Moral Health

FORGIVENESS strikes me as far more virtuous than I had heretofore realized.  Of course, like any other good, we should not forgive no matter what.  It is certainly possible for a person not to merit forgiveness.  But what I should like to reject is the idea that there are certain acts which in and of themselves are unforgivable—acts which, by their very nature, are unforgivable.  I am not sure that this idea even makes sense; and, in any case, I am not sure that this is a good idea from the standpoint of humanity.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not accept the Christian idea that we should forgive merely because, in virtue of being human, we all make mistakes.  That is true enough.  Still, there are lots and lots of mistakes that I am not about to make—at least not in the absence of a quite radical change in my life.  Thus, it is exceedingly difficult to imagine a situation in which I would commit cold-blooded murder or a situation in which I would rape another person.

Why, I can barely imagine myself getting into a good fight.  So committing cold-blooded murder or rape is way beyond the pale.  I am undoubtedly flawed.  But there are, in fact, limits to the ways in which I am flawed, in that some modes of evil are not something that I would ever do.  So the Christian idea alluded to in the preceding paragraph does not seem quite applicable in those cases where a person has every good reason to believe that the wrong in question is utterly beyond anything that I would ever do.  We may all make mistakes.  However, it is simply false that all of us make all the mistakes that there are to be made.

My view is not what I referred to as the Christian review.  Rather, I hold that it is in principle possible for anyone to redeem herself or himself, whereas the Christian view can often be seen as requiring that a person forgives even if the wrongdoes not redeem herself or himself.

Imagine, for instance, a person such as Opidopo who commits a violent rape.  I think that it is possible for such a person to redeem himself.  In prison Opidopo could come to grips with the wickedness of what he did; and devote the rest of his life giving lectures about the wrong that he did; and helping others not to commit that wrong.  He might, for instance, provide those who would commit rape with insights that would help them to recognize when they are on the verge of committing such a deep and that would help them to take steps to prevent them from committing such a deed.  Opidopo begins each lecture with a deep and contrite apology for the wrong that he committed.  He begs for forgiveness over and over again.

My view is that Opidopo has redeemed himself.  Of course, he did not undo the wrong that he did.  But it is obvious that nothing can.  But that surely is the wrong concern.  The correct concern is whether or not his character has in fact changed in the right way.  And this question does not receive a negative answer merely because the wrong done cannot be undone.

My view is that in the scenario that I have given, it is clear that Opidopo has redeemed himself and has earned forgiveness.  Thus, I hold that not forgiving him bespeaks something mean and vicious.

As I have said, there are wrongs that cannot be undone and there are wrongs for which no compensation is possible.  But these truths does not change the fact that a person has become contrite beyond words and that he has gone on year after year after year to do everything in his power to live a life that addresses the wrong that he did.  In the face of this sort of behavior, merely focusing upon the fact that one has been wronged strikes me as woefully egotistical.

Needless to say, time is a factor here.  On the one hand, I am not much moved by the person who merely shows contrition when caught or when being sentenced.  These behaviors are easily enough.  Nor am I much moved by the person who makes an effort to speak to the wrong that he did when he is being watched by another.  On the other hand, though, there is something rather majestic about the person who year after year after year tirelessly address the significant wrong that he committed and who continually acknowledges with great contrition the wrong that he did.

I think that redemption for egregious wrongs has to be earned; and I think that in principle it is always possible to earn it.  What is clear, of course, is that many do not earn redemption.  Indeed, many willfully choose not to do so.  However, I never once suggested otherwise.  More importantly, the truth that many do not earn redemption for the egregious wrongs that they have committed should not blind us to the truth that a person can earn redemption if only she or he should so choose.

Now, if this idea seems implausible I suggest that we think about the future in the terms of never forgiving for certain wrongs.  In so many ways, this attitude strikes me as a source of evil itself.  Indeed, it privileges the wrongs of the past above the goodness of the present and future.  And there is something woefully malicious about that.

Part of the very problem with the world today is that someone somewhere is determined to settle an old “moral” debt, a consequence of which is that an innocent person is wronged for something that his ancestors did.

The wrongs of the past are carried into the future by a very simple moral attitude: It is called holding a grudge.  But what else is holding a grudge but simply refusing to forgive no matter what the person does.  Holding a grudge is tantamount to making a commitment to not forgive a person, no matter what he does.  And I cannot, for the life of me, see how this a good moral lesson to teach the future.

Forgiveness as I conceive of it is not a form of weakness.  Quite the contrary, it demands excellence on the part of the wrongdoer.  And I unequivocally held that it is right to demand excellence of a wrongdoer; accordingly, it is right to refrain from forgiving a wrongdoer who fails to exhibit that excellence.

What strikes me as a weakness is a frailty that privileges ones harms over any and every good that a person might, out of deep, deep contrition, go on to do.  That is weakness—the failure to have the wherewithal to rise above one’s pain and see the good that wrongdoer is now doing..

By contrast, I see nothing but strength and enormous strength at that when one can find the will to see the excellence that another has now committed himself to doing out of contrition notwithstanding the pain that one still suffers.  That is strength.  That is moral fortitude.  That is morally admirable behavior—something that we can commend to the future.

What makes for a better moral world?  Is it one in which we commit ourselves to holding a grudge for the wrongs committed against us?  Or, is it one in which we find the wherewithal to demand the excellence that a wrongdoer has forever pledged himself to doing?  Surely, the former alternative is none other than evil that claims to be justified—evil masquerading as pain.

There is a line of argument that goes like this: “They are going to have sex any way; so we might as well give them condoms or the pill”.  Needless to say, this argument is woefully problematic.  For instance, no one would think to argue “Well, they are going to murder any way; so we might as well give them a gun; otherwise, they will steal guns”.  Of course, there is a fundamental difference here in that there is nothing in principal wrong with sex; whereas murder is morally wrong, period.  But there is a most important respect in which either case raises a significant issue, namely the issue of condoning behavior.

Legally, of course, the liberty to do something does not constitute condoning it.  After all, people should not drink if they have significant problems with alcohol consumption.  Yet, they nonetheless have the legal liberty to drink.  A legal liberty in no way constitutes a form of social condoning.

In law, adults have lots of liberties and the idea is that they should bring to the exercise of each liberty the judgment that doing so is or is not a good thing.  Sometimes, we rightly conclude that we should never exercise a given liberty, as would be the case if we cannot at all handle alcohol consumption.  Sometimes, we rightly conclude that the exercise of a liberty is inappropriate only in this instance, as when we make the assessment it would better that we not make a given purchase at this point in time. (more…)

It is a chilling thought that killings in secondary schools are becoming commonplace.  If this is not a case of America’s youth crying out for help, then I do not know what is.  And if this tells us anything, it tells us that American democracy is on the brink of becoming utterly dysfunctional.  It tells us that the ideal of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has become so distorted, if not entirely vapid, that it no longer stands as an ennobling ideal.

Happiness has come to be associated with none other than fleeting moments of euphoria; and as such the difference between living the life of a crack-head and living a noble life is utterly disintegrating.  And it is that reality that indicates that American democracy is on the brink of becoming utterly dysfunctional.

There is another way of putting this point.  The very idea of humanity as know it is tied to the idea that happiness amounts to substantially more than fleeting moments of euphoria; for if that is all that happiness amounts to, then the difference between the species homo sapiens and the non-human species effectively collapses.  Democracy for animals is an oxymoron.  So if we who are humans reduce ourselves to animals, then democracy for us becomes oxymoronic.

Let me now introduce what appears to be an utterly irrelevant fact, namely that at the height of racism in the United States, it was possible to walk through a poor black neighborhood without fearing that one’s life would be taken; whereas this typically not the case nowadays.

This seemly irrelevant observation points to the truth that even in the midst of manifest squalor it was possible to sustain a sense of hope and decency that transcended one’s reality.  I suggest that increasingly young people no longer have that sense of hope and decency.  Increasingly, they do not have the kind of moral and psychological buffer that sustains them through the disappointments that are a part of life, the kind of moral and psychological buffer that permits them to nourishment and hope in their fantasy and dreams.

The sign that American democracy is increasingly becoming dysfunctional is precisely the fact that we have moved from the racism of yesteryear to a conception of equality and happiness in the present that is shorn of nourishment.

Is anyone surprised?  What, I ask, is nourishing about a conception of happiness according to which happiness amounts to no more than fleeting moments of euphoria.  This conception of happiness is shorn of any notion of right and wrong.  It is shorn of anything that is ennobling.

A defeaning feature of human beings is precisely the faact that they can have and pursue a conception of excellence.  Surely this is what the writers of The Declaration of Independence had in mind by the phrase “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

They meant to say that no one should define what is excellent for another.  They did not mean to say that excellence was an empty concept.  My excellence might be that of being a good father, whereas yours might be that of being a scholar.  And yet another’s excellence might be that of being a flight attendant.  A person can take pride in successfully performing each of the duties or tasks associated with pursing the aforementioned aims.

For the writers of The Declaration of Independence, the idea was that excellence is not to be imposed from some higher governmental authority.  Rather, it is to come from within each individual.  This, needless to say, is a far cry from happiness as none other than a euphoric moment.

Children killing children bespeaks a profound emptiness.  And when one considers that children draw their inspiration, or the lack thereof, from their social environment, then the profound emptiness on the part of children reflects an absolutely deep, deep flaw in society.

The increasingly horrendous behavior of children who are too young to have a sense of themselves is the most telling indication that one could have that the American democracy is becoming dysfunctional.

Does the future have any worth to it?  From a child’s perspective, the answer delivered viscerally by the way in which the adult members of society carry themselves.  This is why the point about black communities at the height of racism in the United States is so very telling.

In the name of freedom, blacks abandoned the idea of excellence.  America is doing precisely the same thing.

Blacks with next to nothing gave worth to the future for their children.  And that tell us something that is truly sublime, namely that the wherewithal to impart meaning to the future is tied to the ability to inspire hope and that economic wherewithal is not, contrary to what so many suppose, the key to inspiring hope.  Economic wherewith may facilitate inspiring hope, but it is not the key to doing so.

Dysfunctional democracy is democracy that gives the present little reason to take the future seriously.  And killing of children by children is telling a sign as any that the American culture is on the brink of becoming dysfunctional.

I shall end on an intriguing note: Hope must be nurtured; and that is next to impossible in a world that eschews excellence, which in turn is impossible in a world that eschews the very idea of right and wrong.

Animals don’t blame one another.  We humans, alas, blame eveything but the right thing, namely ourselves and, in particular, the way that we are living before our children.

A pedophile is on the loose.  And a world-wide call for help from the public has been issued by INTERPOLfrench (International Crime Police Organization).  INTERPOLenglish is based in Lyon (France), and this move on its part is unprecedented.  A re-constructed photo of the person has been included in this blog-entry.  This man has sexually abused at least a dozen children under the age of 12.  Although this is not a call for vigilante justice, each of us needs to be on the alert.

Whoever this man is, there will undoubtedly be some tell-tale signs.  It is almost certain that he is intensely private and has virtually no adult ties of substance.  For it is rather unlikely that he would do anything that would make him memorable in the eyes of others.  Yet, it would appear that his manner makes him endearing to children.  So we have an intensely private man who does not draw attention to himself but who is quite capable of engaging the trust of children.  And he is both callous enough and brazen enough to put some photos of his sex acts with children on the internet.

It is doubtful that he holds a position that puts him in close proximity with children, which underscores the idea that he is masterful at gaining the trust of children.

This pedophile could, I suspect, walk into a crowded room without drawing an ounce of attention to himself and attract a child to him.

Thus, we know that he is masterfully opportunistic.

Like the Nazi, a pedophile strikes me as a paradigm example of someone whose behavior reveals him to be unworthy of moral commitments.  There could never be a good reason to trust a pedophile.  This is because a pedophile would deceive even God, were that possible, if doing so would give the person access to children.

I share Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s conviction that we must at all cost protect children.  For precisely that reason, I am prepared to say that the normal forms of punishment for criminal behavior do not apply.  Given a committed pedophile and the choice between chemical castration and putting a child at risk, I hold that we are morally obligated to opt for chemical castration.

At the risk of offending many, I hold that a pedophile is worse than a rapist, which is saying quite significant since I think that rape is very nearly constitutive of what counts as morally heinous behavior.  The pedophile, however, preys upon those who are defenseless in every conceivable way.  And if that were not enough, his sexual desire can only be described as horrendously grotesque.

Sex is about many things.  But at its most basic level, there is the idea that one’s bodily sexual moments are having the intended uptake with respect to the object of one’s sexual behavior.  So it is even with the practice of S & M.  Each movement is in some warped way intended to please the other.  The fact that I cannot obtain a purchase upon sexual pleasure thus construed is irrelevant.

Now, it is precisely this thought that a pedophile simply cannot have.  That is, the pedophile cannot think for a moment that his bodily sexual movements are having any kind of desired effect upon the child.  There is no possible description under which the pedophile can think that he is “giving” the child pleasure.  Not even a sick delusion of this sort is possible.  This, I believe, marks a conceptual difference between the act of pedophilia and the rape act.

And it goes without saying, I trust, that there is no connection at all in the typical interest that an adult has in pornography and pedophilia.  None.  Pornography allows for vicarious participation, which is precisely why there are men in straight pornographic films.

This point is most illuminating, because there is no vicarious participation at all on the part of the pedophile who is engaging in sex with a child.

Pedophilia is a morally dead act committed by a live person.

I have hardly said anything new.  I should no doubt have stopped much earlier.

A world-wide call from INTERPOL for help in finding a pedophile merits the attention of all.  If there is anything that all of humanity can be in unison about, surely it has to be that apprehending a pedophile is for the good of humankind.

This blog-entry, then, is a display of unity on the part of its author.  It is my fervent hope that anyone who reads this entry will, in her or his own way, find a way to display her or his unity with INTERPOL.

The trick is to put this evil man on the run, and then to be sure that there is no place to which he can run and hide.