The question of whether mankind is inherently good or evil is an interesting one, and it gets even more interesting when one overlays that good/evil dichotomy over the top of systems of governance. Many in the psychological community argue that humans are born amoral, neither good nor bad, and learn morality as they mature into adults.
The concepts of morality and immorality must exist together as one is merely the violation or contradiction of the other, implying that some sort of moral code exists to be violated in the first place. Amorality is an entirely different kettle of fish, the total absence of any sort of distinctions or judgments, a dismissal of the concepts of right or wrong. One of the questions I have always had about amorality is how such a characteristic could exist, especially when humans must interact with each other in social and commercial situations.
Arguably, a system of morality creates consistent expectations of certain behaviors, behaviors we humans classify as “good”, immorality creates consistent expectations those rules will be broken, we classify those as evil or “bad”. It would seem the old idiom “there is even honor among thieves” is a recognition that even bad people have a moral code of sorts.
But what happens if true amorality exists where there is neither good nor evil? If abiding or breaking moral codes create a degree of consistent expectations, wouldn’t it logically follow that the absence of the moral/immoral dichotomy would create inconsistency and chaos?
It is my opinion one of the primary reasons attempts to create coerced collectivist systems fail is not that those systems are moral or immoral, it fails because that system attempts to operate in amorality – systems that in effect, are bereft of the consistency either morality or immorality create.
The current gestalt of wokeness shares that failure mode with coerced collectivism, largely because wokeness is just the wrapping paper for such a statist system of governance.
I have always marveled at the intellectual inconsistency and dishonesty of the “woke” gestalt as it claims to be amoral – that no laws exist, no judgments are valid and there is no objective reality or truth – in short, no rules, however, to implement their visions, they create laws, judge people, create their own realty and “truth”, all of which is bound by iron rules they create (and aggressively impose on others).
But one cannot have standards without the ability to judge and one cannot judge without having standards. Such is the necessary mutuality for ordered civil, free societies to exist.
It is undeniable that wokeness, like its parental units of progressivism and postmodernism, is based on massive, irreconcilable contradiction.
In truth, the current gestalt of wokeness is nothing more than an effort to implement an amoral collectivist system of governance. The chaos we feel is a natural result of this attempt, mostly caused by the application of “situationality” – a term I coined (at least the dictionary says there is no such word) to describe decisions or actions based on a combination of circumstances, needs, wants or desires at any given moment rather than being based on established morals, ethics or principles.
I’m sure we all have experienced situational ethics over our own lives, we either know somebody, maybe even ourselves, who have made decisions or acted on expediency or desire rather than following what we define as right or good. Sometimes it is a small thing, sometimes not, but those things tend to create internal conflict with our innate sense of right and wrong. The inconstancy of contradicting our own values bothers us.
Wokeness elevates that individual internal conflict to the corporate, societal level. In my opinion, this is the reason society is seemingly locked into constant and continual chaos and conflict.
People who engage in woke behavior also easily deny they lie, largely because in their allegedly amoral system, there are no lies. Untruth does not bother them because, as with every action, the accomplishment of the ends justifies the means. There is literally nothing off limits that cannot be done in pursuit of a goal because there is no good or evil in their reality, there is only the achievement of the goal set for them. People are not judged based on traditional moral or ethical principles, only in the degree of support or opposition they exhibit toward the woke goals.
When I think about the amorality and inconsistency of today’s wokeness, I think if something I read in the 5th grade - Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story “The Lottery”.
“The Lottery” is a tale of a small rural, farming community in America. The town seems normal by all accounts as it prepares for a traditional, harvest-time event known as The Lottery. Each year, the name of every family is written on a piece of paper and securely stored in a locked black wooden box. On the morning of the annual gathering, the heads of each household draw from the box until a paper slip with a black spot is extracted.
In this instance, the Hutchinson family selects the black spot. Upon “winning” this first phase of the lottery, each member of the Hutchinson family then joined the father to select another slip of paper out of another box until one member of that family – Tessie, the mother of the family - draws the piece of paper with the final black spot on it. Despite her horrific cries, the townspeople, including her own husband and children, immediately pick up rocks and stone her to death to ensure a more prosperous harvest.
I’m not sure it is taught in our woke institutions now, but “The Lottery” was once included in many literary anthologies due to its shocking portrayal of the power of groupthink and the human inclination to accept evil. The story also speaks of mob psychology and the idea that people can abandon reason and act cruelly if they are part of a large group of people behaving in the same manner.
America is playing with fire, folks. Through wokeness, the progressive movement and its selected delivery vector, the Democrat Party, are forcing us into a national lottery, one equivalent to the one envisioned by Shirley Jackson in 1948.
The only way to win is not to play.