Ethics 101: Civil Society

A rant about the modern rage to make us all practice the same religion, as though such a thing were possible and/or good.

There is no such thing as "general moral decline" affecting an entire society of people uniformly.  I don't change my standards for what constitutes rape because some stupid yahoos in Steubenville reveal themselves to be criminals.  I don't change my standards for what constitutes pleasant sexual relations because my neighbor is into BDSM.  I don't decide to like Gatorade because some celebrity appears on TV telling me to.

Forget society. Forget all the morons who think they can make me like stuff merely by playing commercials and offering soundbytes. Forget marketing. If you have to tell me why I need something over and over while showing me a bunch of beautiful people (and/or celebrities), then I almost certainly neither need nor want what you're shilling. (Reverse psychology: seeing commercials often makes me hate what I see advertised, such that I become more likely to avoid it.)

Forget the ridiculous way of thinking that associates random decisions people make in utterly ludicrous ways: "My daughter decided to smoke: obviously this is because gay people are trying to get married! Heterosexuals in Steubenville cannot help getting horny and raping people: the homosexuals strike again!"  If there is a devil out there playing games with people's heads, then he is most certainly playing with yours as you spew this kind of nonsense.  For goodness' sake.  Grow up and take some responsibility for yourselves. Don't mind what all the people around you are doing. They are always doing dumb stuff (i.e. stuff that would be dumb if you did it).  Read history.  The best way to save the world is to stop trying so hard to make it sin the way you do.  We don't all sin the same way.  We cannot all like or dislike the same things.  We should not all want or avoid the same things.

People are always going to like and dislike different things, sometimes with really good reason. Eating wheat is a cardinal sin for my sister (who has full-blown Celiac disease: she was dying in her teens because she ate my mom's homemade bread), but not for me. The correct response to reality (bread kills my sister, not me) is not to ban bread (it is evil for my sister! people who make it are murderers!), but to make other options free to those who cannot stomach it (for whatever reason: if you eat bread and your stomach hurts really bad and you poop blood, then you shouldn't need doctor's orders to pass on the breadbasket). Be whatever you are, and ignore anyone who isn't OK with that.  You have the right to think my sister is silly for avoiding bread.  You do not have the right to punish her for avoiding it.

We do not all need to have the same habits.  We do not all need to recognize the same sins or deal with them the same way.  My sister's ability to make rice bread does not threaten my mom's ability to make wheat bread. Homosexual marriages do not threaten my heterosexual one.  Civil society is not about making me and my sister eat the same things (as though there existed some kind of food that was not also poison).  It is not about making homosexuals and heterosexuals (or anyone else) have the same kind of marriage.  It is not about making us all like the same stuff (as we never have and never will).

Everyone has different needs.  Everyone has different tastes.  Everyone does things harmless to himself that would be harmful if other people did them (as you know if you have ever helped a teen learn how to drive, or shoot a gun, or do anything at all, really).  My life is never going to be a prescription for other people's, and theirs is never going to be a prescription for me. I don't like what others like.  I don't need what they need.  I don't need or want their approval every time I decide to order steak for myself when they would rather have something else.  The restaurant of life has many options on the menu: let other people take whatever they want, and I will do the same. We can share space and be nice without liking the same stuff.

Meditation on Death, and Nature

The following essay is a summation of thoughts I have had locked away inside for some time.  Today they just came pouring out, in an online discussion about ethics (including the morality of humans killing animals and other life in order to feed ourselves).

I am not going to argue that death is always a bad thing. But this means that human death is also not always a bad thing. We cannot make it our practice to keep people alive at all costs, when the cost is destroying the possibility for future generations (of people and all the other life we need to survive).

I don't support "whatever it takes" to keep people from starving, since in my experience "whatever it takes" will amount ultimately to postponing useful death for useless death: nature culls what she cannot support; when we make her support what she would rather not without reservation, we eventually end up on the wrong side of the ledger she uses to maintain the balance that we all enjoy.

Ever since humans invented agriculture (and perhaps before), we have been pursuing the theory that individuals don't really matter. If I drop dead tomorrow, one of my 21 children will pick up the slack (and take my place on the field, in the factory, in the army, doing our bit to keep the human hive alive). Potato farmers in Ireland died not because of fungus, in my view, but because they were expendable resources (whose encroaching presence nature resisted: Ireland is not able to support infinite crowds of people; when we try to make it do so, it defends itself by putting out blights and such, culling the weak). This has always been Nature's way, and it will continue until we destroy her; as we speak, the ruthless goddess we all serve willy-nilly continues to pursue her savage justice, killing weak people all over the world. Trying to make her stop being so mean just throws fuel on the fire, if history is any judge: we beat a small plague so that we can have a bigger one. Smallpox, polio, and measles go down so that AIDS, superbugs, and "diseases of civilization" can take their place. There is no end in sight (for me: I am aware that some people see things differently, and I am content with that; this post is mostly just an exercise in verbalization for me; I have been keeping these thoughts inside too long).

I don't ask for mercy from Nature. I don't think I can control her. I don't think anyone can, really. The most we can realistically hope for, in my view, is finding a somewhat pleasant balance with Nature (by letting her have her own way as much as possible, with our contribution being a mitigation of her most painful "remedies" uncorked against us; let me die of AIDS, or some superbug, or diabetes, but at least I can say goodbye to my friends and go peacefully in a bed, with someone else there to close my eyes and hand my corpse back to the Mother (who resists my effort to last too long or leave too many descendants: she loves the individual, the small group, more than I do, perhaps).

If I could sum up my attitude in one sentence, it would be something like this: "Nature is beautiful, and she is trying to kill you; for your own good, you had better come quietly."