“If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a vast blue,
Echoless, ignorant -
What then?”
from The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane
‘Did I tell you I caught up with Paul the other day?’
‘No you didn’t, is he and Tania back now?’
‘Yeah he said they both feel that it’s time to grow up at last, and stop all the endless travel.’
‘They’ve just been in Asia haven’t they?’
‘Nine months in Vietnam most recently. He said they spent the last 6 months volunteering in an orphanage.’
‘Good on them, that’s walking the walk isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, had a bit of a chat with him about it. He really got me thinking about a lot of stuff.’
‘How so?’
‘Well he said that once they’d got some rudimentary language skills he found all the kids and the adults to be universally cheerful and friendly, and a delight to be with.’
‘Yeah but he’s such a people person. He’d get on with just about anybody.’
‘As I heard him talk about it all so much I wish I’d been better organized and done the same thing myself. But it wasn’t all joy though.’
‘Why, what happened?’
‘He said he and Tania were shocked when they found out that one of main problems the locals had to deal with was the disappearance of children from the orphanage.’
‘What they just vanish?’
‘Yeah, apparently so. He said there were no birth records or certificates and the like, and slave traders would sneak around and grab whoever they could. They felt the police seemed powerless, or disinterested. Some of the locals even suspected they were probably in on it but could never prove anything. So for a lot of the time many of them were pretty jumpy.
‘I actually remember reading somewhere a little while ago that the International Labour Organization, or whatever it’s called, estimated that currently there are forty million slaves worldwide. Mostly children. It’s now called ‘human trafficking’. You know things like domestic slavery, factory work, child soldiers, prostitution, pornography, the black market in organs.’
‘It’s difficult to imagine what that must be like, in fact it doesn’t bear thinking about too much does it?’
‘It just happens and no one seems to be able to do anything about it.’
‘It’s a sick old world isn’t? I heard on the radio the other day that after that recent tsunami paedophiles would disguise themselves as Red Cross workers and wander around the carnage and grab isolated kids. What sort of human being thinks like that?’
‘Well exactly, and that’s just what I started thinking about. Take child prostitution or pornography for instance. Men like you and me with the same potentials and emotional capacity for empathy and the like, see nothing wrong with paying for sex with a child.’
‘Yeah, but demand creates supply doesn’t it? If nobody ever looked up child porn on the internet, there’d be no desire for it, and if nobody wanted or required it, then who’d be bothered producing it?’
‘I think that’s right. But here’s what I was thinking. Forget all the moral talk about the sexualizing of children and how wrong it is. That’s blindingly obvious to most of us. And don’t get bogged down in the rights or wrongs of commercial sex or the world’s second oldest profession.’
‘The second oldest? I thought it was the oldest. What’s first?’
‘Gardening.’
‘Oh, ok.'
‘Yes but for me the issue isn’t even that actions by outwardly normal men cause ir-repairable damage to others that can last for generations. The issue is why is it wrong?’
‘How do you mean? Of course it’s wrong, how can it be right?’
‘Well I’m not quite sure, but hear me out. Several decades ago a new academic discipline emerged called Evolutionary Psychology. Now ignore the fact that we actually have no way of knowing with any certainty what those ancient guys said and thought. I that a consequence of it is the production of an explanation where morality is seen as just another thing that was part of the evolutionary process. There are no independent or objective values that are from outside the limits of the natural world. There exists only pragmatic functionality in ethics. There is no reason why certain things are considered virtuous while others are reprehensible. Everything that might be a value has all just come into being via natural selection and survival imperatives. And then of course it naturally follows that concepts of Gods and religious thoughts get to be shown in the same evolutionary light.’
‘Go on I’m listening, and I think I’m still with you.’
‘Well within most modern societies commercial sex is a bit of taboo, but sex with children is a very strong taboo. It’s been suggested, that humans evolved the capacity to live on past their child-producing years because they came to be necessary for the tribe in the nurturing of offspring. Grandparents would mind the kids while the parents were out searching for food.’
‘Nowadays there are all sorts of sanctions available to enforce society’s morals, but for most of us the sanctions are a waste of time. We do so willingly because we know and nearly always want to do what’s right.’
‘Yeah I agree with all that.’
“But what if I deviate, and come along now, and think I’d like to pay for sex with children. What can the group do? The opportunity to do it currently exists. No one need know. Where’s the problem? It’s what my brain wants. And that extremely complex device is purely the consequence of time, matter, energy and chance, i.e. natural selection. There is no obvious hierarchy in this natural world that judges what the brain produces. You and everybody else may not want what I want, but that’s you and them. You may be totally repulsed by me and think I should be at the bottom of a pond with all the other slime. But your outrage is equally just random indignation produced by time and natural selection. Advocates of evolution are quick to point out that there is no right or wrong in nature’s outcomes. There is just what works towards survival and what doesn’t. Society is obviously able to cope with complete bastards like me.’
‘Yes but surely it’s more than that. I guarantee you could walk down any street in any town in this country, or just about any country anywhere for that matter, and you’d find it impossible to get one single person to admit that they think child slavery is ok.’
‘That’s a good question. But, there is a big problem with what you say and what seems to be so currently obvious however. Think about this for a minute. Historically the development by humans of agriculture pretty much signaled the end of the so-called stone age and hunter-gathering for most groups, and it created the beginning of the “Neolithic” period. Cultivation and animal domestication meant old itinerant habits gave way to more established “Societies”. This all was supposed to have happened about 11,000 years ago.’
‘Yes I know all that. These are all pretty standard facts of pre-history aren’t they?’
‘Yes, so you also know that the pace of domestication and the evolution of societies varied across the planet, but did you know that the one consistent thing that seems to have happened everywhere with all this change, was that basically every society came to develop something akin to a system of slavery. In fact it’s just about impossible to find a society anywhere in which some form of slavery, captivity of other humans, or expolitation wasn’t hugely a significant and crucial part of the economy, and was to remain so for millennia upon millennia.’
‘Yes I know. It’s like it’s almost always been there, hasn’t it? It seems that for as long as we’ve had the time and ability to “Covet thy Neighbour's Wife” that’s what we’ve done. We want to control, devalue and dominate others, and get these lesser beings to do all the crappy, hard jobs that we don’t want to do. And of course cruelty, brutality and inhumanity is the natural order. As a Christian it causes me the greatest of shame to have to admit it was only just 150 years ago that the Americans slaughtered about 600,000 of each other in their civil war. And many of those fighting and dying in that war were doing so to keep slavery alive. And many, if not most of them, were Christians.’
‘So over time it’s never gone away has it? In the thousands of years of societal history the 150 years since the civil war you talk about is a nano-second. Child brides are nothing new are they? Clearly this world is still full of slimy bastards like the me I’m describing, otherwise why is there still such a huge demand, and why is it such big business? 40,000,000 is a lot of children. You might completely disagree with my view that evolutionary, survival imperatives offer no sanction one way or the other here, but your thoughts are no more compelling than anything I think or desire. The majority will of course disagree with me, and agree with you, but that’s only numbers. Where’s the empirical standard? If no one else knows about it – then what of it? There’s centuries of historical precedent. There is a world-wide surplus of children. So, young people in Vietnam disappear.’
‘Yeah, but what about the impact of what you choose to do, and what it does to the children?’
‘Well, I, as the slimy bastard, reply by saying, I didn’t put them where they are. None of it’s my fault. I’m simply using a facility provided by that evolved society that you and I both inhabit. And according to scientific naturalism the groupings are formed, controlled and run by organisms that exist as a consequence of random mutation underpinned by survival. That’s all that’s happening here.’
‘Hang on, whoa, let me see if I’m hearing you right. Are you saying that for the person who sees everything in the universe only in naturalistic terms, well then the same insensitive forces that drive biological evolution are equally responsible for psychological evolution? And if they’re not the same, well then where do the modalities that drive our psychology come from?’
‘Yes that’s about it. The assertion is that within what is now called “naturalism” survival is all there is. And if you allow for something else to intrude you have to explain where your judgement about it comes from.
‘So what you’re asking is that if all we can expect from the universe that exits as a consequence of merely time, plus matter, plus chance – well what is it? Well isn’t there that famous expression by a current rock-star atheist that says that we can expect no more than “blind, pitiless indifference”.’
‘Yeah, it’s an easy thing to say when you live a priveleged life.’
‘Yes that’s true, but what you’re saying is that the same indifference has no extra meaning attached to it just because it’s what we think or feel, or it has some impact on what might be called “moral” behaviour? Is that what you are suggesting?’
‘Well, yes and the “blind, pitiless indifference” doesn’t offer a sanction of any kind to reign in so-called “deviant behaviour”. If it does then please tell me what it is, and where it comes from, because I really would like to know.’
‘Wow! That’s a pretty big call, but I guess it’s a fair enough question.’
‘But on the other hand what if there is something – anything – that’s outside the randomness of evolutionary and survival imperatives? Is there something “out there”, “in there” or even “in here” that suggests that there are laws and rules, and dare I say “ethics” that contribute to the evolutionary process. Maybe then whole shebang might not be purely the upshot of random chance. You know, there might be rules and laws that say something’s right or wrong. Science has no difficulty when it talks about all the laws in physics that have supposed to have always been there and consequently to have existed before the big bang. We are told most assuredly that they exist, but then never have it explained to us about where the hell do they come from? How on earth can you prove or disprove something like that.’
‘That’s a good question. I’ve often asked my self how does a scientist prove the “Big Bang”? My very limited understanding is that the scientific method is based on taking a theory, replicating the conditions of that theory in the controlled environment of the lab, and then proving and reproving the theory by many ensuing experiments. So when has any scientist ever conducted an experiment that made something come from nothing as is proposed in “The Big Bang”?’
‘Well I’ve never heard of that happening. Making something come from nothing would be pretty big news wouldn’t it?”
‘So there might be more to it than just “blind pitiless indifference”?’
‘Well I don’t know. One thing doesn’t naturally follow from the other. Physics is physics, and ethics are ethics, and never the twain shall meet. But I wonder what’s the difference between an abstract law in Physics that just simply exists; with no explanation of why, or how, it must be said. It just is. Well then why can’t the same thing just simply, by the same rationale, exist in ethics? If there’s no need for an explanation in one area, and we just have to accept that that is the reality, well then why can’t the same argument apply to other areas?
‘The universe is controlled by laws of physics whose reasons for existence can never be proved. They just are. And in relation to moral action. If child slavery is wrong, and of course we have no hesitation in saying that it’s actually pure evil, but then why?’
‘Yes of course it’s totally wrong or evil, that’s seems so much a no-brainer. But then men just like you and me become so twisted and perverted that we decide to make use of it with no drag on our conscience? I mean if there’s 40,000,000 slaves, then there must also be an awful lot of your “slimy bastards". Yeah, but guess how many educated, sophisticated Germans ended up working in concentration camps?’
“Well when it comes down to sources of morality for centuries they have been attributed to a rule supplier called God, or Gods. Now that may have been a good way of describing what’s beyond our physical realm and our senses, but the usefulness of seeing or describing it all in that particular way might have passed. That’s not a problem. It might just need a different language, one that sits better today. Science has come an amazingly long way since the middle ages in its ability to change, adapt and produce new explanations for so much of what has happened in the universe, and what is happening, and what is most likely to happen. They’ve been able to admit when they’ve been wrong. It may now simply be that our old language and concepts of God or Gods are also an outdated way for a lot of people of explaining something that is very basic, very vital, and very, very in your face.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well let’s go back to deviance. As you observed if there’s no demand, then supply won’t exist. Now I choose to abhor the notion of paying for sex with children, and of course so should everybody else. But not just because it’s what this society that has evolved, and we all inhabit, wants. There’s way more to it than that. It’s wrong because we see the implications for our conscience, i.e. our contact point with that thing that is beyond, you know God, or something like Him. I would actually have to ignore all my given beliefs that such behaviour is awful. But I would equally have to ignore the implications for my victim. We are all so interconnected by our relationship with that thing that has been historically called God. Everything I do affects others and therefore no one else should be damaged by my actions.’
‘So you’re saying we may need a change of language or definitions?’
‘Well maybe. Let me have a go at expressing the same concept two different ways. “God communes and shares with us by using His spirit to provide guidance to our spirit – we call this the inner voice, the soul, the conscience.” Alternatively, “The invisible laws of the universe that pertain to the abstract concepts of ethics and moral behaviour somehow pervade our consciousness in such a totally emphatic way as to make it very difficult for an honest individual to ignore them.
‘Now I think whenever words like the spirit or the soul, the numinous, the inner light, the plain old conscience, are used they are all ways of explaining some intuitive sense we have of right and wrong. If the brain is simply an ergodic organ that is controlled by the limits of it’s environment. And that the resulting programming supplies us with signals that translate into wants and desires that are all explained biologically, then everything is permitted one way or another. If it suits my desires to lie, then just lie. If it suits me to use or abuse my friends to my own ends, then just use them. What’s the difference? Does anything really matter? But if there is something real and meaningful out there that is like an ultimate reference point, or an all-pervading conscience then we’d be wise to listen to what it’s hawking. And if your exposure to whatever “It” is allows for you to engage in sex with slave children, then you are seriously disconnected from universal moral behaviour.
‘If there’s an ethical tradition out there that has survived the relentless scrutiny of modern historical, philosophical and scientific study that still freely promotes inflicting pain on the innocent and helpless as in slavery, please show it to me. Like, you know, I’m a Christian. But, if I was born in 3rd Century BCE China I’d probably be a believer in the Confucian Analects, or maybe Taoism, or 10th Century Syria I’d probably be a good Muslim. But instead I was born into a Christian home in Baby-Boomer 20th Century Australia.
‘Now you and I both know that there are many, nasty, horrible individuals operating out there right now. ISIS terrorists are perverting morality in deviant ways by using a sham of a well established spiritual tradition to justify the most amazing cruelty. Well, can the believer who calls on some objective moral standard that resembles something like God make a shred of a difference to the horror that’s going here? I’m not sure there’s much advantage in having faith in this context. But at least the believer can offer that victim the prospect of God’s eternal judgement on that scum who are hurting them. And that judgement is based on eternal, objective ethics. People like you and me, well, we’re pretty useless against ISIS. It’s evil and the fact that things will be put right in the next life is really not much comfort in the here and now is it?. But then remember the atheist with their “blind, pitiless indifference” offers nothing.’
‘What if everybody was in tune with their own concept of what it all means, then the levels of love and tolerance in society would no doubt have an ameliorative effect on those who want to be helped. I think it’s pretty well proven that extreme aberrant behaviour, where a complete lack of empathy is demonstrated, is pretty rare and is usually the consequence of severe treatment by somebody else somewhere. I guess that’s what hospitals and prisons are for.’
‘Yes I remember reading somewhere that not every abused child becomes a child abuser, but nearly all child abusers were abused as children. So it’s a recurring cycle where the riplles go on and on. If our helping hands for others could operate with none of our own baggage attached things must change. The only problem is it’s never happened.’
‘So evil or deviance will never disappear?’
‘Well in my belief, yes, it will one day, all things will be put right. But the best answer to that question for me comes in Jesus and all the stuff he said. He talked about the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. But ultimately he said it is not “here” or “there”, but “in you”. If He was here now he might say something like, “Ethics and goodness are not simply the product of millennia of biological mutation, but they are a permanent part of your conscious make up. It’s as much a part of you as is your survival instinct. It is there for a purpose. And that purpose is to guide you through the process of coming to terms with the absurdity of life. There is more to all this crap than just the nihilism of genetic mutation.’
Comments