Expressing Values, who is the most distasteful?

[Suzanne]

This is an exercise I was asked to participate in recently, and found it very interesting, so I thought I would share. And I am curious to see how people rank these characters. I participated in this exercise with a group of people, and the discussion that followed became quite heated as people felt very strongly about their decisions.

Below you will find a story. After reading the story rank the individuals in the story in order, with the person you find the most distasteful first, to the person you find the least distasteful last.

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Abigail who was in love with a man named Gregory. Gregory lived on the shore of a river. Abigail lived on the opposite shore of the river. The river that seperated the two lovers was teeming with man-eating alligators. Abigail wanted to cross the river to be with Gregory. Unfortunately, the bridge had been washed out. So she went to ask Sinbad, the riverboat captain, to take her across. He said he would be glad to if she would consent to go to bed with him preceeding the voyage. She promptly refused and went to a friend named Ivan to explain her plight. Ivan did not want to be involved in the situation. Abigail felt her only alternative was to accept Sinbad's terms. Sinbad fulfilled his promise to Abigail and delivered her into the arms of Gregory.

When she told Gregory about her amourous escapade in order to cross the river, Gregory cast her aside with distain. Heartsick and dejected, Abigail turned to Slug with her tale of woe. Slug, feeling compassion for Abigail, sought out Gregory and beat him brutally. Abigail was overjoyed at the sight of Gregory getting his due. As the sun sets on the horizon, we hear Abigail laughing at Gregory.

How would you rank these characters, who is the most distasteful?
Who is the least distasteful? And why? This exercise was created to determine what personal values you hold most dear.

[johnson1010]

Abigail
She is impetuous, demanding, and vengeful. Had she waited another opportunity to cross the river may have been presented to her. Instead she insisted on crossing the river NOW, and as a result accepted a terrible deal for passage. After being rejected by Gregory, she did nothing to stop Slug from beating him.

Slug
Slug over reacted in a major way and attacked the wrong person entirely. Not that anyone should have been attacked in this scenario. These were all consenting adults who made choices. If Slug decided he needed to beat anyone for Abigail's honor, it should have been Sinbad, who used her and took advantage of a woman who perceived her desire to cross as some desperate need.

Sinbad
No doubt, Sinbad is a giant ass. It cost him nothing, really, to ferry her across the river, yet he demanded an exploitive price because he knew he was the only game in town, currently. Though it was a D-bag thing to do, he did present this deal to her well ahead of time and she had the opportunity to refuse his offer and she could have gone the rest of her life without falling prety to him. Had he demanded this mid-trip, with no warning ahead of time, or tried to take her by force, he would have been much higher on the list.

Gregory
Gregory is almost blameless. Nothing in the story indicates that Gregory encouraged her to cross the river, or showed her any interest in a relationship. It isn't his fault that she made a foolish choice for a possible chance at a relationship with Gregory. He should have shown her sympathy, and pitty for her foolish choices, but he was not obligated to be her mate simply because she went to lengths to get him. Conversely, if it had been a man who crossed the river, lets say by swimming, and had his hand bitten off, if the woman on the other side rejected him, she is not to blame for his missing hand.

Ivan
Ivan is not to blame. She was aware of her choices and knew it was a bad deal. It did not go into detail what Ivan's relationship to Abigail was. She should have worked with Ivan, learned how to build a boat and sailed across on her own without having to degrade herself.

[Suzanne]

I agree with you on Abigail, she instigates the whole episode. She could have waited for the bridge to be repaired.

However, I put Ivan at number two. He is her friend. He should have been more helpful to her. He should have cared.

Slug is number three. His actions are just disgraceful.

Sinbad, is number four. Yes is he a jerk, but there are lots of jerks in the world. He was just looking out for number one.

Gregory is last, he was as you say blameless. I do not blame him for feeling the way he did over Abigails actions.

[johnson1010]

The way i took it was not that Gregory was mad that she took such a terrible deal to cross the river, for all we know she was in love with him, but he didn't even know who she was.

[Interbane]

Sinbad is most, holding emotions hostage with demands of sexual favors.

Abigail next, with her selfish wrongs only slightly excused by her decisions being clouded by love.

Slug after, getting involved where he shouldn't have.

Gregory next, in his inability to find forgiveness for Abigail, even though she acted terribly.

Ivan last, guilt by inaction. He could have defended the concept of love as it was held hostage by Sinbad.

[geo]

I just turned this into a writing exercise for my Eng Comp class.

[Interbane]

I'd like to hear an analysis of my values. What value do I hold most dear according to my response? I'm curious.

[Suzanne]

I'd like to hear an analysis of my values. What value do I hold most dear according to my response? I'm curious.

Since you chose Sinbad as the most distasteful, you cherish the value of integrity the most, and since you chose Ivan as the least distasteful, you cherish loyalty the least, according to the exercise. Integrity is a moral value and loyalty is a cognitive value.

Abigail represents self control- moral
Gregory represents forgiveness- moral
Slug represents politeness -cognitive

What is interesting about this exercise is; personal values are chosen, and are fluid, they can change due to circumstances. For instance, if you were caring for a terminally ill loved one, loyality may become more important to you.

I have three teenagers, so self control is big on my list of values. In five years, when they are all starting their own lives and are more mature, the importance of this value may change.

This exercise is best done within a group of people. The object is; yes we hold our values dear, but those values can change due to circumstances in our lives. If ten people were to complete this exercise it is possible, and likely that there would be 10 different responses even though all 10 possess all five of these values.

The moral: Don't judge people due to their personal values and which ones they hold the most dear, because you do not know what circumstances they may be going through.

I participated in this exercise during a domestic violence advocacy program. We did it first on our own, then we were placed in groups. We had to all agree how to place the characters, it was almost imposible. Each one of us had to compromise on someone, and it wasn't easy. This shows how important our values are. One young girl got so upset that we placed Abigail first, she left our group.

[Chris OConnor]

#1 Slug
Slug used physical violence and to me this is the most distasteful. If everyone resorted to physically attacking other people this would be a pretty scary and uncivilized world. And he attacked Gregory for no reason too. Scary stuff. She cheats on Gregory, Gregory then rejects her, so Gregory gets his ass beat?

#2 Abigail
Abigail is a pretty rotten person for encouraging and allowing Slug to slug Gregory. Her infidelity is of course distasteful, but according to studies a large percentage of people cheat on their significant others. Very few people encourage or allow one person to beat up another person, independent of what that person did wrong. In civilized society physical violence will get you time behind bars while infidelity will not.

Again, it is the physical assault that I find the most distasteful. People can heal from emotional trauma but physical altercations can lead to great injury or even death. No man should fear for his physical safety in a civilized world.

#3 Sinbad
I don't consider what Sinbad did as hugely distasteful. He owns the boat and can charge whatever he wants for passage. (assuming there are no laws protecting Abigail's right to passage) The guy was horny and an opportunist. How many women haven't been propositioned like this for sex at some point or another in their lives? Heck, I've been offered money on numerous occasions to have sex with both men and women. (years ago and no I didn't do it) This is a very common male behavior and while it is distasteful it doesn't compare to physically attacking someone or encouraging someone to attack another person.

#4 Ivan
Mildly distasteful. Abigail went to Ivan asking for his advice. Perhaps Ivan doesn't consider consensual sex between adults to be that big of a deal. So he said to Abigail this is your choice. I don't want to be involved. Ivan may be her friend but friendship doesn't obligate you to be a therapist or to get involved in every dispute of your friends. What was Ivan supposed to do? Go beat up Sinbad for "asking" for sex?

Abigail was given a choice of having sex or not. She made the choice of her own free will.

[johnson1010]

Damn, Chris.

You must be one sexy beast!

I have had girls put the moves on me, but none of them wanted to pay me for it. Well, hey. Maybe they would have paid me, but i never held out that long in the negotiations. Haha.