Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFor what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? – Matthew 16:26
When I was a kid, good meant goody-goody – momma’s boy – wimp. Our playground ethos glorified defiance. Cool guys puffed cigarettes, read porn, jacked off in delightful secret. Sometimes they snuck kisses! I say they, because, to my regret, I was never one of their number, though I longed to be. What prevented me? Respect for my elders? Hardly. Belief in their system? Neither that. More, as I reconstruct, an allergy to shame. I hadn’t the nerve to endure derision – then or now.
Was that weakness or strength? I was never sure. My divided identity could argue either way – and did – exhaustingly. Either self sneered at the other’s timidity. If only I could be bad! – for bad meant good. My life course amounted to a grumpy compromise – until retirement, when my pride retired and I could be who I preferred. Better late than never.
Each of us, if we’re sane, knows right from wrong in our inner depths. But because right is often hard and inconvenient, we labor to obscure that knowledge beneath layers of excuses. We would be good if we could, but we can’t because… fill in the blank: we must make a living, don’t want to disappoint, got to play ball, God (or His minister) insists. We may come to believe our rationalizations, consoling ourselves we “had no choice” (though our dreams whisper otherwise).
The most impressive lesson of my lifespan has been the practicality of morality. Good is not goody-goody but society’s glue and contentment’s precondition. We live our lives not for ourselves but others. We are servants – of the common cause – not “masters of our fate.” We fill the roles our community offers. To accomplish anything we must collaborate, cooperate, trust. We derive our gladness from the gladness of others.
Existence without morality devolves into a power struggle. That’s what’s happening in America today. Two tribes compete, not for the greater good, but to trounce each other. Idealism becomes a joke when the stakes are kill or be killed. Your and my tribe, I’m persuaded, seeks to do what’s best for most, but to accomplish anything we must secure power, first things first.
My most convincing professor in morality has been the Nameless One. (Bad examples can be more persuasive than good.) Winning is all he cares about, poor guy. Serving the welfare of one, he will die despised by all, his dupes especially. His fame may prove as durable as Caligula’s.
The shock of his curriculum has been his power. He has bullied his followers into being bullies, forced OK persons to vileness in self-defense. I strain to imagine what his Senators tell themselves in the empty middle of the night: my team, my career, some influence is preferable to none, reform from within, excuses, excuses. May the darkness contradict their daytime talking points!
A world ungoverned by morality is a fearsome scrum. Will America keep sliding in that grim direction? Nobody can predict. Surely we’ve slid farther faster than any observer might have foretold.
I permit myself to hope because the alternative’s intolerable. I arm each day. My (self-appointed) job is propaganda, to buttress commitment with language. Courage needs encouragement: I must chivvy myself to self-surrender.
Goodness is not goody-goody, but a survival skill. It takes diligence, guts. We cannot look away or trivialize our disease. Feel the eyes of tomorrow upon us. We knew what was right – did we do it?