| Can Tribes Exist on a Moral Platform? |
| Written by John Berling Hardy | |
| Saturday, 31 October 2009 | |
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"Morality is herd instinct in the individual."- Friedrich Nietzsche"Can you tell right from wrong?" This is the kind of question we ask our children, but do we ourselves have a ready answer to it? We use this question to determine whether someone who commits a crime is more or less guilty depending on their intent and state of mind. The question assumes that right and wrong are real and tangible constants, and moreover that the human mind is capable of recognising them for what they are.
"Morality is herd instinct in the individual."- Friedrich Nietzsche"Can you tell right from wrong?" This is the kind of question we ask our children, but do we ourselves have a ready answer to it? We use this question to determine whether someone who commits a crime is more or less guilty depending on their intent and state of mind. The question assumes that right and wrong are real and tangible constants, and moreover that the human mind is capable of recognising them for what they are. All tribes operate according to a set of rules - however rudimentary or unspoken. These are its morals, and they extend to each of its members, but they have no effect beyond the close-knit community of the tribe. Like medieval knights, constrained to treat each other according to the laws of chivalry but free to abuse the peasants at will, members of a tribe look out for themselves and for their own, but have no interest in the moral codes of other rival tribes. Such a morality is fundamentally amoral, since it treats "right" and "wrong" as subjective and inconstant. To this extent, tribes are inherently amoral. For all our desire to represent ourselves as freethinking and enlightened, the groups to which we belong have a strong influence over our thoughts. We all buy into the belief that our norms are based on some objective measure - that they are quantifiable. We believe that the rules we live by - rules of politeness as well as laws - are unchangeable and incontrovertible. We make judgements based on the extent to which another individual or group conforms to or transcends our sense of the objective moral norm. All members of the group share these views, and the outcome of a discussion between groups can be predicted according to the extent to which their collective norms differ. That this supposed norm is a myth should now be clear, but it is nonetheless the kernel around which groups form and operate. In order to maintain the distinction between those who are members of the group and those who are not certain rules must be laid down, and at the heart of these there must exist the illusion of an absolute. The reasons why any group adopts a particular moral code may seem logical, but they are in fact merely convenient. We judge others not according to the standards of their group, but of our own, and those who do not conform to the arbitrary standards upon which we insist are rejected as adversaries hostile to our way of life. There are such objective constants as "right" and "wrong" that transcend all we do and think - I am not denying that. What I do deny is that it is possible for any tribe to define them without missing some of the nuance and complexity which they require. Our regulations, therefore, are not predicated on right and wrong but on arbitrary definitions thereof. The claim that our laws are righteous, moreover, elevates them to the status of something to be worshiped, making the lawyers the high priests in a religion which elevates arbitrary definition to the status of fundamental truth. In the end it must be up to the individual to define for himself what is right and what is wrong, and it is his prerogative to do this whatever the tribe might argue to the contrary. The Article Author: John Berling Hardy reveals the secrets of the rich and famous. For more of his writings please visit www.playingtheplayers.com |
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