Pride precedeth the fall
We live in a world that is increasingly unmoored from civility, morality and even reality. Are we just going to sit by and watch it crumble or are we going to do something about it?
Simpler times, circa 1984, when the relationship between effort and reward (and also screwing up and consequences) seemed much more clear to me than it is now.
The world that we used to know
People tell me it don't turn no more
The places we used to go
Familiar faces that ain't smilin' like before
The time of our time has come and gone
I fear we been waiting too long
Midnight Cruiser, Steely Dan
I never expected to live to a ripe old age. Yet here I am, in my late 60s, rolling right along. Barring something unforeseen, I might have decades yet to come.
There was a time when the thought of living a long, long time seemed a lot more attractive than it does right now. I’ve paid dearly for the realization that perhaps a finite lifespan is a feature of the human experience rather than a flaw.
I am well aware of the common nostalgic notion that things were better back in the good old days. Like my elders, I walked through 6 feet of snow to school, uphill both ways, carrying the horse on my back. But by any objective standard, most things were not, in fact, better back in the good old days. Even the most perfunctory examination of recent history shows why.
I was born in the southeast region of the United States in the mid-1950s. In my life, I’ve encountered or experienced demagoguery, prejudice, segregation, blatant racism, extreme poverty, a lack of access to health care and education, and other maladies that most young people today, thankfully, know little about firsthand. None of these were better back then than they are now.
The reason that things along these lines are better now is that we have, at least to a certain degree, successfully addressed them. In just my time, we’ve managed to extend the average lifespan in this country by almost two decades. We’ve beaten back (though not eliminated) poverty and racism. Our political system is more fair and open and less prone to corruption than it has ever been. Science and technology have advanced in leaps and bounds to the benefit of us all. Anything that one could possibly want to know is just a few seconds away on the Internet.
In terms of basic needs being met, we truly live in a miracle age.
But that does not mean that all is right in the world. There are critical signs of egregious poverty squarely in the midst of our technological and social affluence. For all of our tremendous historical accomplishments, for all of our prosperity and comfort, and for all of our stunning technological knowledge and achievements, we are experiencing, at least from where I sit, a crisis of austerity in our souls.
This, truth be told, is starting to make me think that I might have trouble continuing to adapt to a world that continues on it’s current downward trajectory. It’s a reason not to fear the big sleep.
Those of you who are regulars here at Howlin’ will recognize this as the newest installment in an ongoing theme, most recently addressed a few months ago in Honor. I am fixed on this because I believe that tuning up our moral compasses is the issue of our time. And I’m far from the first person in my lifetime to be similarly concerned. From the 1965 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:”
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.'”
Leave it to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (via Elliot Trout) to say what needs to be said better than just about anyone—and for the right reasons.
Having said all of that, there is certainly no dearth of contemporary moralizers out there on approximately one zillion or so media and social media feeds, warning us in doomsday terms that the end is nigh.
And you know what? They just might be right, but almost assuredly for the wrong reasons.
I’ve been taking my two youngest children on a bi-monthly tour of church services in our area. I’m doing this because I think that it’s important for them to know and understand that there are many options available to them should they decide that religion is something that they want to be involved in (or not).
Whatever they decide, they need to understand that religious organizations generally want something in return for allowing you into their fold: adherence to certain values, money, participation in evangelical outreach, and more. You need to become a member of a faith-based community with your eyes wide open about what’s involved. I’m preparing them for this. And when they are old enough to make an informed choice, the choice will be theirs.
I am incorrigibly irreligious, and you attempt to evangelize me at your considerable peril. I’m much more likely to convert you to my views than the other way around. Try it and find out.
My reasons for being irreligious are uncomplicated. Firstly, I’ve never met anyone who was permanently better for their faith. All of the people I know who are really good souls are that way because that’s how they are wired. They’d be just as good of a person in a different faith or in no faith at all. They don’t need religion to behave morally.
Secondly, I interact daily with people who wear their faith like a military decoration yet are among the most immoral people I’ve ever met. These are religious hypocrites, and they will lie to you, cheat you, and treat you like a child of a lesser god without thought or remorse, courtesy of the get-out-of-jail-free card that they collect courtesy of their faith. If any of these people actually believed the stuff they were being taught with each sermon, they’d behave differently.
I suspect that religious hypocrites ought to hope that my view of what comes after life is correct, i.e., nothing along the lines of heaven or hell. Because if I’m wrong and there is a gatekeeper with a scorecard at the entrance to heaven, it might not work out so well for them. Just a thought.
I view morality and religion as separate endeavors that are often not, perhaps even generally not, correlated. It’s quite possible to be an irreligious yet very moral individual, and it's painfully obvious that one may be religious and highly immoral. Both the historical record and current events are replete with examples of the latter.
Morality is pretty simple and does not require psalms, genuflection, or tithing 10% of your income to achieve. You can just decide to do the right thing, which is generally pretty obvious, and then do it. Treat others the way you would like to be treated, as often as you can manage. It isn’t rocket science.
I see a contemporary world where morality, at least as defined by the golden rule, is in some trouble. People, by and large, simply don’t treat each other well. Meritocracy, courtesy, work ethic, manners, integrity, and personal responsibility are all in serious decline, while entitlement, selfishness, and the excessive pride of tribalism are ascendant. This just won’t do.
It’s not possible to govern (for long anyway) complex and diverse free societies with rules and subsections of more rules for every possible interaction. Such a rule book would be approximately as thick as the diameter of our solar system and impossible to use. At some point, people have to voluntarily behave in a manner that makes social interaction without war, murder, and violence possible. That’s basically what morality is all about.
And you don’t need faith to figure any of that out. You just need you.
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth
I think you may be making the same mistake you so correctly point out in others: Taking a few examples and then using them to justify painting with a very broad brush.
I think my Christian (Roman Catholic) faith DOES underpin most of the good I do in this life.
Yet that is not the point of faith.
The purpose of faith is to set yourself right with the Creator.
A side benefit is that having a strong religious faith makes the world a far more bearable place.
Knowing that there is something beyond this pale provides a perspective that puts all the bad stuff that happens into context.