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he Gold Rule reads: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It was not too long ago, when the rule had considerable force. It was actually possible to get a person to re-think what she or he had done by simply asking: Would you want someone to do that to you? I mean that approach worked across a number of quite different contexts, from slamming a car door to brandishing something dangerous in a person’s face.
The approach even worked for something as simple as holding the door for a person. A parent would say: “Don’t let the door go like that. Would you want someone to do that to you?” And you know, the child would understand immediately that holding a door for a person is the decent thing to do.
What is particularly striking about the world in which we now live is the notorious truth that people often do to others precisely what will make them furious if it is done to them. Hence, the title of this essay “Mocking the Dead”.
It was once thought to be the very height of indecency to mock the death of innocent people. But nowadays, we can find students dressing as victims of those who were killed in the Virginia Tech Massacre and people can find a way to commend or at least not criticize Robert Hawkins who murdured numerous individuals at an Omaha mall on 5 December.
This is puzzling at every turn because there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that if either (a) those mocking the Virginia Tech victims or (b) those finding kind words for Hawkins had lost a loved one owing to such a senseless killing, these individuals would be seething with anger and outrage that someone caused them the loss of a loved one. Not only that, they would find it highly offensive that anyone would act in a way that even came close to mocking their loss.
So the obvious question is this: How can it be that people who would be rightly outraged when something is done to them can be so utterly callous in their behavior when it comes to a similar loss that another has suffered?
What explains this profound moral disconnect on the part of ordinary citizens? I am reminded here of Stanley Milgram’s book, Obedience to Authority. The book very poignantly illustrates just how horrendous otherwise decent people can behave if they should find themselves in the wrong circumstances. Given orders from a supposed authority from Yale University, ordinary folks put their moral sensibilities aside.
In an important book entitled State Craft as Soul Craft, George Will noted that once upon a time religious institutions were the husbandry of virtue. On a weekly basis people attended religious services were their values were reinforced in a multitude of ways.
Religious institutions no longer play that role in society; and the result is a tremendous moral vacuum. And one consequence of that moral vacuum is the loss of the tendency on the part of people to engage in the kind of moral projection that is required by the Golden Rule.
Whatever else is true, religious institutions once served as a constant reminder of our common humanity. People who were unalike in so many ways shared something in common during services. Indeed, they came together in order to do so. The person to the right may be poor. The one to the left may be a distinguished physician. Someone sitting somewhere else in the assembly may be a teacher. The other a factory worker or police offer. And so on. There was much that people did not have in common. Yet, for all that individuals did not have in common, what they did have in common transcended their differences. That was the ideal, at any rate, to which people regularly assented to varying degrees.
Few if any ever embraced that ideal fully. Yet, the ideal was there and it had its pull to varying degrees upon first one person and then another.
Against this backdrop, the Golden Rule flourished. It was a perfectly natural way of thinking about both ourselves and others. And as I have indicated, it is beyond dispute that the rule did a lot of work. Most significantly, failure to live up to that rule when it was rather clear that one should have done so typically occasioned considerable shame. The words “How could you have done that? Would have wanted me to do that to you?,” could make a grown man wince with shame.
Now, the move that I am about to make is quite surprising, namely the following. There is a very real sense in which contemporary society owes its inspiration to Kant. All that a person really needs to get things right is to reflect upon things in the right way, and the deliverance of reason would do the rest.
I understand, of course, that Kant’s thought admits of far more sophistication than what is conveyed by the remarks in the preceding paragraph. Yet, the kernel of truth that I am after is this: The need for social reminders such as religious institutions seems quite unnecessary if all that we have to do is look within ourselves for the answer that reason alone delivers.
What is missing is the very riveting truth that, in the vast majority of instances, the self that we are is shaped by the nature of our social interaction. There is no self guided by reason alone. There never has been. There never shall be. Experience, including the things of which we are frequently reminded, shape the way we reason and the weight that we give to one thing rather than another. Experience shapes our moral sensibilities. And the things of which we are frequently reminded stand as a significant form of experience.
Modern societies are manifestly without the sort of moral booster rocket for the Golden Rule that once existed. And therein lies a fundamental part of the explanation for behavior that simply could not have happened not so long ago. There is also a quite astounding insight here, namely that we need to be reminded of our common humanity. And if this is right, then those silly rituals that do so are far more important than has been realized by most.
We all know that we are human. That is obvious. But just how we feel the weight of one another’s humanity is tied to the kinds of lives that we live and the things that nurture us. Or to put the point another way: the motivational force of the truth that we are all human is much more tied than we realize to the ways in which that truth is nurtured. The mere knowledge does not do all the work. This is obvious upon reflection; for any number of truths can be experienced differently depending upon the situation in which we find ourselves.
I shall always remember a Mr. Choi this semester who went out of his way to meet me in order to compliment me. I already knew that he was a very kind and respectful person. But that particular moment give substance to what I knew in an unforgettable way.
Institutions that regularly remind of us of our common humanity nurture our moral sentiments. We do not need to reach a zenith point on each occasion. But one thing is for the sure is that the zenith points that we do reach are most nurturing.
Living well needs constant seasoning and re-mixing. The lie of modern democratic societies is that nothing of the sort is true, since we already know what is obviously true, namely that we are all equally human. But the truth that we are all equally human is one thing; whereas the ideal of doing right by others is quite another. Living well is about getting from the first truth the second one. Alas, it would seem that as a society we no longer have either the courage or the will to make the journey. And it shows.
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This blog entry was inspired by the excellent PajamaMedia entry
