Microblog Memes

This is a real problem we're facing.

It's part of the overarching authoritarian worldview, that fear of consequences from someone above you on the food chain is the primary motivation for anyone to be "good".

The problem comes from it being extremely time consuming to explain how "being good" benefits you personally, even if all possibility of consequences are removed. Essentially you have to explain the entire concept of the word "honor" to them. What are the benefits of being honorable, and how do these benefits (for you personally) outweigh the benefits of being dishonorable?

But if someone wasn't raised that way, then it really does need to be explained to them. Otherwise it's unrealistic to expect them to just somehow figure it out for themselves.

edit for grammar

edit2: To elaborate a little bit, the benefit of honor boils down to efficiency and the advantages of cooperation. People can perceive patterns, and when someone is dishonorable, even if people won't come attack them somehow, they'll still be reluctant to ever cooperate with that person. An honorable person thus has far more resources from their community that they can draw on in the pursuit of their own personal goals. In addition, it simplifies their lives. Instead of having to, say, track the lies you've told so you don't mess up and create inconsistencies, if you live honorably you free up all that energy to devote to your goals in other ways.

Note, my summary argument is not overly compelling just on its own. I had to boil it down too much to make it a reasonable length. You need many examples, or preferably actual life experience on how it works, for the argument to actually become somewhat convincing.