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The Gaffer's Philosophy;
Part 31: On Ethics and Spirituality:
About Our Ethic:
December 2, 2002:
In my previous essays on ethics and spirituality I believe I have
made two important points. First is that we do have some kind
of a spiritual connection to each other through some internal
mechanism. The other is that we are evolving in consciousness
and there is no apparent limit to this evolution. We can become
God-like. This spiritual connection and evolution is what I will
call our spiritual base. It is, if you will, the essence of our
spiritual nature. It is unreasonable to pretend that we have no
spiritual nature. We obviously do!
Now that we have noticed this spiritual base, what's next? Where are we going? For sure, we are on a continuum and whatever is at the end of it we can get there if we invest the effort. Our task is to invest the effort and not to pretend that we know what is at the end. There is an inherent assumption that we will become more adept as we become more aware, as we increase our consciousness. That is all we need at this time.
From this spiritual base, I believe we can build an ethic of personal behavior which will serve even better than the puritan ethic served our founders. An ethic is a personal thing. That is the only way it can be. While a philosophy or a religion can belong to a people or a culture, an ethic can only belong to an individual. Any ethic that the culture seems to own will only be a reflection of the personal ethics of the dominant people of that culture.
Collectively, America has very poor ethics now. If you wonder why this is so, look to the White House, our legislature, our corporate CEOs, our so called spiritual leaders, need I go on? All of our institutions are riddled with selfish unethical crooks and con men. Let us notice the classic example. Rome declined as the ethics of its leadership declined and the fall was not long in coming. Look to the Emperor and the Senate. In modern America we tend to do everything faster. Some say that's good. For sure, the rise and fall of Rome took 1000 years. Is faster good?
Let's move on. The only chance we have to head off the decline is to develop a personal ethic and move to displace these current dominant people with more decent people. With a strong personal ethic we can set an example of behavior that the masses will eventually try to emulate. So what is our ethic? In essence, an ethic is nothing more that a set of rules of behavior. In that sense, I believe it can be completely defined. Furthermore, I believe it is very simple.
To begin this definition, I must recall my previous definition of good. I defined as good, any behavior, philosophy, or activity which tends to enhance the human spirit or the human condition. If we wish to become more conscious and God-like, our ethic must reflect that wish. Our personal ethic then, must be a set of rules of behavior which will tend to enhance the human spirit or the human condition. Over time this behavior will enhance our personal growth and increase our personal power. The power we want is power over ourselves and power over our environment. That power can only come through understanding, which can only result from increased conscious awareness. It is that simple, but it is not easy.
Amazingly enough, when I consider the set of rules that will produce the desired result, they are very much the same set of rules that guided our founders. The difference is, instead of having the rules given to us by some hokey superior being, we find them through logical processes. We arrive at them as conscious conclusions.
We all know what these rules are. We learned them, at our mother's knee, in civics class, in Sunday school, in boy scouts, or even from our priest or rabbi. If no other way, we learned them by watching Gene Autry movies. Unfortunately, along with those rules we got a whole lot of extra baggage laid on us. We got stuff about various versions of God, rules of dogma, racist nonsense, sexist nonsense, and separatist nonsense designed to drive wedges of suspicion between us. These things can be very overt as in the way fundamentalist preach them or they can be very covet. They are always present, embedded in the rules.
This baggage that was laid down as part of the rules has given them a bad flavor that is decidedly undeserved. That baggage must, of course, be discarded. It is garbage of the highest odor. It has no place in our ethics. When we separate the rules of behavior from the garbage, we will find that the rules that form our ethic are as sound as they were in 1776 when they guided Washington, Franklin, Madison, and the others.
I do not propose that we revert to the spiritual values of these founders. Through thoughtful examination we have found those values to be wanting. We can say that early Americas were spiritual, but the truth is they never questioned their belief system. In fact, they strictly imposed and enforced it. We have already traveled that road to arrive where we are now. What we need are the rules of behavior separated from any dogmatic belief system. Blind faith can have no place in this. Our ethic must be based on what we know or can surmise.
So what are these rules of behavior? I believe they are basically the Golden Rule, the puritan ethic, and parts of the ten commandments with God removed. Remember the golden rule? Here it is the way I remember it. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Let's just think about this a moment. When we consider it, this rule is nothing more than enlightened self interest. I believe this must be at the very foundation of any ethic we assume. For any social order at all to exist, we must have this basic cooperation between the members of that order. It is really about having a viable community. This is truly the first rule of behavior for any reasonable system of ethics.
Let us notice what other rules come out of this golden rule. I think they are very familiar to most of us. We must respect our neighbors and the community that provides the basis of our own environment. That means we will not lie to, steal from, or cheat our neighbors. For sure, we will not kill our neighbors. And, we don't mess around with our neighbor's wife or any of his possessions. As to jealousy, common sense should tell us that it does the most harm to the one who harbors it. It eats at us like an acid and poisons our relationships.
In addition we ought to honor our parents and our ancestors. We need not pretend to be so clever because we know more that our parents and our ancestors did. Let's try to remember that we are standing on their shoulders. Of course we can see farther. These simple rules of behavior are the essence of the ten commandments with God removed.
An important point here is our personal rules of behavior must be such that our actions will tend to support the community which harbors us. That means we must act responsibly, we must do our duty, and we must take care of ourselves, our home, our family, and our community. These things are simply the essence of the puritan ethic with God removed.
Now let us consider what our community consists of. In a personal sense, community is where we live. However, I will submit that the entire country is in some sense our community. I think we are far beyond the point where we can pretend to isolationism. Recent actions of America's enemies has shown that to be a false pretense. So, our ethic must support our actions in caring for and protecting America. To be sure, we must also look to including the world as part of our community. Let us be realistic and admit that is beyond our power or scope for now. Eventually however we will want to consider the needs of all peoples.
My other points do concern the needs of other people. It is about human decency, but it is very much a part of the golden rule. No one should be hungry. No one should be afraid. No one should be without shelter. No one should be naked. No one should be alone, unless they want to be. If our ethic cannot demand these things, it is not worth the paper it is written on. If our culture cannot fulfill these basic needs, it is not worth the bother of saving it.
This is my idea of a personal ethic that can guide us out of the morass we have sunk into. At first, we must begin to follow these rules of behavior. We must set the example of good behavior. The handful of us who understand must take the lead. Eventually we must change our government so that it's behavior reflects these values and rules. Finally, we must create a body of law which will cause the rabble to behave within these rules. As skinner might put it, the contingencies of reenforcement must be positive for these behaviors.
Next time, I want to carry on this discussion about our behavior.
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