Extract from “Practical Thinking skills”:
We return to Andrew and Ava….
Ava: Humans talk alot about tolerance in various countries and being free to think.
Andrew: Well, what do they mean by tolerance and how do they know if they are being tolerant orintolerant?
Ava: We need to do a world-wide data search again and see if anyone is talking about this.
Andrew: I think I have a signal…yes “tolerance”…
Just at that moment, Jacob and Olivia are talking about tolerance…
Jacob: Not all societies are as tolerant as other societies and free thinkers are needed for a tolerant society.
Olivia: What do we mean by the words: “tolerance” and being a “free thinker?”
Jacob: Well, in a “tolerant » society, would all ethical and moral behaviour be permitted or even be possible?
Olivia: Who decides what is ethically or moral possible?
Jacob: First we need to define ethics here.
Olivia: What do you mean by ethics?
Jacob: We can define ethics as a set of beliefs, world views or principles to live by.
Olivia: But they determine how we relate to a) our fellow humans,
and b) the physical world.
Jacob: So, based on these statements, what determines a good action from an evil action or a good set of principles from one that is not?
Olivia: Well, it will be the philosophers, thinkers, religious groups of that society as well as tried and tested moral traditions passed down from generation to generation.
Jacob: Some of which will be in the laws of the land or in religious or literary or philosophical texts.
Olivia: The French writer, Françoise Marie Arouet, took up a famous case of injustice where Jean Calas was executed in 1762, having been wrongly convicted of the murder of his son, Pierre Calas.1
Jacob: Oh yes, the famous writer known as “Voltaire” wrote a whole book on the subject ofwhat tolerance is and trying to exonerate Jean Calas.
Olivia: Yes, but does this mean that all possible ethical behaviour is permitted in a tolerant society?
Jacob: A so-called tolerant or modern progressive democracy (e.g. the UK, USA, Germany, France, Canada, Australia) cannot allow all forms of ethical or morale behaviour to exist within its jurisdiction; otherwise society would break down and chaos would consume that society.
Olivia: According to the historian Tom Holland, when Caesar crossed the river known as the Rubicon in 49BC, with his legions and therefore declared war on his own capital, the result was that the Roman Republic “exploded”2
Jacob: Meaning?
Olivia: Apparently, not again for a thousand years after the fall of Rome, would there be civic self-government and therefore the freedoms enjoyed by ordinary citizens, who identified themselves as free citizens in Western Europe.
Jacob: But Rome herself had conquered nations and subdued peoples and “threw people to the lions”!
Olivia: True, but historians would argue that she imposed peace on warring tribes and for the next 2000 years was a reference for western governments in terms of many achievements including freedoms that would not be permitted in other societies for at least another 1000 years.
Olivia: Therefore, historically from ancient times, we see that any society, for the sake of its own survival must post limits as to what individual citizens are permitted to do.
Jacob: So, a tolerant or free-thinking society cannot consider all morale and ethical behaviour as normal or acceptable, even though it will guarantee certain rights.
Olivia: Why not?
Jacob: For one reason, the advocates of opposing behaviours would be in conflict with one another and there would be conflicting interests both economically and ethically, as well as politically.
Olivia: How does a society set limits and boundaries on what is permitted?
Jacob: Well, this is defined by its moral or civil code. However, a society cannot police the motives and intentions of people’s hearts.
Olivia: Exactly, didn’t Karl Marx famously say: “change a person’s heart and you change the person”. Only religious systems or philosophical systems claim to be able to do this. All governments must be content with is legislating or passing laws that control external behaviour.
Jacob: So, individuals will absorb moral and ethical ideas from social media, music, and newspapers publications.
Olivia: But what will be the effect on behaviour in society?
Jacob: All media will influence moral behaviour towards what they consider is the objective of either being tolerant, or acceptable values or behaviour for their society.
Olivia: Does this include the ethical and moral standards of political and social leaders including stars of the media, and sport?
Jacob: Yes, and people will emulate their lifestyle and the stars will serve as models of ethical (or unethical) behaviour and lifestyle.
Olivia: Presumably, they also push society into accepting certain lifestyles as normal.
Jacob: I think so. Also, having worked hard and succeeded as an artist of films, sports, music, business etc., this now gives that person a powerful platform of “Now you are permitted to speak powerfully into a society by your lifestyle ethics and world views.”
Olivia: So, they have the world’s ear because their success in the media or elsewhere (usually due to working extremely hard to succeed in their profession).
Jacob: So, this platform of success means that the world of the international media will listen to and, be more likely to accept, their worldview and lifestyle choices compared to someone who has not had the same level of success.
Olivia: And these choices are seen (through conventional and social media) and emulated by millions around the world and may eventually be acceptable as mainstream values.
Jacob: Thus these morale and ethical players on the world stage will influence many societies, not just their own.
Olivia: But how do I know if their lifestyle or worldview or moral and ethical choices are right or what I want to emulate?
Jacob: We need to use the thinking tools of precepts, valid arguments and counter-arguments with evidence, to see if we agree or disagree with the lifestyle choices and values.
Olivia: Being famous or a star does not necessarily make you right, but millions will listen to you!
Jacob: They will watch what you do or say.
Olivia: So, you become a role model whether or not you choose to be.
Jacob: Yes, and this could be positive or negative.
Olivia: Exactly, and the question arises as to what type of society you want to construct.
Jacob: Do you mean what type of values and lifestyle choices and ethical norms you want for your society?
Olivia: Exactly so. For example, in the UK and the USA and before about 1968 in France, it was considered morally and ethically illegal and wrong for a certain type of behaviour.
Jacob: If as of 2020 it is still considered wrong and illegal in the USA and the UK, Canada and Australia but let us say that it appears to be tolerated by certain members of the society (but not the majority of citizens) in a certain country.
Olivia: The question is why has this attitude changed in that country and who is correct?
Jacob: Do those sections of that country’s population who accept this behaviour need to change, or is it the rest of the population that need to change?
Olivia: Remember that all these nations have historically been influenced by the ethical and moral standards based historically on a Judeo-Christian as well as classical Greek and Roman, philosophical culture.
Jacob: It is well known that there is a contradiction between the Classical Greco-Roman ethical way of living and the Judeo-Christian model.
Olivia: This could account for the conflict in the value systems as people, consciously or unconsciously, through the influence of the media adopt partly Graeco/Roman “hedonistic” and post-modernist world views about people, themselves and society.
Jacob: I think that this is linked with humanist views about the identity of humans.
Olivia: For example “If I am only a machine made of blood and flesh and there is no God and no reality beyond death, why not eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die?”
Jacob: However, because humans are body, soul and spirit, somewhere in our heart of hearts, we acknowledge that humans, though flesh and blood, are more than animals.
Olivia: When we consider the joy of a newborn baby, the beauty of a sunset or the billions of stars we see at night, the reality of our true identity reasserts itself.
Jacob: A human can calculate how many galaxies there are, but a mere machine cannot enjoy and marvel at the beauty of a sunset on a summer’s day or the golden hues of autumnal leaves.
Olivia: Thus, our identity as humans influences how we choose to relate to ourselves and others, and therefore the morality of our society.
Jacob: Because we are not mere machines but creatures unique in the billions of years or of the universe’s existence, my neighbour and fellow citizens are also not machines and are unique in all of human history.
Olivia: In the universe, there will never again be that friend or colleague.
Jacob: I think many people would agree with this quote by CS Lewis in the “Weight of Glory”:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”3
Olivia: And Hamlet in Shakespeare says: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our Philosophy ».4
Jacob: Thus a “high” view of humans forces me to revise my ethics, whether thinking about euthanasia, abortion, war, the environment, animal ethics or migrant populations, human trafficking or drug abuse or the role of women and men in society.
Olivia: Does this high view of humans open my heart to “love your neighbour as yourself” including boundaries to behaviour for their good and mine or do I think of the philosophy of “to thine own self be true?”5
Jacob: Does this high view of humans open my heart to: “love your neighbour as yourself”including putting in place boundaries to certain types of behaviour for their good and mine?
Olivia: I think so, otherwise we would follow selfish ethics and follow the advice from Polonius to his Son Laertes in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Jacob: Doesn’t he mean that if you look after number one (yourself) first, then you will be ina good position to look after others?
Olivia: Yes, it could be as long as you don’t stop at “number one”.
Jacob: So dear reader, what do you think about being tolerant?
Olivia: Is being tolerant the same as allowing any and every type of behaviour “in the name of love”? With no accountability?
Jacob: What is your point of view and why?
Sources:
- Voltaire, and Jacques Van den Heuvel. Traité sur la tolérance à l’occasion de la mort de Jean Calas (1763). Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Collection folio Gallimard 2003, 2009
- Holland, Tom. Rubicon: The last years of the Roman Republic. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.pp xxii
- « A quote from The Weight of Glory. » Goodreads. Goodreads. 20 Aug. 2019 <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/42142-there-are-no-ordinary-people-you-have-never-talked-to>.
- Shakespeare, William, et al. William Shakespeare: the Complete Works. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167 page 662
- Shakespeare, William, et al. William Shakespeare: the Complete Works. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78-82, page 658
- Noll, K, et al. Horse Head Nebulae, NASA, NOAO, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); , 24 Apr. 2001, imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/ uploads/image_file/image_attachment/6826/pdf.pdf. News release ID:
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