I grew up during the 60s and 70s, during one of the many historical waves of Rousseau’s morally ambiguous visions for celebrating the authentic self – had become the cultural zeitgeist. A time when the seemingly benign notion of “live and let live” like Novocain had already begun to dull our practical discernment of common sense. This was when having moral judgment had become culturally anathema – instead, choosing to imagine we could somehow be free from all of the repressive, guilty chains, from which past generations had burdened us. But the conspicuous problem with such a utopian theory is that, not only does it give rise to a moral vacuum that inevitably gets filled with a Nietzschesque power struggle for moral authority – but it also creates a crater in the human psyche, where our natural need to assuage guilt becomes distorted.
In 1970, Tom Wolfe wrote a satirical book about the type of highbrow cocktail parties that gathered to discuss “what was to be done about the hoi polloi?” And because high society, for the most part, remains insulated from the daily struggle of the common man – the necessity for the cause-celeb was given birth. Where the well-healed, dressed to the nines, attend gala fundraiser events, so as to be seen as virtuous for throwing money at whatever the cause du jour might be. Wolfe describes such attendees as the radical chic – that is to say, everyone in favor of militating and agitating for revolution . . . just as long as they could do so from the sidelines sipping high-dollar chardonnay.
And in the same way, within an affluent society, everything shakes down from the elite to the plebs – now, even the likes of you and I can hashtag “look at me -I’m on the right side of history, too”. Such mindless virtue signaling, along with a culturally curated conviction to choose the correct political avatars, has come to replace the need for us to actually confront real human privation in person. This is what modernity does best – if you just think the right thoughts, and coalesce yourself with the powers that be . . . you too can live a guilt-free life. Because who in their right mind could possibly question how caring and concerned you really are? This is the disembodied world that moral ambiguity fosters – a world where we all get to claim the moral high ground . . . where our only moral distinction is “Don’t you wish you could be as good as me”
Our tendency for such mimetic rivalry knows no limits, something Rene Girard rightly observes as the default setting of our fallen nature. We all clearly want to be the final arbiters of morality – but we also want to follow whatever the prevailing moral opinions are. It’s like a perverse consumerism – we want to make our own choices, but we also want to choose whatever is in style . . . so as to be seen as making the right choice. In this regard, we play a sad little game of charades – everyone pantomiming moral behavior . . . because that’s how the game is played.
The simple truth is, if morality is just a social game we play – then I ask, why bother? Because if pretending morality matters is nothing more than a power play, or a cultural fad cause celeb where we’re all just cosplaying concern – then to hell with it! But if morality is ontologically transcendent, baked into our existence – then it resonates with the true value of human life . . . a value God has placed upon each of us. Which is to say, it is the grace and mercy of the one who created us, calling us to be reconciled to him . . . and to one another. For this is the way of forgiveness, the only place where guilt and shame can truly be addressed.
. . . so we lay it all at his feet.
This is an updated post originally published on Still Chasing Light
