But I’m a good person

I’ve seen a few posts from people lately essentially stating that they don’t need religion to be a good person. And they’re right–and yet not.

Consider some of the basic principles of being a good person we all still agree on: We shouldn’t lie, we shouldn’t steal, we shouldn’t kill people. Now I suppose it’s entirely possible mankind could have found those particular principles on their own and pushed them into near-universal acceptance, but we’ll never know, because religion already advanced those beliefs to the point of near-universality. It’s much like saying that you don’t need other people to be a good adult. It’s only accurate as far as you may not need other people to continue being a good adult, but chances are it was your parents who helped you define and become one in the first place–or other people who demonstrated a positive contrast to any bad parenting you may have experienced. Whether you need religion to be good or not, religion set the initial definition on what it means to be good–and aren’t we glad it’s been by the ones who don’t believe in human sacrifices?

I will agree that religion has not been the source of immutable criteria for being a good person it once was–or at least Christianity hasn’t. I can’t say I know enough about what changes other religions have gone through over time. It’s safer to speak on what I know, and Christianity has been eroding for some time. You will notice above I only listed three of the basic Ten Commandments. That’s because those are largely the only three everyone still agrees on and makes some effort to enforce. We shouldn’t commit adultery? Well, yeah, but we started allowing pre-marital sex and cohabitation, and have seriously weakened the difficulty and stigma of divorce, so cheating on your spouse seldom earns more than a frown these days–and then only if we don’t find the cheater’s situation sympathetic. We shouldn’t covet? Getting you to covet is Madison Avenue’s primary tactic! Honor your parents? What an outdated notion! We just treat them like roommates and ATMs these days, call them by their first names, and sue them (or at least throw a major fit) if they don’t give you everything you want. Does anyone not take the name of God in vain these days? Sunday is one of our busiest days.

And for the most part churches have shrugged right along with the rest of society. The commandments have become suggestions. Churches, for the most part, will allow whatever they need to in order to get people in the pews. Morality is negotiable.

And yet what do we really have if our moral system is malleable? Does right and wrong really change over time?

And that’s the heart of the matter. Morality is either static or dynamic. If it’s dynamic, then what good is it, really? If being a good person is whatever I define it to be–or even what society at that point in time defines it to be–then what real purpose does it serve? Is morality nothing more than a tool to keep people in line? Is it merely a means of setting up marks for the crooks to take advantage of? Is it only the means by which the majority maintain their majority? Is there really any true benefit from being a “good person” beyond the social grease it provides to help us slide through life with less friction?

And if each person is able to define it for themselves, is there anyone who isn’t a good person? Yes, it’s true that many of us fail to live up to our own ideals on how we should behave and think. Is that because those values have been forced on us? Or is it some sociopathic compulsion that leads us to set expectations for ourselves we cannot live up to? But in that case, why don’t we learn to define our expectations down and give everyone a morality trophy for showing up, so to speak? Society is already headed that direction, so why not accelerate the process? And indeed there are some already leading the charge. It would certainly be easier to be a good person if we can just define good low enough, right?

But as a society I suspect we want to have our cake and eat it to. I want to be able to consider myself a good person with as little effort as I can get away with, while I still want you to uphold the standards that keep our society glued together. Morality is for everyone else. If only this group or that group would just behave the way they’re supposed to, everything would be copasetic. We would be apoplectic if that group tried to force their beliefs on the rest of us, but by golly, if they’re going to have those beliefs they should live up to them, if for no other reason than it’s fun to beat them up over it when they don’t.

In a dynamic morality framework it’s pretty difficult to agree on who gets to judge compliance to that framework. We hear the continual cry of “Don’t judge me!” from everywhere these days, and yet a large portion of our social interactions revolve around judging others (ie. Hot or Not? Who is a true Feminist/Vegan/Fan?). It’s hard to make the case for the individual to be the only judge of their own “goodness” when, once they’re gone, it’s everyone else who gets the final say.

The trouble with a dynamic morality is that it’s just so darned dynamic! If everyone is allowed to decide their own morality, then everyone is moral no matter what they do, and we know that can’t work! At some point we need to enforce some sort of minimal level of behavior, and yet we also want there to be room for extenuating circumstances. I don’t want to get a speeding ticket, because I had a good reason for speeding! Joe shouldn’t go to jail for robbing a store because he’s never had much of a fair shot in life. Justice and Mercy are difficult to balance and still maintain a moral structure.

And yet, people will argue, a static moral framework is tyrannical. Things have changed, times are different. What may have been true centuries ago is no longer true today. Besides, those rules were written by a bunch of religious zealots and hypocrites pretending to speak for mythical beings, and we don’t want them telling us what to do. Some of the things we want to do weren’t even a possibility when those rules were written, so why should we have to live by them now? Preservation of the species is no longer an issue, and preservation of society is an ambiguous objective. Why can’t the rules change with the times? What makes us think the people centuries and millennia ago were any smarter than we are today? We know so much more than they could ever have imagined!

And there’s the paradox. We want a static, universal moral framework, but only if we believe in it and if it benefits us individually. Certainly there are things we can agree on, but we’re willing to renegotiate everything if it doesn’t hurt anyone. And we’re arrogant enough to suppose that we can not only know if it doesn’t hurt anyone, but that we can also predict the long-term results of any and every compromise we make. The wisdom to see where we went wrong and the responsibility to step up and reverse direction where we erred are both incredibly rare. Once an interest group gets a benefit from a change we’ll be hard-pressed to pry it back.

So what’s the answer? It doesn’t matter. The ship has sailed. Dynamic morality is the status quo. Even among religions it’s hard to find any true defenders of static morality any more. Static morality is on its way out, if not already gone. Even those who keep trying to prop up a new static morality can’t muster the discipline to uphold it, and far too often it’s too self-serving and one-sided to gain universal acceptance. Oh, they’ll insist it’s for the greater good, and that everyone needs to just sit down, shut up, and accept it–eggs and omelets, after all–but they invariably step on their own tongues or run afoul of others pressing for their own static moralities. Witness the recent turmoil on college campuses as the Freedom of Speech, Diversity, Equality, Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, and Affirmative Consent crowds fight for limited resources and attention. Not everyone can win, and it’s not going to be pretty. Actual learning, however, seems to have already lost.

At best, I suppose, all I can ask for is some patience and tolerance for those of us still in the traditional static morality camp. Perhaps it’s not perfect, but I’m still waiting for someone to make a strong argument for dynamic morality being any better. I’m willing to listen, but only if you are willing to communicate. Far too many these days prefer to yell, badger, bully, castigate, slander, and otherwise expose their own moral hypocrisy.

In the mean time my stance is this: Let’s look for what moral codes we still have in common. I’ll happily have your back on those, and I’ll try not to be too ornery about the points where we disagree. I think those things we still agree on are worth defending while there’s still something left to defend. Entropy being what it is, it’s hard to imagine society rolling back the changes its been making, short of some cataclysmic event, but we can hold the line as long as possible.

I know this sounds fatalistic, but I’m not blind. I look at all the social advances people are trumpeting these days, and I see why they have reason to hope. But I also see the cost of those advances and it’s hard to believe we really won anything. Equality under the law? Sounds good, but any gains there are swallowed up in the added nastiness of our public discourse and the further fragmentation of society. We’re in the process of burning the house down to make sure everyone has the same size room, even as we keep adding more people clamoring for their own room. This is not progress. This is the result of trying to shortcut real progress. This is the result of biting hands instead of clasping them.

We could do better, and I’m willing to try. But we’re too fragmented to accomplish it alone. If any real positive change is going to happen it’s going to require increasing our common moral ground. And before that can happen we have to find what common moral ground remains and defend it with everything we’ve got.

Huh. I guess I’m calling for a static morality.