The Battle of Good vs Evil
By David Hinz Posted in Culture — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It is not fashionable today to admit the existence of Evil in the world. In our world of Moral Relativism we are told that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” In doing all that they can to denigrate Western mores, the Moral Relativists would convince themselves that Jihadists have just as much right to their beliefs calling for a World Islamic Caliphate as a conservative Christian Minister who calls for a return to Christianity. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is right and wrong.
Descriptive Moral Relativism (DMR). As a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies, and these disagreements are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be.
Metaethical Moral Relativism (MMR). The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons.
Therefore, the Sharia practice of wife beating as a simple matter of obedience to the male master, is not only acceptable in the Mideast, but must be recognized in the West as well, as demonstrated by a German Judge.
But German law requires a one-year separation before a divorce can be completed -- and exceptions for an expedited process are only granted in extreme situations. When the woman's attorney, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, filed a petition for an expedited divorce, Judge Christa Datz-Winter suddenly became inflexible. According to the judge, there was no evidence of "an unreasonable hardship" that would make it necessary to dissolve the marriage immediately. Instead, the judge argued, the woman should have "expected" that her husband, who had grown up in a country influenced by Islamic tradition, would exercise the "right to use corporal punishment" his religion grants him.
The judge even went so far as to quote the Koran in the grounds for her decision. In Sura 4, verse 34, she wrote, the Koran contains "both the husband's right to use corporal punishment against a disobedient wife and the establishment of the husband's superiority over the wife."
To return, for a moment to that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” theme that has become a mantra for the lunatic left. By this reasoning, and the analogy has been drawn, George Washington, freedom fighter, was a terrorist to the British. (I have combed through the history books, and found no mention of American patriots murdering British women and children in the name of revolution, but I could be wrong.) By this reasoning, George Washington and the terrorists who dragged the bodies of the American contractors through the streets of Fallujah are one and the same. President Bush is a terrorist, according to the American left, and so is, naturally, the American military.
In order for our soldiers to feel good about killing people who NEVER threatened to harm a single one of us (before we invaded their country anyway!), it is important that we first dehumanize anyone who resists our occupation. So it is not by accident that the Bush propagandists have labeled any Iraqi resistance fighters as "terrorists." After all, terrorists are bad, and if they're all terrorists, we can feel good about killing every one of them!
What that gang of hoodlums did to the bodies of the American contractors was disgusting and barbaric. But we invaded their country, for crying out loud!
This moral relativism is so tortured in its logic, to arrive at the goal of excusing Evil, that it collapses under the weight of its own conundrum. Nobody sets out to do Evil – nobody believes themselves to be Evil, and therefore, Evil must not really exist!
Communism, as practiced by the former USSR, professed to believe in the absolute equality of all people. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" has such a noble ring to it, who could possibly disagree with the redistribution of wealth in such a way that none should be left hungry?
The phrase summarizes the idea that, under a communist system, every person shall produce to the best of their ability in accordance with their talent, and each person shall receive the fruits of this production in accordance with their need, irrespective of what they have produced. In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist society will produce; the idea is that there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs.
And yet, as practiced, the brand of Communism established in the USSR was pure EVIL, with a strata developing of those “more equal” than others, imposing their will upon those weaker than themselves. For some reason, incomprehensible to the more enlightened among us, every time that Communism or Socialism is put into practice, it degenerates into this unequal distribution of scarcity, rather than the Capitalistic unequal distribution of wealth it seeks to replace.
American school children today, much to our detriment, are taught that Capitalism and Communism are merely two different economic theories – neither better, nor worse than the other. Actually, they are taught, Communism is a more “pure” form of society, a more “just” form of society. They are not taught, unfortunately, the abject failure that every Communist experiment has become, thus romanticizing a failed belief system, and propagating the myth that Utopia is possible, Shangri-La is achievable.
So, if Adolph Hitler did not set out to do evil, why did 6 million innocent people die in concentration camps and gas chambers? If Stalin did not set out to do evil, why did an estimated 7 million people die in the Ukraine of starvation in an organized famine?
And instructive is the response of world leftists to the news of those famine deaths. Outrage? Not likely!
Two famous leading British socialist intellectuals, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, wrote at the time: “Strong must have been the faith and resolute the will of the men who, in the interest of what seemed to them the public good, could take so momentous a decision.” The Webbs were referring to Stalin’s organized famine against the Ukraine peasantry in the winter of 1932 when between 5 million and 7 million died.
Then, as now, Evil was dismissed by the left because it simply did not fit their worldview. Oh, by the way, that leading British intellectual mentioned above, Beatrice Webb? The next time you read “Peter Rabbit” to your children, remember that Beatrice Potter Webb saw no problem with the starvation of 7 million people in the name of the common Communist good!
So what does the elimination of Evil as a concept do to the worldview of our liberal friends? Well, in the first place, if there is no Evil, there can be no concept of Good. After all, Good and Evil are simply values placed upon a religion-based society to separate the acceptable from the non-acceptable. Conservative would argue that the laws which any civilized society must live by, are after all, based upon the religious mores we have internalized as a people.
Liberals, on the other hand, would argue that laws are not, in fact, religiously based, but merely those customs that particular society has decided to enforce. Marriage between a man and a woman, the fabric of the family unit, and the most civilizing force in the world, is nothing more, nor less, than a custom – a custom they are eager to change.
The inability of the left to acknowledge and to condemn Evil – their unwillingness to even accept the existence of Evil – is their greatest weakness. It is this Moral Relativism that forms the cornerstone of their belief system that disqualifies them from leadership at a time when the world desperately needs an American President who not only acknowledges the existence of Evil, but is willing to work to defeat it.
Over at NRO Steyn takes the moral relativists to task big time.
I posted about his piece here.
"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
NOUN: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Strictly speaking, the Founding Fathers, like all other revolutionaries in history, were terrorists. To the best of my knowledge, you are correct that there was no violence against women and children, but there's nothing in the dictionary about violence aimed at adult men or members of the military not counting. (Now you can go into an even deeper question of whether laws contrary to the Natural Law or the Divine Law are valid, but I don't think that's where you were going. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
There are two moral arguments that stem from this. The first is whether the actions of the Founders in and of themselves were Just. The second is whether the ends were Just. The first of those questions would require a debate about the particulars of each action taken during the Revolutionary War. The second, though, is less consuming. The Founding Fathers sought a government that derived its authority from the consent of the governed and that protected the God-given rights of its citizens. The radical Islamic terrorists are seeking to impose their will on the entire world through whatever means are necessary.
I didn't mean to jack the thread, but I did think it important to clarify the factual issue of the definition of terrorism.
Guy Fawks was a terrorist, the Founding fathers were traitors, there is a difference, The Founding Fathers formed a congress, formed a regular army, declared independence (after attempts to reconcile) and petitioned other governments for recognition.
These are the actions of a nascent state, not a terrorist brotherhood.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
E.g., Webster's Unab. circa 1960:
terrorism, n. 1. a terrorizing; use of terror and violence to intimidate, subjugate, etc., especially as a political weapon or policy.
terror, n. 1. intense fear.
To translate this definition to "use of force or violence" loses the entire distinction that "good" vs "evil" is intended to draw. Terrorists use violence as a matter of policy to instill intense fear and subjugate the populace. Does this sound like George Washington? (Sherman, maybe, but that was strictly local.)
Good and Evil are relative concepts without a standard upon which to base the determination. You say "Good and Evil are simply values placed upon a religion-based society to separate the acceptable from the non-acceptable." And you are correct. But here's the rub: Islamofascist terrorists consider their religion to be the barometer of good and evil. And they read the Qur'an to condone the terrorist acts that they conduct. Now I'm by no means an expert on Islam, so I don't know whether or not their interpretation is the proper one. But they do claim to have a basis for their actions. Relativism is "any theory holding that criteria of judgment are relative, varying with individuals and their environments" And without a standard, our beliefs are relative. One is as good as the other.
The USA has been able to maintain a more-or-less solid grasp on Good and Evil until recent decades, as Christianity has been gradually ejected from American life. The rejection of school prayer by the Supreme Court in 1962 is considered in some circles to be the event that began the downhill slide in Christian influence in American society and the associated decline in morality. Those who believe this see that as a key event removing a way to differentiate good and evil. By removing the standard from schools, relativism is free to "spread."
Your point about Communism is interesting. One of the key aspects of Communism is a rejection of religion, which results in a rejection of a definition of Good and Evil. The natural outcome is moral relativism, as the tenets of Communism replace religion as the standard. This chapter from a 1920 paper on Communism spells it out explicitly:
In practice, no less than in theory, communism is incompatible with religious faith. The tactic of the Communist Party prescribes for the members of the party definite lines of conduct.
It is interesting to note how that paper documents the tactics of elimination of religion from schools. Eerily similar to the tactics now employed by liberals in the United States. Coincidence? Hmmm....
Evil does not fit into the worldview of the Left because they have rejected the objective source of Good and Evil. They reject religion as a basis of truth. Moral relativism is the natural outgrowth of that rejection.
There are some that propose alternate reference points for right behavior. Those reference points do not define Good and Evil. They are just as subjective as the beliefs of the Communists or the atheistic liberals (funny, that parallel just keeps popping up over and over...).
There is one statement upon which I differ with you: "It is this Moral Relativism that forms the cornerstone of their belief system " The problem is that Moral Relativism is not a "cornerstone of ... belief". In fact, it's the opposite - it's an absence of belief. There IS NO belief that guides the Moral Relativist, and that's the problem.
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
option between Christianity in the schools and relativism? It seems to me that there are good people all over the world, regardless of what religious background they come from. There are good Buddhists, good Muslims, good atheists, etc., etc., etc.. I think this suggests that moral knowledge is something that can be known through reason and observation, rather than being something we must be told so that it might be known. This would make sense in that moral truths seem to be a response to questions of how to live well with others. My worry would be that if we treat moral knowledge as being inextricably tied to religious belief, we actually open the door to relativism in an unwitting fashion. Growing up in schools that inevitably have students from a variety of different religious traditions, the student might observe that he's unable, beyond his faith, to demonstrate that any of these beliefs are true, and might thereby arrive at skepticism regarding all these beliefs. If the student is working from the assumption that the only way to moral knowledge is religious revelation, he might then arrive at the conclusion that all these values are relative or a mere matter of opinion. That is, nihilism and moral relativism seem to be a product of living in a multi-cultural society, where people daily observe different religious belief systems and infer that there is just as little reason to believe the truth of their system as say a Hindu belief system.
I am glad that Moses gave us the commandments and that Jesus said turn the other cheek, but do I really need religious revelation to show me the truth of these things? Can't I observe that I shouldn't covet my neighbor's wife because this will cause conflict in my own marriage or conflict with my marriage? Can't I discover that I should turn the other cheek because responding to violence or wrongs with violence or wrongs will generate more violence and wrongs? Socrates in the Crito, for instance, argues that injustice should never be returned with injustice about 500 years before Christ. His claim sounds a lot like "turn the other cheek", and his reasoning is similar to that of the golden rule. Socrates does this without having these truths revealed to him, but simply through reasoning about probable consequences of certain types of actions.
Isn't part of the problem that we no longer seem to teach our students critical thinking? Today it seems that young people believe everything is opinion and all opinions are on equal footing. They seem to lack any idea that some claims have more evidence than other claims, or that opinions should even be based on reasons. I suspect we'd have far less moral relativism if we focused more on the rational grounds of morality, but perhaps I'm just utopian.
You make interesting points, but I'm left wondering "What is 'good'?" "What is 'moral'?" This is the point - without a reference point, one cannot define these terms and/or determine who/what is "good" or "moral." Sure, it's possible for anyone, atheist, Christian, Buddist, etc. to live a life without murdering, raping, kidnapping, etc. But is that "good?" What about gossip? Rumor-mongering? Cheating on exams? Stealing a carrot from the veggie counter at the grocery store? Taking a few extra deductions on your 1040? If I do those things, can I still be "good" and "moral?"
What is the standard? The point I've made is that an objective standard is necessary as a frame of reference to determine morals and (relevant to the topic of David's diary) good and evil.
I agree with you that "nihilism and moral relativism seem to be a product of living in a multi-cultural society, where people daily observe different religious belief systems...". That is consistent with the point being made - the "reference point" has been abandoned.
There is certainly consistency between some of the teachings of Jesus and those found in secular works. The significance behind what Jesus taught was that it was contrary to the common practice of the time, and in particular it was contrary to some of the teachings of the Pharisees and other "legalists" of the time. Of course there is a significant difference, as Jesus claimed to be (and is, in my opinion) the earthly incarnation of the one and only God of the universe, and had absolute moral authority.
You ask "Isn't part of the problem that we no longer seem to teach our students critical thinking?" Oh, I'm sure that adds to the morass of moral relativism. But why should they not believe that everything is opinion, if there's nothing to base their opinions upon? Critical thinking and "rational thought" is fine, if one is rational. But without a reference point, any behavior, thought, opinion, etc. can hold as much water as the other, so what seems to be irrational cannot be proven so.
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
moral decline we're witnessing in our culture doesn't have a lot to do with the breakdown of small, traditional, communities and the emergence of more individualistic ways of life. In the past, people tended to live in much smaller communities, where everyone knew everyone else for their entire lives. In such communities you would be less inclined, perhaps, to lie, cheat, steal, or murder because it could destroy your reputation for the rest of your life. Since your ability to prosper in such a community depended on others trusting you and holding you in high regard, you would take greater care to live in moral ways.
Today, however, community has increasingly disappeared. It is all but absent in cities, and certainly has diminished in the suburbs where you might live for years knowing next to nothing about your neighbor. Today we can do most of our business transactions without even encountering another person directly, by doing everything from home, online, and by phone. In the absence of community, we become invisible since we're only dealing with strangers. For instance, isn't part of the reason people are such rude drivers that the others they are rude to are complete strangers who they will never see again? Why worry about being moral when immoral acts will only have a neglible impact on your ability to navigate the world successfully? It seems that these shifts in how we live are also reflected in shifts about how we think about morality. Many seem to think of morality abstractly today, as something one simply ought to do to be a "good person", without seeing how morality is also tied into the flourishing of the community or essentially being a question of relationships with others.
is the traditional one where my Good kills your Evil before your Good kills my Evil. The sooner we start implementing this solution, the less evil we will have to use to kill their Evil.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
is an excellent way to define their (Democrats) belief system. In fact, it's hard for them to recognize Evil, as they are so often described as being Evil, they have indeed lost their way in making moral judgements between Good and Evil.
For an American President to disgrace the exhulted office the way
B. J.W. J. Clinton did is a perfect example of their distorted definintion of Evil, when actually what he did was Evil.Gordon Taylor
Managing Editor