Dear Prudence: Moral DIsagreements

[minoanmiss]

How do I respond to a person doing something I morally disagree with that they are very excited about? I’ve found myself in many conversations over the past year where acquaintances, coworkers, distant family, or other not-close friends give me an update that makes me uncomfortable.

Examples include: “I’m visiting Hawaii during a drought,” “I’m trying to adopt a baby and fighting the birth mother for custody,” and “I’m going on a mission trip to Uganda to convert people to Christianity.” These are all things I don’t super agree with, but the person speaking often sees as positive or totally innocent. Do I just say good luck? Do I share my concerns? I feel like a self-righteous buzzkill if I react honestly, and like I’m silently endorsing their actions if I don’t.

—Paralyzed By Politeness

Dear Paralyzed,

This is hard to answer because it’s not about the words you say in conversation. It’s about the relationship you want to have with people who do things that you find morally objectionable. And only you can make the calculation about where certain actions fall on the “I would have made a different choice” to “Wow, you’re actually a force for evil and I don’t want to be close to you” spectrum in your mind. I’m guessing that a friend making a poor choice for the environment in a world where we could all stand to interrogate our actions might not rise to the same level as someone committing to a legal fight that you see as seriously hurting a specific child. But I don’t know! Either way, here is your guide.

If you think what the person is doing is so messed up that it makes you question whether you even really want to be friends with them: “Wow, that actually sounds kind of wrong to me!”

If you disagree with the action but not enough that it changes your opinion of the person or your desire to have a relationship with them: “Wow, how long will the flight be?”

Comments

[minoanmiss]

If I told my coworker who was excited about her son's missionary trip that I thought missionary work is abhorrent and shouldn't be done in the modern world, I might end up getting hauled into HR.

You have a good point there. Also, this is the kind of advice about context about which I think Prudence should have gone into more detail.

Current Friend is to the left of me (in ways I admire) let alone Former Friend. Current Friend has also had a lot of stress (everything from multiple family members dying recently to being a woman of reproductive age in these United States) and I'm not sure how productive heaping this on her would be of me to do. If she hasn't discussed politics with Former Friend that may well be a deliberate decision on her part that I shouldn't challenge.

[azurelunatic]

In this specific situation, it's probably not ethically neutral but I think a sensible path would be to say to Current Friend, "I know you might not have picked up on it, but Former Friend and I have drifted apart since January 6th 2021 due to political differences." There's a lot of subtext there, but it doesn't explicitly hit the details of what kind of Terrible FF has drifted into. And then feel your way towards whether Current Friend wants more details about that, or whether that's more than CF wanted to know.

[minoanmiss]

*takes notes* Thank you :)