Resolving Conflict vs. Pursuing the Truth: A Moral Dilemma?

Perhaps you have been in a situation I am about to describe before at one point in your life. It is one of a dilemma between resolving conflict as quickly as possible by lying to the wrongdoer who inflected injustice upon you, the injustice of which the wrongdoer is wholly responsible of causing, and pursuing the truth by having the wrongdoer recognize the fact that he is wholly responsible for the wrong and correct the situation through proper remedy. Here, I do not include situations where the injustices arise through faulty actions of both.

     Perhaps the situation arose in conflicts between your spouse or other type of intimate partner, your friends, your family members, or other sort of loved ones. The benefit of lying when the conflict is wholly the other's fault is that you do not risk for the time being deteriorating the relationship, creating further conflict. In many cases, demanding the wrongdoer to recognize one's own wrongs will often sprout dormant arrogance out of the wrongdoer. The arrogance then would turn into anger toward you and distance oneself from you. The con, however, is that you are lying, a principally wrongful act. Another con is that you are enabling the wrongful acts of your loved one by not sifting through the warped perceptions and the sophistic arguments of the wrongdoer. If you truly care about the loved one at hand, it should displease you that the moral character of the wrongdoer will not be fixed for that person will not properly repent.

     Pursuing the truth, on the other hand, is one of the moral imperatives as human beings. Further, pursuing the truth in conflicts will help the wrongdoer recognize the wrongs, repent, and fix the wrongful disposition. In turn, you can grant sincere forgiveness. However, the result is uncertain for there is a risk of losing the relationship by triggering prideful actions, refusing to admit the wrongs.

     In between risking losing a valuable relationship and pursuing the inherent good that is the truth, there is thus a moral dilemma. Which of the two should one choose? I personally cannot balance the two through arithmetic means. Thus I, from a personal perspective, decided in recent years to pursue the truth in all cases and put my faith that a moral resolution will occur. So far, my faith in it has yet to be proven to be misplaced, all the ones involved in conflicts with me ultimately being resolved with me. In such cases, I strike two birds with one stone in that I do the principally correct act and the conflict becomes resolved. I do hope that my faith will never be proven to be displaced.

The Need to Find a Virtuous Community

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." - 1 Cor. 15:33

I think there are only a handful of more heartbreaking instances than when one can do nothing while his loved ones get washed away amongst bad influences. In some cases, a father watches his daughter give her dignity away for attention, too stubborn to listen to his advice. In other cases, a girlfriend watches her high school sweetheart of a boyfriend plunge into a culture of objectification and barbaric hedonism amongst his "brothers." In some other cases, a friend would watch one of his best friends swept away by her new set of friends, being turned into one of the most judgmental and spiteful person he knows, the kind the public would love to hate.

     In all these cases, the ones watching their loved ones corrupted by bad influences would be powerless in that they cannot hope to break the stubbornness of those being corrupted. The efforts to convince those who are being morally corrupted increases as they further plunge into the abyss. The more morally corrupt one gets, the more does one deprived of good conscience. How can a person judge one's own actions to be bad when one is deprived of correct conscience? In all these cases I have mentioned, the root cause is a vicious community.

     Through a vicious community, a daughter becomes rebellious to a point where she distances herself from one who gave her flesh and blood. Through a vicious community, a thought-to-be-soulmate turns into a deadend heartbreak. Through a vicious community, a friend who was one of the kindest person on earth turns into a spirit of hate. However, the biggest tragedy in these cases is perhaps the fact that, through deprived conscience, these individuals being corrupted cannot determine what is giving cause to their corruption.

     To avoid such tragedy, therefore, it is critical to have a knowledge of certain situations. To be situationally aware, one must let go of individualistic desires and start seeing the relationships one has as a whole. A daughter ought to see herself in relation to her father, a boyfriend to his girlfriend, and a friend to one's own closest friends. When one can do so, one will see just how much certain communities bring higher fulfilment than others, thus creating a heightened motivation to resist the temptations of other less adequate communities.

     In recognizing such superior  - virtuous - communities, a person is able to seek after better situations.

Fallacy of Disqualifying Another's Argument on Lack of Credentials

Imagine the following scenario:

Four people were talking about the economic consequences of a Congressional bill: A, B, C, and D. B said that the bill does X. C, however, challenged that the bill is only a smoke screen, that it achieves Y instead of the promised X. A, quite mad about how the conversation is going, texts privately to D about how C is acting knowledgeably on economic matters. D replies not to consider C's arguments because C does not have a degree in economics.

What D said to A is a fallacy. Just because someone does not have a degree does not necessarily mean that the other is incapable of talking about a subject at hand. For all D knows, C had a private economics tutor. Heck, for all D knows, C had the privilege of having a free private tutor for history, philosophy, psychology, and mathematics while pursuing his literature major. After all, there's only so much a university allows you to learn.

Even if it were not the case, anyone with resources can subscribe to scholarly journals and keep up with the scholarly world of any type. We also have a beautiful gift of internet also. There are many gratuitous health-tip websites where we can learn about various health issues, both physical and mental. There is a wealth of videos where top scholars give succinct lectures on how certain things work.

Perhaps in the middle ages it was true that a person without a particular certification lacked credibility. Not in our day and age, however. People are equipped with eyes to read, ears to comprehend, brains to comprehend, and thinking skills to absorb a variety of information.

So before you are tempted to attack your opponent's intellectual authority on a contended matter, remember that an argument is won through sound reasoning, not credibility. Even Supreme Court justices make the simplest logical fallacies in their opinions. To do otherwise and shut down conversations with accusations of lack of understanding would be unduly prejudicial.

Politics of Empty Charity

We have but to open our CNN or Facebook app to see an opinion piece filled with emotional epithets accusing a political faction of idiocy. Such articles would be filled with ideology-specific jargon that is meant to rally those who already agree, and rhetoric with unsubstantiated and unreasoned thoughts. When shared on Facebook, the one sharing the opinion piece would double-up on ideology-specific jargon and her friends would wrap her in a narcissistic, self-affirmative bubble made of 'likes.' On the comment section, some one would comment, "A well thought-out article!" when there is no cohesive thought to extract from; only emotional babble. The one who shared such an article, after seeing what she considers to be positive reactions, would feel politically aware and "smart." When the article takes a moral position, she would feel morally superior too. And when there are people opposing her, she would consider the opposition anathema, being liable to have negative labels hurled at them.

     We see what has been mentioned too often, do we not? Perhaps you are guilty of it. Perhaps you're the one going around affirming people by "liking" others' statuses and comments based solely on your impulse as opposed to meditated thoughts.  Perhaps you are guilty of hurling negative labels at others for supporting a politician or that politician's policies. Perhaps you justify doing all these things with a moral cause, that you are doing such things out of charity. If you are are guilty of the assumptions I've made, and if you have not caught on to my cynical tone yet, I am highly doubtful that you are actually driven by charity.

     In a society requiring us to be politically engaged, the whole point of sharing our thoughts is to convince people. The primary motive for trying to convince others that a particular policy is better should be for the betterment of our society. In wishing the betterment of our society, we exercise charity. But I have found that some people are not sharing their thoughts to convince others. Rather, they do so to prove themselves.

     It is a dogmatic psychological principle that human reactions often reveal wherein their affections lie. Where there is a calm and civil discourse, we know that there is charity and respect for others involved. For the love of others, they desire the best idea - the truth - to come out on top regardless of who is right. Where there is anger and obscenity, however, we know that the primary motive is not charity but rather pride. For the love of self, they desire their own idea to come out on top, regardless of the truth. The expressed charity would then be empty like a shell without its meat.

     Allow me to use real life examples. I am against travel ban President Trump has, and is continuing to, support. But this will not blind me from realizing some sense in the other side's argument. It is statistically proven, from what has been gathered from Europe, that letting in refugees en masse from the seven war-torn areas is a big risk to take. Crime rate, especially rape, has skyrocketed in countries that allowed a mass of immigrants in from those countries. Further, the frequency of terror attacks have risen also. Considering all this, I do not think it's "Islamophobic," "bigoted," or "irrational" to support temporary travel ban. It's a legitimate moral dilemma: Should we take no risk for the love of our own or should we take the risk for the love of others?

     In light of this, hurling negative labels and resorting to angry protesting with ludicrous signs like "White KKKonservatives are More Violent than Muslims" is not indicative of charity at all. Instead, it becomes apparent to others that such a protesting method is more indicative of the fact that the protester is out to prove oneself as opposed to prove one's opinion on the matter. No sensible person thinks that "White KKKonservatives are More Violent than Muslims" will convince the other side, neither will they see love in such a sign. Instead, they will see hate. They would not be wrong.

     Another example is the Women's March. I am supportive of women's dignity. However, let me assure you that, allowing obscenities such as a parade of nude women and vagina costumes do more harm for the cause and will convince no one. In fact, such obscenities will draw people away from whatever Women's March stood for. No rational person will think that such obscenities will convince the other side. What a rational person will think is that those who acted with obscenity are out to prove themselves as opposed to prove their cause to others.

     The challenge I make to you is thus: When you are expressing your opinions, are you fueled by your own vainglory or are you doing so for the sake of charity? And if you think that you are doing so for the sake of charity, ask another question: Are you fooling yourself that you are?

   

Can We Settle on a Legal Definition of "Life" in the Post-truth World?

Amendment XIV. §1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the Unites States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction of the equal protection of the laws. 

What I have typed above is the Fourteenth Amendment. This is the amendment from which so many of our civil rights derive from. What I want to focus here is the assertion that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

The Constitutional cases regarding abortion has veered away from solidly proclaiming legally the definition of life. Al the time of Roe v. Wade, the judges focused on the privacy right on the woman as opposed to the defining the basis of their usage of the word "life." Instead of defining it, they went with what their institutions told them was life. 

I thus propose an amendment to define what the hell the Constitution means when it says "life" in Amendment XIV. What better way is there to define what life is than through science? 

Sadly, even the scientific fields have been corrupted by political feelings. They have all the elemental requirements necessary to define what life actually is, but many shy away from defining life in a way that would justify the claim that life begins at conception. Despite a myriad textbooks and professional articles insuring that life begins at conception (fertilization), regardless of the authors' religion, there are still conflicts within the biological community... A sad consequence of politicized science.

I will thus see if life begins at conception.

The following are the elements of life.

1) Metabolic

2) Growing

3) Reproductive

4) Responds to Stimuli

5) Biochemical

6) Genetic

Metabolic

The moment a sperm is fertilized, it begins to siphon nutrients from the mother's body. In the case of reptiles, they siphon nutrients from the egg itself.

Growing

As the fetus, however small, siphons nutrients, it grows and will continue to grow after birth.

Reproductive

Potential to reproduce as being part of a species is the more accurate description. It would be silly to say that an infertile woman is void of life. A human fetus, as being part of the human species, has a high chance of being able to reproduce. Thus it is reproductive.

Responds to Stimuli

The response does not necessarily have to be spontaneous. If an axe strikes a tree and left alone with a scar, the scar will heal over a long period of time. It would be proposterous to say that trees are not alive by the fact that the response to the stimulus of hitting the tree with an axe was not immediate. If a fetus was conceived in a toxic womb, say, a womb of a drug addict, it will likely respond to the environment eventually. Thus a fetus, however young, responds to stimuli. 

Biochemical

A machine can be metabolic and can respond to stimuli. Certain chemical compounds can grow itself also. Thus there necessarily have to be a biochemical requirement to call something as having life. From the moment of conception a fetus is a combination of a sperm cell and an egg. Thus it is biochemical.

Genetic

Certain machines can replicate itself. If a coded computer has a free reign to replicate itself, it can. So we need genes, a biochemical compound that can be passed down. A fetus at conception carries the genes of his father and his mother. Thus it has life. 

Here, we definitively see that life begins at conception. How enlightened are we that our laws do not define life in accordance to immutable scientific laws? We have rulings already dealing with immutable characteristics, do we not?

Fascism and Progressivism: Learning from History

***Note: I do not think that Trump and his supporters are fascists. But there is certainly a danger of true fascism being formed in nigh future.***

When there is an action, there is a reaction. This is true of laws of physics, and this is true of laws governing the human psyche also.

One might counter by saying that the two are not comparable for one cannot predict what reaction, if at all, an individual will produce. True. However, when looked upon at a macro scale, we can certainly predict what kind of reaction a group of people will produce. 

An astute student of economics will see this truth easily. An individual's spending pattern is erratic. However, at a macro scale, the spending patterns of certain demographics become predictable. An astute student of history can see also that growth of political ideologies follow a similar pattern. The current topic looms around fascism, a topic talked of in virtually every Westernized political systems. I thus talk about how we can prevent fascism, presupposing the ideology to be evil, by observing facts of history. I argue that Progressivism is causing reactions that give rise to fascism. 

Here, by "Progressive," I intentionally label it with a capital letter in hopes of distinguishing between "progressive." Progressive approaches change by overthrowing the whole of tradition. The other type, the progressive approach, seeks to change by improving upon the tradition, a position even the most conservative individual can take, e.g. figuring out how capitalism can better benefit the poor.

French Revolution

The French Revolution is unlike the American Revolution in that it was Progressive. Americans were progressive in that they built their society upon their English heritage, keeping the laws and parts of governmental customs. The French, however, sought to abolish the entirety of what was institutionally French. From the French monarchy to the Catholic Church, they sought to abolish all the traditional notion of French identity and start anew. They even went so far as to create a new cult.

After their disastrous failure, an emperor came into power: Napoelon Bonaparte. He was a militaristic nationalist who galvanized his nation into a perpetual strife toward dominance. He inspired the people who were tired of Progressivism by converting them to his nationalistic cause. 

The words "fascism" and "Progressivism" have not been in use in this instance of history, but we can see the just how close revolutionaries and the imperialists were to Progressivism and fascism respectively. 

Early 20th Century

Not many have read Mein Kampf. Reading such a document will surely put a target on one's back and veered at. But peering in to the mind of one of the most evil men existed in 20th century gives much benefit in psychoanalyzing a nation. In his book, Hitler mentions the rise of Communism, the ideology that gave birth to modern Progressivism. He viewed the violent zeal of Communists as being toxic. Sadly, behind the Communist movement in Europe were ethnic Jews (they were not religious Jews). It was Hitler's much flawed logic that, if he could eradicate a race, he can eradicate an ideology. 

Hitler was not the only one being infuriated by Communism. The German people, already exhausted through poverty and defeat, were further agitated by Communist revolutionary activities. Thus Hitler began his own brand of fascism, propelled further by the shared hatred of Communism by the German people. This appeal to hyper-nationalism and ethnocentrism appealed partly to the percieved traditional German character: Imperialistic and warlike. Indeed, Nazis went so far as to be interested in the occult and the Nordic religion. 

Notice the pattern here: Progressivism + Exhausted populous => Fascism

Current Day

In our days, fascism does not exist. Many nations have taken a nationalistic turn, but they are not close to being fascist as liberals would paint them to be. But we cannot deny the potential for true fascism from resurfacing. 

We have Progressivism, a militant one at that. There are brands of Progressiveism who are advancing Communism without calling their movement Communism. There are also brands of Progressivism who are deliberately starting metaphorical fire between party lines, making inflammatory and emotive statements, mostly through social media.

We have an exhausted populous. We may not notice for effects are subtle, but we have been dealing with terrorism and renewed outlook of nuclear hellfire. It is not unforeseeable to see Iran, who have been waging proxy-war with the U.S. throughout their occupation of Iraq by supplying terrorist factions, making closed deals with terrorists with nuclear weaponry. We further have the volatility North Korea. The world may not be perceived as being in a dire situation when looked upon individually. But when looked upon at a maco-scale, the world is in a fragile state. Being sprinkled with bad news on a weekly basis thus creates an exhausted populous. 

It seems that Progressives as we know now are not willing to start a literal fire, and that nationalists we know now are not willing to submit to an authoritarian figure. But if the Progressives were to escalate their militancy, there will be an escalated militancy from nationalists, veering ever closer to true fascism.

There are many examples I can give, the ones that are not so well-known such as Yugoslavian Crisis, early days of South Korean "Republic," etc. But for the sake of length, I omit them.

Solution?

It is a well-known fact that, when a human being is tired, one wants to stay in their niche for a while. However, it is also a well-known fact that human beings should strive to progress their state. The solution, I believe, is to switch our stance from Progressivism to progressivism. Instead of overthrowing the traditional notions and banking left so as to be out of the ballpark, we ought to improve step by step what is wrong with traditional notions. In marrying the desire to progress and the desire to stay the same we will find stability and reasoned populous.

Let's not make this happen again.

The Path to Moral Decay is Paved with Partial Truths

As I begin another new year, I thought that it would be a good idea to remind myself (and whoever would choose to read this amateur post) that the path to moral decay is paved with partial truths. After all, a person ought to strive to become a living saint during one's lifetime.

Consider the following statements individually apart from each other:

1) "I ought to nourish and preserve myself."
2) "I ought to value another human being's life."
3) "I ought to care for the environment."

Considered individually, all three statements are valid moral statements.

As persons, we have a moral duty to ourselves to cherish our own lives. We ought to nourish our bodies with adequate amount of food lest we die of either obesity or malnutrition. We also ought to nourish our minds with both intellectual and recreational activities lest we suffer mental illness.

As communal beings, we have a responsibility to take care of other human beings. When we see a person of lower moral quality, we ought to correct them. When we see a person in a decadent situation, we ought to help in proportion to our own respective abilities. Further, we never ought to expend an innocent's life.

As beings that are quite outside the food chain due to superior rational faculties, we have in our interest, and that of all of the Earth, to take care of the environment. We ought to reduce our waste and refrain from destroying ecosystems.

Valid as they may be individually, common sense morality demands us to take priority in certain precepts. in a descending order, when situation gives no other alternatives. When a situation arises where only one of the two can live, a person with active agency is in a morally excusable position to disfavoring another's life (while maintaining respect for the other).  When a situation arises where a group of people can be saved only by means of war, one would be in a morally excusable position to use explosive weaponry necessary to bring about a swift result, disfavoring the environment.

It can be seen that there are morally excusable instances where one precept can take priority over another. However, immorality often occurs when we use certain precepts to justify our wrongdoings outside the justifiable particularities.

For instance, consider a man hiring a prostitute to please himself. Sex, when done correctly and with pure intent, can qualify as a recreational act where a bond between spouses can grow further. However, it can be abused in countless many ways, and using another human being as a means to an end is among them. The man would say to himself: "I am using this to blow off some steam." He would be using the first precept in this case. However, he is violating the second for a prostitute is in a decadent situation; the very profession is riddled with mental health issues. Here, the man is not in a position where the situation offers him no alternatives. To blow off some steam, he could easily hit the gym. In this case, the man used a partial truth to justify his deed, one which the truth forbids him to do.

A proponent of prostitution might come to the man's rescue and say that the woman is being paid for her "work," and that the mutual exchange makes the act morally neutral. Respect for mutual exchanges, situations where two wills are exercised, is an element of the second precept. But the existence of this element does not mean that the disregard for the prostitute's wellbeing by the man and disregard for her own mental health by the prostitute any less morally culpable. This hypothetical proponent likewise attempted to used partial truth to get around the truth.

I can throw out many hypotheticals showing just how partial truths are used to justify immoral acts. They range from petty things like ordering nonsense from Amazon to great things like instituting Communism. I shall not list them here, for I think I made my case in the above example.

4) "I ought not to justify my wrongdoings with partial truths lest I fall down the slippery slope of moral decay all the way down to the pits of hell."