February 24, 2003

• High Road or Low?

  UPDATED

  When an ignorant young person impertinently parrots some arrant
  self-serving nonsense learned from equally ignorant and self-serving,
  but also reactionary and pompous, elders, is the correct response to
  ignore the misguided whelp, put him down with a scathing rejoinder, or
  engage him in civilized debate?

  When a member of an elite ruling class, a powerful minority,
  criticizes and castigates members of the oppressed majority for having
  become warped, underhanded and cruel in their dealings with their
  oppressors, does the impeccable warrior of the underclass take a little
  sarcastic snipe at the self-important critic, then retreat and live to
  fight another day–or does she get right in his face and give him hell
  and bring down on herself the wrath of the oppressors? Or is there
  another, preferable, course?

  Those are rhetorical questions, dear readers, but feel free to
  respond if you think you have an answer. The First Amendment to the
  U.S. Constitution is the first thing I would rise up to defend. Just
  beware: answering rhetorical questions leaves one open to an ensuing
  debate, and even to ridicule if the answer one presents can be
  successfully refuted.

  For me, the one answer to all of the above is, “It depends on the
  circumstances.” I’m a firm advocate of situational ethics. I think that
  any one-size-fits-all, stock response to any given eventuality is going
  to be inappropriate in some situations. My regular readers, the
  attentive ones, have learned that I am engaged in a quest to transcend
  my beliefs. I don’t believe that, “everyone needs something to believe
  in.” I’ve given myself a free pass on that one, and will extend one to
  any brave souls out there who desire to join in this quest.

  I do NOT “believe in” situational ethics. It is a basic foundation
  of my paradigm, a principle that guides almost every decision I make,
  but I don’t take it on faith. My experience with by-the-book living in
  my own life and those of others I’ve observed, has taught me that there
  are incidents and contingencies not covered in any book. I’ve read a
  lot of books, have delved deeply into studies of religion, mysticism,
  and metaphysics. I worked for several years as a book critic. It’s not
  a matter of my being able to read critically. I am unable to completely
  suspend the critical response. If I encounter flawed logic or
  flawlessly reasoned arguments based on bullshit premises, I notice.

  Frequently, I wonder why people don’t think about what they believe. Over 108 years ago, T.H.Huxley,
  President of the Royal Society, believed that the time was already
  fifty years in the past, when, “It was possible for very eminent and,
  at the same time, perfectly sincere men, to keep their scientific and
  their other convictions in two separate logic-tight compartments.” I
  truly do understand how he could have been so wrong. When one’s own
  awareness is broad and lucid, one tends to forget that there are still
  others who live in very narrow, dark, little reality-tunnels. Even now,
  the world is filled with people who have never bothered to apply the
  abilities of one cerebral hemisphere to an examination of the contents
  of the other one.

  That much is excusable, understandable because many of us lack any
  active neurological crossover via the corpus callosum between the
  hemispheres. The wetware is there, the physical neurochemistry exists.
  What’s missing is the electricity, the neural activation. Even for men,
  however, whose mentation occurs almost exclusively in the left
  hemisphere, some logical examination of data stored there, in the light
  of other data stored there, a little compare-and-contrast among the
  files, should be possible. Am I the only one who thinks it would also
  be helpful?

  Civilized debate it is!

  A comment from TheHorseYouRode prompted this update.  He wrote:

  “now, i don’t know diddly about situational ethics, but doesn’t the mere definition of ethics negate wavering of any kind? can you suggest a book i might read on the subject?”

  I recognize that he might be putting me on, there. 
  “Situational ethics” has been a pejorative term for most people
  throughout more than half my lifetime.  Sources that
  condemn seat-of-the-pants morality far outnumber those that
  promote or defend it.  I prefer to take the comment as
  an opening to extend the debate and expand the scope of it.  The
  first book that popped into my mind was How to Believe in Nothing and Set Yourself Free by Michael Misita but, although an excellent book, it’s only tangentially related to ethics.

  That definition question is valid.  Although my paper
  dictionary has slightly different wording, the effect is the same as
  what I found at Merriam-Webster OnLine.

  Main Entry: eth·ic
  Pronunciation: 'e-thik
  Function: noun
  Etymology: Middle English ethik, from Middle French ethique, from Latin ethice, from Greek EthikE, from Ethikos
  Date: 14th century
  1 plural but singular or plural in construction : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
  2 a : a set of moral principles or values b : a theory or system of moral values <the present-day materialistic ethic> c plural but singular or plural in construction : the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group <professional ethics> d : a guiding philosophy

  Until you toil through and get to d, it’s all about
  moral systems and sets of rules.  I can see how someone could
  think that that is all there is to ethics.  But one can have an
  ethic that isn’t written down in any book, one based on subjective
  values such as love.

  In his seminal 1966 work, Situation Ethics,
  Joseph Fletcher did base his system on love, and used a debatable
  biblical reference to support it.  The book-thumpers jumped on
  that.  You can find their response to Fletcher at the
  website of All About GOD Ministries, Inc.

  Google is great; Google is good.  I’ve been having a blast
  searching and refining my search.  Among thousands of serious web
  references, I found one that’s actually funny. 
  Which brings me to something I’ve noticed about a lot of people. 
  They tend to practice situational ethics, the vast majority of people
  whom I’ve observed.  Bending the rules to fit the circumstances
  seems to be the way of the world, currently.  The ones, I’ve
  found, who don’t occasionally bend a rule do tend to be quite humorless
  as well.

  • 4:57 pm
  • 20 Comments