standards of everyone. The more they succeed, even if they succeed only in avoiding standards, the harder it becomes for the rest of us to maintain our own standards.
We must maintain our own high standards and ignore those who scoff at our standards. If we can set an example, we may even convince them to raise their own standards and that will help us all.
8-22-05
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