There's a technique out there, if one would like to denounce something-anything, one would do well to invent a condemning 'catch phrase' - something that need to make just enough sense to be sold to an ever obliging herd and not more..
Moral Policing to me is one such catch phrase... Every time some idiot god-man or a politico utters anything half baked that is pedantic and mis quotes a tradition of some sort - a certain section of the herd who've gone long on the absolute liberalism and freedom concoction take up the cudgels with cries of 'Stop this Moral Policing'..
There are 2 important lines of thought that leave me exasperated with people such as these and I state them below :
Absolute and complete freedom is a myth
We live in a severely partisan and unequal world. If we can roughly agree that the kind of stuff that shapes an individual and his/her thoughts are an hitherto undetermined combination of genes, the socio-economic environment in which one is raised, the company that one retains and the literature that one encounters - then there are a lot of variants of each of these stuff that are made available to each of us in different proportions. Which is why we form a part of various encapsulations that include, but are not limited to language, creed, economic status, religion and state.
The most telling of these encapsulation is that of economic disparity. Nothing and I mean nothing effects the behavior of people the way economics or more aptly economic policy does. In a society of have's and have not's - the 'haves' demand for absolute liberalism will always be at logger heads with the 'have nots' need for parity in life. When the proportion of these two sets of people is out of whack and if the policies of a state are not conducive for social mobility - then the primal need of man to seek material will be satiated by anti-social activities. What hope can there be of Absolute Freedom under this setup ?
Simply put, For absolute freedom, one needs absolute agreement - an implicit sync in thought and actions which in turn needs absolute equality and societal equanimity.
However we live, always have and may always live in a disparate society and man is predisposed to be divisive - consequently we will always have limits in what we can say and do.
Morality isn't a bad word, it's a necessary word
Stanford studies say Morality is :
My fundamental doubt is - What could be refutable about a code of conduct for a society ? We have code of conducts in educational institutions, places of work and public establishments - so why not for a society at large ?
While I vehemently oppose the imposition of an individual's perspective of morality onto another, I firmly believe that it is important for a society to have a code of conduct in place that outlines social behavior and limitations..
This is where my buddy Rex and I differ..Morality is too interconnected an entity for it to be reduced to a perspective
And finally the hypocrisy of it all gets my goat - I was speaking to a very sensible friend and mother of two teenage girls last week at work - who was equally frustrated with the aforementioned phrase as I was but for more substantial reasons. Apparently the kids didn't appreciate any sound practical advice anymore and countered any suggestions offered for safety and security with - "Amma, stop this moral policing... "
To the impressionable mind, the constant narrative had turned morality into something that needed to be despised.
When my mother tells me - be careful what you say, what you wear , what you carry and when and where you step out - she isn't being a moral police as much as a prudent advisor. If I walk into a dark alley with a fully loaded wallet - I will get mugged. This doesn't mean I justify the act of mugging, it means that I recognize the way the world operates.
And Yes, while our constant endeavor should be to clear the world of dark alleys, we need to be aware that human nature and divisions may make it a pursuit of utopia. If we can have a consensus on a code of conduct - we may never have someone hijacking and enforcing them on us..
But we need to be interested in a consensus and stupid phrases will always form fundamental impediments..
Moral Policing to me is one such catch phrase... Every time some idiot god-man or a politico utters anything half baked that is pedantic and mis quotes a tradition of some sort - a certain section of the herd who've gone long on the absolute liberalism and freedom concoction take up the cudgels with cries of 'Stop this Moral Policing'..
There are 2 important lines of thought that leave me exasperated with people such as these and I state them below :
Absolute and complete freedom is a myth
We live in a severely partisan and unequal world. If we can roughly agree that the kind of stuff that shapes an individual and his/her thoughts are an hitherto undetermined combination of genes, the socio-economic environment in which one is raised, the company that one retains and the literature that one encounters - then there are a lot of variants of each of these stuff that are made available to each of us in different proportions. Which is why we form a part of various encapsulations that include, but are not limited to language, creed, economic status, religion and state.
The most telling of these encapsulation is that of economic disparity. Nothing and I mean nothing effects the behavior of people the way economics or more aptly economic policy does. In a society of have's and have not's - the 'haves' demand for absolute liberalism will always be at logger heads with the 'have nots' need for parity in life. When the proportion of these two sets of people is out of whack and if the policies of a state are not conducive for social mobility - then the primal need of man to seek material will be satiated by anti-social activities. What hope can there be of Absolute Freedom under this setup ?
Simply put, For absolute freedom, one needs absolute agreement - an implicit sync in thought and actions which in turn needs absolute equality and societal equanimity.
However we live, always have and may always live in a disparate society and man is predisposed to be divisive - consequently we will always have limits in what we can say and do.
Morality isn't a bad word, it's a necessary word
Stanford studies say Morality is :
- descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or,
some other group, such as a religion, or
accepted by an individual for her own behavior or - normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
My fundamental doubt is - What could be refutable about a code of conduct for a society ? We have code of conducts in educational institutions, places of work and public establishments - so why not for a society at large ?
While I vehemently oppose the imposition of an individual's perspective of morality onto another, I firmly believe that it is important for a society to have a code of conduct in place that outlines social behavior and limitations..
This is where my buddy Rex and I differ..Morality is too interconnected an entity for it to be reduced to a perspective
And finally the hypocrisy of it all gets my goat - I was speaking to a very sensible friend and mother of two teenage girls last week at work - who was equally frustrated with the aforementioned phrase as I was but for more substantial reasons. Apparently the kids didn't appreciate any sound practical advice anymore and countered any suggestions offered for safety and security with - "Amma, stop this moral policing... "
To the impressionable mind, the constant narrative had turned morality into something that needed to be despised.
When my mother tells me - be careful what you say, what you wear , what you carry and when and where you step out - she isn't being a moral police as much as a prudent advisor. If I walk into a dark alley with a fully loaded wallet - I will get mugged. This doesn't mean I justify the act of mugging, it means that I recognize the way the world operates.
And Yes, while our constant endeavor should be to clear the world of dark alleys, we need to be aware that human nature and divisions may make it a pursuit of utopia. If we can have a consensus on a code of conduct - we may never have someone hijacking and enforcing them on us..
But we need to be interested in a consensus and stupid phrases will always form fundamental impediments..
