Originally posted by Xev
Answering this question requires a valuation itself. For me?
Freedom, artistry, nobility and power. For you, faith, hope and charity. Peace.
In this war of memes that the world has become, neither of us can can claim a real, objective argument for the supremacy of our values. Language, it seems, is a most potent weapon.
Morals by their very nature
require valuation. I do not suggest otherwise - that is why there
can be no self-evident, "natural" morality. A moral view of authority is one that questions it. People who don't believe in decisions or consequences, are invariably ones that do not benefit from them, or want others to benefit from such standards.
"Neither of us"? That is pre-Babel, if you read my exposition - I suggest
both of us should establish such a set of "memes", however artificial you might deem it to be. Freedom and peace seem to be available only artificially, and I will explain why.
You say freedom, artistry, nobility and power? I see your offer, and I raise you: Faith, hope, charity... peace. Freedom of faith, artistry without prejudice, freedom of speech, nobility of character, and hope that all these might endure. Power to maintain peace.
Who said freedom and peace are the highest aspirations? They are because they make all other virues possible. It's a natural inclination, but it necessary opposes
other natural tendencies: the tendency of selfishness, arrogance, hypocrisy, lies, crime... the destruction of the pillars of peace.
For it is a structure that has to be held up by other structures.
Peace is a construction, an imposing of order against the natural backdrop of chaos - the same chaos out of which lawlessness is formed, out of which organized crime, crimes of passion, and every conceivable form of evil is justified.
Light is not the absence of darkness, it is foreign to darkness. Order is not a natural state, but it is a natural goal. Some things cause people to miss that goal. The ancient Hebrew word for missing one's intended goal, or "wandering from the path of right and duty", is
chatah', sin.
I daresay this is the ultimate virtue of democracy - authority is recognized as something that should be subverted.
Subversion is by definition "against authority". You must qualify: subversion to what ends? By its own, subversion at all costs are nothing but chaos and destructive nihilism. The "ideal" that there is no authority also suggests the ideal that there can be no subversion, no anarchy. Just pure chaos. Very human... Interesting that you describe it as an "ultimate virtue of democracy", as if subversion it is
made possible in its most practical form through democracy.
You have to ask: which is the greatest - the freedom, or the conditions that make it possible?
Authority should of course always be
questioned - re-evaluated and tested - and where it is possible to change it, it should be changed
for the better.
It is that "for the better" that begs the question 'what is better', and that is where morality, justice, laws, values, etc. are agreed upon, established, and enforced. Both criminals and moral people might question the justice system. Morality would just place them on different sides of the question - their
intentions. There is a German proverb that says "the intention is the soul of the act".Justice cannot judge intentions, but God can. That is part of what makes "Biblical morality" so controversial. But I digress...
Freedom is a very weak force. It has to be protected by stronger forces - but at the same time, if freedom is supposed to be pure, those forces must hold to purity themselves. If freedom is supposed to be structured, then those forces have to be structured as well.
I just don't see how chaos can protect a freedom of chaotic nature...