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A Bit of an Explanation
May. 6th, 2002 09:58 amWhen it comes right down to it, I am not a particularly virtuous person. When I look at the seven heavenly graces, I find myself in all of them; when I look at the seven deadly sins, I find myself there too. I question the idea of faith -- faith in anything -- as a matter of course; I follow rules largely as a matter of convenience, and then only when it suits me. I am posessed of an incredibly strong sense of entitlement which may or may not stem from reality, and I have a habit of sewing chaos -- for everyone's own good, of course. I criticize most authority and occasionally cheat at cards.
Even if you look at the ten commandments, which most people seem to be able to agree on, you will find me largely absent. I have a thousand gods, of which I am one. I worship idols, especially if they are false. I ignore the Sabbath unless someone is paying me. I ridicule my father and mother on a regular basis. The only reasons I'm not a murderer are that I don't want to bother with cleaning up the emotional debris afterwards, and I do not feel competent to make the decision of who deserves to live. I have helped people cheat on their lovers, and never cared when mine cheated on me. I steal what will not be missed and have no qualms with eating into profit margins. I lie prodigiously, viewing it as something of an artform. I covet whatever I like but is not mine, and find the wanting much more satisfying than the having.
Effectively, I have no morals.
More to the point, I don't think that you should either.
The word "moral" comes from the Latin word "mos," meaning "custom." Morality tends to be closely related to religion, but it's really any set of laws which are followed because they are laws. Social norms like "never wear white after labor day" can be thought of as morals, because they are prescriptions to action that do not vary with the situation.
"Ethics," on the other hand, come from the greek word "ethos," meaning "character." Ethical decisions stem from independently held concepts like the right to private property or that the strong should help the weak. They are intensely flexible and can therefore be inconsistent.
Ethics I have in spades, and that is how I manage to be a good person although I am not a virtuous one.
The problem comes when someone tries to make me moral. I had a dream once in which dozens of Believers were writing their sins down in a book, admitting them to God. There was a line to do this, and the people waiting would shove each other as they jockeyed for position, pausing only to sneer at those who were not in line. This largely consisted of me, who was standing around looking irritated because they would not let me by -- I was questing for The Answer, as usual, and I thought I might find it in the library beyond them. I tried to get the pastor to help me, because he looked like a relatively decent guy who could probably kick ass if he needed to, and moreover seemed like someone who would support The Quest. This seemed to further irritate The Believers. He took me aside.
"Don't take it personally, miss," he said, (although he actually called me something other than that). "It's a rush, you see, giving up your sins to God like that. The forgiveness, it gets addictive -- the sense of being born again, superior to your prior self. Usually, it makes for better people. Sometimes, though, people start to like it too much until it's not enough to be forgiven for their sins; their craving is greater than that. So they start watching other people, looking for their sins so they can take responsibility for them, write them down and get the rush by proxy. They start creating new rules, or bending what rules there are, so that there will be more sins in the world and more forgiveness. They can feel like good people even if they're doing the opposite of what God intends. I think He understands, though. I hope He does. But you stay away from that book, miss. You stay away. You don't need to go anywhere near that book."
Basically, what happened to force the writing of the rules of my journal was a run-in between my ethics and someone else's morals. She could not, and probably will not ever, understand or accept the decisions I made because she has the ingrained idea that sleeping with someone you're not in love with is always wrong, even if both involved parties are happy with it. She has the socially-constructed rule that you should not have an open relationship, and that to be involved with someone who does is irresponsible and destructive. She does not consider these rules to be barriers to freedom, and she thinks that I am insulting her by saying that she prefers order.
I'm not. I would be insulting myself if I said that I preferred order, just as I would be insulting myself if I said I was moral. To borrow a system, she's lawful neutral and I am chaotic good. By my nature, I can accept that. By her nature, she cannot. I sympathize.
. . . but I cannot endorse.
Even if you look at the ten commandments, which most people seem to be able to agree on, you will find me largely absent. I have a thousand gods, of which I am one. I worship idols, especially if they are false. I ignore the Sabbath unless someone is paying me. I ridicule my father and mother on a regular basis. The only reasons I'm not a murderer are that I don't want to bother with cleaning up the emotional debris afterwards, and I do not feel competent to make the decision of who deserves to live. I have helped people cheat on their lovers, and never cared when mine cheated on me. I steal what will not be missed and have no qualms with eating into profit margins. I lie prodigiously, viewing it as something of an artform. I covet whatever I like but is not mine, and find the wanting much more satisfying than the having.
Effectively, I have no morals.
More to the point, I don't think that you should either.
The word "moral" comes from the Latin word "mos," meaning "custom." Morality tends to be closely related to religion, but it's really any set of laws which are followed because they are laws. Social norms like "never wear white after labor day" can be thought of as morals, because they are prescriptions to action that do not vary with the situation.
"Ethics," on the other hand, come from the greek word "ethos," meaning "character." Ethical decisions stem from independently held concepts like the right to private property or that the strong should help the weak. They are intensely flexible and can therefore be inconsistent.
Ethics I have in spades, and that is how I manage to be a good person although I am not a virtuous one.
The problem comes when someone tries to make me moral. I had a dream once in which dozens of Believers were writing their sins down in a book, admitting them to God. There was a line to do this, and the people waiting would shove each other as they jockeyed for position, pausing only to sneer at those who were not in line. This largely consisted of me, who was standing around looking irritated because they would not let me by -- I was questing for The Answer, as usual, and I thought I might find it in the library beyond them. I tried to get the pastor to help me, because he looked like a relatively decent guy who could probably kick ass if he needed to, and moreover seemed like someone who would support The Quest. This seemed to further irritate The Believers. He took me aside.
"Don't take it personally, miss," he said, (although he actually called me something other than that). "It's a rush, you see, giving up your sins to God like that. The forgiveness, it gets addictive -- the sense of being born again, superior to your prior self. Usually, it makes for better people. Sometimes, though, people start to like it too much until it's not enough to be forgiven for their sins; their craving is greater than that. So they start watching other people, looking for their sins so they can take responsibility for them, write them down and get the rush by proxy. They start creating new rules, or bending what rules there are, so that there will be more sins in the world and more forgiveness. They can feel like good people even if they're doing the opposite of what God intends. I think He understands, though. I hope He does. But you stay away from that book, miss. You stay away. You don't need to go anywhere near that book."
Basically, what happened to force the writing of the rules of my journal was a run-in between my ethics and someone else's morals. She could not, and probably will not ever, understand or accept the decisions I made because she has the ingrained idea that sleeping with someone you're not in love with is always wrong, even if both involved parties are happy with it. She has the socially-constructed rule that you should not have an open relationship, and that to be involved with someone who does is irresponsible and destructive. She does not consider these rules to be barriers to freedom, and she thinks that I am insulting her by saying that she prefers order.
I'm not. I would be insulting myself if I said that I preferred order, just as I would be insulting myself if I said I was moral. To borrow a system, she's lawful neutral and I am chaotic good. By my nature, I can accept that. By her nature, she cannot. I sympathize.
. . . but I cannot endorse.
