What does morality mean to those who advocate abortion, infanticide or euthanasia? Certainly, it means that they reject the concept of the intrinsic worth of human life i.e., that human life is not sacred i.e., they reject Jefferson’s self-evident Truths. One easy way of overcoming the difficulty that this presents politicians is to equivocate, as those who authored the Humanist Manifesto I, of 1933 did, by asserting: “The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.” By making everything sacred those who need to justify murder, through the clever use of euphemism, can realize their objective, and perhaps even be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (witness B.H. Obama).
What is objectively wrong, and intrinsically evil cannot be made alright through dissembling apologists, moreover, it is exacerbated, for the apologists themselves engage in wickedness, diverting attention from the wicked so they may continue their iniquity and/or receive justice. “In the contemporary world, the Holocaust is the only culturally available icon of absolute evil. It is the only thing on which everyone, or almost everyone, agrees. Unlike Stalin or Mao, Hitler has no apologists in respectable circles. So the Holocaust has become an icon for the worst that can happen” – Father Richard Neuhaus from his book: Death on a Friday Afternoon.” The confusion regarding morality is part and parcel of the confusion about certainty, which is rooted in a doubt regarding truth as – a deferential, non-prescriptive correspondence between the mind, and that which is.
If an individual, or group, denies a fundamental truth i.e., that morality is objective, and predicated upon the axiom of a rational universe i.e., upon an ontology of Creation through which all contingent things have their being, then it follows that that individual, or group – if it understands the implications of their own view – are limited vis-à-vis their conduct only to the degree, and only for the period of their choosing. If such views become the majority then “glue” of civilized society melts… How can one be outraged at such trivial matters as cheating, lying, stealing, rape etc. when there is no objective right & wrong? When there is no truth? When there is no nature?
Sociologists, whom a priori deny human nature – it is not scientific (i.e., cannot be quantifiably measured), instead they argue instead man is but a temporary placeholder in an unending, undirected evolutionary process – hold that what is socially acceptable is the norm – granted, not all sociologist do, but those that do, are those that are referenced by the avant-garde encouraging change – thus what becomes socially acceptable is moral. It takes a number of iterations – in some instances, many iterations – for what is socially unacceptable, to become accepted e.g., homosexuality. The social scientists, at least those who desire to breathe the unrestricted air of hedonism, have learned from Hegel and employed the dialectic as a means of realizing, gradually, what the majority may diametrically oppose. The collision of thesis and antithesis produces a synthesis, whereby the synthesis becomes the thesis, and the process continues; the dialectic requires an initial concession of principle:
Should line so straight and true
Compromise with arc of slightest bend
The arc perdures
The line verily ends.
Such a concession is the claim: “There are no absolute truths!” Most people (University professors) that utter such things are repeating what they do not understand, but which they uncritically assimilated as they slogged through their undergraduate courses. Since an opposing view, if any, would generally be quickly be dispatched by the professor (A cogent argument by a student, even if it refutes the professors claim, generally is unacknowledged by the students torpid peers), the dull undergrad, gave way to the dull grad student who finally became the dull PhD. Apart, from the contradiction that such an utterance produces i.e., if true, then absolutely true… It may be argued as a paradox, but only as a statement of logic, for it is another thing entirely, when held as a statement of fact, or reality/existence for then it becomes a statement of theology, for it is a claim that there is no God i.e., which is an argument that all meaning is arbitrary and illusory, to include logic. Moreover, logic fails because it is, in fact, a claim that reason is illusory i.e., that correlation between mind and object is illusory. Chesterton addresses convincingly – albeit in an entertainingly playful manner, as was his wont – this and other mental maladies leading to the Suicide of Thought, in an essay by that title, in the 3rd chapter of Orthodoxy published in 1908. We reference an example excerpt to wet the appetite:
“Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps desirable; though dull, to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thought which have this effect of stopping thought itself. Materialism and the view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for if the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if the cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these cases, the effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct and clear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution. Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am.” The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, “I am not; therefore I cannot think.”
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (1994-05-01). Orthodoxy (pp. 31-32). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
If we look at the Preamble of the United States Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…” and ask how the aims or goals specified therein would be realized if the majority of American citizens are animated by the morality of egoism? Unfortunately, egoism, Ayn Rand (argues for selfishness, as a moral code) notwithstanding, is much like hedonism, if it is actually practiced, the society would come to an end, for neither the egoist nor the hedonists, would be able to see the next generation come to fruition, at least not while maintaining their practice of egoism & hedonism. Ironic indeed would be the Randian culture which may only sustain their culture of egoism, if they utilized something akin to Helots’, of ancient Greece, to rear their children. By the bye, not a single Randian would be found at Valley Forge, not if they were true to their (her) principles.
The question, however, is can an egoist approximate the realization of a “more perfect union?” Rand argues exchanges of commitment i.e., the subordination of interests to a common good, may return less than market-value of one’s investment, and thus the egoist would engage in such associations with trepidation, if at all. We see no need to juxtapose egoism with each goal and then draw via illation, what is clear, and that neither egoism nor hedonism as principles of conduct are naturally synergistic to the Preambles aims.
We can ask similar questions regarding atheism, utilitarianism, pragmatism, egalitarianism, socialism, fascism, communism, progressivism, scientism, liberalism, libertarianism, Humanism, Secularism, Human Secularism, the ubermensch et al, but each whom see the Law as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and hence each are to varying degrees inimical to the Rule of Law and in denial of a human nature. The U. S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and their antecedent – The Declaration of Independence were written for rational beings whom in, and by, voluntary association, agree to subordinate their Right to Everything – in exchange for having certain rights protected i.e., the social contract. Any descriptor i.e., any ideological appellation that aggregates, as it subordinates, the essence of what it is to be human i.e., a rational being, is an affront to the individual sovereignty that attends to autonomous beings and is an act of war on mankind, and the Rule of Law.
Each ideology is but a penumbra of aggregated vacillating behaviors and beliefs; each prescinding existence i.e., being and fettering humans to an ignoble Procrustean bed, each abjuring virtue and objective morality and each beginning with a denial of objective reality and Absolute Truth. Each of these ideologies is attended by a “morality,” but each is akin to that espoused by the Humanist Manifesto, human life is sacred, just as is the life of a dung beetle. It is why they fervently advocate abortion, it is why they promote and celebrate sodomy, bestiality, and hedonism. No matter what those on the Left e.g., Pelosi, Clinton, Reed or Obama profess as their religion (their profession is an act of manipulation); their real faith is an ideology that places themselves, and those in their immediate orbit above the hoi polloi, and upon the throne of God; the common-man to such people as Pelosi, Obama et al, is a means to his end, and not a thing more! And not a thing more! And not a thing more! It is why, under the right conditions, that such people, populating the Left, wreak havoc on the lives of the very people that empowered them. It is the very reason that such people are unfit to hold power. If you countenance infanticide, nay if you demand it as a right (Illinois State senator Barak Obama), what moral limitation do you acknowledge?
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