Ancient Greeks did not have a way to recognize morals; nothing defined why their ideals evolved. It was not until Socrates, the father of philosophy, began to question what made people believe what they do. Today, one is aware of what morals are but little has changed in terms of how morals are taught. Those morals that one accepts as their own become absolute, meaning they are the only ones to be considered. It is through this ignorance that one fails to examine other culture’s beliefs, or new trends in their culture. However, there is a time when many begin to question there beliefs, this time is known as college. By allowing a person to examine their ideals and beliefs, answers begin to arise as to why one is influenced by them. This examination, when done with a truly open mind, allows one to question whether it is better than another individual’s.
Yet, not everyone questions their morals but rather they hold them concrete. This leads to a clash of morals. Those holding concrete ideals impose that all should follow that set leading to conflict, especially in the realm of religion. In short, intolerance of other morals stagnate society because an “us” versus “them” mentality results in the suffering for ideals.
What should a society do about this? What can we do? These morals that cause so much pain, the morals of universal truths, are who we are. It is our culture. Through the readings of the following essays, I would like to make a suggestion. What we need is an evaluation system of morals to be taught at a younger age. To not only be taught morals, but the fact that these are values that influence our society and that there are other ways of achieving the same end. To achieve even greater ends than what our moral aspire to.
This mentality leaves an enormous question at hand, what should society do about this? Morals are the cause of enormous pain, but they are what make a person, an individual. The answer comes from an evaluation system of morals. A system that would be introduced to children at a young age, to not only be taught what morals are but that these influence what society becomes. By instilling this system one can hope to achieve even greater ends that what morals presently do. If children are taught how to examine morals rather than just accepting them absolutely, then as adults they could evaluate new ideas for what they are worth. Instead of natural distrust of what is unknown, they could view other culture’s ideas, or that changes in their society could have merit.
However, by teaching children to question merit destroys the concept of absolute morals. For a moral to be absolute it is requires that there can be no exceptions. Anything that questions that belief undermines the moral faith; leading to intolerance and forcing individuals to conform to common beliefs. This takes away from individual thought of right and wrong as Joan Didion eloquently puts in her essay On Morality: “You see I want to be quite obstinate about insisting that we have no way of knowing-beyond fundamental loyalty to the social code—what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong,’ what is ‘good’ and what is ‘evil’(Didion,183)”. Didion explains the reason why the common person gives up their integrity to preserve order. Further, when change does happen, it happens in a violent manner because resistance to the new values are so strong, people literally die for their beliefs.
Nowhere is this scenario more apparent that in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, his response to clergymen informing that his actions were “unwise and untimely” (King, 142). In it, he tells people that they are being held back by those who silently suppress theirs not those who violently declare it. This becomes clear when King says “…white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice” (King, 148).” He points out how the white majority believe that they should be pacifist and allow time to achieve what they cannot. King’s demand of change is challenging an absence of integrity and that progress will not happen by affirming the old value system. The moderates are afraid of his demand of change. As evident in his letter, challenging order, change, causes pain and suffering. The examples he gives are the poor treatment of abolitionists; of dogs biting into flesh and the policemen insulting the demonstrators.
King’s work in the civil rights movement shows the difficulties in challenging what is believed to be universal truth. The civil rights movement of the 1960’s became difficult for all sides involved. King even died because he was unafraid to speak the truth of what he knew. Would this problem occur if same groups were taught that all values have equal amounts of importance? Perhaps, after all it is up to the individual to evaluate what is and is not moral. Due to the inherent nature of man there will always be those that decide that ill-will and selfishness are more important that another’s values.
However, this is less likely to happen if children are given a system to evaluate morals. I am not arguing to abolish all morals, rather add the moral value of change. This is key because it will cause children to question their own ideals and motivations leading them to questions other individuals’ ideals and motivations. When one allows for such questioning it opens up the evaluation of if that is indeed the right thing to be done. This concept is something that society considerably lacks in culture today.
This system is briefly touched on by Stephen L. Carter’s essay on The Rules About the Rules. His focus on integrity and how to achieve it are revealed in three steps, which are: discerning right and wrong individually, act upon what we conclude and to be unafraid to say why we chose our values. The first, being the most crucial because it evaluates moral philosophies. It is also what society lacks today according to Peter J. Gomes’ speech Classic Virtue and the Character of Fellowship. In it he speaks of how citizens of old knew exactly where they stood, while citizens today complain about leaders when they do not know what it is that they follow.
While society may lack the ability to evaluate morals, the need to question one’s values is necessary to achieve the importance of them to individual believers. As illustrated in Mark Clayton’s essay A Whole Lot of Cheatin’ Going on, even when students are taught that cheating is wrong, they still do it. The problem is only corrected when universities have extensive seminars and pamphlets about the moral issue. People begin to employ values only when it is explained why that value exists. My mother put it best when she read this paper: “We don’t tell children anything. We just hit them when they get it wrong.” It is worthless to have a moral of the story without the story. To not tell the story makes it so that people do not have to be told the reason why to do things. Even to believe in things that are not proven.
There is a term for believing in things that are not proven; faith. Faith is something that we, a Judeo-Christian background society, value as something essential. It requires for a blind belief in morals that are held universal. There is little room to question, doubt or second guess. However, in order to truly understand something you must truly know it. To know something means asking questions and seeking the answers. Yet, in society, that faith has been misconstrued into blindly believing what is told. Religion, is a large part of moral basis and the problems that one wrestles with is evident in Anthony Brandt’s essay Do Kids Need Religion? He perfectly describes the answer to the problem posed here, when he states: “Teaching our kids how to ask the right questions may be the best we can do.” (Brandt, 197). Although, it does not state any great conclusions; it is what morality needs. Every person cannot have absolute conclusions that are ambiguous in nature of morality. When attempted it has been met with grave results, such as death and regression of society.
The improvement of morality is a necessary goal which must be met. This can be achieved through continual questioning of whom one is and why their beliefs are what they are and if that is a good idea. Carol Gilligan’s Concepts of Self and Morality is an excellent piece about status quo thinking of moral nature of men and women. In it, Gilligan claims that women’s morality is thought of as childlike because women approach ideas differently. While this does not make her an intellectual inferior, this is not the shared opinion of society. Yet, with the evaluation of her ideas and acceptance, society can progress improving an overall greater moral goal.
This progression of society is key to forming a better, tolerant society. Just like when Socrates sat among his people and asked what was important and why, we must do so now. Anything less is only to clasp things that one hopes is right. By denying the truth of why things happen it causes society to crumble underneath the moral weight of the comfortable familiar. People need to understand what it is that they believe and why that is. It is only then that there will be integrity to act out upon that, and be unafraid of another’s beliefs.
What Dr. Watson Had to Say:
A-
Thompson
The paper has a firm, clear focus from the beginning, it guides the reader and establishes a strong voice. The argument is supported by well chosen examples (and good, thorough textual analysis), and is stated in often compelling ways. This would be an excellent paper if not for the unacceptable number of surface errors, including: mixing singular and plural; misspellings (such as “there” instead of “their”) and typos; incorrect use of commas and semi-colon; occasional sentence/phrase structure problems [mostly awkward sentence/phrase, but also splitting phrase. E.g., the sentence “something that we, a Judeo-Christian background society, value as something essential” should be “something that as a Judeo-Christian society, we value as essential”]; mis-stating the title of a work [you state Gomes’s title incorrectly as using the word “Fellowship”—it’s actually “Followership”]; not integrating a quote into your text adequately [the King quote about white moderates is not brought into you text in a way that integrates it firmly into your syntax and fully contextualizes it for your readers]. In addition, the section on Carol Gilligan’s work should be clarified and expanded in a future version of the essay.
The Excellent Paper
This paper adds to and/or exceeds the Good Paper in one or more of the following ways:
Yes The paper gives the controlling thesis or main idea an original twist, showing real insight into some of the subtleties and complexities of the issues involved.
Yes The paper develops original and unique material.
Yes The paper offers a distinctive and compelling voice, one which helps readers follow the structure of the paper.
No Secure in its command of a mature syntax, the excellent paper may successfully risk playful and artful effects with language.
Cleaning up the essay through revision and editing could go a long way toward improving it in this area.
No The paper has been scrupulously edited and is free of mechanical and/or grammatical errors of any type.
See comments above on this subject.
The Good Paper
This paper adds to and/or exceeds the Satisfactory Paper in one or more of the following ways:
Yes The paper is purposeful, successfully articulating a controlling thesis or main idea, or set of ideas.
Yes The paper smoothly guides the reader through a series of stated points or examples.
Yes The paper offers appropriate examples and/or details that support its purpose. The examples are drawn from experience, observation, and specific engagement with a text.
Yes The paper compels and maintains the reader's attention, and the voice may be compelling.
No The writer is obviously in control of standard, edited American English. There are very few, if any, distracting mechanical and/or grammatical errors.
Yes The paper establishes a context for itself that is clearly evident to readers outside of the immediate classroom setting.
