Duty is one of those words that has more or less vanished from our culture. It\u2014the word, and perhaps the thing as well\u2014exists only in specific ghettos like the armed services. We often prefer to use \u2018care\u2019 or \u2018carer\u2019 for people who would once have thought that what they were doing, in, say, looking after incapacitated relatives, was a duty. To call the act of changing someone\u2019s soiled underclothing a work of caring can make you feel as if you should be doing it because you want to do it, whereas the idea that you\u2019re doing it because it\u2019s your duty makes it more impersonal and therefore\u2014to my mind, anyway\u2014a lighter burden. It leaves you free to dislike what you are doing while still feeling that you are doing the right thing in doing it.\n
John Lanchester, Family Romance
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