How important is it to be consistent?

My personal opinion on this is that sometimes, consistency is just an excuse for lazy thinking. It’s easier to make sure your actions are consistent with your past actions than to really think about how reasonable and fair each action is. I’d rather contradict myself now and then but approach each individual situation in a reasonable way, taking into account all its nuances, than create a blanket rule and follow it always regardless of whether it’s really appropriate for a specific situation.

Consistency can some times be an orwellian way of saying non-flexible.

I always try and be consistent in my arguments, but lately my brain has gone to hell and I am reconsidering many things.

As for law enforcement don’t get me started, lets just skip over that one.

Personally, the most consisten person I have seen is TheAmazingAtheist on youtube. If someone had to be given an award for consistency in his arguments it would be him by a mile. However, he is also big enough to swallow his pride and admit he is wrong from time to time, and to me, that adds a lot of credability, It is a quality I admire.

The problem with consistency, in any walk of life, is you attract fanatics, and expectations, and if you ever deviate, they will freak out.

Where I work there is a guy called Bernardo, who works almost every waking hour there is in a day. He could just work 8, but for two years has been consistent in taking all the overtime there is. He is now held in very high regard, but if he ever deviates from that consistency, and tries to go back to an 8 hour day, I bet you anything you like they wont hold him in such high regard any longer.

The same can apply to virtually anything, music artists that change style pissing off fans, movie directors and actors that try something different, politicians that try and change, etc.

Mariah, I think you answered your own question the best. As far as what you said, I share that exact opinion, and it seems you took the words right outta my mouth. Can you please just articulate for me my every thought from now on? Oh wait, that’s lazy, isn’t it, haha….

Maybe the rule should be modified to exclude proprietors under the age of 10 or daily sales below $10.
Then they can be consistent without being stupid.

Is there more to the story? Were the kids being a neighborhood nuisance?

Consistency is paramount to providing comfort and continuity in all relationships both personal, professional and political. Every so often an outlier like a lemonade stand will cause a bonehead to mis-perceive, mis-interpret what they view is status quo and yield their big shiny stick to enforce an agenda they think reflect the better good of the constituents they were hired to protect.

IMO time to take their taser a away from they and give them an attitude adjustment!

@poisonedantidote All good points, and ones I hadn’t thought of! Poor Bernardo. Thanks for your insight.
@Ladymia69 Oh goodness, thank you! :)
@worriedguy From the article I linked above, it doesn’t appear that they were!
@Cruiser But, what if somebody has a habit that is harmful to a relationship? Should they continue doing that thing just to be “consistent” or should they take a step back now and then and re-evaluate their behavior? This is the problem I have with placing so much emphasis on consistency. It means that problems never get addressed.

I’ve been on a walk for the past half hour and got thinking about the fact that I never addressed the merits of consistency. I was worried I’d come back to a bunch of replies telling me I’m an idiot. I was very pleasantly surprised. But to clear that up, here’s my take on the positive side to trying to remain consistent:
– It discourages hypocrisy. It is difficult to apply the same standards to ourselves that we apply to others, so trying to be consistent can help one catch oneself in the act of hypocrisy.
– It (ideally) prevents law enforcers from enforcing based on their own beliefs. It would be nice if we could consider each situation individually instead of under a blanket rule of thumb, but doing so would mean that individuals were also given the opportunity to handle situations as they see fit, and it’s very obvious how that could go wrong quickly in law enforcement: one racist or otherwise disciminatory cop could do a lot of damage if consistent enforcement weren’t required.

@Mariah at that point I think the onus/responsibility falls upon the “victim” to take corrective action as someone who is behaving inconsistently needs to be made aware or avoided until there is an opportunity to address this uncomfortable behavior!

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my opinion consistency is most important.
On the other hand, not that important. ~