My latest piece at OSV, wherein I presume to solve — or at least offer one sort of solution toward — the ongoing social chaos situation in the world — yes, the whole world — by talking about the formation of the human conscience. So far, the responses have been kind. No one has yet called me a loon. But the week is young:
If, whether we are religious or deeply secular, we can agree that it is morally wrong to treat people as things, can that help us respond to the growing, unfocused violence and senseless human degradation all around us?
Well, this is where focused attention and compromise come into play — attention that acknowledges our shared concerns about social chaos and how to address it, coupled with enough cooperation for persons to willingly withhold their knee-jerk instincts to take offense over clumsy rhetoric in order to serve the larger project. That might mean conceding together that — while tons of ink have been spilled on the immorality of either professing a “wrong” opinion or disrespecting a “correct” one — not enough is being said about how we shouldn’t rob each other; we shouldn’t toss people to the ground; we shouldn’t mock or bully anyone whose burden we haven’t borne; we shouldn’t sell our bodies or other people’s bodies — we shouldn’t commodify people at all, not even by making videos of their mistakes or their tragedies and then uploading them for monetization or even just for “likes.”
These “obvious” things need to be proclaimed without partisanship and then collectively recognized as valid and valuable moral positions. This is how — without professing fealty to a political stand or a particular religion, or any religion at all — society can begin the process of forming responsible social and individual consciences.
As important as that is, forming our consciences will mean not just enumerating all the things we should know better than to do, or all the ways we humans can fail ourselves or others, but also acknowledging that accountability matters, and what that might look like beyond calls for “more police, more jail time.”
It’s been a very long time since I blogged anything, so I hope that shows up correctly. I’ve included my email address at the end of the piece if you’d like to respond!
(Image: “Chaos” by Michael Day, CCA-2.0)1
