Big Lebowski and Fight Club - friends rather than enemies?

[Rev Paddy Cakes]

comply with, obey, observe, follow, keep to, hold to, conform to, adhere to, stick to, stand by, act in accordance with, uphold, heed, accept, go along with, acknowledge, respect, defer to More.

It's funny that the abiding definition that you gave speaks a lot  conformity and compliance, when the Dude obviously does not conform or comply to many societal norms. I guess the difference is that he conforms to human connections (abiding with his friends with all their strikes and gutters) and basic moral decency, rather than specific definitions of a meaningful life (ie. wife, children, job, grooming, etc.). Is the Dude rewriting what it means to abide?

[BrotherShamus]

Yeah, it's almost as if they're not totally synonymous. where obey is more like an action, abide is more like non-action

[LotsaBadKarma]

My concern with that line of reasoning is that being unconcerned by societal norms leads to actions that are criminal be it intentional or not.

I think, as we all know just from exposure to the mainstream press, that in today's society "criminal" is a nebulous term. We have pot smokers that are doing long stretches over the private property issue of what they choose to put in their own bodies. We also have real criminals who are walking the streets over technicalities. So the term criminal has been reduced to what the relative handful of people who make the rules deem as acceptable conduct for the rest of us. Kinda like the members of congress being legally allowed access to inside information when making stock trades while Martha Stewart caught 3 years fed time for the same thing.
I also tend to think that most people have a basic goodness that dictates that they not harm those around them while at the same time they reject those societal norms. They simply don't conform to the bullshit rules but they also don't wander around looking to injure anyone.

[BikerDude]

comply with, obey, observe, follow, keep to, hold to, conform to, adhere to, stick to, stand by, act in accordance with, uphold, heed, accept, go along with, acknowledge, respect, defer to More.

It's funny that the abiding definition that you gave speaks a lot  conformity and compliance, when the Dude obviously does not conform or comply to many societal norms.

It don't think of the common usage as being about conformity as much as acceptance.
Think of the opposite (which is more commonly used) "I can't not abide that".
To me abide doesn't mean agreement but acceptance. It's only once someone can not accept something that they "cannot abide it".
We can abide a lot of things that we don't agree with but that we just put up with.