Weaponized Morality

So this is where we find ourselves, having crossed the post-Christian cultural tipping point, where our transcendent appreciation of morality is being dragged off to the edge of town, to be thrown on the trash heap.

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Within the modern framing of the world, morality is understood as a human construct – a construct that is held in a perpetuated tension between pragmatism and sentimentality. And within this existential tension, a constant state of interpretation is taking place, following the transient curve of cultural ethos. So in short – morality is whatever we say it is and can be shaped into whatever we need it to be at any given moment . . . as long as an existentially pronounced ideal is driving the perception of necessity, moving the needle of our collective moral compass. So is it any wonder that such an amorphous understanding of morality would inevitably become weaponized?

The principle is simple – in the absence of a morality held as immutably transcendent, a vacuum is created, where invariably, competing moral narratives struggle for supremacy. It’s a struggle of imposed wills, often driven by unlikely faith beliefs – as the faith of the irreligious can be just as devout as that of the religious . . . and can be just as perversely unyielding. Which is why the smug sanctimony found in secular dogma can feel as dispassionately cruel and oppressive as any religious order is capable of exhibiting.

This is why Nietzsche was so convinced that morality was an essential battlefield in the struggle of imposed wills. But Nietzsche recognized that first there would have to be a new ontological premise at the heart of this new moral narrative – so he declared God was dead. Notice, he didn’t declare God never existed, which was something he clearly believed, but rather — that the God we all thought was alive, was now dead. This is because he wasn’t really making an academic point about God’s existence, he was making a practical point about necessity. He was convinced that modern man no longer needed his teleological convictions found in the moral transcendence of God. Believing that modern man could now untether himself from such contrived moral constraints . . . if he only had the will to do so.

So this is where we find ourselves, having crossed the post-Christian cultural tipping point, where our transcendent appreciation of morality is being dragged off to the edge of town, to be thrown on the trash heap, with all of the other deconstructed socially unacceptable artifacts. Because they have already crossed the Rubicon with bridges burning behind them –so that now, like the Caesar before them, they have chosen to march on their own people, intent on displacing the old order of moral presuppositions with the bloodless pragmatism of the new order. Canceling one culture, so that a new culture can take its place. All hail the new order . . . or else.

This is what morality viewed as a power struggle invariably produces. Everything becomes a calculation, attempting to maintain the illusion that drives the perception of necessity that holds sway over the culture. And because such an authority must be absolute, forgiveness and redemption have no place in this new world . . . and the disenfranchised will either live in silent conformity or be socially reprogrammed. But you gotta hand it to Nietzsche, he was right after all – this is exactly what a godless morality looks like . . . even if it looks like a ring of hell that not even Dante could have imagined.

 

This is an updated post originally published on Still Chasing Light

Featured Image by Sergei Tokmakov Terms.Law from Pixabay

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