Equality (Ethnic and Religious Justice )
"All men are created equal", or so it goes. Of course this is absurd anymore than all dogs or any other animals are all equal to each other. God's evolutionary process is based on inequality in order to selectively ensure progress in the process. It is better to say that all men are entitled to equal justice, or Terrell's "fair is fair" mantra. Given the current status (development) of humans in the evolutionary process, justice happens sparingly. We have the intellectual capacity and innate moral sense to know that justice should prevail, but selfish desires often rule the moment. Take Native Americans---out of two continents this ethnic group ended up with not a single sovereign nation, small or large, on either of the two continents. Clearly that is not justice. Susceptibility to strange diseases and lack of firepower eliminated them rather handily. When Israel was created by carving out a Jewish state in the middle of a Muslim World the Arab Palestinians were forced onto some of the most barren land in the area. This was their fate. It never did make an awful lot of sense to me that a particular religious group is entitled to their own land of some historical sentiment. I am not sure where the Baptists originated but maybe they have a right to own the land of their origination. If this were so important, why did Jews scatter across the world? At the time the State of Israel was created it was not illegal for them to live in what is now the State of Israel. Of course the whole thing was a belated attempt to relieve the guilt of the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened in Germany so logic would seem a piece of Germany would have been carved out for them. But it was decided by the time honored 'not in our back yard'. So it ended up in someone else's backyard.
Over 50 years later this creating a nation on other's people's land is still a hot potato. The answer, in my mind, lies in economics. If you are going to force an ethnic group to live elsewhere you better make sure the area is capable of prosperity. People who have nothing, also have nothing left to lose. Death, in the absence of viable living, is not feared like those of us more affluent fear it. If Israel and the United States had spent one tenth of the money spent on military hardware for the State of Israel---and had spent this money to invest in economic prosperity in the Palestinian lands, the violence of today over there would not exist. As I write this Israel has already destroyed the few structures of any value in the Palestinian Lands. The only thing left is to go in a murder X number of residents, currently known as terrorists. They are mostly all terrorists over there on all sides. Forget democracy and communism, and socialism and monarchy, etc. it is terrorism which has been the common political state in the mideast for centuries. If anyone needs proof of what violence achieves in the face of conflict, the Middle East is the perfect example. This is George Bush's "Dead or alive" and "you can run but you can't hide' mentality taken to cultural perfection. Our buying into this mentality has been a disaster. We used to be a Good Neighbor, now we are this massive military monster, the World's Cop, and the Economic Czar---some sort of Global Plantation Owner depending on slave labor for our own affluent living, an affluence which is rapidly becoming very very lopsided even in our own country. Every civilized country, right now, is being pulled down to third world status, some countries faster than others. It is a roller coaster ride with fewer and fewer upswings and protracted downswings. Everyone, hold on to your hats, this could be a wild ride.
This entitlement to equal justice and fair play is really the basis for cultural excellence. To the extent any culture deviates from this excellence the culture is proportionately deficient and doomed to failure. When this country was founded we didn't have cultural excellence. We had noble ideals and a desire to be noble with words like freedom and justice as a guide. It wasn't just the Indians left out of our original game plan but also the Catholics, women, children, blacks, the mentally ill, slaves, religious minorities, the handicapped, the elderly, and the gays were all left outside looking in.
Justice is always myopic. We see it best as it relates to our own selves and our own circumstances. But myopic justice, the kind fostered by the current 'family values' mantra, is not the kind of justice that innate human ethics demands. If we did not have an innate understanding of universal justice we would not be forever making excuses for why justice is only for some. The pattern is always the same----slavery was not an injustice because of blah, blah, blah; women didn't deserve the right to vote because of blah, blah, blah; Catholics, Indians, and other groups in different regions of the country were second class citizens because of blah, blah, blah; children could be exploited because of blah,blah, blah; equal but separate schools could be justified because of blah, blah, blah. Discrimination against the elderly, the handicapped, the mentally ill and gays was justified because of blah, blah, blah. When all else fails injustice toward others relies on religious faith based interpretation of dogma written centuries ago. Religion is always the most potent force to protect injustices. After all, if God wants things a certain way, what more is there to discuss? And who better to know how God wants things to be than those with the appropriate religious titles?
It is easy enough to believe in justice and fairness as a function of custom. Look, if these 'people' don't like things the way they are they can leave. There is something very agitating about any notion of expanding justice, perhaps because I think we all tend to view much of our life in terms of how big a piece of the pie we are getting. Expanding justice seems to imply, ever so subtlety, that we personally are going to lose something, that our piece of the pie is going to be smaller or more difficult to obtain. Organized religion tends to view expanded justice in the same way---a loss of influence, power, and control over the culture in which they exist.
Because of these fears Churches, and all of us, tend to circle the wagons, organize politically, and try, in the case of democracy, to force religious beliefs and customs to become the law of the land. Ah ha---questions will be finally settled. This is just an illusion. Always has been. We will make the use of alcohol illegal and the practice will be ended. Sure. We will make the use of marijuana illegal and the practice will be ended. Sure. We will have the Supreme Court make slaves declared property and the issue will be ended. Sure. We will have the Supreme Court or state laws make homosexual unions illegal and the issue will be ended. Sure. In the long run, justice and fairness tend to prevail. But in the process there are millions of victims. That, in itself, doesn't seem fair. God's evolutionary process is full of individual tragedies. It really is. The price for progress is steep, and by the evolutionary laws of chance, any of us could be a victim. I hate that aspect of evolution. I guess this makes ethics simply a responsibility to alleviate the lives of the less fortunate. Maybe someone can't be the brightest or most successful person in the world but that doesn't mean we let them starve to death. Of course we do, unless maybe they by chance they lie starving on our own house doorstep. We do make exceptions but try to keep the unfortunate out of sight and out of mind.
Correcting injustices is so hard for us who are fortunate because we live lives which, for the most part, are sheltered from the realities of the injustices. I like to say people build people, much like clergy like to say the fortunate should help the unfortunate, but like the clergy, this is mostly effortless babble on my part. I think people become sensitized to justice for all and fairness to all when someone in their lives makes them confront reality in a broader context than their own small environment. It may be a series of people, but often it is just one or two. At an earlier age I was involved with such a person and my sensitivities to justice for all have never been the same since. If this person had told me one more time "Don't be that way" I would have killed them. Until you end up constantly around someone who isn't "that way", the message rarely sinks in. This person brought me into contact with good people with heavy crosses to bear, crosses put there by a society which simply distanced themselves from such injustices. Once exposed to these people you lose the hardened edges of your ethics while your sense of justice and fairness expands, sometimes exponentially. But it comes with a cost---the still sad voices of humanity will be permanently embedded in your psyche. With the increased sensitivity often comes varying degrees of hostility to your efforts to defend them or help them. Depending on your profession you can't win too many popularity contests defending the targets of injustices. To the extent you are in a position to correct some of the injustices you become swamped by victims, ever more sympathetic to them, and feel the need to 'retire' from it all.
None of us can change human nature or evolutionary laws. So why bother to be ethical at all? Why even be concerned with justice for others? One trait of humans is an inherent sense of right and wrong. I am not aware of any culture which does not have this innate sense of right and wrong. It is always a question of doing right vs wrong. If there really is a right vs wrong then, in my mind, this means there must be consequences for doing right vs doing wrong. Otherwise right and wrong have no meaning. What the consequences are seems beyond human grasp. Of course you can have a faith based belief of what the consequences are, but I personally find that a waste of time. Inherited religious beliefs don't really carry that much weight with me. Guilt by birth is not something I attribute to God. Thus, in my mind, we mostly know right from wrong, but do not know the consequences of doing right vs wrong. Since there does not seem to be any clear pattern of consequences in this life, maybe there is an afterlife. Even religious Christians pretty much ignore scripture that is contrary to their own life styles. When much younger I stared at the verse "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven". What is rich? I guess anyone with more money than I. I think most Americans like myself must be in the top 5% globally. As I say, the problem is always to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing, but too often we yield to our own feelings and do as we want to do, say some Hail Mary's of some sort, pray for God to do the good work for us, build elaborate temples to keep God happy and some participate regularly in religious rituals. It's all kind of humorous from a distance, but in one fashion or another, we are all clowns participating in some sort of self-serving charade---and damn the consequences.
In my own case, in my formative years I was too dumb, in my productive years I was too busy, and now in my terminational years I am too old to be on the front line of anything. If there are consequences I wonder where the cut-off line is? Maybe there is not any cut-off line and maybe none of us, as individuals, are significant at all in this evolutionary process. We have to exist for the process to continue, but we only exist for an brief miniscule period of time. I really want to feel important, but it is difficult. I suppose with death that really might be it.
Any kind of thoughtful observation of life and our earth brings a realization that misery outweighs happiness on the reality scale. And, for anyone with any developed empathy outside their own family and circle of friends, happiness is always tempered by so many living lives of quiet desperation. How does one deal with this realization? I guess one does what he/she can. I think empathy carries with it a certain amount of contentment. Empathy with those most in need, or most oppressed, does not bring any material reward, no titles, no power, no anything but a sense of duty done. I think the most meaningful empathy---that of empathy for others different from ourselves---is the hardest to come by. As so often, judgment of others here is difficult. Empathy is in large part learned, not something inherent or self taught. Exposure to certain people and certain environments develops empathy. Others not exposed to these certain people or certain environments are not likely to develop empathy with diverse groups of people. Those most sheltered in life, least traveled, and most fearful by nature are not likely to have empathy with diverse groups. Instead they fear diversity. With ample exceptions, religious people often have the least empathy with others. It shouldn't be that way---but it is---which is one reason I shun organized religion. I never feel more like a religious charlatan than when sitting through an organized religious service. Over time I just sensed this is not where ethical reality is really at. Pretense is sham.
I view justice as a moral obligation, not a realistic endpoint. In every battle for justice in which I have ever been involved, justice done is peace of mind achieved. A lot of ethical judgment is not judging actions, but understanding the whys of the actions. Killing is wrong, for example, but there are exceptions. In the business of life there are many actions evidently wrong by the letter of the 'law' but not wrong under the circumstances. When a rule or a law does not serve the purpose for which it is intended, then the rule or law loses applicability. It often seems that people with no vices very often have few virtues either. To be around such people is to suffer, to be saddened at man's humanity to man. I just avoid cold, calculating, inflexible, holier than thou people with braces on their brains. Given the choice I prefer the least amongst us, the most in need, those for whom the evolutionary roll of the dice has been less kind. While I am not sure how it relates here, the fanciest of nightclubs filled with society's most elite or prosperous are total bores compared to the boisterous unpretentious milieu found in the local pub for the ragamuffins in life. At this stage in life I can be found in neither, another nook in life not really compatible with the terminational stage of life.
Justice for all applied applied with empathy is the noblest aspect of life, the nearest thing to religious or ethical purity, and in it's absence there can be no real peace of mind, no settled conscience, no feeling of genuine worth. I don't think it wrong to amass material comforts in life up to a point-----providing in the end, along the way and at the end, the wealth so accumulated gets put back into the society from whence it came. Passing wealth on to genetic linkages or friends is to amass wealth unearned at the expense of making such wealth available for others to earn it, or for those with the greatest need to survive. To whom much is given, much is expected. From whence will help for the least amongst us come? From those of us to whom God's evolutionary laws have been the most kind. That then, becomes the final Amen to life.
