The Good

'The Good': Is Morality still Needed? 

Do we have, or desire, or need a set of moral rules, or a moral compass?  My answer is "Yes!" We are social animals and need (and desire) a set of rules. But we do already have some guidance; partly in our instincts (the compass), partly acquired culturally (in our historic religions) and partly acquired individually (from parents and from 'life').

Can our historic religions provide? My answer is "No!"  Most have lost their authority by deploying  guesses, half-truths, myths, and arrogance.  Religion in the West, is today largely abandoned; devalued by its arrogance; recklessly challenging science, offering barmy claims, and making empty promises. (See my essay "The Rise and Fall of Christendom.") 

I am talking of Europe, and of now, in the twenty first century. So, I am also talking about Christianity (still the world's leading 'faith' system, apparently).  Science has, to a considerable extent, replaced religion; stolen its thunder and its arrogance; explained the motions of the planets, the weather, procreation, and (to some extent) disease. Science has expanded the universe a million-fold and relegated mankind and our little planet from the status of sovereign to be just another infinitesimal speck on an infinitesimal speck near the edge of the the universe.  

Very few people would argue that there is no difference between good and bad behaviour, nor would they deny that they prefer the good. It may be hard to decide for any one action whether it is good or bad; and people may vote either way. For example, on the assassination of Julius Caesar. That being the case, it is even harder to define what we mean in general by good and bad behaviour.  Most adults (though to varying extents) feel they know the difference. But, as to from whence we get that feeling, there is little agreement. Maybe partly from our genes, partly from our earliest childhood, and subsequent experience. There are plenty data, for acute and methodical observers; comparing people from different backgrounds, rich/poor households, large/small families, good/bad schools, provision/absence of religious instruction. But most simple experiments are unethical. For example, that of the Scottish king, Jame IV,  who put two new-borns on Inch Keith in the Firth of Forth with a dumb nurse. Or that of the Japanese in the period of competing religions (1560 - 1614). 

The sociological value of a clear exposition of what constitutes 'good' behaviour has been so great that every human civilisation (that we know anything about) seems to have created a set of moral rules and invented a religious myth to justify them. 

These sets of rules, these lists of 'to do' and 'to not-do', are interestingly similar, comparing one civilisation with another. (Tell the truth, honour the elderly, do not kill, do not steal.) Their corresponding religious myths, by contrast, are sufficiently different to occasion wars, and genocides. 

A different, and perhaps separate, question concerns the presence, or absence, of a mind, or a will, behind everything, guiding, planning, intending, and above all caring. Such a mind is to me both incredible on the one hand, as too obviously human, and showing too little evidence of supra-terrestial interests and concerns. And, on the other hand, the existence of such a mind seems contradicted by events: the Lisbon earthquake, the Malaysian tsunami of 2004.

But, to many people, both complex and simple people, the absence of such a mind is intolerable. 

What is to be done? We could [1] postulate such a mind; pretend it exists. If the claim is believed, it would give the believer purpose, and at the same time authorise the rules. But it is deceitful, and it would require extraordinary insight and consistency, or it would slide into [2]  a cloud of prevarications, obfuscations, hints and ambiguities. Or [3] we could try to generate such a mind collectively, to care for the needs of each other, using the collective wisdom of the best guides, past and present, continuously updating the rules by judging each new situation afresh; each participant telling only what is true for himself. This is essentially what Quakers do. (Perhaps an AI substitute for God?) 

I find repugnant the idea of telling a giant lie. Nor does obfuscation and prevarication sound any better. I advocate a deliberate system of mutual support, and caring; for those who want it, and want to provide it. 

There is a caveat. If the group is too small it can fall under the sway of a single charismatic leader (See my essay on 'Death Cults'.) Quakers have, so far, avoided this danger by linking local meetings together into area meetings, and these into yet larger 'Yearly' meetings.

(Fine)

Why I am a Quaker

Please read this very compact little essay again from the top. (Da capo al Fine) That will tell you why I am a Quaker. 

(Comments are welcome direct to: Cawstein@gmail.com)

Living the Dream

 Living the Dream

It was noon, one sunny, summer, Sunday, and I was walking down Parson's Street towards the bus-station. I was struck, as I often am, how polyglot we are in Banbury, how ethnically and culturally diverse. It speaks to the tolerance, and basic decency of a town that was for centuries a byword for non-conformity. The racial mix may be partly due to Oxfordshire's policy of housing waifs and asylum seekers in the cheapest housing available in the county. And there is as much evidence of cheapness in Banbury as of heterogeneity: pound-shops, nail-bars, charity shops, and rough-sleepers. 

Banbury, the second largest town in Oxfordshire, never attracted an upper class; but it grew moderately rich in the middle ages as a wool town. Iron ore abounds in the rust-coloured stone and clay; and ore was smelted here in charcoal bloomeries for at least 2.5 millennia.  But Banbury acquired access to coal with the completion (in 1778) of the canal from the midland coalfields. In the nineteenth century Banbury added metal-working to its skills, making farm machinery and bicycles, as well as blankets, horse-girths and plush.

Pedestrianised Parsons Street runs eastwards down towards the Cherwell, so it has a sunny (north) side and a shady (south) side. The former is favoured by cafés and pubs; the latter by the nail-bars and charity shops.  On the sunny side, at the chairs and tables outside 'Roma Coffee' , there was the usual cluster of slavic families, 

teaching the natives how to enjoy pavement life.

Sitting in the sunny doorway of a closed shop, a dishevelled man was angrily haranguing an imaginary audience. Nobody minded him. Grubby sleeping-bags and sheets of cardboard gave evidence of rough-sleeping in some doorways facing what was once the 'Cow Market'. Two elderly Pakistani gentlemen, in kurta and pyjama, were enjoying a bearded chin-wag. Beautifully dressed African children held their parent's hand, while a black-hooded, black boy on a black scooter, whizzed harmlessly past. Following her father came a little Indian girl on a bike with blue stabilisers and pink ribbons on the handle-bar ends.

        Under a shelter, down by the canal, a weather-beaten, white-moustachioed man guarded his half-dozen plastic bags. At first glance you might think he was selling something, but a second glance suggests the goods were of little value; except that they are his. A steady, sober man; day after day in the same place. I imagine he has a good decade of life ahead of him,  and that this was as good a place to wait as any other. Or he might move on; after all, he was not here a year ago.

I have occasionally found Banbury depressing. It, and its citizens, look a bit stuck; not going anywhere. But on this sunny day I took a fresh look and realised that my neighbours were not dissatisfied with their situation. I must try to see their lives as they see them; not using my perspective. In many cases I could plausibly believe that they were happy, or at least content; perhaps they were even living their dream.