Morals

This is simply a post about morals. Nothing exciting or earthshattering, but I wanted to make my blog a little more diverse than just books. Maybe I’ll do a couple more posts like this, maybe I won’t. Let’s wait and see. (Inspiration of this book came from a response about Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell)

Morals are tricky… they aren’t universally agreed upon. We can see that from the many different people, religions, countries, and institutions who all don’t agree. It seems that we live in a world where you are expected to know right from wrong without a universally agreed upon right or wrong.

Sure, there are the standard laws that must people agree on— don’t kill, don’t steal, be nice, don’t physically hurt someone… but what about those tricky/controversial issues? The separation of church/religion and state, gay marriage, abortion, immigration, these all seem so inherent that we can’t talk about it.

The world seems divided now, there are political parties that refute everything, there are religious organizations that refute two or three but somewhere along the line contradict themselves. It seems to me that everyone is trying to put everything into a white or black box of right or wrong. Recently in class our teacher asked us if we thought there was a gray area. I immediately think “Well, of course there is.” Our teacher goes on to say that rather than there being a gray area most of the time it us deceiving ourselves with thinking we are doing something gray rather than doing something wrong.

But I think otherwise. Picking up your own trash rather than picking up both yours and your friends isn’t wrong because you are pulling your own weight. My teacher comes back with the point that don’t we all live in the same world. You have to come to the conclusion then that you have a different sense of right and wrong. The gooey, icky stuff is morality— a long debated tradition of war and head turning.

Morals are defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “A person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.” Notes how it says “a person’s” not teacher, religion, nation, or school— morals are self-determined yet we are always so scared to say otherwise, something against our environmentally imposed morals.

So in the end, this was just an editorial about morals. A little exploration into my brain about how I think right and wrong is often characterized by the world around us, at least me anyways. I know my “morals” are somewhat different than my parents’, teachers’, and school’s. I know some of my friends would question me if I expressed my morals. I know I have morals for how I think other people’s morals should be structured, but what in the end does any of this mean? Morals, are simply there, not to be regarded for public critique, but rather a private issue, one shunned in polite conversation.