I had a conversation with someone a few days ago that expressed a perspective I think is fairly dominant in our society. This perspective is moral relativism - the belief that human rights, aka right and wrong, are subject to our perceptions, feelings, societal trends and laws, etc. To quote the person I was having a conversation with directly from her email;
"...there is no absolute right and wrong. There are different view points and harmony is better served by trying to understand one other, not condemn one another."
This disturbing perspective of morality has been accepted by the human race as a necessary rationalization to support an illegitimate belief in "authority". "Authority" that is in perpetual violation of Human Rights 100% of the time.
(I use quotations for the word "authority" because I believe that authority of one person over another is a false concept.)
How else could we accept that a government could change the laws of a country based on the whims of men? How else could we accept that something could be morally acceptable in one country but not another? How else could we accept that the violation of human rights is necessary to protect human rights?
There is no circumstance in existence where any of the following is acceptable;
- Trespassing
- Theft / Fraud
- Rape
- Assault
- Holding someone against their will
- Murder
These acts remain immoral, or wrong, regardless of who carries them out, regardless who benefits and regardless of what group of criminals they claim granted them the "authority" to carry out these acts.
Using physical force to defend yourself if required does not fall under any of the labels listed above.
I Don't Like The Way That Makes Me Feel
Emotions are very important and are there to guide us through life. The determining factor is the difference between subjective and objective reality. Human rights do not change based on how we feel as individuals, human rights are "objective" and inherent. Our emotions however are subjective and change based on many factors. The fact that you can do something within your rights that is nice for someone else and have them react negatively is concrete evidence of this fact.
Largely due to the New Age religion (with plenty of mainstream and government support), people have come to think that they should never be offended by anything and never have to feel "bad". Many have even taken to prescription drugs to numb the feelings they don't want to feel.
Your emotions do not determine whether someone is acting within their rights or not. Emotions have nothing to do with morality.
You do not have to be "nice" to act within your rights and you can offend someone without violating theirs.
Example: I am in my home when an agent of the government comes to collect information for voter registration. I deny her the information requested. I then tell this young lady to immediately leave my property, closing my door on her. I'm sure she was offended and probably had no idea (due to her own ignorance) why someone would do that. Did I violate her rights? Was I within my rights?
The acceptance of the fact that Human Rights are objective and unchanging means coming to terms with the fact that our current systems of control are based in violence and immorality. This means coming to terms with the fact that, as a society, we are immoral beings that don't even know the difference between right and wrong.
Grow A Fucking Backbone
Only a person with a child-like mentality would not be willing to come to terms with the facts presented above. Not believing something and refusing to look into it further because it makes you feel uncomfortable is totally ridiculous. This is the same mentality that believes that we do not have right to defend ourselves and even more - that we must tolerate the violence of those who have placed themselves in positions of "authority" over us.
Yeah, I'm getting a little aggressive here. Let's face it: if you can't handle a slightly aggressive blog post with a bit of explicit language you probably don't have what it takes to survive in the real word. Not to worry about that, the government will take good care of you and alleviate you of all responsibility - even recognizing the difference between right and wrong.
We don't get to "agree to disagree" about objective reality. Yes, man is a wholly subjective being. And yes, each has their own experiential reality. But that perceptual experience depicts a world of certain constants. We cannot know that the tree we perceive exists outside our experience (in fact, we cannot know that anything exists outside our experience), but this is irrelevant as long as that experience produces consistent phenomenal cause-and-effect relationships - and it does.
Walking into a brick wall consistently yields a bump on the forehead. Never do you simply pass through it. Certain behaviors have certain predictable results. As long as this continues, we can assert de facto objectivity, even if our subjective nature obviates certain knowledge of true, independently-extant objective phenomena.
In this way, the term "objective" can be redefined to include the caveat of man's subjective nature without any alteration to the practical meaning of the word. Personal experience and subjective consensus between beings about the sun being in the sky will serve all the purposes of its true objective existence, whether it actually exists outside our conscious perception or not.
So, yes, for all intents and purposes there is such a thing as "objective" reality, and this includes natural law cause-and-effect. In fact, if you think about it, morality is rather tautological, and thus self-evident and irrefutable...
Bad (immoral) actions are bad because they're bad. What makes an immoral action negative is its negative consequence, but that consequence is an inherent part of the action within a particular set of circumstances. All we're really saying here is that actions with bad consequences have bad consequences. Morality is just a description of reality; it adds no new content. It's not another level of qualification, and it requires no external source, be it divine or cultural. The moral nature of an action is a factual description of the action itself.
Immoral action is defined by its context, which includes its consequences. If I take a cookie from you, this action may be moral or immoral depending on whether you gave your consent to my taking it. The action of cookie-taking is neutral, but when performed within a certain set of circumstances, the consequences can be quite different. The only thing that makes one such cookie-taking immoral (theft) and the other moral (graciously receiving a gift) is the negative consequence.
The negative consequence of all immoral action is the creation of an environment that inhibits the authentic expression of the being in question. In other words, immoral actions do not permit full expression of man's free-will autonomy, which is inherent to his nature. This is what defines the action as immoral. The action does not duly acknowledge the reality of the being. It is a denial of truth. It is a lie.
So immorality is simply acting out of accord with truth - of course this will have negative practical consequences (just like ignoring the heat of a hot stove, or the immutable effects of gravity). More importantly, the immoral action is itself a negative, being an action inspired by error. We do not need to understand some complex chain of causality to see this. There is no leap to make. We need not understand anything more complex than "A is A" to see that morality (acting in accord with truth) is an absolute imperative under any and all circumstances, and that immoral action can never be prudent, desirable, or necessary.
I really like the way you've expanded on this subject. It gets difficult to discuss a topic when every single concept within it has been obfuscated. Depending who you are speaking with the terms law, morality, right/wrong, energy, positive/negative, consequence, cause/effect, all mean different things. If a person is not familiar with a word, it may not be perceived at all.
Most people in our society do not believe right/wrong and truth even exists, some believe we can't "know" anything. Combine this with a fearful, child-like, instant gratification based mentality and it gets pretty hard to communicate even the simplest of ideas to many. I get it - I was in that mindset in the not too distant past.
Unfortunately true knowledge can not be "taught" into someone, it must be "learned" into the individual. Until the student is seeking knowledge of their own volition, no true understanding will be attained. We need to lose our vested interest in the outcome of our research and be willing to prove ourselves wrong. If you are only looking to verify your belief system, this promotes a bias in your research. All Truths are evidenced in Nature.
As more people come to realign themselves with reality these concepts will be expressed from different perspectives and hopefully exponentially reach more people at a level that resonates with them.
It is irresponsible, although convenient, to accept a perspective simply because it relieves us of all accountability. Once you conquer fear you can realize that this accountability is actually the source of our creative power.
But how do you communicate this when we all speak our own version of any given language? Its necessary to define nearly every single word before you begin to communicate your idea, even then people will hear what they have conditioned themselves to hear.
I think subconsciously we all know this and on some levels act accordingly to get desired effects in our lives. People choose to maintain a state of cognitive dissonance, allowing them to pick and choose when and where the laws of Nature apply. This results in chaotic uncontrolled physical manifestation, which is quite apparent, and used as evidence by some to prove that morality does not exist because "bad" things happen to "good" people.
You've brought up so many important points here. This "bad things happen to good people" thing is a problem in discerning the cause-and-effect of morality.
This is where the principle of mentalism, and "spiritual" knowledge of the interconnectivity of mankind (and everything, really) becomes relevant. Good people may still be helping to create bad outcomes by way of their thought process. I'm guilty of this, as I have a tendency to feed the problem undue attention due to my flaming indignation at encountering the evil of deception everywhere I turn.
We must acknowledge the problem, of course (this is part of the solution), but I've yet to find a way to stay solution-oriented without pointing at the problem continually. Really, if the teacher knows the problem, the student really doesn't have to be made to understand. The only reason why a child needs to know that a hot stove hurts is because he is unlikely to refrain from touching it otherwise. But if he would refrain without that knowledge, the end is achieved.
I point out all truth as a reflex, but it would likely be more prudent to focus upon certain truths in dealing with others. The truth of their inherent freedom and self-ownership. The truth of their power to create in this world. The truth of our ever-expanding potential. This would likely go further than trying to convince people that baby-drinking dark occultists are pulling their strings; and they really wouldn't need to know that if they could be made to enact the solution without that knowledge.
You and I think the same Hahaha. This seems ridiculously thorough, but it's so true and is a problem that often troubles me. I'm perfectly willing to have a 10 minute conversation expand to 2 hours in order to establish our definitions , and secure a clear chain of logic. But many are not so eager to embrace this endeavor. Probably because they don't see the desperate need for the answers this process would yield. After all, how's this help them get money and have fun?
For example, my wife is not political at all. She thinks this obviates any need for understanding in regard to the world power structure. She's not voting, so she's not part of the problem, right? Of course, this is entirely incorrect, as evidenced by her culturally-indoctrinated opinions on nearly everything. Not knowing the problem is a roadblock to her enacting the solution.
There's no absolute need to know the problem, as stated above, but it's very rare that one comes upon the solution by any other means. She's still chasing the "American Dream" and doesn't understand that the power structure she gives no thought to is at the root of that motivation.
I'm afraid I'll have to leave much unsaid here, as I could comment for days on what you've said, but our medium makes this cumbersome and I would not impose upon your patience. Always great to hear from you, Jay!
Yeah we could go on for ever. It's always great talking with you as well.
I tend to disagree on objective morality and ethics. You see, we have no rights. There is nothing that is above us listing our rights as any being stating that we must act in accordance or we are wrong. All things are equal in this existence, acts of human “will” (I put this in quotations as I’m not sure I believe in free will) are not separate of this logic. Sure, an individual should be keen to attempt to live in such a way to allow others no harm and support their well being as plausible, but the thing is that people don’t. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad either. Again, we are all one - no thing is an individual separated from the grand consciousness. Think of your own mind - is a depressed portion of your mind that is harmful to the rest of your mind wrong? Not in my opinion, it is simply doing what it knows how. It is the rest of the mind which is then tasked with learning to cope in healthy ways with that aspect of the mind. Human rights may appear to be objective because it seems only right that everyone be granted the same undivided access to life; however, life is wholly subjective and one can never force their will upon others, even the righteous.
Hello @alchemage and @jayanarchon,
Hmm, one can enforce their will, since they do. Somebody can come to my house and try and blow my brains out this fine evening, and if i don't win, then i'm dead. But i suspect you have a nuanced point to make about that...
"is a depressed portion of the mind wrong?" No, but it is causing rippling disharmonies throughout ones system. It is "incorrect" in terms of wellbeing, i think in the short view. In the long view? The fact that one had a "rippling disharmony" of a certain type seems to turn into a boon, since one knows it in a deeper sense than one who "came up" without it, and thus can speak to those of a similar nature more empathetically, more personally, and with greater detail. But that supposes some level of "correction" of disharmonies then. On the other hand, i have never yet seen a disharmony in another, a "flaw" say, that didn't reflect some similar "flaw" in myself. i seem to contain all the nobility and meanness that humankind is capable of. So might be able to talk to anyone if i assiduously study at the feet of my own disharmonies whether small or large.
i am decidedly undecided on this question of "objective morality and ethics", being embedded in the fabric of the universe. There is cause and effect it seems. Wellbeing tends to be sustained by acting each moment in the service of the highest ideal one can conceive, while telling as much truth as is useful with as much fellow-feeling as one can muster up, while at the same time observing whether or not we fucked it up somewheres. How we relate to emotions has observable consequences. We can allow them to arise and let them pass through us and dissipate for example, learning something about ourselves and increasing a degree of ease that can be rested in. Or we can resist and suppress emotions as they arise which has the observable effect of projecting a warped version of the emotion onto others, filtering perception, and then relating as if that whole process is in the world, or in the other, rather than in ourselves. We don't get to choose whether that happens, it happens or not depending on how we relate to an emotion arising. That could be called "karma" of the instant variety.
From a different angle, human made systems encode their own "ethics" "morals" and "values" whether they intend to or not, as a side effect. "Representative Democracy" and "Capitalism", as just two examples of human made systems, reward certain behaviors and attitudes and punish others, which conditions us to accept some things as good, and others as bad. i wrote an article about that.
"Do we have rights?" i don't know. i have abilities. i can turn a patch of grass into food. Someone can come along and try to burn or take my food, and i can make a "choice" to fight or not. Should any government act as if there are "objective" rights? Well jesus, what's the alternative in the presence of governments? But damn, it can go south real quick if one has the "right" for example to never being offended so long as humankind shall live... That sort of thing can turn into thought police 1984 style.