Tag: Philosophy

Right and Wrong: There’s No Debate

There’s been a lot of talk lately about right and wrong.  This is totally odd, because most people are uncomfortable with the concept.   It makes them uneasy, as if something rude just happened.   They would prefer to look the other way or wander off.  When the topic is unavoidable, they tend to dance around it or cleverly disguise it, calling it ethics or morals or some other such euphemism.  It’s as if they’re desperately hoping parlour game philosophy will make it go away.

There is no place in our society for right and wrong anymore.  It’s like those old, heavy TVs nobody wants.  They work perfectly well, but most people wouldn’t be caught dead with one in their living room.  It’s not our fault, though; the essence of right and wrong demands a judgement call.   Someone has to be wr-wr-wr not right.  Unfortunately, we’ve been taught from the cradle not to be judgemental.  It’s something to be avoided at all costs.   But right and wrong still exist, regardless of whether we like to talk about it or not.  For example, walk down any street in North America and you will eventually see a Starbuck’s cup.  The person who put it there is wrong – full stop.  There is no reason to litter.  Unless that Starbuck’s cup was on fire or you were being chased by wolves (both highly unlikely) there is no situation that would force you to throw it on the ground.  The person who did it, did it deliberately.  He or she made a personal choice to despoil the common environment.  That’s wrong.  There’s no way around it.

Of course, most people would like the local litterer to be evil – it makes things a lot easier.  The battle between good and evil is honourable; it has a long history, and it’s always been a two-sided coin with plenty of heroes and villains.  Evil people do sinister things, like littering; good people do not.  Hitler was evil.  Mother Teresa was not.  It’s cut and dried and ready for polite conversation.

The choice between right and wrong is quite different.  First of all, it has no history; each choice we make is brand new.  Every Starbuck’s cup has the same potential for ending up in the gutter as the recycle box.  In all depends on a personal decision.  Secondly, there are no heroes — only villains.  We don’t get extra points for doing the right thing. That’s what we’re supposed to do.  We only lose points if we do the wrong thing – like throwing our crap in the street.  Third, regardless of how we act, we’re not morally superior to the litterer the way we are to Hitler.  Chances are good the person who so casually dropped that cup does not have fangs or green saliva.  They’re probably quite likable, nice to children and puppies, and have never committed genocide.

When we talk about right and wrong, we don’t have any high moral ground to stand on.  Good and evil are simple.  We have all kinds of reference points — Hitler and Mother Teresa are two obvious ones.  But ya got to work at right and wrong — every time — without fail.  That’s why we’ve created a sliding scale of mitigating circumstances.  It alleviated the personal burden we all feel — which brings us back to that philosophical parlour game.

Here’s how the scale works: stealing is wrong.  But if your children are starving, it’s not quite as wrong.  Except if you steal from a child who’s unable to defend her bread due to an injury.  However, if she’s from a rich family…. and the nuances go on and on into the night and the third bottle of wine.  We need this sliding scale, but, unfortunately, we’ve come to think that it’s real.  It’s not.  It’s just a device: an artificial “Get Out of Jail Free” meant to ease the burden of guilt we feel when we do something reprehensible, like throwing our trash on the ground.  In the cold, dark soul of four o’clock in the morning, we all knew that stealing is wrong.  That’s what separates good people from the evil ones.  Yet we also know that in certain situations, we will steal.  That’s what separates smart people from stupid ones.  That’s why we find it so difficult to talk about right and wrong — because many times the morality just doesn’t match the reality.

Right and wrong are absolutes.  We can fool ourselves with excuses, justify our actions to others or proclaim our “good person-ness” from the rooftops.  So what?  If you cross a moral boundary, you are wrong.  There’s no second opinion.  Judgement has already been passed because regardless of how our society tries to slip/slide around it, integrity is what you do when the cell phones are turned off and no one’s watching.

The End of the Argument

When I was a kid, there seemed to be an inordinate number of ancient people kicking around who always insisted on telling me what it was like in the old days.  They were a constant pain in the ass because they never got around to any of the good stories and wouldn’t change the subject.  They’d ramble on for two eternities while I sat making noises in the right places and dreaming about Emma Peel and Samantha Stevens – inappropriately.  To be honest, I still don’t care how deep the snow was in 19-ought-nothin’ or how far it was to school.  Call me shallow!  But, life goes on, and now that the orthopedic shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, occasionally, I find myself also droning on about the Good Old Days, as if they mattered.  I suppose it’s the circle of life, Grasshopper, but sometimes I wish I would just learn to shut up.  But not on this day.

Believe it or not, one of the things people used to do in the good old days was argue.  It’s true; I’m not making this up.  Young people would gather in groups and verbally fight with each other over all kinds of things – politics, religion, fashion, books – it didn’t matter.  They’d get drunk on coffee and cigarettes or wine and weed and attack each other in spoken gunfights that lasted whole evenings.

The object of these oral engagements was to change the other person’s mind while simultaneously defending your own point of view.  This took skill, knowledge and a certain logical train of thought.  Arguments had to be framed on the fly and adapted to the chaos of the conversation.  They had to be concise and witty and able to withstand strong scrutiny.  Lame arguments were destroyed outright, while more substantial ones were modified to incorporate new ideas, as they ran the gauntlet of these wars of words.  You realized very quickly that you were responsible for what you said, and you’d better know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth.   However, it was a great way to battle-test your theories of life and discover the multitude of other concepts available.  As a student, I myself argued on many occasions, as did many of my friends.  We considered it part of our education.   We may have been taught economics in Dr. Bolton’s (not his real name) class, but we learned it fighting it out in a local tavern, appropriately called The Pit.  I still remember those days fondly.

This Golden Age came to a complete halt somewhere around the time of the first Star Wars movie (There’s no connection, by the way.)  I’m almost certain that what happened was some utter coward, faced with a verbal ass kickin’, reached back into Philosophy 101 and said, “Can’t we all just agree to disagree?”  (I hope they bludgeoned him to death on the spot.)  It might sound clever and profound, but what the hell does it even mean?  We have two conflicting points of view that are equally acceptable?  No, it doesn’t mean that; that’s impossible.  It means either “I’ve said a bunch of stupid stuff that’s indefensible, and I want a way out,” or “I’m such a total ignoramus that, despite overwhelming evidence, I’m not going to change my mind.”  That’s it!  “Let’s agree to disagree” is one of those witty phrases that’s supposed to convey an air of sophistication.  In actual fact, however, it’s just a sneaky way to get out of an argument — without looking like a complete fool.   With the introduction of “Let’s agree to disagree,” losers all over the world could mouth off in the most outrageous manner possible and then get off the hook by simply suggesting that we all agree to disagree.

Unfortunately, there are more of them than there are of us, and the idea spread like chicken pox.  This was the end of the argument – literally.  From there it was an easy slide to “Let’s agree not to disagree,” because when all points of view are equal, it doesn’t make any sense to fight about them.  Now, arguments no longer have a place in our society.  We don’t actually discourage disagreement so much as encourage silence.  We have abandoned logical trains of thought for the chimera of the consensus.  We need to all agree (even when we don’t) because it’s socially unacceptable to argue.  It’s better to shut up and get on with it.  This is why we have such enormous gaps between different groups in our society.  We think there must be something wrong with people who are outside our particular consensus.  It’s the only explanation we can come up with for disagreement.  And rather than framing a logical argument to change people’s point of view, we call them names.

Back in the old days, we did not go softly and we did not tread lightly.  Feelings were hurt and tears were shed, but in the end, we were better off because we selected our ideas after exhaustive arguments — verbal give-and-take – where concepts would stand or fall on their merit.  We did not tiptoe around difficult questions because we were afraid of being called bad names.  We gathered together and fought it out because all of us are smarter than each of us.  Today, the Age of Reason is over, and Aristotle’s system of Deductive Reasoning has been casually tossed aside in favour of some horrid Mutual Admiration Dystopia.

Wow!  And I promised myself I wouldn’t end up like those cranky old buggers I used to have to listen to when I was a kid.  Plus ca change…..