Or Moral Relativism Will Drive Me Insane
photo from this blog
This is not a "blog post." This is an incoherent rant that wanders and back-tracks and generally just makes no sense. (But neither does moral relativism.)
I just got off the phone with my boyfriend. We talked for nearly two hours. He happened to be at work, but that's another issue altogether. We argued.
Adam and I have been arguing quite a bit lately, about lots of different things, though we've certainly been able to stay away from petty spats. Our arguments have been about our families and our perceived incompatibilities therein, and life choices that we need to come to grips with. In part, our frequent disagreements are because we've reached that point in a relationship where everyone stops being on their best behavior and starts to let humanity eek out again. You know, the point where every foible stops being cute, and you stop for a second and think, "ya know, it really isn't adorable when she..." Not that this changes how I feel about the man, he is without a doubt, amazing. Patient and kind and understanding and intelligent, Adam is the guy I never saw myself with before but can't picture my life without now. My mother can't get over how dissimilar we are, but I imagine that will eventually change. And the arguments, regardless of their mere existence, are infrequent in general, and overall surmountable. But I realized just now, I am a judgmental bitch.
We were arguing this time about environmental responsibility. Adam made a conjecture about how "it costs more to be 'Green.'" I promptly lost my shit, but that's not the point. I am self-aware enough to know that I closely align an environmentally responsible life with a morally sound one. My stance on politics is no different. Regardless of the so-called liberal attitude that morals and ethics are moving targets, so to speak, and ignoring my often extremely liberal stances, morality is not and should not be a grey area.
Capice? Listen, people, there is a right and wrong. Execution of one's ethics differs, but morality is overarching. There is right and wrong. You could be utilitarian in your ethics, or Kantian, or Aristotelian, or fucking John B. Doeian for all I care, but ultimately, one comes to the conclusion that A is right and B is wrong, even if both have elements of the other in it. Wait, I'm getting off my point.
My point? Judgment happens. All the time. You can call me Judgy McJudgerson all you want, it's just how it goes (and look at yourself, count the value-judgments you make in a day.) My judgments about others tend to stem from my own Kantian tendencies - belief in the categorical imperative. Perhaps I should just refer to my own behavior as Cuntian, since that's usually the outcome, but I digress... (I apologize to my aunts who I know read this for using the c-word, but I like it, and someday I will explain why, but that's another post for another day.)
Okay, here's the deal, Adam said to me, "You're such a non-judgmental person on so much, but when it comes to this, you take judgment to the extreme."
His assessment is not wrong. At all. It annoyed me a little at first for it to be so blatantly put out there, but the thing is, he's 100% right. I'm as socially liberal as they come, I think it's right to allow people to marry if they love one another. I think it's right to do what we can to help those in need, form providing unemployment benefits, to nationally subsidized healthcare. And why do I think these things? Because morally, they are sound and justifiable stances. We must consistently afford others the benefits that we ourselves would like should we need them. Morality does not come form the pages of a book of any sort, mind you, but from and understanding of basic human decency - the right for each person to live life as they see if so long as it does not challenge the agency of another. And I'm wandering again...
So as per Adam's assessment, I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to decide why I get so judgmental and angry about people who are blatantly environmentally or socially irresponsible. The people whose opinions differ from mine are one thing; so long as you can logically support your position, go for it. It's the other type that get to me. (And no, people don't fall into one of just two categories, but bear with me here).
The bottom line is, my judgments come from my disgust over willful ignorance; I am revolted by those who choose not to know. Or worse, by those who clearly know and choose to act in the opposite way for whatever reason. Laziness? Selfishness? Downright-Asshole-who-doesn't-give-a-shitness?
Allow me to provide an example of this: choosing not to use reusable bags (or whatever description) at the grocery. store. What the fuck. Seriously. It's not HARD, it saves you money, and it's better for the environment. Many stores give them away for free. Why wouldn't you choose to do this? GIMME A REASON. Justify your behavior; I'm the goddamned karma police.
Honestly, this doesn't justify it, but at least I'm aware that I can be a self-righteous asshole. Yet, this self-awareness doesn't mean I will change, either.
I'm tired of moral ambiguity. I'm tired of people choosing not to do what is clearly and intrinsically right because of ignorance. It's difficult for me to discuss ethics without delving into the semantics of it, because our language is built with judgment words, but I will try hard not to write a dissertation here. Just think of how subversive political discourse is, and how this semantic abuse has increased recently. Calling someone a "socialist" is the new "communist." "Feminist" is a bad word. These are judgment-laden words which have not always been so, but through intentional semantic use (or abuse) have become such.
Semantics aside, I reserve my right to judge. Often, I will have the common sense and social decency to keep my damn mouth shut when it comes to making a judgment.
The bottom line, however, is that we cannot live in a world of moral relativity. Moral relativity in a socially liberal sense breeds a fear of offending others, even when what they are doing is wrong. It means The Daily Show censors itself regarding lampooning insane behavior from religious fundamentalists of various sorts. It means a book - published in the US! - about cartoons that got a Dutch man killed does not include the cartoons in question. It means we learned nothing from Salman Rushdie or the
And moral relativism allows for willful ignorance. I give you one of the most idiotic statements every thought: "It's right because it's right to me."
This can be said for many things, mind you, and be perfectly acceptable. If it relates strictly to your personal autonomy, go for it. If you decide to forego logic and evidentiary support for something such as organized religion, you are perfectly welcome to do so, so long as you're not going to start proselytizing. The thing is, something such as environmental or social responsibility doesn't just affect you. It just doesn't. I realize not everyone can afford, or has the resources, to be "green." (But fuck it, even Kermit the Frog had a safe assessment on that - it's not easy being green.)
I have a significant amount of trouble focusing on one argument. My ability to articulate that which really boils my potatoes becomes an issue because so much of our illiberal, stagnant society does is intertwined in a way that creates roadblocks when trying to unpack an assumption or disengage prejudices from argument. Hence this meandering "argument" that spanned from judgmental behavior to Emmanuel Kant and onward to Kermit the Frog.
The problem is not that we perpetuate our own judgmental foibles or that many people just haven't been provided with an understanding of the absurdities of moral relativism (or Constitutional Originalism, for that matter. I'm looking at you, Justice Scalia. Ahem.), or given a lens through which to view life beyond their experiences.
Please, take a moment and unpack your assumptions, divest yourself of your beliefs and examine them from the outside. You may find that you are, uncomfortably at first, filled to the brim with prejudices and misunderstandings that until you can study them in yourself, will never understand in others.
I don't know if any of this makes sense. I know I haven't provided cohesive or coercive arguments in their entirety, but I have written this because, well, we're all chock full of bullshit, and I'm no exception. At the very least, I try to be honest.
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