Sunday, May 31, 2009

Keep It Real!

No human being is perfect, beside myself, at least that is what I tell myself once in awhile. :) In total sincerity, we all have moments, which we would like to keep hidden inside our closet forever. Knowing this little truth, we could easily assume that dispensing moral advise to and criticism of others should be avoided at all times. At the same time, we are also well aware that moral advise and criticism are necessary part for the well-being of any truly “civilized” society. That is, for any true society to be just and fair there must always be people who truly speak out against evil that threatens the well-being of any civilized society. Does this mean we all have right to be pretentiously self-righteous when we dispense our moral advise and criticism? No, but if we are to take this particular path, then we must also be aware that what goes around comes around. Make sure to hide those pictures, videos, and every inappropriate moments because it will surface again someday. To speak for moral good is stand against evil that attempts to tear communities apart from oneself and one-another. Also, to speak for moral good is to speak in the realm of ideals to live by. That is, when we speak for moral good, we speak in the ideal that good must always practiced and upheld regardless of the cost to oneself. We speak in this manner because some moral goods are ideals which only makes sense to particular social tradition that upheld certain moral goods to be necessary part of communal relationship. For example, no one would disagree that murder is wrong. At the same time, different society classifies murder differently from another. But in this case there is a universal agreement that murder is wrong and unacceptable. Now there are moral goods that is not so universally acceptable as necessary thing to have for the well-being of community. Furthermore, some moral goods change in value depending on the time and place, i.e., what could have been taboo yesterday is no longer today’s taboo. Case in point, divorce is no longer taboo for many in this country and also no longer a moral evil, but merely a misfortune of life. Thus, when speaking against divorce, we should simply state our own personal moral opinion of divorce, then acknowledge that divorce is part of life because human beings are not perfect. Similarly, when speaking against homosexuality, we should simply state our own personal moral opinion against homosexuality, then acknowledge that this moral opinion is rooted in a particular cultural-social-religious tradition, which is only fully understood in the context of that particular tradition. Now this is not to say that no one has the right to disagree or criticize. Quite the contrary, all of us have right to criticize and put our own two pennies worth, i.e., no one has the right to take away the right to speak for or against ambiguous moral opinion. However, our moral stand cannot in itself be immoral, that is, it cannot be dehumanizing.

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