A vital underpinning of society is a basic, agreed upon set of principles, the earliest known, of course, is Hammurabi’s code, brutal, succinct, and probably a seriously efficient tool to keep a relative degree of civil peace in ancient Babylon. We’ve all heard the age old eye trade adage. The consequences for adultery. What kept down the killing and cuckolding before that? And then from what long forgotten stone were those morals modeled? There must have been some understanding of right and wrong before any code was ever chiseled. Actions that were widely regarded as anti-social, and deeds that deserved retribution, would have been deemed amoral and unacceptable, based on their physical and emotional repercussions.
Hearing stories about our ultra-violent ancestors, the medieval massacres, the slaughter that accompanied the meetings of dissimilar cultures, the terrible things humans did to fellow humans, it’s easy to see why someone would inscribe a baseline code of conduct and consequence. Hammurabi was a king, and he may have been compelled by an inner sense of morality and ethics, or he may have simply wanted a means of regulating the murders and transgressions taking place in his kingdom that effected its political stability and their ancient economy.
I assert that many of the rules we have on the books today are, in a similar way, simply there to maintain social stability, ensure the momentum of our economy etc. This can be seen by the fact that many laws are either broken, disregarded or diluted, i.e. the rules don’t accurately reflect the morality of the populace.
This may be because the majority of humans are evil by nature, unable to govern themselves from within, and lacking in any concrete ethical standpoint. People might only be able to assimilate ethics when influenced by authority.
I reject that perspective. I have known too many intrinsically moral, altruistic, and loving people to believe this to be the case. Maybe it’s the circles I run in but I see humans as always having a strong set of morals, even if I don’t share them, and being wholly able to make ethical decisions based on reason, unless they are confronted by extraordinary circumstances. Situations like hunger, fear, and jealousy are common morality sweepers, cleansing our minds of that pesky code of conduct, allowing an otherwise compassionate being to engage in irrational and callous, sometimes violent, behavior.
It can’t be simply pressure from society that produces all the compassion and empathy that exists in the world. There is something in people that has a strong aversion to injustice, and immorality, and although our reaction might be highly emotional, these feelings are rooted in reason. Only logical thought arrives at a higher moral code. Only through intellectually understanding the conscious state of others can we realize the effects of our actions and build a code of ethics within ourselves. Everyone has the capacity to do so and only through institutionalized ignorance or indoctrination can our natural good nature be stifled.
It is important to realize this when we think of our own ideas of right and wrong. There is a reason I don’t kill those who I dislike, and it’s not because I fear jail. We all have our own reasons to be just and compassionate. Mine are a little different than yours, and yours are different from your neighbors. They may mesh well, overlap mostly, but the degrees and intensities will vary. The origins will be as diverse as creations stories around the globe. The experiences that mold and anneal our internal judges can come in any form, reach different conclusions, and double back to contradict itself.
Find that epic story in yourself, chiseling and grinding, smashing away the unusable pieces, wrestling with that amorphous intellectual blob. Building it into a colossal tower of convictions.
But first we need a foundation, and it poured in rational thought. Laws and rules are made to keep the peace and stability of a governed body and should never be confused with the intangible sense of right and wrong that exist in us all. Finding out the nature of your nature can only serve to strengthen your functional convictions and eliminate the lingering effects of the passive indoctrination we are all subject to living in a society.
The social code of conduct may not be flawed or unjust in the least, it is still of the utmost importance that we do not believe for a second that it is the root of our compassionate actions or the reason we refrain from evil acts. We know, deep down, what is right or wrong and will consult that knowledge before we think about what is acceptable to society. When we own our morals we can really believe them, live them, and when necessary have that knowledge and conviction to point out injustice when we see it in the word.
-Matt
RSS Feed
Find us on Facebook
