Morality Goes Far Deeper than Religion

Prof Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are "hard-wired" into the brains of all mammals and provide the "social glue" that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups.

He has compiled evidence from around the world that shows how different species of animals appear to have an innate sense of fairness, display empathy and help other animals that are in distress.

Before humans invented religion, they experimented with a wide range of ethical systems. Based upon a dizzying mix of inner instincts and perceived influences from the outer world, each generation taught the next one how they should live and treat other people (the members of the extended family who alone were considered to be human) and live in the natural world.

Religions evolved for many reasons, one of which was to assist in the development of an inner morality and system of ethics within each group member. Another purpose of religion has been to provide a sense of "awe and transcendence", the idea of something greater than oneself which can assist one in overcoming personal obstacles. Religions have become so instrumental in these roles, that even in the modern age of science it has proven difficult to dispense with them.

Religion is often a considerable obstacle to over-ambitious governments. The CCP in China persecutes its Falun Gong and Tibetan religionists because these believers hold to a transcendant view of life that goes beyond secular authority. Religious believers are also likely to have a good recall of the many misdeeds of the secular government -- which is something Chinese leaders wish to stamp out.

The totalitarian state seeks to integrate the uses of religion within the state itself. Hitler's Nazi totalitarianism rested upon the cult of personality. Kim's North Korean totalitarianism does the same, as did Fidel Castro's total state. Hugo Chavez and the other baby dictators of South and Central America would like to achieve the same ends. Such personality cults are actually "pocket religions" in their own "rite." Something similar might occur again in the west -- perhaps even in the US? Imagine an Ameircan "Big Brother" and Ministry of Truth kept constantly busy obscuring reality and modifying history. The only morality is the morality of the state. Can you picture it?

In the Muslim world, Islamists want to integrate the secular and the religious into a totalitarian unity. Such a unity could not tolerate competitors in the intellectual, spiritual, political, or economic / military worlds. Religion becomes the death of morality under such a regime. Any threats to the totality would be eliminated.

The majority of the world, in terms of population, is set to devolve into a broadly anarchic "warlordism" and gangsterism such as one sees across Africa and parts of Central Asia (and the inner cities of the western world). The dominant ethics under such gangster systems derives from the power to deprive members of health, sustenance, and life. Insiders prosper, outsiders are punished or are eliminated, and the masses simply endure.

A system of life that would allow Matthew Crawford to get a PhD in political science, work in a think tank for a few months, then quit the intellectual life in order to work as an amateur philosopher and full-time motorcycle mechanic -- is a system of many luxuries.

It's satisfying to complete a task from start to finish. Start a small business, or learn a trade—really! Do you know how much plumbers make? It also helps to imbue what you do with a sense of craftsmanship. Strive not for flimsy new economy "flexibility" but for real, handy expertise in a chosen field. The point is to achieve mastery, which in turn gives you a skill not subject to the whims of office politics.

How many societies can afford to educate persons at the PhD level, only to see them leap into the blue collar world voluntarily? Of course, Crawford's journey has not ended. In fact, from the blue collar world, he has leapt into the intellectual world of authors, with the publication of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work.

Systems of ethics depend entirely upon the degree of luxury a society extends to its members. Richer, more liberal societies can afford a much more intricate -- even counter-productive -- system of ethics, than can the brute force gangster existences of a growing portion of the world's populations in both the third world and the developed world (ethnic ghettoes of the central city and banlieus).

Morality preceded religion, and goes far deeper than religion. If humans in the developed world cannot develop a workable system of morality and ethics that persons of all religions can adhere to, they are in for violent clashes in the not so distant future.

In the United States, leftists have gained power in a quasi-stealthy manner reminiscent of how Hitler's Nazis gained power in Germany. With the early actions of the leftist reich, including the first Supreme Court nominee -- a left-radical extremist --, it is clear that the regime in power intends to enforce a leftist ethics upon the population at the point of a gun, via the force of law. It is an ambitious and revolutionary attempt to overhaul a system that has worked exceptionally well over a period of centuries.

Forced revolutions are either based on violence or lead to violence. Ethics and morality run too deeply within the human soul to be wrenched about by social engineers and crusaders. This interlude will end badly for everyone who has jumped upon the crusader bandwagon. And there will be a great deal of collateral damage.

A much wiser approach would be to work in the manner of the US Constitutional Congress to achieve a broadly applicable secular morality upon which a wise and acceptable system of law could be structured and extended.

The brute force, stealth revolutionary approach taken by Brock O'Bomba and his crew will run into objections of morality. Not only from established religions and churches. But from the deeper morality of the inner self.

Brock's only chance is for the economic situation to become so dire, and to bring so many people into dependency upon government benefits, salaries, and subsidies, that the US will fall essentially into the quasi-welfare state category -- with elements of dictatorship "insider chic", kowtowing to the gangsta leada.

In dire circumstances, most people will sell their ethical reservations for a pittance. Obama zombies have already sold their pittances to Brock O'Bomba. So have many public sector workers, academics, and journalists. But for Brock to succeed in the long run, the economic devastation would have to grow far more severe than it is likely to become before the next few elections.

The Age of Cheating: To What End?

Donald McCabe has conducted massive surveys of college and high school students to determine the scope of cheating for almost two decades. A former businessman who now teaches business at Rutgers University, McCabe has surveyed 165,000 students at 160 colleges and universities, 18,000 faculty at 110 institutions, and 35,000 students at high schools.

The results are staggering. Almost all students admit some form of cheating. Even worse, most of them find easy rationalizations for cheating. _Cheating2.0

Where do children and youth learn to behave ethically in today's society? They don't. By the time a youth attends high school or college, they are assumed to have been taught basic rules of honesty and self-responsibility. But that assumption is wrong. Whatever ethical codes today's youth may learn, they learned from their peers and from a ghoulish popular culture and media.

The old ways of learning ethics -- classic fables, allegories, myths and archetypes -- have largely gone the way of the dinosaur. Modern ethical rules are learned from song lyrics, teen flicks, and social networking. No wonder everyone cheats. No wonder shoplifting has become so popular. No wonder dishonesty is becoming the basis for most political, academic, and journalistic careers.

Perhaps the growth of cheating suggests an even more intractable problem, mirroring a larger breakdown in social order. When the community does not make an active effort to maintain order, more people are emboldened to violate rules. (ibid)

The mirror reflects both ways. A positive feedback system of behaviour. No rules leads to disorder which leads to even less teaching of rules, etc. In a multi-traditional society, where the old order has collapsed and a new order has not taken its place, the lack of an "organising principal" opens the door to chaos and accelerating centripetal force.

A Secular Morality

Each of us has grown up in a world in which moral judgments already exist. These judgments are passed every day by everyone on the conduct of everyone else. Each of us not only finds himself approving or disapproving how other people act, but approving or disapproving certain actions, and even certain rules or principles of action, wholly apart from his feelings about those who perform or follow them. So deep does this go that most of us even apply these judgments to our own conduct, and approve or disapprove of our own conduct in so far as we judge it to have conformed to the principles or standards by which we judge others. When we have failed, in our own judgment, to live up to the moral code which we habitually apply to others, we feel "guilty"; our "conscience" bothers us.
Henry Hazlitt, The Foundations of Morality

Across the western nations, religion has lost its hold over the people. Tragically, there is no other system of ethical guidance that has achieved any level of authority even closely approaching the prior authority of religion. In terms of ethics, most westerners appear to be "running blind." Many Al Fin readers have watched this developing ethical vacuum growing, with its concomitant rise in crime and societal and sub-societal dysfunction. In a multi-traditional, multi-religious, multi-ethnic society such as most western nations are becoming, a common moral and ethical system is absolutely vital to prevent the type of violence and societal schisms which are a constant threat to any society's present and future well-being.

Muslim societies solve this problem by declaring the supremacy of Islam, and forcing all other religions and belief systems into an uncomfortably subservient position. Communist societies solve the problem by establishing the communist state as a de facto religion and arbiter of morality, with all other belief systems considered irrelevant and obsolete -- if not treasonous.

Societies which pride themselves on their tolerance can not easily utilise either of those strategies. As a result, when the original basis of law and morality of a society begins to lose authority at the same time as the society grows much more strongly multi-traditional, the scene is set for violent clashes and schisms within the society.

The need for a widely accepted cross-traditional basis for ethical and moral behaviour is self-evident, but the devising of such a cross-traditional ethical system is hampered by all of the factions which are firmly attached to their own system of ethics. Most of these "strongly attached" factions are not willing to accept the need for any other system of ethics than their own. Hence, religious and ideological wars throughout history.

Where would one start, when attempting to devise a secular, or cross-traditional, system of ethics? Well, to begin with, one would not publicly begin such an effort in Iran or Saudi Arabia -- not if one valued his head. Even in Holland, Theo van Gogh discovered that publishing ideas that point out shortcomings in other ethical systems comes with a cost. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, various Muhammed cartoonists, and others across Europe have learned the same lesson and lived to tell the story.

For those who are interested in this project, I would like to make one suggestion: The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt (long PDF). Before you click on the link, you should know that the PDF is a 24 MB book-length treatment, so you may want to right click and use the "Save Link As" option. That will download the document to your computer or removable drive, leaving your browser to function normally without bogging down.

I have found Hazlitt's approach to be quite valuable. As a disclaimer I will say that I am also comfortable with Hazlitt's viewpoints of market economics and libertarian politics as well. That comfort allows me greater play in the mental wrestling that goes on reading the book, than a person antagonistic to Hazlitt's strong individualist stance would have. Such a person would likely not survive the first few chapters. Which only highlights the problem of devising a cross-traditional, cross-ideological system of ethics.

In the end, such a system can only be agreed upon out of a pragmatic desire for a society that intermeshes cleanly, despite the many different traditions, religions, ethnic groupings, and nationalities of origin. Without the will to create such a cleanly meshing society of inevitable sub-societies, all is lost.

If the disparate components of a multi-traditional society are unwilling to admit a common secular morality into the areas where the different traditions interact, clearly the word "society" no longer means what most people think it means. If such is the case, an increase in crime, violence, and ill will between sub-societies of multi-traditional nations is inevitable -- perhaps leading to the type of dissolution that occurred in the former Yugoslavia, for large sections of several western nations. Or perhaps leading to something very much worse.

We are caught in the lurch, and many of us fail to recognise the problem. What are the odds that a common and workable system of ethics will find its way back into the lives of most people living in western countries? Slim to none. But the concept is worth working on, for the sake of emerging groups of more far thinking individuals. Next Level Humans.

Dumbest Generation Also the Most Dishonest?

According to a nationwide survey of over 29,000 high school students, the current generation of late teens and early adults may add another superlative -- most dishonest -- to its previously awarded title of "dumbest." Shoplifting is very popular with this age group, as is lying and cheating.

Other findings from the survey:
# Cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey.
# Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.
# Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money — 49 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls.

Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."

..."What we need to learn from these survey results is that our moral infrastructure is unsound and in serious need of repair. This is not a time to lament and whine but to take thoughtful, positive actions." _Source

What we are likely to see, is a great deal of excuse-making instead. It is not surprising to see a rise in unethical behaviour among younger people, given the lack of any substantial ethical teaching from either the homes or the schools. Certainly the influence of religion has diminished significantly over the years, and can only continue to diminish with time.

We are living in a time between the ethical reign of religion, and the reign of anything credible enough ethically to take religion's place. Naturally, a huge gaping hole exists in children who have never learned ethics or morality. It does not happen by itself.

In the meantime, generations without ethics are likely to elect more "messiahs of the teleprompter" such as the narcissist-elect. Blank screens upon which dumb and ethically challenged young academically lobotomised humans can project their own poorly formed fantasies and dreams. This generation is also academically weak, shying away from difficult but vital professions such as engineering and math-intensive sciences--hoping for the "quick score" instead. Many of these impatient whiz kids no doubt found their way into the financial sector, and assisted in the downfall of financial markets recently.

Large numbers of this generation will find themselves dependent upon something or someone, to bail them out of problems they will continually find themselves causing. They will give lawyers a lot of business.

Will Obama Do the Same for U.S. as He Did for Ill.?

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful....Illinois gained only 122,000 jobs, Ohio lost 62,900 and Michigan lost 318,000. Population growth in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois was only 4.2%, a third the national average, and real income per capita rose by only $3,466, just 58% of the national average. Workers in the three least successful states had to contend with a quarter-million fewer jobs rather than taking their pick of the 3.7 million new jobs that were available in the three fastest-growing states....In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs. _WSJ

You can tell the states and cities that have been taken over by "the mob." Michigan, Illinois, Ohio. Big labour and organised crime have always been partners, but throw in big city democratic party political machines such as Richard Daley's in Chicago, and the unholy troika of corruption is complete. Obama has been completely at home in such an environment, since his earliest days in Chicago. Even now, at his most influential, Obama refuses to strike a blow against famous Illinois/Chicago corruption and organised crime:

Designed as a response to the "pay-to-play politics" that have flourished under Gov. Blagojevich, the plan would bar firms with more than $50,000 in state contracts from donating to the officeholder in charge of the deals....On Wednesday, the Illinois House rejected Blagojevich's rewrite, 110-3. Under the state Constitution, the Senate has "15 calendar days" to follow suit, or the plan as originally written will die.

....In the middle of a simmering Statehouse ethics battle is Obama's "political godfather," Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago), who triggered questions Thursday about whether he may allow the legislation to die after the Nov. 4 election...

...."If he's the reformer he says he is, why would he not encourage cleaning up his home state, which is one of the most corrupt at this point in the United States?" said Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lemont). "He has an opportunity to really put some action behind his words, and he won't do it.

"If he's so influential and can get people to behave differently, Sen. Obama should be able to persuade the Senate president to call us back in now and get this done," she said. _SunTimes

Big politics, big labour, organised crime. Each scratches the others' backs in a circular mutual pleasuring. It is the way of Chicago and Illinois, and it is the way Obama has learned to do things.

Cooley reveals how easily the criminal world intersected with the supposedly legitimate world of law and politics. Old arrest records were dismissed as ancient history. Sweetheart contracts and rigged trials were laughed off in the press as “business as usual.” Cynicism took the place of outrage, and the voting public collectively turned away.

As we complete this book, some individuals from Cooley’s old Mob circles are back in the news. The Chicago Sun-Times exposed a municipal “Hired Truck Program” that funneled millions in public funds to “organized crime figures.” Meanwhile, Richard Daley, in his fifteenth year as mayor, with no challenger in sight, now calls for Chicago to have its very own casino. He assures one and all that he needs no help keeping legalized gambling free of Mob influences. _King Corruption

Only a Coward is Totally Innocent

Innocence is vastly over-rated. Besides being virtually impossible to attain, who would want to be a member of the cowardly, mediocre innocent? We live by various overlapping systems of ethics. Our society is divided along the lines of different ethical systems. We are taught that innocence is good, so we want to be "innocent", but if we act in the real world--which we must--we necessarily break ethical rules of one system or another.

For example, to many ideologues it is impossible for a person of European extraction not to be a racist. The accused may protest the charge, asserting that they are not racists, that they have close friends among the minorities, work amicably alongside persons of colour, and may even be married to a non-European. It does not matter. They are racists by the very definition of some ethical system. And since in this society, persons guilty of "racism" cannot be members of polite company, the guilty must be driven out. That is merely one example of the assortment of "original sins" bestowed on large groups by the dominant ethical system in modern academia, media, and much of society at large (post-modern faux-multicultural monoculturalism).

Everyone who exists, acts, more or less. It is not possible that anyone is truly 'innocent.' That is just how oppressive police states like it, since "having something on everyone" is the best way of staying in control. It is also how political activists like it, because they do not have to actually prove someone's malfeasance to have that person fired, disgraced, or driven from public life.

The pretense of innocence is necessary if one is to make a life of loud and pompous judgments against others. And the best way of maintaining a pretense of innocence is not to act, overtly, other than performing acts of loud, clangorous judgment. Such loud ceremonial or demonstrative acts of judgment are best done in groups--as in protest marches, echo chambers, or political rallies. The strength of numbers in pronouncing judgment should never be underestimated by anyone susceptible to a lynching.

When susceptible to attack, a feeling of safety may be found within anonymity inside a group--as in a school of fish or a herd of grazing animals. An even stronger feeling of safety is anonymity within the group that is doing the attacking. A member of a lynch mob who stays back a bit from the front can be safe from the mob, yet still claim innocence.

Politicians exhibit this sort of "leading from behind" behaviour as often as possible. Particularly legislators, who are far less restricted in the claims they can make during campaigns, if their records are somewhat "undistinguished." A clear record of overt action can be somewhat inconvenient when conjuring up conveniently changeable images of oneself--depending upon the audience of the day.

When claiming the role of innocent judge of the guilty, it is best for one's prior actions to be few and mild, somewhat obscured, or conveniently deniable.

These innocent judges are not of any use to anyone whatsoever, but it is possible for them to acquire loud and powerful public voices, and to rise to positions of significant power in government, academia, media, and society. Particularly in a strongly divided political environment, the more chameleon-like a person can make himself, the better his prospects--up to a point.

What kind of society would grow such cowardly innocents to prominence? Dangerously brittle societies. Probably the society in which you live.