Where Do Our Responsibilities Lay?

Let’s see if I can make a little more sense in regards to responsibility and morals at midnight, as opposed to 5am in the morning after working all night! I am sure that there are some of you that think that I must of competely flipped my lid there! Well, you may not be too far from the truth.

First, let me say that in no way am I trying to proclaim myself as a pillar of moral responsibility! I know that I am not perfect, I am human, I make mistakes, and I have done a thing or two that is off the beaten track of upright morality. However, in that I can admit that freely and honestly, does make me better then many of those that SAY that they walk the path of upright morality in words, but their practices in truth are far from that.

Alright then, what DID I mean about the connection between morality and responsibility. I think the closest one can get to that is the concept of compassion. The concept that we ARE our brother’s keepers. That WE, as a society, as a people, as a species, has a responsibility not only to protect ourselves and assure our own individual survival, but the survival of our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, our family, our neighbors, our friends, our city and our nation. Indeed, our planet. Our responsibilities ripple out from ourselves like the ripples in a pond from a small pebble tossed into the waters.

Now, not everyone will agree with such a viewpoint. Some will say that they only have to worry about what is close at hand to them. Now, is a person that is only concerned about themselves any less moral then a person that is concerned about the planet and it’s health? In a way, I think that it may possibly be so. But, I have known of people who are very patriotic and thus having very high concerns about a nation’s health and well being, have absolutely no compassion for their fellow man. So, is the more moral because his view of responsibility for a nation is larger then that for his brother? I wouldsay that it is not, because there is no compassion, and compassion is for people, in my view, not for civic ideals.

So, where are we responsible for morality? If you listen to some, you will think that it depends upon your political party affiliation, or your religion, or your sexual preference. Why is it that people say that only Republicans can be patriotic, or only Democrats are concerned about global climate. Why are Wiccan’s thought to be any less spiritual because they do not follow the religious dogma of a organised religion that,more often then not, protects pedophiles within their priesthood? Is it true that the aboriginie that loves and cares for and protects his child in the outback of Austrailia, and has no concept of organized society or religion is doomed to burn in the brimstone of someone else’s idea of hell, because he doesn’t have a television to watch and learn of what he is missing?? Would not the god of religion A understand that this man, who is a just and honest and capable man in his tribe, is more deserving of religion A’s heaven, then the great religious man who scorns his fellows within religion A, and seeks only to feed his own greed and ego by the sweat and toil of the worshippers of god A? Who has the greater responsibility? One would say that the religious leader would, because he is responsible for a larger number of people. But, would one not say then that the aborigine native has a greater moral code, because of his honest integrity to his family and it’s care and survival? He may not know anything about the people of Australia outside of his tribe, but he may very well have a better grasp of the planet because he would only use the resoursces that surround him that is needed for his own personal needs, whereas the religious leader is surrounded with icons of gold that the worshippers of god A dug from the ground, to enrichen the religion of A, while the worshippers themselves live in abject poverty. In that regards, who is more moral? The worshippers, or the religious leaders who are responsible for them?

Yes, I am speaking in broad strokes, and there cannot be any easy answers in the questions we often ask ourselves in regards to morality and responsibility. But, this just means that we must look to ourselves and our own inner selves when a person says that A is more just and honest then B because A belongs to this group or that religion, or because B is from a different country then A is and thus follows a different flag. I am absolutely positive that there are people in Iran and North Korea that have very high ethics and morals, just as I KNOW that there are a great many people in the United States that are selfish and greedy and immoral, no matter what their station in life, be they rug makers or presidents. One’s occupation, regardless of where they find themselves, has no (at least is should have no) bearing on their morality. However, too often we think that such things are, in fact, indicators of one’s personal worth to a society. Else, why would we give multi-million contracts to people like Kobe Bryant, while your local 2^nd grade teacher drives to school in a 1986 toyota corolla that too often breaks down because she cannot afford to get the service it needs because she needs to buy school supplies for her students because the budget was cut once again, while her son sweats in a desert behind a stone wall while getting shot at by boys from a school building that was bombed out by 50 million dollar aircraft. How many schools can 50 million dollars build? How many teachers? Are the soldiers immoral because they are trying to kill the enemies that their leaders direct them to kill? Is not war the ultimate in anti-compassion? Where we not only kill our brother and destroy his family and village, but his way of life and nation as well? Is that boy with an AK-47 evil because he is a scared Shite who has watched his father shot down at a road block because he did not understand english? Is that soldier who shot his father evil, because he saw that man advancing on him, without stopping, reaching into his clothes, possibly to pull out a gernade like the one that killed his buddy just a week before? Is the act of shooting that father, which creates in his grieving surviving son, an act of survival or retribution?

Too often we look at numbers in life, and death, and say that one society is this way, and the other society that way, without taking into consideration that it is people that make up a society, and that people are individuals. We have to look at each other with compassion, which means looking at the hearts of our brothers, and imagining what it is like to walk in their shoes, be it through an orchard, or down a metropolitan street, or down some dusty village ghetto path. What would YOU do if you were living that life? How would YOU react if your country was invaded, and your village bombed, and your family made destitue and your elders humiliated? Where are our responsibilities in that? Too often when questions are asked, those that ask those questions are called immoral and irresponsible because they are thinking of the enemy, and giving them aide and comfort. I say, perhaps if we did a little more of that thinking, they would see us as being moral and responsible, and that they would stop BEING our enemy!

Again, I am not going to claim to be a perfect person. I am selfish. I do like my pleasures. I do often think of myself before I think of others. I do not call those people that I should, nor do I give thanks to those that I should as often as I should. But, while I recognize my own shortcomings, I do not try to blame them on others, be they my parents, or the school that I went to, or the churchs that my parents took me to. I know that who I am is part nature, and part nuture. That my enviroment has just as much to do with who I am now, as does the genetic code that is within my cells. The way I react to others is in a large part steered by how others reacted to me. Indeed, I am not one to discount the effect of numerology upon my name, and the places of the stars and planets when I was born. I am a person that can see the grandeur of the eons that this planet that I live upon has gone through and marvel at the science of evolution which has brought us to where we are, just as I can wonder at The Big Bang, and try to decide if there is a “Force” that was there at the very beginning to start it all. I can look to the stars and see billions and billions of possibilities, and that out there, some place, there has to be others looking towards their heavens, towards this Earth, and wondering the same thing that we do, namely, are we alone? Are we the pinicle of evolution? Is humankind the morale creature that we believe it to be (as I absently crush an anthill under my heel)? In this, where do my responsibilities lay?

(Originally posted September 7th, 2007 on Yahoo 360)