A Few Right Synonyms

I asked Google for the meaning of the word right– in the sense of doing the right thing. This is what it brought up:

Adjective: morally good, justified, or acceptable.

Synonyms: just, fair, equitable, good, upright, righteous, virtuous, proper, moral, morally justified, ethical, honorable, honest, principled

What a lot of synonyms, I thought. The word must really be important to mankind for them to find so many nuances to being right. I have a mental image of someone (synonym: YOU) rushing around madly to build a pen around a bunch of frisky sheep. You flop exhausted to the ground after managing to erect a secure enough pen, only to find the ram-headed sheep frolic out all over the mountains in a trice. Whoa!

Turns out you only penned yourself in! What a bore (synonym: laugh)!

People don’t do what they do because they think they are wrong. They do it because they know they are right. They are convinced that they are just, fair, equitable, good, upright, righteous, virtuous, proper, moral, morally justified, ethical, honorable, honest and principled. To say nothing of being veracious to a fault. They do; you do.

What seems wrong (Adjective: unjust, dishonest, or immoral. Synonyms: unethical, immoral, morally wrong, bad, wicked, base, evil, sinful, foul, despicable, iniquitous, nefarious, blameworthy, condemnable, culpable) to you, is not wrong to me. You may think I am daft at best and sinful at worst, but I don’t agree. I am just right.

Lets say we have a large ball between us. From where I sit, the ball is red. From where you sit, it is blue. We can argue until the cows come home and go out again, but the ball will keep looking red and blue to us. Unless you are willing to walk over to my side or to gently and lovingly coax me to walk over to yours, there will never be any consensus between us.

Yes, the onus of being sensible is upon you. You have to walk over to my side or to woo me over to yours while I call you all kinds of names (synonym: fool). Since we both know that you’ll be damned if you’ll let me put upon you in that manner, a war is a foregone conclusion. See what your obdurate stubbornness (informal synonym: pigheaded) is bringing us to? I hope you’re ashamed (synonym: contrite) of yourself!

After we’ve shot each other down and are both on the verge of breathing our last, a wise soul will enter stage left. This wise soul will take off my red spectacles and your blue ones so that we can both take a last look at the white ball before we die. Perfect ending to a tale which was doomed to be grisly (synonym: futile), don’t you think?

Every person has their own model of the world. When one is wearing colored spectacles, everything looks the same color. Before you scoff at someone else for letting their model of the world be defined by the color of their lenses, maybe you should pass a hand over your eyes and touch your own. It wouldn’t resolve anything; they would still annoyingly (synonym: stupidly) say the red ball is blue, but it would surely make you a lot more tolerant.

Do you think acceptance should also be a synonym of right?

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Disclaimer: The synonyms given herein are the author’s own. They may or may not be accurate (synonym: veracious). Any damage resulting from the use of the same- to life, property or ego- is the reader’s own responsibility. The author is not to be blamed for the reader’s rank (synonym: revolting) laziness (synonym: slothfulness) of not researching stuff before rushing off to use it!