David Matthews 2 is a freelance writer in Alpharetta, Georgia. He is also the host of a weekly audio rant which you can hear at the main page.

Target: Moralism
Part 17: How Moralism Destroys Morality
– by David Matthews 2

A woman brings her car into the auto shop and says that the "Check Engine" light came on. She had previously brought the car in the other day and she was told everything was fine with it. The senior mechanic cracks open the engine, checks the oil, and sure enough she was BADLY low on oil. In fact her engine was on the verge of cracking from the lack of lubrication.

The mechanic goes over to his cousin, who isn’t too bright, and asks him if he checked everything the other day.

"Yup, I did everything you wanted me to do to the letter."

"Well apparently you didn’t, because this woman’s car pretty much had no oil in it! Now I told you to check the oil."

"No, that’s not what you told me to do! You said for me to check the oil dipstick, and that’s exactly what I did! It was there and it didn’t look bent out of shape or anything."

The senior mechanic smacks himself on the forehead. "You IDIOT! I didn’t tell you to check the oil DIPSTICK! I told you to check the OIL, dipstick!"

Needless to say, they didn’t get much work done.

A key misconception about moralists is that they are presumed to be some sort of "expert" in morality, much like an accountant would be good with numbers or a doctor would be good with medicine… or a mechanic would be good with cars. The moralists themselves certainly would want everyone to believe that they are some sort of "expert" on the subject of morality since the mistaken distinction gives them an edge in their arguments.

But the truth of the matter is that moralists are no more "experts" on the subject of morals and morality than a racist is an "expert" on the subject of race relations. Moralism is a BIAS. It is a form of discrimination. It presupposes that YOUR views are all that matter, and that any other view is not just wrong, but also EVIL. A moralist is bigoted in just the same way that a racist or a sexist is bigoted.

Moralists are not champions of morality. Quite the opposite. Their efforts quite often destroy morality as well as damage the very foundations of society.

In order for us to see just how this is done, we need to look at what morality consists of and how moralists pervert and destroy it.

There are two kinds of laws on the books today. The first are laws that are considered to be mala in se or "wrong by themselves". These are laws that really need no explanation as to why they are wrong. Prohibitions against things like murder, robbery, and rape are all considered wrong in and of themselves. The second group of laws are called mala prohibita, or "wrong by legislation". Running a red light is considered to be wrong only because the government has declared it to be wrong. The same goes pretty much for every zoning regulation on the books today. While we may think of it as bad taste, we certainly wouldn’t consider it "inherently wrong" to paint a house day-glow orange… and yet somewhere in America is a local zoning ordinance making just such a thing illegal.

Well there are also two kinds of morality. The first are things that we PERSONALLY consider to be right or wrong. These are the morals that we develop on our own, through a mixture of experience, parenting (or a lack thereof), and exposure to family, friends, peers, and role models (or, again, a lack thereof). We are not BORN with these things, nor are they magically BESTOWED upon us. There are no quick tutorials or Cliff’s Notes on the subject. We have to come up with them all on our own as we go through this circus act we call a life.

The second kind of morality is the morality of others, most notably of a group. There are things that we will do with others that we would not be willing to do individually. If you’ve ever heard of the "mob mentality", this is pretty much it. These are rules generated by the group based on each person’s own sense of right and wrong. Codified into words and enforced by the group, they become our rules, regulations, and laws. If they’re not codified, then they become our norms and our customs… still enforceable, but only on an individual basis.

So where does moralism fit in and how does it destroy morality?

Moralism destroys morality in three ways.

First, a moralist operates on the dysfunctional belief that THEIR standards not only SHOULD be the group’s standards, but they actually consider their standards to BE the group’s standards. In other words, even if they are not some formalized or elected leaders of the collective group, they presume that they truly are.

A great example of this kind of destructive thinking took place in 1994, right after the November mid-term elections when the Republican Party won enough members to take control of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. Ralph Reed, then the leader of the theocratic Christian Coalition, publicly proclaimed that THEIR GROUP was directly responsible for the GOP taking over the Congress. The inference being made at the time was that it was the Christian Coalition that put the GOP in office, and that THEY are really the leaders of the government, not the people that were elected.

The next step, and the second way that moralism destroys morality, is to operate on the dysfunctional belief that ALL laws are really MORAL laws. A moralist will argue that ANY kind of law or rule or regulation is really someone’s morality being imposed on others. So, for instance, rules governing traffic or workplace safety are supposedly MORAL laws.

While it may seem crazy, this step is an important one because it justifies and legitimizes the moralist in IMPOSING their beliefs onto others through government. Remember that the moralist doesn’t just claim to speak for himself or herself anymore. They’re operating on the dysfunctional belief that their views ARE the collective views of everyone! That means that anything that THEY believe to be right or wrong must not only be the GROUP’S belief of what is right or wrong, but it must also be codified into laws and ENFORCED by the group. And moralists will argue that failing to specifically codify their morals will result in social devastation.

A great example of this was the case of critically brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in Florida. The moralists who argued that she should be kept alive at all costs believed that they had every right to IMPOSE those beliefs as a matter of federal law. And when pressed to justify their actions and to refute the claim that they were simply imposing their morality on others – which they truly were – they then publicly argued that ALL laws were in fact moral laws!

The side effect of this is that it removes the legal distinction between things that are wrong by themselves and things that are simply wrong by legislation. If all laws are moral ones, then all prohibitions are not only wrong by legislation, but they are also wrong in and of themselves. This gives the moralist the added excuse to keep old moralist laws on the books.

The final step is to place the GROUP’S morality over YOUR INDIVIDUAL morals. To not only give preference to the GROUP’S sense of right and wrong over yours, but to actually DISMISS your individual sense of right and wrong. Again, this is essential because it prevents you from countering the "established" morals with your own.

At this point what the moralists insist upon is that whatever it is that you’re learning in life, whatever your sense of right and wrong are, that it doesn’t matter. It’s IRRELEVANT. WE, the moralists, will tell you what is right and what is wrong and you have to obey what we tell you to do, no matter what! Don’t listen to what that "little voice" tells you to do. That "little voice" is no expert. WE, the moralists, are the experts!

Sadly, we see this example on a regular basis. We saw it in Jonestown. We saw it in Waco. We saw it with the Heaven’s Gate cult. And we see this every time you hear about someone in the Middle East who is brainwashed into strapping on bombs and blowing themselves up in the middle of heavily populated areas.

And let’s get brutally honest here… THIS is the end result of moralism! THIS is their ultimate goal. This is the whole purpose of their activities. It’s not to "help" people or to guide them to what is right or wrong, but to IMPOSE their will over all they see and perceive. They see others as merely drones, extensions of their own egos.

Now, why is this destructive? Why is the demonization of personal morality in others and the glorification of group morality so wrong?

First, you have a society whereby right and wrong are determined solely by the standards of either a single person or an elite group of people. That only works if the leader or leaders who make those decisions are of sound mind. Moralists, by their very nature, are not of sound mind. Jonestown, Waco, Heaven’s Gate… eventually the dysfunction catches up to them.

Now what tempers a group morality when it starts heading out of control? In a normal society – if such a term can even exist – group morality is tempered by the personal morals of ALL of the participants. Opposing perspectives are presented and dangerous ones are countered with voices of reason and sanity. The group realizes that they were heading down the wrong path and they make a correction.

That does not happen in a moralist-run society, because there IS no opposing viewpoint that is allowed, much less letting the group know that they are heading in the wrong direction. There is only ONE viewpoint, and it is that of the moralists. If the "elite" who get to determine what is right and wrong is dysfunctional, then the whole society is dysfunctional because that is where they get their guidance from.

The next thing that is destructive about a moralist-run society is that it completely destroys any kind of personal accountability for actions taken.

After World War II, dozens of Nazi officers stood trial in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. They had only one defense… that they were simply following the orders of a superior officer. This became known as the Nuremberg Defense and not only was this kind of thinking NOT allowed in their subsequent trials, but military code of conduct had to be changed so that military officers were OBLIGATED to refuse an order that they believed was not right.

And yet, what doesn’t get mentioned is that this is PRECISELY the mentality generated in a moralist-run society! People in these societies are conditioned to blindly follow and obey their leaders. They are told to disregard their own sense of right and wrong, and that in doing so they would be held blameless for the consequences of their actions.

That’s why Germans are hyper-sensitive to any mention of Nazism. It reminds them that at some point they were also talked into being mindless lackeys. It reminds the bulk of them that they too were simply "following orders", even if they did not participate in the crimes committed. Their real sin was complicity.

A moralist-run society also breaks down appreciation of laws and government. For those "renegades" that actually develop their own sense of right and wrong, they find themselves in the unfavorable position of having to make a choice between their own beliefs and going against the powers that be. If they surrender their conscience, they become hypocrites. If they follow their hearts, then they become criminals.

Moralists cannot tolerate dissention. It goes against everything they believe. That is what drives them towards positions of power and authority. They do it to REMOVE dissention. Once in power, they develop and encourage a zero-sum mentality to remove any opposition to their agenda. It forces people to either give in or take a stand and be branded as criminals. Either way, the opposition loses something in the deal while the moralist gains everything.

Prohibition is the ideal example of this. Temperance moralists took over positions of power and influence in the US Government and they did everything possible to make alcohol illegal. Those who were opposed to this either had to give in or become criminals, and many did. The end result was a general disregard and disrespect of laws and of government. People no longer believed that their government was one "by the people, of the people, and for the people" as Abraham Lincoln claimed it was. Instead, the US government of the early 20^th Century was by the moralists, of the moralists, and FOR the moralists.

It is difficult for any self-thinking person to have any kind of trust in or respect of a system that neither respects nor acknowledges their own sense of right and wrong. Any kind of government that shows that kind of disrespect for the individual is not only endangering themselves and the society that they claim to govern, but they themselves are the true criminals. A truly just society does not consist of a bunch of lemmings being blindly led by a schizophrenic loon.

Moralists like to believe that what they do is to help others. They can believe that all they want to. History, on the other hand, has pointed out numerous times that moralism does more to HARM society than it ever could do to HELP it.