What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

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[+6] - Thomas - 10/16/2018[quote="Real Music"]What do you believe are the most honorable professions?[/quote] I believe that honor attaches to individuals, not entire professions I believe there is no such thing...
[+4] - maporsche - 10/22/2018I see everyoneâ��s points about people being honorable, not professions. Well, Iâ��ve had two careers, and for a time concurrently. My corporate-technical-financial industry...
[+3] - maxdancona - 10/16/2018I worked as a high school teacher. I thought about the good of my students. I worked on social issues, addressing the needs of a mix of social levels in a large district. I thought about education,...
[+3] - Linkat - 10/17/2018[quote="livinglava"] [quote="maxdancona"] I worked as a high school teacher. I thought about the good of my students. I worked on social issues, addressing the needs of a mix...
[+3] - InfraBlue - 10/22/2018I dunno, holding the profession of Saudi anti-dissent operative to the same level of honor as that of a grade school teacher doesn't jibe. Sure, a practitioner of the former could be an otherwise...

@Real Music,

For me...

1) Teachers, particularly middle school and high school in underserved areas.
2) Lawyers working on social justice issues or with vulnerable populations.
3) Researchers in hard sciences (chemistry, biology etc.) working on important medical or environmental issues.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

I believe that honor attaches to individuals, not entire professions I believe there is no such thing as an honorable or a dishonorable profession, ignoring trivial exceptions such as the profession of con artist.

5 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Real Music wrote:
What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

I believe that honor attaches to individuals, not entire professions I believe there is no such thing as an honorable or a dishonorable profession, ignoring trivial exceptions such as the profession of con artist.

That's correct. What you get paid to do has more to do with circumstances than what's in your heart and mind.

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@Thomas,

I worked as a high school teacher. I thought about the good of my students. I worked on social issues, addressing the needs of a mix of social levels in a large district. I thought about education, and fairness and I did extra work to meet the intellectual and sometimes emotional needs of students in my classes

Now I am working as a software engineer. It is fun... I am replacing human beings with artificial intelligence, and earning very good money for my efforts. I enjoy the challenge and I am part of an effort that saves giant corporations tens of millions of dollars on labor costs. But, honorable?

I don't feel like my current profession is anywhere near as honorable as my previous one.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I worked as a high school teacher. I thought about the good of my students. I worked on social issues, addressing the needs of a mix of social levels in a large district. I thought about education, and fairness and I did extra work to meet the intellectual and sometimes emotional needs of students in my classes

Now I am working as a software engineer. It is fun... I am replacing human beings with artificial intelligence, and earning very good money for my efforts. I enjoy the challenge and I am part of an effort that saves giant corporations tens of millions of dollars on labor costs. But, honorable?

I don't feel like my current profession is anywhere near as honorable as my previous one.

Those are stereotypes. You can't assume that every teacher-student interaction is beneficial or that every use of artificial intelligence is detrimental to human life.

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@livinglava,

I only wrote about my specific personal experience. I don't think I assumed anything.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I only wrote about my specific personal experience. I don't think I assumed anything.

It reads as if you projected standard stereotypes onto the jobs, and I don't think it would matter either way whether they were actually jobs you held or not; it would read the same way.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Real Music wrote:
What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

I believe that honor attaches to individuals, not entire professions I believe there is no such thing as an honorable or a dishonorable profession, ignoring trivial exceptions such as the profession of con artist.

I disagree - (in part) - I understand what you are saying that honor is attached to the individual in that - someone in what can be reasonably defined as an honorable profession can have someone with dishonorable intentions working in such profession.

But there are professions by their purpose that are more honorable than others. For me, I would define a more honorable profession as one where a person is put in physical danger, gets paid little for the work they do - but the work benefits us as a society. Things along that line. For example my friend has advanced degrees and heads up a non-profit. She could be making quite a bit of money with her knowledge and skills however, she instead is cleaning toilets (to save money for the non-profit) as part of her job and makes little and works long hours - but as a result our marine life (and us as a society) will benefit for what she could do elsewhere.

Military, police and firefighters all put their lives on the line - yes they are financially compensated but what price do you put on a person's life?

There are religious leaders that dedicate their lives helping others with little pay.

Do these professions have people who are dishonorable - yes - but the profession itself is honorable because the profession demands of you to give up something up valuable with compensation not equal to what one gives up.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

maxdancona wrote:

I worked as a high school teacher. I thought about the good of my students. I worked on social issues, addressing the needs of a mix of social levels in a large district. I thought about education, and fairness and I did extra work to meet the intellectual and sometimes emotional needs of students in my classes

Now I am working as a software engineer. It is fun... I am replacing human beings with artificial intelligence, and earning very good money for my efforts. I enjoy the challenge and I am part of an effort that saves giant corporations tens of millions of dollars on labor costs. But, honorable?

I don't feel like my current profession is anywhere near as honorable as my previous one.

Those are stereotypes. You can't assume that every teacher-student interaction is beneficial or that every use of artificial intelligence is detrimental to human life.

The definition of the profession though is honorable - there are certainly teachers that are not - and that do not go into the profession to make a difference in children's lives but just to draw a paycheck. But my experience having two children in the private at one point and public currently school system is that the majority of teachers do really care and try to impact the students they teach.

I think that teaching as a whole is an honorable profession both in the private schools (who actually get paid significantly less) and in the public schools.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

what thomas said. Here in Pa weve had a bunch of sex perv teachers preying on their charges and it seems to be getting more frequently reported. have we been missing it in the past? or are the skevosa really increasing in number??

2 Replies

Quote:

most honorable professions?

For sheer self-laudatory adulation you can't go past actors for EGOT.

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

The definition of the profession though is honorable - there are certainly teachers that are not - and that do not go into the profession to make a difference in children's lives but just to draw a paycheck.

What does 'the definition of the profession' matter when it comes to evaluating individual teachers? Either you're a good teacher or not. All the definition does is allow a bad teacher to hide their bad and rely on the definition to make them look good, i.e. to lie/fake.

Quote:

But my experience having two children in the private at one point and public currently school system is that the majority of teachers do really care and try to impact the students they teach.

Again, so what? If the majority of teachers were bad, that would not erase the possibility of teachers getting it right if they tried. Likewise, if the majority are good, that doesn't change anything about the bad ones who are bad, except maybe to hide them in the mix.

Quote:

I think that teaching as a whole is an honorable profession both in the private schools (who actually get paid significantly less) and in the public schools.

Teaching is good from a certain POV, which is that it is good to transfer knowledge and skills so the general population grows more intelligent and responsible. From another POV, knowledge and skills should be restricted to experts so that they can make more money serving more people who are kept dependent on them.

In many ways, the second ethic is the only the current education serves. The paradigm of specialization and division of labor basically just promotes the idea that students should be prepared for specialized education after graduation. As a result, teachers are basically just helping to keep students ignorant with busy-work as they await expensive higher education.

Is that 'honorable?'

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@Thomas,

Exactly

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

have we been missing it in the past?

I don't think there are more - I don't think it was missed - it was stepped over

teachers/religious leaders/scout leaders/community choir directors/church choir leaders

not reporting/not believing/not encouraging

some teachers from my public school recently went to jail - the kids knew - some told their parents - most adults walked around the issue

some parents knew and told kids who to stay away from but not why

kids in middle school/high school committed suicide - a lot of us knew it was a result of assault that was denied/ignored

I think/hope that parents/teachers/principals listen more carefully now and respond more appropriately

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

what thomas said. Here in Pa weve had a bunch of sex perv teachers preying on their charges and it seems to be getting more frequently reported. have we been missing it in the past? or are the skevosa really increasing in number??

I suspect it has always gone on. My brother's second grade teacher was arrested on molestation charges and one of my eighth grade teachers was caught running naked after a student.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

one of my eighth grade teachers was caught running naked after a student

not a great career move.

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Well, I came here to say what Thomas said in the second response. So my work is done here, and I didn't even have to do it myself.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

I think that's a dangerous question: it attaches a moral value to a profession itself, that would implicitly apply to anyone working in said profession. Someone volunteering in a soup kitchen could be a predator, as can a priest. And a con artist could save someone's life after an accident.

So no 'honorable' professions: just honorable people.

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I see everyone’s points about people being honorable, not professions.

Well, I’ve had two careers, and for a time concurrently.

My corporate-technical-financial industry career that is almost 20 years running.

And my 4 years as a nurse in a clinic-type facility and in several nursing homes.

I can tell you from experience, that the nurse job feels several times more honorable.

As far as I know I’m the same person doing both jobs, so the feeling is coming from the job and not from me (in my opinion).

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What do you believe are the most honorable professions?

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