Why We Can No Longer Get Along

 

Acceptable

Unacceptable.

Years ago, on an email list that shall remain nameless, I expressed some dissatisfaction with the government interfering in some way in free markets. This in a resolutely left-wing milieu.

There was no immediate backlash. Instead, they wanted to know if I was a Randite, a follower of Ayn Rand.

It was when I objected to Rand’s philosophy as immoral that the backlash began. Had I been an objectivist, it seems it would still have been okay.

So the issue that divides the left and right is not really free markets vs. collectivism, or big government vs small government, as one might have imagined.

Similarly, when people learn I am a vegetarian, their first question is whether it is for health reasons. Why is this the inevitable question? Why does it matter?

Because people do not resent vegetarians if they do it for health reasons. If they do it for moral reasons, I can attest, another’s vegetarianism is indeed resented.

Along the same lines, why do so many object so much to members of minority religions evangelizing them at their door? At a minimum, the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Salvation Army do it of good heart; they want your fellowship, and are trying to save you from Hell. What could be a greater kindness?

The problem is that a growing number of people have very guilty consciences. Those who have a guilty conscience will hate anyone bringing up the subject of right and wrong. They will even hate anyone who acts morally.

To the point of crucifixion.

This explains the current breakdown in civil discourse. The US even seems to be barrelling toward civil war.

The same principle can explain the eternal persecution of the Jews. The Jews, after all, invented/discovered ethical monotheism. They personify and embody The Moral Law.

It also explains the familiar saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Which those who have lived to my age can generally attest is true. Good people will appreciate a good deed; but many bad people will want to hurt you for it.

And it explains why it is those who were most favourably disposed towards Canada’s Indians, Sir John A. Macdonald, Edgerton Ryerson, the Catholic Church, are now so defamed and their statues toppled; in America or Britain, those who were most openly against slavery, like Thomas Jefferson or Sir Henry Dundas, are those condemned as slavers—and not the advocates of slavery.

The usual charge against all moralists, as in these cases, is “hypocrisy.” Which does not apply here at all. . Hypocrisy means holding others to a higher standard than oneself. Believing in and advocating morality is not a claim of personal sinlessness. It is those who old moralists to a higher standard than themselves for believing in the importance of morality who are hypocrites.

I fear a pending housing crisis in hell.