Dr. Laura Schlessinger made the following remark on her program today:
1. Good people stand between the innocent and evil.
I regard this as an extraordinary sublime point that makes for a wonderful juxtaposition with her remark some two weeks ago that
2. Good people draw lines in the sand.
I think it is extremely rare that any two sentences might capture the essence of what it is to be morally decent. But I think that Laura Schlessinger has managed to do so with the above two statements. For I cannot think of anyone whose moral character I admire whose life does not exemplify these two theses.
What I like claim 1 is that it points to the truth that while moral decency certainly entails not harming others, it does not stop there. It is not possible to be a morally decent person and be indifferent to the suffering of innocent people. All the more, a morally decent person does not aim to harm the innocent.
And no individuals on the face of this earth have more of a claim to being innocent than children. Thus, those who uses religion to justify killing and maiming innocent children reveals themselves to moral monsters.
It is no accident, then, that Laura Schlessinger is so utterly ferocious in her view that children should be protected. Children do not ask to be born into this world. We would not invite a guest to our home for dinner and then leave to do something else, informing the guest that that the hired help will attend to her or his every need. That would be rightly seen as a hostile act. How much more so, then, when we bring children into the world and then hire someone else to care for them? A child can have many teachers, but only one mother and one father. The only difference between a child “abandoned” and an invited guest “abandoned” is that the latter can give articulation to the truth doing so constitutes a hostile act. The child, though, does not live that hostile act any less.
The second claim is lovely, because it indicates that part of what counts as being a good person is serving notice that one has moral standards. To be sure, there are many ways to do this, some more or less explicit than others. Still, there is simply no way to be a decent person and not do so. Herein lies the idea that morality and dignity stand together.
We live in a society that seem to think that being morally decent is about no making people uncomfortable. Not so, however.
The idea, of course, is not that being morally indecent entails denouncing one person after another. Not at all. When denouncing people becomes a project in and of itself, then anyone who engages in it is a vicious person rather than a morally decent person. Just so, it is not possible to be a morally decent person if others think that we are utterly indifferent to whatever they might do or say around us. The morally decent aim to have clarity in this regard; and if being clear about their moral boundaries makes people uncomfortable, then so be it. This clarity is achieved by drawing those lines in the sand. Here are the lines of the moral castle in which my soul abides. No one with dignity can fail to do otherwise.
Now, a most interesting consequence of claims 1 and 2 is that they define the moral person as one who is preoccupied with blaming others, but as one whose first concern is with helping others. And this is as it should be. We may have only a fleeting moment to help others; whereas we have a lifetime to assign and re-assign blame.
This brings me to a final point. Nothing amazes me more these days that people cannot seem to get a handle on what is morally right and wrong unless, of course, the subject is racism. Why, some people talk as if that is the only wrong that is worth talking about. I think racism is quite wrong; but I do not think that it is the deepest wrong of society. Indeed, it cannot be. For genuine racism is tied to a kind of narrow-minded indifference to innocent others. Yet, that is precisely what society seems to be celebrating in a more general way. Horney? Well, why not have sex right here on the steps? Never mind that children or families might be passing alone; after all, they wouldn’t see if they would mind their own business. Don’t feel like doing your job today? Then don’t do it, because you deserve a break. Never mind that others are depending upon you. Have a child? Well, let someone else raise it. I could go on.
Since racism is narrow-minded indifference to innocent others, how is it that people can see this form of narrow-minded indifference to innocence, but not all the other forms? I suggest that racism would take of itself if we focused upon the general problem of narrow-minded indifference to innocence.
The truly moral person never loses sight of the wrong done to innocent others, wherever and however that wrong manifests itself. For some people, morality is a hat of convenience. But then, you do not need me to tell you that.