It is an odd and uncomfortable
time to be alive. As a species we are either in a period of ethical
transformation or ethical evolution and it is unclear which of these is
actually the case. It is indeed unlikely to have the acute awareness to be both
conscious of the current state of mankind’s relations with ethics while
simultaneously cognizant of its direction, but one thing to me seems clear: it
is a slow and painful process to endure, it seems to move laterally, and we die
before we are given the chance to witness a pinnacle. While I tend to live a
moderately optimistic life, I find myself concerned that society as a whole
understands the “what I feel about this” portion of consciousness, but not the
“why this is.” It is a fear that we get caught in the crosshairs of a battle
between objective truth and subjective truth; as a repercussion, truth is held
hostage by our volatile emotions.
To
set a parameter from which this essay can be carved, it must first be concluded
that truth does exist and is not subject to perspective. Before there were telephones,
airplanes, social media, and virtual reality (oh boy…), the thought of these being
within the realm of scientific probability was likely laughable. Despite their
laughability, their capability to exist and the truth of that very capability
never wavered, it was only yet to be discovered. Despite our current outward
social musings of ‘what is true?’, truth still exists without our
interpretations. While the self-helping tendencies of our society may state that
each of us need to “find our truth” or “recognize we are enough,” the fact-of-the
matter is that “our” truth is watered down by “our” feelings. We are not
enough. If we were, there would be no need to achieve anything greater than
birth. Science is incomplete, we are incomplete, and our understanding of truth is incomplete. Truth still exists.
While
awareness of self and feeling is a gift to be cherished, it could also be
regarded as a burden. If it were not for moments of joy and excitement, life
would be a continuous momentum of discomfort, stringing together a path of
suffering and confusion, climaxing with our death. The continual event of
individual discontent shared by all humans drives us to both innovation and dehumanization
alike. Our awareness of ourselves within our kingdom walls can either propel us
to build them greater or compel us to undermine them at the core. To achieve
this, we sacrifice virtuous constructs in order to appease a never-ending flow
of discontent.
If
consciousness is awareness of self and feeling on a moment-to-moment basis,
then it could be argued that most humans only flirt with consciousness and
never adequately develop means for consistently valuing the importance of
themselves or their actions. In many ways, an objective perspective on human
consciousness could determine that only a measure of us truly achieve awareness
of the “why” in our actions while a greater portion of us only act in
accordance to the fleeting comfort of our emotions. To put that in perspective,
an ant may carry sticks and pebbles to its colony because it is wired to do so,
not because it has chosen to or not to; a human may choose to work at a factory
to afford a vacation or a new car, never truly knowing why it wanted the car or
questioning the impact they are to have while working at the factory; another
human may recognize the impact of their actions and feel empathy or anger
towards one another or an entity, but never look at the big-picture with appropriate
objectivity so as to act responsibly; or a human may look at things or events,
evaluate their importance or lack of, determine how they feel about them after
considerable evaluation, then choose to act in an effective and calculated
manner. To simplify even further, levels of consciousness could be boiled to
four distinct states: instinctual (driven by instinct), apathetic (driven by
reward), cognizant (contemplative but potentially blinded by subjectivity), and
disciplined (contemplative and virtuous).
This manifests
itself in how we handle ourselves (or don’t) within our society to a great
extent. It takes no courage for an ant to act on its instinctual reasoning, if
an ant has any capacity to reason. It takes very little courage to work an
uninteresting career and have a minimal positive impact in your existence, but
instead to do exactly as you’re told and never question why. It takes a bit of
courage and a good bit of intellect to challenge the pillars of civilization
and the moral structures which guide our laws and authority. However, in my
view the greatest measure of intellectual courage is to recognize what you’re
doing, ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, question authority and
challenge the boundaries of right and wrong, and still do what is right, no
matter what the consequences are to your subjective reasoning. It is the
difference between an open mind with an open mouth, and a disciplined mind with
a disciplined tongue. It means that we recognize our feelings as fleeting and
often misleading, and act within virtuous parameters at all cost, no matter the
consequence. It means we reinforce the staples of virtue that fulfill the
greatest version of ourselves, and do not live by the lie of our intuitions. No
matter what the continually fluctuating moral trends dictate or how much social
reward is granted through activism or rebellion, your state of virtue remains
steadfast. Furthermore, our personal virtues are not a point to be made and an
opinion to be heard, but a highly refined description of who we are and how we
conduct ourselves.
We find
ourselves in a peculiar moment in time. Everything is in front of us; from
economics, God, gender, liberty, and ultimately truth, all the intricacies of ethics
are under the contemplative microscope of the liberal West. Every imaginable
moral conflict is cooking within the ovens of our educational, governmental,
scientific, and religious institutions—and the table is set. It’s easy to
recognize genocide, enslavement, and blatant oppression. But there remains a
subtle and invaluable measure of courage in our seeking and standing for what
is true. Moral issues as basic as how we treat someone we disagree with, how we
handle failure, or even greater; how we combat our own patterns of emotional
bias as they obstruct us from what is right. Moral decisions are rarely as recognizable
as confronting malevolent dictatorships. Instead, they are day-to-day,
moment-to-moment decisions. Decisions that impact more than just your social
standing. Decisions that cannot be summarized by YouTube “gotcha” moments or
silly lopsided memes. There is no cost too great that should drive us to cease
in our defending of virtue. There is no virtue too small to be brushed under
the colorful rug of subjectivity.
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