Being Individually Moral but Forced to Live Among Collective Immorality
In history and in the present, have you noticed some things are wrong with what was/is socially acceptable, with what was/is deemed "legal"?
The collective way of living in society and what is accepted is not decided by each individual. Some individuals can see wrongs, yet can't change the collective way things are. Despite wanting things to be better, we can't snap our fingers and make it better.
Source
Slavery was once "legal", but it wasn't morally lawful.
Marrying 12 year old girls used to be "legal", but it wasn't morally lawful.
Not allowing women to work or vote was "legal", but it wasn't morally lawful.
There are "societies" where they decide what is allowed in their in-group. Things like child marriages allowed. Stoning women for being raped is allowed. Jailing someone for not believing in a "god" is allowed, or even sentencing them to death for the same is allowed. None of these things are morally lawful, but they have been deemed "legal" in the authoritarian structures of those "societies" or so-called "communities".
It makes you wonder who would actually want to live in such a society, unless they didn't have the option to go somewhere else. But people perpetuate the "legal" structure in denial of what is morally lawful. Some people see the immorality of the current condition, and fight to change things (if they can). Some people die as a result of trying to make things more moral.
We still have many issues in our Western society as well. Things are legal, but they aren't morally lawful or morally right. We are forced to go along with the conditioning of the current condition. Thankfully we still have a certain degree of freedom of thought and speech, but that is being eroded too.
Many nations have hate-speech laws, where you can't speak out about certain topics that contradict the authoritarian narrative of what you're allowed to say. If you do, you're essentially a thought criminal, as depicted in Orwell's 1984.
Yet, people in the society champion these "legal" measures to silence free speech and thinking, making people fear to contradict the established narratives or else risk being kidnapped by authoritarian masters who put you into a cage for daring to question things or think differently than what the current condition is trying to condition you into accepting. Saying things that don't talk about harming others shouldn't be "illegal", but it is.
In Canada, the UK and other Western nations, you can't question alleged "facts" about the Holocaust, or else you're a "holocaust denier", hated for being allegedly "anti-Semitic" [sic] and a "supremacist" or some other crap. You can't calling for anyone to be harmed, but just for questioning and saying things didn't happen the way we were told, you can go to jail.
When will laws be applied to deny people the right to think and question the so-called "facts" of mainstream 9/11 narrative, or other events?
Anything can be "legal" when decided by so-called "authorities" or a society or community, but that doesn't make it morally lawful. Objective morality doesn't change by geographical location or time period. Subjective so-called "morality" does, as it is invented to suit someone who wants something to benefit them at the expense of another.
The way society works is how governments are the ones that dictate what is right and what is wrong. That is a very dangerous thing because if the government is run by bad people, the world will be in chaos. That's why it is of utmost importance that we know the truth at all times. That will guide our actions and behaviors in this fallen world. There surely are a lot of things we cannot change. But we will always be able to do the world a service by being good ourselves. Hopefully, that will somehow help others see what to do and then maybe every other bad coin will be flipped to become a good coin. God bless!
Indeed, knowing the truth is what can free us from the clutches of those who do wrong and act as if it's right.
Great food for thought.
In our modern world there are many great things that we have that other generations didn’t. We have the internet which allows people like you and I to have a discussion and share ideas about our world views that others didn’t have without 1) calling the person, 2) being at a venue at the same time or 3) corresponding somehow. These are cumbersome ways to communicate historically and it wasn’t well used for these types of discussions. Now that the internet is revolutionizing communication for the wide mass of people they are trying to crack down on anti establishment ideals that threaten their cabal.
So many things are eroding free speech nowadays; I absolutely disagree with someone who is racist, sexist or in any other way belittling others based off foolish thoughts. Even though I disagree with them it doesn’t mean they can’t say what they want. This is what people are being programmed to not think; I went to a very liberal university and we had classes where the professor brought up a sticky subject such as black lives matter and there was no discussion how yes they absolutely do but what about the people in Yemen being slaughtered and living in awful conditions daily; people in South American countries living in military style governments that the US propped up to ally with their financial interests; the veterans living homeless despite fighting for the country; the utter poverty and despair that millions of people including African Americans are living in. The discourse was polarized into thinking that since there were some in the class that felt that all lives mattered that it was racist to disagree with the BLM movement. It’s divide and conquer that has successfully manipulated people into polarizing what could be a great opportunity for people to connect and rise past the differences to help each other out.
These things are perpetuated by those in power to keep people from getting together for the greater good of the mass of people.
Yes, to be for all lives matter means racist... Yet, BLM has a lot of openly racist ideologies towards whites... go figure. People can't think. Then like you say, they are divided, because you have to care more about black lives, or blue lives matter, etc., rather than the bigger picture together.
In history and in the present, many things are morally and humanly wrong. Especially when it comes to the news that is handled by the big corporations that are crowding the world's TV, radio and other media outlets have been preying on the truth, adjusting the news to their convenience and alienating the minds of those who take the published news as an unrestricted truth.
Respect among nations in many regions of the world map no longer exists. The European countries that formerly formed part of great empires or those where there are still some traces of their simulacra of kingdoms where they treat not only as subditos but also as pawns the citizens and as outcasts the African immigrants or the westernmost part of Asia where sovereign countries like Palestine have suffered oppression for more than 70 years, with a devastating progressive holocaust commanded by Israel.
At present, the UN is silencing the progressive violations in Gaza, the West Bank and the remaining fragments of Palestinian territory, not to mention the socio-cultural and economic destruction of the Syrian nation orchestrated by the US, Israel, Germany, France and others who want to
to lay a glove on the riches of this Asian nation and its strategic geographical position to continue to sow death in the Middle East.
I belong to a beautiful nation VENEZUELA, where the three main monotheistic beliefs of the world coexisted in healthy PEACE! The Muslim, the Jewish and the Christian. For several years now it has been under siege, politically, economically and territorially, by the Usa who still consider us their old backyard and their old South American golden goose; the rancid OAS institution has been carrying out continuous attacks and approving sanctions blocking international economic transactions and other grievances that come from the Congress of the nation where it is based.
Internationally, the information matrix that the government is dictatorially repressing the citizens is being sold, while the reality is that it was directly re-elected by the inhabitants of the nation, who are affected by the international economic blockade of the shares and bonds belonging to PDVSA retained and stolen by the international banks, subsidiaries such as CITGO as well as their product and money have also been absorbed and retained by the Trump government.
While the last OAE congress was sown with irony, violating our country while in a short time presidents of nations like Peru and Paraguay who were harshly criticizing the Venezuelan nation have magically resigned, Temer illegally and unconstitutionally holds the presidency of Brazil, Macri sinks Argentina further among loans to the International Monetary Fund or some other, from the sister Colombian nation, more than 4.5 million neo-Granadians live within the Venezuelan geography and in the Chilean nation, university education is practically privatized.
@renny.krieger
Indeed, it's a shame and moral disgrace what has been happening to Palestine,and now Syria. Thanks for the feedback, I don't know much about Venezuela, seems like there are dark times there now :/
Greetings @krnel based on the principle that STEEMIT is an avant-garde platform where not only seeks the economic boost of the different bloggers with the use of cryptomonedas by blockchain technology but also the independence in the point of view of information and communication we must take the opportunity to be spokespersons of the LIGHT AND THE TRUTH, We begin to observe and listen when the call comes and we decide to stop being sedentary and go outdoors and enjoy the outdoors and go by pedal, with pure blood traction, riding our bikes along the roads, when we go on foot and talk to a passer-by or help a child in the street. Also when we choose to tune in to alternative channels such as TELESUR, RT or some other where information is made known that the big and lying television channels hide, because they are fed by falsehoods based on the proverb say a lie a thousand times and it will become true. Selling in this horrible way to the world that Venezuela is under a dictatorial regime (a question that is a lie due to the fact that in just 20 years there have been 24 major elections), under a state-of-the-art electoral system recognized by former presidents such as Jimmy Carter (USA) and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spain) as one of the most transparent and solid in the world, where each citizen of legal age (18 years old) registered in the electoral roll selects in a free, direct and secret manner his candidates for councillor, mayors, governors, assembly members (congressmen) and the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Very different is the real panorama of Latin America and another one that those television networks want to establish, there is a previous precedent that we beg the Almighty not to repeat in the ancient and beautiful Libyan nation, where statements suddenly emerged that were massacring people in the Green Square of Tripoli giving rise to an authorization of invasion by the US Government and its NATO allies; It is now recognized that it was a scrupulous staging that resulted in the deaths of more than a million Libyan citizens, the vileness of children and adolescents, orphans, hunger, poverty, exile, separation of families and tribes, migration and desolation, poverty, that is, a true dark time for a nation that had the best standard of living for its citizens.
Whenever you want to know information about the brother countries of Latin America and especially the beautiful Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela you can contact me, (which is going through an acute problem due to the economic blockades by the monopoly imposed by the dollar and driven by the international banking system and backed by the Congress and the Presidency of the United States Government.
I leave here a question that I want you to answer. What would be the criminal penalty for a citizen of your nation for violating the constitution when he asks organizations like the OAS for the Inter-American Charter against his country, or a military invasion to overthrow the legitimately elected government?
@renny-krieger
This reminds me of St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, and the Scholastic division of natural, human and divine law, where {legalis} meant something like of or based in or on the law, and the Middle English {lawful} meant recognized or sanctioned by the law.
The distinction between eternal morality and temporal ethics made here by @krnel in the vocabulary "legal" and "lawful," the Ancients made without leaning on the meanings of words. Not even the Scholastics who are famous for that parsed "legal" and "lawful" to distinguish divine and human law.
It is interesting and lamentable that today language is in such a state of neglect and decay that @krnel's definition of "legal" and "lawful" is relevant and serviceable.
Indeed, there are many ways to talk about it using certain words. I use those because they apply well in our modern structuring of society. It may be called "law", but that doesn't mean its actually moral law ;)
Adapting for the times, packaging for the audience ...
But what do you propose as a tool to define objective and subjective morality? I think morality is also a construct of the collective consciousness of society like law except law is clearly defined, whereas morality isnt.
And morality to a large extent dictates laws in a given country which is why in theocratic countries, one would consider religious text to be law and moral code both.
Morality and law would part ways when the law isnt clear and legal loopholes exist for immoral conduct to occur and still be legal. But law is such that it largely needs to be interpreted. That interpretation can be affected by the moral code of the person interpreting it. Which is why legal outcomes are always debated first.
Well defined law can be argued, so I think morality can also be argued. And that brings me to the first line again. How does one distinguish between objective and subjective morality and how does one define both?
If you refer to not culture-specific moralities (for those are objective in a sense), but a personal morality, then I believe you've already shown one way of distinguishing subjective morality from objective morality. If subjective then morality is unstable, changing with the mood and desire of the person, and consequently always unclear, never certain; and because in effect he is subject to himself, rather than to an higher authority, this morality therefore is not a morality at all, only a self-conceited capriciousness.
Yeah, that could be a tool. But only few people i think can achieve it. Those that have the independent thought to see whats wrong with society. Most people tend to fit in and seek societal validation and their morality overlaps societal morality.
Thank you for responding
Harm as related to stealing/theft is the basic position to start with. Don't steal life, sexual preference, bodily integrity, property. Actions are objective, they happen. Their effects upon others can be objectively discerned.
A codified law by an authority can confirm moral law, but can also go against it. Writing it down is a way to convey it to others who haven't figured it out ;) A way to explain it to them ;)
The term morality, moral law, moral truth, get obfuscated, because societies make "moral codes" so to speak, and laws, based not on moral truth, but on whims.
Objective morality is when harms is incurred. Then there are nuances, like a doctor harming to save, or speaking the truth that can hurt, or self-defense or stopping an evil person with "harm"/"aggressive due force not violence. Unjustified harm is immoral.
i often use a similar tool to decide right from wrong. If my actions hurt someone including myself, that's wrong. but if my actions do not affect anyone else around me, then I am ok to do it. can be used to define morality as well, i guess.
Sometimes laws are formulated according to the whims of the lawmakers or keeping the interest of a particular community in mind. But which is not morally right should not be acceptable for the society. Right to speak, right to express thought, right to live according to one's own choice etc are the canons which should be kept in mind while forming any law.
Which is against the truth will always be a lie. We as a society have weakened because we have left everything on governments. We have created a system which was supposed to serve us but now has become our master.
Yup, we abdicate personal responsibility to know and understand moral law to live under that authority, and let others dictate to us and be under their authority :/
This is important subject and in my opinion we know about so much things which morally not lawful in past but still everything was running openly that is because the majority was stand with same thought and majority of people share same kind of thoughts that's why these type of traditions are carried out and when there were people who knows that it's not morally lawful but they were not majority that's why they could do nothing, an majority creates an society and the thought of majority becomes the laws and we see many morally unlawful things but as times passes then thoughts of people changed and slowly people understood how to look towards the practical moral aspects and then they started to prepare an morally lawful rules and following it with succession rate. Thanks for sharing this post with us and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
Yup, the majority can force the false ways upon other who know the true way and path ;)
Yes true. 🙂
Proves the wisdom of the founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution. The first Amendment was free speech, and the second, a way to protect that right! This simple piece of paper, has delayed a totalitarian dictatorship here, but they continue to push for it anyway.
Yes, to defend yourself is a right. It's a good thing to keep and it's now under threat... :/
Our government is our greatest threat. This threat is the written reason the Founding Fathers put the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights!
"When in Sodom, be a Sodomite"
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Well articulated article, I must say. Personally speaking, there's no gainsaying to the fact that we have extremists and political clowns as leaders now. They know nothing about philosophy. I still subscribe to Plato's assertion... "until philosophers become Kings and Queens, the World will never know peace ".
Secondly, there's this problem of abuse of power. I verily remember the dictum that goes this way; "Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely". I want to submit at this point that we have our roles to play to ensuring that we have a balanced and adorable society devoid of any political flux.