In Absentia or "Responses and the Like"

I must say, despite the fact that Q and I tend to think along similar lines, I disagree with his last post, on the whole.

I think it's important that we generally consider the situation that Jon describes as tragic rather than as the normal course that human relationships take. Betrayal and/or abandonment tends to be the exception rather than the rule.

Granted, people can be "untrustworthy bastards", but not everyone is so, and the potential for everyone to be so is not something which requires the assumption that everyone is so. (Reputation, after all, still stands for something.)

It's important, I think, to make neither angels nor devils of people. We all have our ethical failings, but we all have our ethical successes as well; and the world is nothing if not nuanced.