I don’t think there are any inherent moral laws built into the universe, as we would normally understand them. You can do anything. Literally anything. And in this life, you might even be rewarded. Certainly, evil often pays, and rotten human beings are currently on the ascendant, as far as I can tell.
But this does not lead to “if God is dead all is permitted.” God can be very much alive and still permit everything, because the “God” of the Church is not at all the God of Reality.
Here is what I will propose: one of the key spiritual tasks is understanding WHY things which past moral and religious and spiritual teachers have taught we must do, or should never do, are important, or why they should be avoided.
We need to understand what we call “morality”, not as a set of rules, but as an extended, deep perception of the totality of forces and energies and consciousnesses in play, and how we interact with them.
What is wrong is OBVIOUSLY wrong, once you reach a certain level. It doesn’t need to be discussed. Anyone else at that level will see what you do. It is not a matter of reason, but of the OBVIOUS. THAT, to use a Taoist formulation.
But all of this requires openness. It requires perseverance, curiosity, faith, and a willingness to be confused for long periods of time.
All of these are hard work for most people, and most people do not want to do hard work, at least not without an obvious, short term, and tangible reward, with things, sex, and power being the most obvious normal goals.
And clear, unchanging answers are precisely what Ideology, writ large, provides. As I have said often, the particular content of Left wing practice and belief can change on a dime, change daily, and change in large ways. That is not the point: as long as you CONFORM to those changes, you cannot lose your way. You will be shown that day’s way, and another tomorrow.
And although I am a patriot, and partisan of the American way, of American history, and American ideals, the ideology of patriotism can become problematic too. I think many of us have been blinded to the pointlessness of our recent wars by the trained belief that we were “protecting freedom”. This is a powerful meme, a powerful thing, something deeply evocative and meaningful for people who have embraced this form of ideology.
But we made Afghanistan WORSE, after a lot of death, effort, and money spent. I’m not hearing anything about Iraq, but it is hard to say the blood and treasure was worth it. Certain people made TRILLIONS. They did well. They are the ones pushing our buttons and spinning us around like tops.
I will stand by the view I articulated around 2010 that we should have drawn down then–Obama chose “the Surge”, while working on getting his Obamacare passed–and taken a 20 year view. Small numbers of soldiers, effective air power, and organized hearts and minds campaigns are the approach we should have taken. In the metaphor I offered, it was a pot that we could not keep from boiling from time to time, but could keep from boiling over without excessive risk of life or treasure. I still think that was true, although I have never been there, and to the extent of my recollection never met an Afghan.
But Ideology is the religion of the modern age. It is the religion suitable for a post-religious society. It binds (Religio-) people together. It binds their behavior into coherent wholes, even if those wholes are in aggregate ludicrous. No one in a mob is ludicrous, in their own mind, if they are doing what everyone around them is doing.
All these things have been said many times, by smarter people than me, and no doubt in better ways. It still feels appropriate to say them, again, today.