By Slanted Light

Hmmn. I suppose that's the trouble with ideals, they get all grey and fuzzy around the edges, especially when taken out of context. I suppose that goes back to the whole il/liberal thing too.

A loyal friend, bravely defending someone from attack? Sounds great. But what if that someone was a known murderer? Still okay perhaps - surely attack is wrong no matter who its against. Except that's not true either, it depends on the motives. Its the police attacking, to try and arrest a murderer, and the friend is also a murderer..? They might do it again? So is the loyalty, the bravery, still commendable? Well, actually perhaps it is, we just might see it as misplaced. I suppose maybe that's what I meant by "higher" ideals. So now we have murk and levels! Yes, your example - Bush being loyal to Bolton: no problem on a personal level, but if it were at the expense of other people, the world, then no longer a good thing. I suppose everything has to be placed in context to make any sense of it at all... and then its only our own sense it'll ever make.

You made me think tho' (well, clearly after all this!) when you described those as Bodie's ideals - they're actually things that I place very highly too, well certainly loyalty and friendship, but I've never consciously thought of them as ideals. I suppose I thought they were too basic somehow for that. Except that they could be lost on more than a personal level too - a totalitarian government that forces a choice between loyalty to friends and a person's own life, for example. When people live in fear of having friends for the choices they would have to make. Perhaps this is exactly what Bodie fights for...