Morality & Kintypes/Theriotypes

Morals, as the dictionary defines them, are principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct.
As the changing moral codes of generations as well as the differences as to what is morally correct or incorrect by location attest to, morals are not something unchangeable or innate but something flexible and evolving.
From a sociological, psychological, and evolutionary standpoint, it appears that our morals are a part of our social structure as pack animals more than anything else. It's immoral to rape and murder because of the affect that that would have on our society and it's ability to thrive if not merely survive and since we are pack animals and thus dependent on society for our personal survival, anything that harms society harms us.
So why am I going over this.

Well, since human morals are a product of the human being's existence, it stands to reason that other beings that differ in any way from humans would have some difference in their moral code.
For instance, a phoenix might not see what the problem with suicide is, or a being that lives for hundreds of years might view breeding/parenting differently than we do.. etc... etc... etc...
The possible differences are endless really.

So the questions/discussion topics, as vague as they are, are as follows:
-What difference (or similarity), if any, do you believe is between the morals of your kintype and the morals of man?
-What do you base that on? (memories, logic, intuition?)
-Does that difference (or similarity) spill over into your current life, and how? (Do you find any current human morals, that you're expected to follow, difficult to understand/grasp/follow, etc.. )
-Have you considered that perhaps your kintype/theriotype is a result of an inability to follow/grasp/respect the human morals you're expected to follow (or the lack there of)? (Psychological tool for grokking your difference from your fellow man.)

And please, feel free to add any/all other thoughts you have on the matter.

Miniar Wrote:-What difference (or similarity), if any, do you believe is between the morals of your kintype and the morals of man?

Good question. I see "right" and "wrong" as utterly relative. What is "right" to one individual or one society isn't necessarily "right" to another. As my kintype I'm not really expected to have individual sense of morals. I exist for a purpose, I'm "wired" for that purpose. I have opinions and I have free will, but there isn't really a point to morality is what I guess I'm trying to get at.

Miniar Wrote:-What do you base that on? (memories, logic, intuition?)

Logic and intuition more than anything else. The memoreis I do have don't really touch on morals.

Miniar Wrote:-Does that difference (or similarity) spill over into your current life, and how? (Do you find any current human morals, that you're expected to follow, difficult to understand/grasp/follow, etc.. )

I'd say so. I can tell you what's "wrong" based on societal norms, but I don't see a point to the system to be completely honest. People strive to stick everything into a category based on some notion of shared human morality, when it's a giant grey area and entirely relative. So yeah, I find it a difficult concept to follow because I just don't see a purpose aside from keeping society in the "zone" it supposedly should be in. If you ask me, morality is more a way to keep society from imploding than anything else...so in that respect I see a point...I just don't get it I suppose.

Miniar Wrote:-Have you considered that perhaps your kintype/theriotype is a result of an inability to follow/grasp/respect the human morals you're expected to follow (or the lack there of)?

Yes and no. I don't find human morals hard to respect or follow. I do it just fine, I just don't see a point to any of it aside from keeping me out of jail <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

I'll go with the teal deer version: All of our cultural differences can be explained as the result of influences upon us in this lifetime. They are also more adaptive for the abusive environment in which we were raised and the effects of depression. This is a big part of the reason why we've entertained the possibility that being Otherkin and all of the memories we bundle in with that are simply allegorical.

-Val

I suppose I would have to be given a situation in order to tell whether I match society's ideas of what's moral. There are things that society finds immoral that I'm fine with, at least in theory. And there are things that I find immoral that many people I meet don't bat an eye at. And what I feel is immoral personally is often a lot more stringent than what I feel is immoral for people around me. Whether these differences are somehow genetic, cultural (within my family itself), or something to do with being Kin, I don't know.

My morals are flexible and often incongruous with those of the society in which I live but that's because of my life here and who I am now.
Asteroi don't have any, as far as I can tell. There's no distinction between right and wrong, and they don't generally think of themselves as active forces in the universe, they function primarily on instinct, and definitely don't contemplate the consequences of their actions. XD

I figure it's time I give my answers...

-What difference (or similarity), if any, do you believe is between the morals of your kintype and the morals of man?
There was a lot of difference, but I can't pin down all of the exacts.
See, as an "illegal" bastard "half and half" I didn't have any socialization with either one of the societies my "parents" came from.

What I do know is that I wasn't human. We weren't human.
We didn't have the same lifespan, origin, purpose, social structure, etc.. etc.. etc.. etc...
And any one of these little differences would have an impact on morals.

I was born almost fully grown. There was no "youth". There were no children. There was rebirth as full beings.
Without children there's no need for nurturing instincts.
The dead were reborn. Death wasn't permanent. Without permanent death, there can be no murder. Fear of death is moot.
And without fear of death, fear of pain is pretty moot too.
Pain is something that indicates that there's damage happening to your body and that if said damage is not stopped/repaired, the body may suffer permanent consequences and possible death. But if death isn't a permanent consequence, the instinct to stop pain would at least eventually fade.

All of this just refers to the Rakshasa, I have no idea what kind of life my "mother's" side had.

It seems apparent that when these vast differences are at play that "morals" must differ quite a bit.
I know that my existence was considered "wrong" somehow, probably in par because in a race of beings that can, via reincarnation, live forever, "more" individuals aren't actually desired.. but mostly because of the "rules" that Kali had imprinted on them when she made them that should have prevented any creation of individuals at all.
I know that violence wan't considered wrong or bad, and that love was blunt, sharp, harsh.
Sex was a tool for bringing back the dead and it was a case of violent and brutal rape every time, but that's okay, it was for love of one's brother that one would rend the flesh of one's other brother and force hir to take a female form so you could rape hir so one's dead brother could be reborn.

-What do you base that on? (memories, logic, intuition?)
All of the above actually.

-Does that difference (or similarity) spill over into your current life, and how? (Do you find any current human morals, that you're expected to follow, difficult to understand/grasp/follow, etc.. )
I believe it does, to some extent, still effect my view of morality.
I don't find death to be scary.
Blood's beautiful and pain makes my skin crawl in a very pleasant way (as both a giving and a receiving party)
I don't understand what difference genitals makes in a romantic attraction to another person.
I would happily cannibalize another person with minimal encouragement and don't understand why it's so "wrong" in the eyes of most people.
And the list just goes on much the same.

I guess the shorter version is...
Pain and mortality just don't seem to be as big a deal to me as it is to most other people.
BUT.
I have no problem following the rules none the less.
I don't need to do things my way.
I have enough healthy fear of imprisonment and punishment to behave.
(I'm still a fair bit claustrophobic!)

-Have you considered that perhaps your kintype/theriotype is a result of an inability to follow/grasp/respect the human morals you're expected to follow (or the lack there of)? (Psychological tool for grokking your difference from your fellow man.)
I have, frequently.
After all, when I first remembered, I was dead set on it being a metaphor. A way of distancing myself from what I had been raised to think was the wrong behavior.
I consider it "yet another possible explanation" along with "coping mechanism for transsexuality", and other such psychological things.
There are still pieces of evidence that suggest that there is truth to my beliefs and while that is evidence I can probably never fully, without question, refute nor accept, I still find it suggestion enough to allow myself these beliefs. For now at least.

Not to hijack the topic but:

Moralities are different for everyone.
Something that may be ridiculous for you mightn't be ridiculous for someone else.

skorpio Wrote:Not to hijack the topic but:

Moralities are different for everyone.
Something that may be ridiculous for you mightn't be ridiculous for someone else.

I sort of made that point.

Also, I'm a little disappointed in how little people have elaborated in their replies. :/

I think I'll try giving an example then: "Murder" in all human societies is considered wrong, but what is considered murder is different in each society, and what the society does to avoid people "murdering" each other is different as well. I do not think that killing is either moral or immoral, if someone is minding their own business having nothing to do with you, killing them would be unlikely to be helpful. However, if someone attacks you, it might save your own life to assume they are trying to kill you. In which case killing them would be the right thing to do. Though if somehow killing that person minding their own business would somehow better your situation, and you believe that you could get away with attacking them, then by all means get rid of them.

As I child, I seriously contemplated slitting my father's throat while he slept, because he was overly critical of both myself and my mother and my half-brother, caused arguments about stupid things, berated me when I did something "wrong" to a point that was far out of proportion to what I did, and when not being verbally abusive was mostly away at work.

However, I cared (and still care) for my mother and my half-brother (now deceased). If I had killed my father, I probably would have been sent to some kind of children's psych ward and my brother would have been put in the custody of his mother, who wasn't the best person either. Even if somehow none of that had happened, my mother would have had a hard time raising two children by herself and life would have been more difficult without my father than with him. While he was alive I just had to find ways to avoid him. So I hoped that he would either stop yelling as he got older, divorce my mom, or actually take a swing at me so I could report him. Only the first happened, but he still needs to work on it.

I also tend to have a general outlook of "violence may not be the answer to all one's problems, but it is an answer, and it's fun." How much of this is kintype and how much is mental issues I might have, I don't know. Although, despite my violent streak, I don't tend to simply follow my emotions without thought, which has mostly kept me out of trouble.

-What difference (or similarity), if any, do you believe is between the morals of your kintype and the morals of man?

Not really sure I had morals to begin with. ;;

Let me expand on the "Not really sure I had morals to begin with" statement I made, excluding the "O.o;;" for the sake of discussion.

Morality implies that there is a right and a wrong, and that one can explain away what is right or wrong with these morals. But there is no right and wrong. Everything is, or it isn't. Potentially neither or both at the same time, etc. In order to have morals, one has to believe that there is a right, and there is a wrong, and there are actions/beliefs/thoughts/feelings/words that fall into either a right, wrong, or somewhere in between category.

This also indicates a need to justify one's morals, whether by saying everyone else does it, or by reasoning. Either way, justification wasn't something I did much before now. I didn't even reason this far. Everything was, everything is. If I did something, it was a spur of the moment thing. "Planning" and "reasoning" and "logic" need not apply. It's all too likely that's exactly why I'm here: "ooh, let's do that." Done.

Morality is a structure I have very little of, even now, in the sense that I'm likely to say one thing and do another, simply because saying that one thing, at that moment, made me look like a better person, and therefore more likely to get what I want.

Saying you're straight edge to a straight edge punk will give you more of a chance to go to their punk rock shows than saying you do drugs. Saying you believe in Jesus to a Christian makes it easier to avoid a 30-minute discussion on why you're going to hell. Giving money to charity may make you feel broke and wasted one moment, and kind and happy the next. Stealing may please you one moment and make you guilt-stricken the next.

At least, that's how it is for me. Never let me be the one to assume that everyone feels that way. What I feel comes and goes every minute. I'm impulsive as hell: I tell people I shop with to make me wait 5 minutes, because in 5 minutes my cheap-ass kicks in and I decide another piece of jewelry isn't worth the money that I could use on something else.

And planning ahead, looking toward the future, is something I'd never comprehended before being human. I'd never had to calm down and think about the repercussions of something. I'd never had to avoid doing something again. I was very hard to eliminate, very hard to contain, and very hard to understand. This meant that many things people consider "mistakes," I more than willingly did multiple times without regards to consequence, only pleasure.

So, morals? I had none. Morals now? Very few:

-Love my lover
-Love my family

If I hurt them, I hurt myself. If I fail them, I fail myself. I don't do a lot of things solely because I understand it'd hurt them as a result, somewhere along the line.

No one else matters.


-What do you base that on? (memories, logic, intuition?)

All of the above. Well, except logic. I don't know if I had intuition, either. ;;


-Does that difference (or similarity) spill over into your current life, and how? (Do you find any current human morals, that you're expected to follow, difficult to understand/grasp/follow, etc.. )

Always. If it doesn't feel right, I usually won't do it. Double standards don't go well with me, because I don't always find it a double standard. For instance, I would more than happily take someone's candy, and expect nothing to happen, but if someone took my candy, I'd beat the crap out of them. All that ever goes through my head in those kinds of situations is that it feels good to me, or it doesn't feel good to me.

I'd like to mention though, so that everyone doesn't think I'm a total asshole, that I'm just as likely to give money to a homeless guy or offer a helping hand, if it makes me feel good. I'm not good, but I'm not pure evil. Just impulsive and likely to do things based on pleasure.


-Have you considered that perhaps your kintype/theriotype is a result of an inability to follow/grasp/respect the human morals you're expected to follow (or the lack there of)? (Psychological tool for grokking your difference from your fellow man.)

No, but now that you mention it, yes.