What's Happening to Decency?

"I'm trying not to let my personal failings get in the way of work". Yesterday on CCN I heard beleaguered Congressman Anthony Weiner claim that his personal problems are just that, personal, and that he wants a cooling off period from public life. Sounds like the only talk track he has left to play out and one that he hopes might give him some breathing room. The pundits are nit-nattering over self-aggrandizement and sex addiction and invulnerability. Personally, I think he was thinking that he was just entitled to have some fun, even if the rest of us think he has pretty serious problems with boundaries and respect.

But do regular people make similar (if less publicly disastrous) mistakes in assuming that we are protected in our internet communications?

Whether it's a REALTOR® ranting against clients (or banks, or appraisers, or other REALTORs®) in an Active Rain "Member's Only" blog post, or slinging sex chat on Facebook, otherwise intelligent people somehow believe that their communications over the internet are private. How can people think that? Anything written, or any image created electronically, can so easily be sent 'round the world.

I believe that people acting in any position of public trust, and where they act as representatives of a group of people or professionals, have an obligation to keep their unpleasant behavior from negatively impacting other people in that group. In a nutshell, one person's desire for self-expression does not supersede another person's desire for respect.

Whether we're REALTORS®, loan officers, home inspectors or stagers, we hope that most of our colleagues behave well in acting in their professional and their personal lives. Of course the various Code of Ethics controls professional activities, but what has happened to a personal code of conduct regardless of what a trade organization tells you to do or not do?

Is it "fair" that we are judged by others? Basically, t's part of what makes us humans. We ask group members to act in way that doesn't hurt other people. Every society has different standards, and so do different groups in each society. Most of us do want to live in places where basic standards of decency are maintained, so that we can all exist in the same place and get on with our lives.

The fact is that one person's desire for self-expression, like texting personal photos or verbally assaulting other people, has limits if it negatively impacts other people.  Whether the activities are illegal or not, a gradual dumbing down of standards -- where we are forced to encounter and ignore crudities -- simply diminishes us as human beings.

 

 

 

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This post was written by Leslie Ebersole of Baird & Warner Real Estate.
leslie.ebersole@bairdwarner.com
(630)945-7935

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