RIGHT ONE WRONG

The prevailing wind of philosophy among the historically out-of-touch Western elite, I am told, is centered in relativism, meaning their convenient belief that there is neither objective reality nor objective morality. This takes good and evil, as well as right and wrong, off the table of rational discussion. It is the immorality of hedge fund manipulators made into acceptable social etiquette. 

This relativism (Post-structuralism or Postmodernism) is a cousin to what psychologists call "rationalization", the defense by the overwhelmed or undeveloped mind to deny responsibility for harmful or dysfunctional behaviors. "I had to do it." "I was just following orders." "He deserved it." "She made me do it.""I did it because I am oppressed by society." "It is what happens in a free market: Winners and losers." And so on. The hint of a whining child's voice is always present in a rant of rationalization. 

There is right and wrong, based in thousands of years of human evolution which have culminated in our human civilizations. Different civilizations have come to different beliefs about exactly what constitutes right and wrong, obviously. In The West, our Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian civilization has codified right and wrong into institutional law. Unlike tribal law, Sharia for example, institutional law represents an evolution of the concept of degree in the assessment of right and wrong. Torturing heretics and burning witches once constituted Western justice. We are centuries beyond that violent application of superstition, based in religion. 

This leads some to praise Western civilization as enlightened. Other civilizations throughout history have made a similar claim by juxtaposing themselves against surrounding "barbarians". The problem is that barbarism still holds a stubborn appeal to the human brain. We have not evolved out of that quite yet. Western civilization is currently under attack by tribal (regressive) barbarism, which prefers religious fundamentalism, extreme atheist nihilism and tribal identity over universal human dignity and respect for civilized rationality.

How to keep Western civilization moving forward in a truly progressive direction? This seems to be the question at ground zero in the current culture wars between self-named Progressives and Conservatives. The extremists at either end of these culture camps, Far Left and Alt-Right, are the foot soldiers of opposing philosophies: Relativism vs. Absolutism.

I jumped off the Right-Left political spectrum when fellow Peace-and-Love Baby Boomers rallied behind Ronald Reagan and the Christian Right. These former Peace-niks were sell-outs, disillusioned by the economic aftermath of the war in Vietnam. No matter how anti-war many of them were while the war raged, taking responsibility for its aftermath as Americans did not sit well. It was time to blame the Russians (Evil Soviet Empire), once again, even though the Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese and the corrupt Roman Catholic Vietnamese were the provocateurs who drew us into Vietnam. 

But, whether or not you deny right and wrong, unless you are a sociopath or psychopath, your Western-educated gut knows the difference. 

Blue-haired and green-haired demonstrators on Western university campuses seem to represent the new barbarism of identity tribalism. They have been indoctrinated by professors in such dubious fields as Gender Studies and various identity-based histories. These misdirected students have been inoculated with the narrow-minded resentments of their professors and identity-based origins. They flatly rationalize violence and verbal abuse as justified, which is odd, since their philosophical base, though built on sand, seems to deny the existence of objective justice and objective injustice.

I would like to suggest something to any young person, Far Left or Alt-Right or in between: Right one wrong. What does that mean? 

Its meaning is obvious. First, look at yourself in the mirror for a good while. Make eye contact with your own reflection. Do you see something wrong there? Don't brush it off. Acknowledge it. Work on that with all the gusto you would put into some political fight. If you can right that wrong which you are doing to yourself every day, then you may be ready to right a wrong in your own society. Rather than rushing out to a demonstration about an injustice done to a stranger or an amorphous identity group, open your eyes to those around you who are suffering from something wrong with them or with how they have been treated. Start with your own family. Look at the people you are living with. Listen to those around you. 

Righting a single wrong is the stuff of popular comic-book superheroes. Jessica Jones is one of my favorites, though I wish she would work on herself more. But righting a wrong that is part of your own life does not require being a superhero. It is within our human capability. If we billions turned from trying to control the behavior of others to controlling ourselves by focusing on righting one wrong after another in our own lives, a peaceful human revolution would occur worldwide.

Trying to deny the existence of right and wrong or to project right and wrong onto other people while ignoring it within yourself is regressive from the perspective of human social evolution. This is the mentality of a mob, not a rational society. Being good and feeling good must be earned by doing good against evil. Acting in concert with any mob does not make any individual good. It is like being intoxicated. It makes a person feel powerful but does not actually enhance that individual's empowerment unless that individual practices whatever good the mob seeks to represent. 

The Christian story of Christ's defense of an accused adulteress against a stoning mob of religious extremists is an illustration of my point. I have chosen the illustrative painting of the incident above, because I feel it captures the action of one man standing against a mob, inserting himself in defense of the accused. The mob represents an ideology which did not critically discern guilt or innocence through deliberation. Christ represents the righteousness of non-violence against the wrong of hypocritical gang violence against a vulnerable individual whose offense involved having control over her own body. I find this one of Christianity's most poignant tales. I believe its lesson speaks to the essence of human action for good against evil. To right one wrong as a responsible and ethical human being is a path to righting all wrongs.