H to He

I would guess most people would say they couldn't affirm the idea that might makes right, but what we might say aside, that's how we live. I don't mean "might" simply in the sense of who has the sticks and guns. I mean might in the sense of whatever has power. Certain things have power and those things make up how we see right and wrong.

Again, I think we probably don't want to say that's what we do, but it is what we do. For example, let's say, for the sake of argument, everyone everywhere says stealing is wrong.

Fine.

Stealing, boo!

But, what we say counts as stealing having some kind of sense depends on who we are. Finding a dollar on the sidewalk? Not stealing. Slipping a candy bar into your pocket at 7-11 and leaving without handing over some money? Stealing. Walking out of the supermarket with the pen you used to write a check? (Who writes checks, grandma?) Not stealing. Giving someone eight dollars an hour for their work? Not stealing.

Whatever, you get the point. What we say is wrong as we live it depends on some sense of us. I know that doesn't seem like it should be so. I know we want to say there is some objective certainty we'd like to have about right and wrong. It can't be so dependent on the vagaries of history, culture, life, and actual existence; that would mean anything goes wouldn't it? (And if history shows us anything, it's certainly not that anything goes~*)

C'mon. Quit being a baby, and confront how you actually live. Or quit being a Calvinist and live in the reality of the Word. Either way, are you really going to try to get away with saying that truth and questions of morality are facts or objective things?

I know the answer to that. We do try to get away with saying that is so. Even as we are busy creating our moral sense of the world, we do so with a wink. We cover the scaffolding surrounding our world with a tarp of "objectivity." Done and done.

Silly us.

But who cares? I mean if you want to pretend that X can be known to be wrong as certainly as the earth spins on an axis, that's great. Barring any mitigating circumstances, you'll likely live as if X is wrong. If I'm going to pretend that I only can know X is wrong because of some complex network or web of layered meaning, commitments, conditions, and narrative, then fine. Barring any mitigating circumstances, I'll probably live as if X is wrong.

Of course if we don't realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding we might not realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding. Something like this might fly under the radar. This being:

"The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances."

Hmm... maybe what MY PRESIDENT means by history being the judge is that, if we work hard enough now, well create a world wherein it is impossible to say, "Tying someone up and drowning them is wrong."

Worse... maybe not worse... Bad right along with everything else, if we don't realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding maybe we'll start to be so sure of ourselves and the world we've made we become the people who say stuff like, "God I thank you that I am not like other men..."

But who cares?

Oh and that time I don't mean it rhetorically. Really, who cares? Anyone? Please, help me out here.

* From now until some point in the future when I won't, I will use this symbol "~" to denote irony.