I've done a lot of thinking over the last few weeks about behaviors and modeling. Partly, I owe gratitude to these thoughts for a series of lectures to which I'm listening that deal with how to be a good parent. No, I am not expecting any children, but I figure it's never to early to learn what you can about things that interest you. I found some interesting general principles about role-modeling and why people do what they do as a consequence of the rolemodels they see.
Basically, most of the modelling out there in the world is duplicitous. We demand things of people that we are not willing or able to do ourselves. We learn that duplicity is the way the world works based on what adults model to us. The same parents that sometimes tell us to be celibate, temperant, patient, and compassionate, are themselves people who were promiscuous, addicted to chemicals, demanding, and selfish. Take for example the parent who tells us to love our neighbor while yelling at us or who impresses upon us the importance of respecting the law while speeding on the freeway or cheating on their taxes.
It has been said that "I cannot hear what you're saying because your behavior drowns you out". There is a good reason why people doubt the faith of certain people or why they do not take counsel, because the behavior must match the rhetoric. Many of our leaders demand behaviors of us they are not able to do; the rules don't apply to them, which is why we resist their premise, and some of them decide to become tyrants and force our hand and hearts.
Then there are parents who do not attempt to encourage proper behavior because they are not good examples. I disagree with this. Just because you have made a mistake does not mean you have not or cannot learn from it abnd become a better person. If your past always dictates and forces future behavior, then people cannot be made better because they cannot make themselves better, in which case all of the models for utopia are also impossible.
This is where religion comes in. In the lectures, I heard scripture broken down into two words: True Scripts. Scriptures tell us what true behaviors or models we should follow. They know that we won't be perfect, which is why we have need of a Savior, but they are there to show us how we ought to be and encourage us to do so by telling us about people who were true to the truth. The scriptures also show us the folly of forcing behavior. Too often, we attempt to enact the Father's will using the Adversary's methods. We try to force people to live well, or to live the way we think they ought to. Any time we treat people as objects rather than agents, we risk becoming proud, and we open ourselves to be treated with reciprocal disregard for our will as we suppress the will of others around us.
Many people labor under the misbegotten notion that they can talk their way out of a situation caused by their behavior. Several years ago, a girl I really liked who rejected me harshly attempted to reboot a friendship with me. The problem was that she wanted to pretend as if nothing bad had ever happened, or in other words she wanted me to license her bad behavior. I knew that would only hurt both of us. I told her to prove that she really wanted me as a friend, which she never did, and that is why I treat her today as the stranger she has earned the right to be. People want their aberrant and abhorrent behavior to be ok.
Sometimes, even as they seek permission for their behavior, they attempt to deny you the reciprocal right to live as you please. People like this don't want anyone telling them what they can or can't do, regardless of subject. However, they want to be able to tell me that I have to deal with whatever they desire to do. They want to be free to fornicate in public but be allowed to deny me the right to pray publicly privately. They don't care about me or what I think. I have to suck it up, but they may do whatever they like whenever they like for whatever reason they imagine.
In reality, what this means is that children learn that the way to succeed to to live duplicitously. We learn that it's ok to be expedient, as prophesied of old:
And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.
They also talk about Karma, but Karma only round trips to the detriment of people who offend them. It's not ok in their minds for Karma to exact retribution for their duplicitous modelling.
This is really the root of why it is important to live well. We live in a world where the New Morality says, "You only live once, so live it up" rather than "You only live once, so live well". Our morality has become like our gas stations, and everything has become self-service. It is no wonder that there is war, confusion, hatred, selfishness, and all manner of lasciviousness. We learn to say one thing and do another, and too many people are rewarded or at least protected for it. In the end, you reap what you sow; wickedness never was happiness; it was never intended to be left to chance. That wouldn't be 'fair' or 'equal', something the same people who demand license absolutely insist apply to them. If they are right, it also applies to us, no matter how duplicitous they may act.
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