Mor[t]ality

Morals of the Faith(less)

We no longer have a set of consistent morals in American society. Not as a whole, containing both body and structure. We have laws, and we have social mores, but not morals. Codes of faith and religious doctrine provided the basis of morals for most of written history, and it's really only been since the enlightenment that secular society was thought to be possessed of moral conscience without the rudder of faith to keep it in line. Of course, it's also only been since the enlightenment that one could publicly state a disbelief in God and not be burned at the stake that same afternoon. I guess we have to take the good with the bad.

Religious doctrine, while monstrously restrictive in many ways, did help designate and apply morals to society at large. We are losing more and more of these designations with each generation. This is not always a bad thing, but it certainly can be, and technology is only accelerating this circumstance. It used to take at least a generation to go from the puerile masturbation of "Home Improvement" to the amoral hedonism of "Family Guy", but those specific examples are separated by less than a decade now.

Terminal Velocity

There has to be a point where this acceleration stops. I'm not trying to make a moral point by saying that, but what I hope is a factual observation. Much like an object cannot fall any faster when wind resistance becomes so great it equals the accelerating force of gravity, I hope there is a point where western society can shed enough of the moral burden to feel truly free, but not shed so much that civility is abandoned entirely. It may already be too late for the upper echelon in our financial world, for they never truly abandoned the "greed is good" ethos that was so rightly cast off by the rest of us after the failure of the Soviet Union. That entire micro-culture of captains of industry modeled themselves on Gordon Gecco, and just never let go.

It's important to mention here that I am not saying we should step back five decades. As nice as it would be to have dinner on the table the moment I come home, the prospect of beating my wife with impunity and having my son's hair cut to match that of every other lilly white student at his school kind of makes my stomach turn. While it is fun to pretend that the old days were good, it is not honest. In all reality I think our morals were lacking in many more significant ways, but we were better at hiding them. Technology is an odd weapon in this sense, because it helps expose our moral failings in faster and more explicit ways, allowing for quicker recognition and repair, while also dulling our sensitivity to moral lapse and accelerating our natural inclinations toward amoral behavior.

The Accountability of the Artist

Can we live in a secular yet moral society? I think we can, but we have to get out of this petulant artistic age where our rebellion against the oppression of religious domination and discrimination is fueled by burning their codes of conduct. We can separate these doctrines and try to understand them for their secular value. We should not set out to kill others and dishonor our parents just because the Bible forbids it. These are still objectively good ideas. Tearing them to pieces and calling it Art is the reaction of an indignant brat. It can also be argued, however, that the very idea of morality itself is so intertwined with oppressive religious institutions that the only way to hit the reset button is to do away with it entirely. I see that as a knee-jerk reaction without much thought for the continuity of organized society.

Artists can claim their rightful position at the top of the new moral heap by no longer dulling the blade of sensitivity, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and admitting that the consequences of their art go far beyond what the original intentions were. Just because we can does not mean we should.