Of Moral Relativism & the Engineering of Struggles
-01-
Our last great moral struggle was WWII. There have been a shit ton of moral struggles since: the emancipation of the LGBTQ community, the struggle for equal pay, Black Lives Matter, etc. All of them have been the burden of specific communities, though. WWII was the last time every nation in the world made a conscious and collective decision about the way we all wanted to live. It was decided that Nazi ideology would not be promoted or institutionalized anymore.
If might seem obvious today, but it wasn’t then. The world was torn in half and there were proponents of Nazi ideology in every country or so. Our collective moral decision created a whole new world though, where everything that isn’t Nazi or intolerant is inherently good. A world where people who were not outwardly and willingly dismissing people who are different are part of the solution. I believe this is wrong. It’s great that you’re not a Nazi, but it doesn't make you good.
-02-
A world where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are traced by the word of law and a collective decision we’ve taken decades ago left us with no enemy. No figure against who to project our fears and insecurities. We’ve undersold to ourselves how much we need to live in a world where the threat to our way of life is real. In an industrialized, hypermediatized and relatively successful society, a moral purpose is our only need left to be fulfilled.
Bedtime stories and movies invariably and conveniently end when the characters reach the happily ever after, but our world didn’t after WWII. In fact, very little changed. The US went to war with Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, each time for ideological excuses that drifted further and further from the purity of intent of WWII. Civilian population was encouraged to accept the world as is. That it must’ve been perfect since it was delivered from evil.
It never came into question what constituted evil after WWII. The Nazis were so extreme that any demonstration of power that wasn’t obscenely violent was disregarded. "Oh, you’re poor? You should shape up and work harder. Some kids in Africa don’t have anything to eat." "Oh you think our society is racist because it doesn’t let you wear a hijab? Well, you should be happy that you’re not living in Saudi Arabia where you have less rights". That sort of bullshit.
-03-
Social issues notwithstanding, our incapacity to question the moral scope of our behaviour is undermining the very fabric of our society. It engineers a never-ending supply or struggles that moral relativism and technology makes instantly and equally valid. People are rebelling against COVID-19 lockdowns and sanitary measures in Canada because their living are affected, but the fact that people might actually DIE from human contact is invalid to them.
While vulnerable people are on respirators, others are claiming the closure of gym and restaurants’ dining rooms is an infringement to their freedoms. While black people (who were always here) demand more representation in media and other sectors of society, others are claiming that they’re being invaded and replaced. All of that stems from a moral relativism that has lost its ground. We have lost the capacity of taking moral decisions together, in spite of our differences.
Where does this problem originates from? I have an idea, but it doesn’t really matter because we’re past the point where pointing out a culprit will solve anything. Everyone is doing it now. Everyone thinks they’re the underdog in every fight. Morals have been commodified and they’ve been instrumentalized by different community (righteously or not) in order to create an underdog mentality. But there’s only one underdog in every fight. That’s 50%.
-04-
I don’t know what the solution to this problem is. But it’ll need to get worse before it gets better. You’re not entitled to your moral struggle. To your great war. You live in the land of the victor and every difference you point out that is purely ideological (racial struggle is not ideological, IT IS REAL), it helps fracturing society until we create another world full of enemies that might eventually take over the world. It feels like we’re slowly going back to 1939.
You can either realize you’re not being discriminated against or live your truth long enough to become the bad guy. Right now, culture wars or whatever are lived online, where the stakes are arguably higher than in reality. But there’s a limit to what you can do to someone online and someday, someone will cross this boundary and commit the unrepairable. Someone will either kill or be killed for a bullshit believe he made up and who knows what will happen *.
* Just to be CLEAR. Racial equality, LGBTQ , women’s rights and all the struggles where people are dismissed because they’re different from the people who rule over society (largely white men) are valid. I’m talking about the beliefs that come to life as a response to these beliefs. Either a struggle is real and observable or it is engineered and can exist only on paper.
