Many of us in the West have recently been disabused of the delusion that the world is progressing toward a new “rules-based order,” now scornfully eulogized as the once-and-never End of History. Democracy is on the retreat. The West, lead by the United States and its client Israel, is carrying out a project of ethnic cleansing and mass-murder in Palestine. The United States seems to have adopted a strategy of maximizing not order but disorder in the world. Hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan. Here in the USA, the home of the free, 1.8 million Americans are incarcerated, poverty and homelessness are slowly spreading across the land as the cost of shelter, bread, and healthcare skyrocket. Medical insurance is a racket, doctors push addictive opiates, advertisers convince us that we’re inadequate and that we should identify with consumer brands, social media corporations degrade the fabric of society, and global investment banks are too big to fail. All this while the scourge of climate change spills across the eastern horizon.1
Dystopian enough for you? We really have come a long way, haven’t we?
It’s hard to maintain much faith in humanity at times like this. It’s probably enough to make many of us turn to religion. We seem so blind, so morally degenerate. Maybe if we could just be tricked into believing in karma or divine justice; maybe then we’d at least behave, though we would no doubt remain scoundrels inside.
The religion that I was born into teaches that the great majority of us behave quite badly when we’re not being watched:
The fear of God hath ever been a sure defence and a safe stronghold for all the peoples of the world. It is the chief cause of the protection of mankind, and the supreme instrument for its preservation. Indeed, there existeth in man a faculty which deterreth him from, and guardeth him against, whatever is unworthy and unseemly, and which is known as his sense of shame. This, however, is confined to but a few; all have not possessed and do not possess it.
Bahá’u’lláh
Kalimát-i-Firdawsíyyih (Words of Paradise), first leaf
This “sense of shame” passage is the key to the Bahá’í notion of special revelation. Bahá’u’lláh here provides a loophole of sorts: those few who happen to possess a conscience — or at least a capacity to feel shame — do not necessarily need “the fear of God” as a guide to good behavior. But we are — or they are — but a few.
The key problem with this loophole is this: how does one determine whether or not one possesses a conscience? I might experience empathy and compassion and guilt, but how can I be sure that I’m not a self-deceiving demon? Perhaps my sense of compassion is all projection and vanity. We’ve all heard about Nazis who loved their children, right?
Does it really matter whether we’re good deep inside? Does it even matter how many or how few of us posses a conscience? I mean, I’d prefer that we were all saints, but at this point I’m willing to settle for good behavior.
We’re a mess. I think the Christian doctrine of Original Sin is accurate. We all have some demon in us, and I do see that we deserve to be forgiven, but not by our Creator. He’s to blame for all this, after all. Let’s be real.
But even if I am an original sinner (excellent band name, BTW), I might yet be able to mitigate my sinfulness. I do believe that we have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.2 That is the one thing that I do believe, because I know there is beauty in the world, and there sure as hell is pain. I haven’t been able to make much of it, but I’ve been able to work out a few things, like for instance ethnic cleansing is evil.
Here some religious adherent might suggest that I find myself a divine teacher, no doubt the one they’ve chosen. Perhaps, but if I can’t tell right from wrong, how am I to distinguish a good teacher from a bad teacher? Let’s say that I pick one out of the police lineup. Who knows: I might enjoy the lessons that I receive from this divine guide. Maybe he tells me what I want to hear. Is that the measure of a good education? I won’t know whether I’ve profited from my lessons until — but will I ever know? Perhaps one day I’ll decide that these lessons have run their course and it’s time to move on to another instructor. Perhaps I’ll determine that my great enthusiasm for my teacher has only increased the harm that his lessons have done to me. There I’ll be: unaccustomed to making my own moral decisions; habituated to following the heels of my leader rather than paying attention to the lay of the land. “Now I’m really lost.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all ears. I don’t mind listening to what you and your teacher have to say. Maybe we can have a conversation. We might not be very good at distinguishing right from wrong, but at least we seem to have the tools to make a considered guess. Let’s work it out together. What do you say, free Palestine?
For the record, this is a reference to time, not geography.
That’s in the Book of Genesis, kids.