Mnr AM de Lange wrote:
> As our creativity has decayed, XXX our strength of character has done
> likewise. More and more people are conformists who act as "others"
> believe they should act rather than in accordance with some strongly held
> personal values, character. So, more and more people experience stress
> from the events in their lives. "When the goin' gets tough, the tough get
> goin'" has been replaced by "I''m only human" and "Oh, poor me!".
>
> This is not Joan's message (say message 1) because I have changed it. But,
> by changing only one word, the changed message (say message 2) becomes
> crystal clear to me in terms of my own framework. For example, as our
> creativity decays, our morals decay because in my framework our morals
> concerns that which enhance the creativity of our fellow humans. I can now
> even change the changed message somewhat further by adding her phrase "our
> morals have decayed" together with 'and' at the place XXX. Thus the
> overall meaning of the doubly changed message (say message 3) is still
> clear to me in terms of my own framework.
This and other messages have caused me to stop and ask some important
questions. What are morals? What is moral? How do we decide? What is evil?
Is evil the opposite of that which is moral? Or is it something more? Why
are some things malum per se (an evil in itself) and others are malum
prohibitium (wrong because prohibited by law)?
In this message, morality is defined as that which increases the
creativity of our fellowmen. This is implied in the statement that "as our
creativity decays our morals decay."
Recently I had a conversation with another manager who is working on his
MBA, about "resolving moral delimas (sorry for the misspelling; it just
"left" me). When I asked him what morality was he was left speechless. The
best he could mutter was "its like committing adultery." My next question
was, "why is adultery immoral?" His answer, "because God forbade it." To
which I said, "why did God forbid it? And what if I don't believe in God,
is it still immoral?" After a while I had him convinced that adultery was
"acceptable behavior" under certain circumstances.
I concluded the conversation by stating that the moral dilemma he should
solve is that he had so quicly abdicated his moral beliefs when confronted
with logical arguments. Without hesitation I indicated that it seemed to
me that he had not integrated his "moral beliefs" into his life. He walked
away confused and frustrated.
Which brings me back to me original question: What is moral? How do we
know what is moral? These are important questions to answer before we say
that we've experienced "moral decay."
-- Ben Compton The Accidental Learning Group Work: (801) 222-6178 Improving Business through Science and Art bcompton@geocities.com http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTMLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>