Bordering on politics ...
I try to avoid politics altogether in my philosophy, as well as morality. That is, they come up from time to time, but i hope to only talk about the structure of thoughts involved, and hopefully i do not weigh in too heavily with moral and political opinion. (I know, i know ... as if that is not itself one. "We Benjaminites ... Donkeys live a long time, none of you has ever seen a donkey die")
With that disclaimer ... right into Ward Churchill. I want to talk about the language of moral equivalences.
This is an old topic for me. My immediate post collegiate years were filled thick with it.
We begin with the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says (parapharing) that to even look at a woman lustfully is to have committed adultry, to call a man a fool even in your heart is akin to have committed murder. In short, to have thought of it is to have sinned already.
The question comes to mind, then, of why not kill and rape? If i am guilty already from even a simple thought ... if i am already damned but for the grace of God, why stop and thinking, why not act too if it is all the same. We would like to say the point of having moral distinctions between thought and actions is precisely to stop the action at the level of thought, to prevent the actualization of such thoughts. It is just such distinctions that helps prevent the human societal world from being completely "nature raw".
And it is just this blurring of the moral boundry that drives me crazy in a paper like Churchills. If the mere act of a man moving to west Omaha to get his child into a better school, even if that means driving many extra miles a day in his extra-safe SUV, and takes the job that pays an extra 10k a year even though that means working for a global company, just so he can send his child to a fine private university when the day comes ... if that lifestyle is morally equivalent to NAZI genocide, why then not just go ahead and have his manager knocked-off to gain another promotion. What is one more death if one has already responsible for the killing of millions in the Middle East and other global flashpoints that sustain his lifestyle (which is "for his children").
If he accepts the moral responsibility requisite by the Churchill piece he has only two choices ... 1) "Leave everything and follow me" proverbially speaking. Abandon whoever will not move to Montana with him and build a log cabin, wife, child, friends, co-workers. 2) Accept what he is and work harder at it: lie, cheat, steal and kill his way to the best place for his family.
-- or -- the thrid option, live hypocritically.
Something has to give.
The moral distinctions were created to stop certain actions, generally at the inter-personal level. The global society creates the need for a new moral code, not the logical extension of the old. (I greatly fear such moral extensions. I find them to be the root of much evil. One tends to eventually find themselves with Kant, saying something akin to Kant's notion that one has to hand one's loved one over to the axe-murderer because truth is more important than any one person's life.)
[[ to be continued ]]
With that disclaimer ... right into Ward Churchill. I want to talk about the language of moral equivalences.
This is an old topic for me. My immediate post collegiate years were filled thick with it.
We begin with the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says (parapharing) that to even look at a woman lustfully is to have committed adultry, to call a man a fool even in your heart is akin to have committed murder. In short, to have thought of it is to have sinned already.
The question comes to mind, then, of why not kill and rape? If i am guilty already from even a simple thought ... if i am already damned but for the grace of God, why stop and thinking, why not act too if it is all the same. We would like to say the point of having moral distinctions between thought and actions is precisely to stop the action at the level of thought, to prevent the actualization of such thoughts. It is just such distinctions that helps prevent the human societal world from being completely "nature raw".
And it is just this blurring of the moral boundry that drives me crazy in a paper like Churchills. If the mere act of a man moving to west Omaha to get his child into a better school, even if that means driving many extra miles a day in his extra-safe SUV, and takes the job that pays an extra 10k a year even though that means working for a global company, just so he can send his child to a fine private university when the day comes ... if that lifestyle is morally equivalent to NAZI genocide, why then not just go ahead and have his manager knocked-off to gain another promotion. What is one more death if one has already responsible for the killing of millions in the Middle East and other global flashpoints that sustain his lifestyle (which is "for his children").
If he accepts the moral responsibility requisite by the Churchill piece he has only two choices ... 1) "Leave everything and follow me" proverbially speaking. Abandon whoever will not move to Montana with him and build a log cabin, wife, child, friends, co-workers. 2) Accept what he is and work harder at it: lie, cheat, steal and kill his way to the best place for his family.
-- or -- the thrid option, live hypocritically.
Something has to give.
The moral distinctions were created to stop certain actions, generally at the inter-personal level. The global society creates the need for a new moral code, not the logical extension of the old. (I greatly fear such moral extensions. I find them to be the root of much evil. One tends to eventually find themselves with Kant, saying something akin to Kant's notion that one has to hand one's loved one over to the axe-murderer because truth is more important than any one person's life.)
[[ to be continued ]]
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 5:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home