Character Traits

My school has blue papers posted in every classroom (by countywide mandate) listing Character Traits. I feel the need to share a few of them with you, readers, as they are muchos très humorous.

RESPONSIBILITY
Being dependable in carring (sic) out obigations (sic) and duties. Showing reliability and consistency in words and conduct. Being accountable for your own actions. Being committed to active involvement in your community.

So…it is responsible to spell atrociously and to use sentence fragments profusely. I must add that consistency is neccessarily a good thing. If someone is consistently stupid, or food from a particular restaraunt tastes consistently bad, this does not make the idiot or crappy restaraunt extraordinarily responsible. Responsibility is thus NOT a synonym for consistency.

FAIRNESS
Practicing justice, equity, and equality. Cooperating with one another. Recognizing the uniqueness and value of each individual within our diverse society.

I feel as if someone had a thesaurus and looked up “fairness”. Fairness: justice, equity, equality.

Since when is cooperating an important part of fairness? If a judge “cooperates” with the man on trial, does that make the ruling more fair? It sounds illegal to me…
Also. What does diversity have to do with fairness? Being culturally relative in one’s approach to situations in no way makes that approach more fair. For example- giving preferential treatment in court to minorities does not make the court more just. I agree that we should recognize uniqueness, but not because it is fair. It is in fact, unfair, to treat people who are unique differently. In the fairest of worlds, everyone would be treated the same, in effect de-emphasizing the uniqueness of our diverse society.

HONESTY
Being accountability (sic) and truthful in words and actions. Telling the truth and admitting wrongdoing. Being trustworthy and acting with integrity.

Being accountability. I believe this speaks for itself.
I’m glad that telling the truth AND admitting wrongdoing are on here, as they are obviously not the same thing. Thank you, Johnston County Schools, Department of Inspirational Propaganda.

On another note, no one informed the authors that some Character Traits are not positive. Just because something is an aspect of someone's personality, does not make it something to strive for. The Character Traits posters should be more accurate. Where's the SADISM poster? The NARCISSISM poster? The APATHY poster? No one informed the authors, either, that they should never have given up their day jobs for inspirational writing.