Question Why students checking facebook on class are regarded disrespectful, while a professor who checks his facebook on a symposium as another professor is reading his paper is said to be cute and cool？ Are there absolute boundaries between righteous and evil, right and wrong?

Accepted:
June 28, 2010

Comments

I wouldn't regard such a Facebook-checking colleague as "cute and cool". Besides the fact that wanting to check a Facebook page already disqualifies one from being cool, it is disrespectful. I don't allow my students to use computers, cell phones, etc. during class, and if I were organizing a conference I'd strongly discourage those in the audience from doing so as well.

These are two very different questions-- First, I would not regard the Facebook checking prof as cool. Going on to your computer while someone is giving a seminar or talk is just disrespectful. I doubt our Facebook checking prof would take kindly to someone doing the same to her as she delivered a talk that she had been working on for months.

As for your other monumental question, I would suggest that while there are some acts that are clearly always wrong, there are many that might be wrong in one context and not so in another. Lying is generally wrong but if you are doing it to save an innocent life or lives? The term "boundary" is of course a metaphor that would need to be unpacked to answer your question but on the face of it (another metaphor) I don't think there is an absolute boundary between right and wrong such that we can say of every act- this one is on the righteous side- this evil. Thanks