An Invisible Morality

In a sense, all morality is invisible; that is, morality stems from feelings in the hearts and thoughts of people. The good actions and outcomes, or lack thereof, that result from morality’s presence or absence are visible, but the emotional and/or intellectual source of what does or doesn’t occur remains relatively unseen or at least often obscure.

Our culture’s moral linchpin has come to be called The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As a precept, of course contradictions and modifications to it can be found in other laws and doctrines handed down throughout history, particularly in those documents issued during more uniformly savage eras. Yet, the near global application and benefit of The Golden rule today can usually be reconfirmed by anyone who spends a weekend at an international film festival.

In all our discussion about what constitutes moral behavior and what doesn’t, I tend to think we generally do better when we emphasize the positive over the negative. Rather than focusing on missed opportunities to help one another, which are inevitable, life literally expands and glows, right along with our hearts and minds, when we are able to recognize new opportunities to help one another, and take advantage of them to actually do so, however modestly.

This idea, in fact, inspired the name of my website. The premise here is that the mostly wonderful new technology that has come along during the past few hundred yearsand particularly during the past several decades doesn’t necessarily guarantee a much better world for all those living in it, but does make it possible! To paraphrase one of Buckminster Fuller’s central statements from at least one of his several interesting and groundbreaking books, human beings have now finally achieved a state of technology capable of rendering all the citizens of the world prosperous. As a modifier, he adds something to the effect of “if only we can get the politicians and robber barons*to get on board with the ideaI think he likened them to “pirates.”He also hypothesized that these masters of commerce would become increasingly dependent upon scientists and technicians, a development that would in itself help advance the proper exercise of The Golden Rule. The accuracy of this prediction has yet to be determined..

The main point here, though, is that, as new moral opportunities to help each other arise, we feel them, however unconsciously. Given this, we naturally feel good when and if we act on them, and the opposite when and if we don’t. Changes in these opportunities in recent decades – often the result of advances in communications, transportation, and many other technologies – often occur outside our immediate participation or control – as does the often quite sudden awareness that as a result now we could do things to help people in lands far distant to our ownIncluding acts of kindness, consideration, and understanding previously impossible during thousands of years of human social interaction..

At first, of course, it’s normal to be overwhelmed by such changes. But after a while, what we are all left with is a series of choices.

Many years ago I edited a newsletter that ran a regular column featuring a fairly wide range of interviews with interesting and prominent people. One of these I did over the telephone with the then head of the American Socialist party. He was currently thinking of running for President, so I thought his views might be of interest to some of our readers, even if they didn’t agree with them. The fact is, that though he was an intelligent and articulate man, all I remember from that interview was his passion for putting a level cap on how much income rich people could spend on items like yachts. I think I remember that because it was so specifically focused and intensely felt.

Of course, this idea runs smack into our cherished belief that each person not only ought to be free to become as wealthy as he or she is capable of becoming, but then also utterly freetax-free? to spend it however she or he wishes, as long as this breaks no obvious civil or criminal laws.Morality is patently not the issue here.

This view remains the norm, even though many if not most of our richest citizens give money to charity, or to other worthy causes. Whether their motives are intrinsically immoral, or just social, or both, often if not always becomes a moot point.

In short, if a hedge-fund billionaire today spends most of his or her discretionary income on boats, that’s perfectly okay in the eye of the legal authorities. Whether or not this may be enviable (to some), or deemed ostentatious or shameful by others, it in no way leads to any sort of legal prosecution, as long as the requisite taxes are paid.

But in light of the moral consideration raised earlier, all of this brings up questions about the roots and character of this kind of freedom. I think of myself as staunch a defender of individual rights and freedom as anyone, and have always tended to strongly agree with those who believe that any totalitarian-style regime, whether leftist or fascist,Whether these are actually opposites is another interesting subject, and another essay. is and should be destined to fail because, at heart, people need to be free.

Nevertheless, looking back on our recent history here in the West, and particularly in the US, on closer examination don’t we mainly contextualize the word in terms of “freedom from”? Sure, somewhere in there the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” holds a prominent position. But freedom of religion really means freedom from persecution, freedom of the press means freedom from being silenced, and so on. None of these are bad things; quite the contrary. At the time of their formation into the laws of the land, they stood as great strides forward in the history of civilization.

But I think it’s also fair to say that these ideas crystallized and were embedded into law at least three or four centuries before we had achieved the technologies that, as Fuller noted, would allow all the world citizens, not just a relatively lucky few colonists in North America, and some of those in other nations who more or less followed in the same constitutional mode. to prosper. In short, even as “enlightened” US citizens today, our still-traditional notions of freedom are lodged in a worldview in which nearly perpetual war and mostly inevitable scarcityWith all their attendant imprecations on people’s lives. were just assumed to be the norm. Now, as stated above, I don’t consider myself a “socialist,” or for that matter, an “ist” of any sort. I do, however, now strongly tend to see our more traditional idea of freedom as somewhat outmoded – at least temporarily – in so far as it often seems to stand clearly in the way of a technologically renewed and greatly empowered universal application of The Golden Rule.

To their credit in my view, many people of great wealth have already voiced a willingness to give out large amounts of that wealth to help the many millions of poor and malnourished around the world. Many of these have actually done and are still doing so. In addition, arithmetically speaking at least, there are probably more utter pacifists alive today than ever beforeParticularly if we add all those who wish for an end to war, but dare not express it publicly.– people who intuitively understand that a planet truly working together in a focused and humane way could, indeed, probably put an end to war within two or three generations.

Unfortunately, such people are still significantly outnumbered – or at least outgunned and/or out-moneyed, by others still operating under the notion that the reality of inevitable scarcity, and the perpetual warfare that goes along with it, will, can or should never end. Connected at the hip to this notion is the definition of freedom as the right of an individual to still acquire and spend any amount of personal wealth – however immeasurable – as she or he sees fit, in order to protect and cushion themselves from the potential vicissitudes of that real or imagined, current or potential scarcity and violence.

And so the heart of The Golden Rule continues to be largely lost, despite the fervent efforts of a relatively few valiant people who get that, technologically, we have moved far beyond what was, arguably, more than fair and reasonable for the “freedom loving” colonial mindset of 1776 – a habit of thinking which, for all its undeniable good points, was still largely mired in the darkness of ancient historical struggles.

If we are to truly move beyond the past, and that “nightmare of history” Stephen Daedalus so much wanted to forget. and into the full, true, and universal application of The Golden Rule, rather than a future of more untold misery and incessant warfare, a critical mass of the world’s wealthy leadership must look deeply into their own hearts and minds, and set out together, and in ways effectively inclusive of everyone else, to construct a new, improved set of formal laws and institutions conforming to a more technologically accurate sense of morality.