man & nature # 146 ~ jumping to conclusions

A few bad apples • click to embiggenHey, listen up. Read my words and stop jumping to conclusions.

Some cases in point -

a) I did not suggest that either I or Dylan think that legislating morality is a good idea. I what I wrote was that "... there's even more than hint of the notion of actually codifying, aka - legislating, morality in those words ..." which I then went on to explain that what that could mean is "stating rules and principles in a systematic form or code".

Just in case anyone in the audience doesn't make the connection, we live in a society governed by laws and conventions, AKA - rules and principles. Some of these rules and principles could be said to share some common ground with religious ("moral") rules and principles, others are more secular (ethics) in origin . In either case, the rules and principles are codified. Breaking the rules is grounds for civil punishment. Breaking with principles is often grounds for distain and indignation in the public square.

IMO, a society that does not have a codified set of "right" and "wrong" that is both commonly accepted / shared and easy to understand will cease to be (if it ever was) a civilized society.

b) What that does not mean is that the rules and principles are immutable "absolutes". I have never stated a personal belief in "absolutes". What I have opined about is "truth"(s) and "the real" - especially as they apply to the medium of photography - and what those notions most commonly engender is comments that those are "concepts" that are "all relative" - that as long as someone (or a crowd of someones) understands and accepts something as being true, well, it is true, albeit for them and not for others. No problem. After all, it's all good, right?

OK. Swell. But, because they believe it to be "true" does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that their belief / truth is not wrong - does the fact that quite a number of men in the Middle East believe that women should be treated as chattel make that belief right? Should American men and women be fighting and dying to defend that "truth"?

c) I have never stated that relativists are "evil" or that they "make things up as we go along". But, constantly responding to conversations about truth and the real with near pavlovian responses of "it's all relative" seems to me to be more of a recipe to avoid making sometimes difficult decisions about one thing or another than it is for getting things done - a fine bit of "mathematical and scientific" fiddling while Rome burns.

I would also like to make it perfectly clear that I do not believe that a big chunk of our world has has consciously adopted the tenets of "classic" Relativism" - I am not arguing / discussing theory or ideology here. But what has happened, especially so in the US of A, is that "anything goes" has been codified as the rule of the land. Don't tread on me, I live in the Land of the Free-To-Do-Anything I want as long as it's good for me.

"Special interest" has become code for "screw everybody else" - it's all about what I want. The notion of "consensus" has been consigned to domain of quaint sing-alongs around the campfire. The notion that it takes a village to raise a child is ridiculed as a socialist evil. Hey, every man is an island. Sink or swim all by yourself. Don't give me any of that kumbaya crap.

All of that said, I will not make any apologies for thinking and stating that now is the time to stand up and take a stand. My stand is that I emphatically believe that it is time to have a national conversation about rules and principles, truth and what's real. A conversation that is as free from dogma of all types as it can be. We need to arrive at a pragmatic consensus regarding "probable" (pick a name, any name, just get on with it) truths before its too late to function as a civil society.

As for the loopy idea that "codifying rules and principles (call it "morality", call it "ethics", call it "chocolate cream pie") in a systematic form or code" is a proposition to lay down with the sheep and lambs of the Far Right, well, that's just plain loopy. If as a nation, a civil society, or a tribe, we do not have guiding rules and principles by which we steer the ship of state, then we are just making it up as we go along - something that I think is a kissing cousin to a cluster fuck.