I generally don’t mind people abandoning their principles if they publicly say “well, I tried following these principles, and it didn’t work / I stopped wanting to / I changed my mind about what principles are good / whatever, so I’m not following these anymore” (e.g. on Twitter).
I roughly agree with this at the level of changing your mind about major principles once every few weeks or months. But if someone changes their stated principles in an unpredictable fashion every day (or every hour), then I think most of the benefits of openly stating your principles disappear. In particular accountability is only really enabled when the foundations of your principles last long enough to allow someone to both comprehend your beliefs and principles and your actions that tried to follow those principles. Since your actions usually tend to be delayed for a few weeks, there is value in not fundamentally changing your principles all the time.
Yes, I agree with this. (Though, of course, harm is minimized from constant principles-shifting if it’s publicly declared, so no one expects the person to act consistently)
I also like this frame. Some additional thoughts:
I roughly agree with this at the level of changing your mind about major principles once every few weeks or months. But if someone changes their stated principles in an unpredictable fashion every day (or every hour), then I think most of the benefits of openly stating your principles disappear. In particular accountability is only really enabled when the foundations of your principles last long enough to allow someone to both comprehend your beliefs and principles and your actions that tried to follow those principles. Since your actions usually tend to be delayed for a few weeks, there is value in not fundamentally changing your principles all the time.
Yes, I agree with this. (Though, of course, harm is minimized from constant principles-shifting if it’s publicly declared, so no one expects the person to act consistently)