Behaving Maturely in a Dangerous World
At my age, it is expected that I will behave like a grown up. But what does this mean?Shrugging off personal insults
One thing that it means, at least in Western countries, is that if someone calls you a dirty name, you won't pull out a gun and shoot them. In the Middle East, though, insults seem to be a valid reason for a person to go home and get his relatives to come back in a mob and murder everyone in your family.Tolerating despicable standards in other cultures
Or, if that seems like an exaggeration, it is certainly NOT an exaggeration to say that if your sister brings shame upon your family, and if you are a Middle Easterner, that you are expected to get your family together and beat her to death. All the while filming your activities so that you can put the show up on the internet.For confirmation of this, see this web page (or this one if the first isn't found).
And of course, people all over northern Africa are still mutilating the genitals of their daughters because, well that's what people do there.
In the West, part of being a grown up means respecting other people and other cultures. Does this mean that I have to respect these backwards, dastardly, and sick cultural practices?
(See note 1 below)
Accepting Reality
Accepting reality is another aspect of adulthood. We don't get things just because we deserve them. We don't have infinite resources. We can't go grab everyone in Africa or the Middle East who is doing these disgusting things and shake some sense into them. If we tried, it would just make them mad. We'd like everyone to be nice -- but we just can't make them be nice.Adults have to come to grips with the fact that there are some very important things that we think that we should have but which we are never going to get. That there are some things that we dearly wish that we could do -- but we can't and we are never going to be able to.
Clearly, lots of so-called adults never learn to accept this reality. The TV advertisements by groups claiming to let you sponsor some cute little child on the other side of the world for a few cents a day are preying on the benevolence of very nice people who have not come to grips with the fact that most of the 6,000,000,000 people in this world live very difficult or unpleasant lives and there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do about it. And if you were to try, those people that you were most earnestly trying to help would become the very ones most likely to rob you or shoot you for meddling in their affairs. Luckily, this isn't universally true, but wouldn't you react badly to some stranger who showed up with money tried to tell you how live your life? Sure, they'll take your money, but simply being given money is unlikely to actually solve their problems -- more likely, they'll just become dependent on hand-outs.
And sometimes, very well intentioned people do make things worse. We often feel that our good intentions somehow justify our acts -- even if the outcomes are bad. We say, "at least I tried! At least I did something!" But of course, a person suffering in agonizing pain at our hands wouldn't feel any better that his suffering resulted from our attempts to make ourselves feel better by doing something (or to secure for ourselves a better place in heaven by torturing him). No he's just suffering.
Such must be the feeling of young African girls whose genitals are cut off without the benefit of anesthesia because their mothers think that it is the right thing to do.
In his book, "The Logic of Failure", Detrich Dorner details various catastrophes created by well intentioned people. Among them was the starvation in Africa brought about by the wonderful intentions of Westerners -- who, during the 1950's, sent money to Africa to help the local people dig wells and to buy farm machinery. A generation later, the human and animal population had greatly increased due to the ready availability of water. However, these new wells, feeding the suddenly greater population, drained the aquifers and then there was no water. Large numbers of people who would never have been born at all were now starving to death because of the meddling of these very well intentioned people.
But do the facts that 1) we have limited resources and that 2) we take great risks when we try to help others, mean that we shouldn't do anything for anyone? Probably not, but what should we do? How do we decide when to act and when to merely wring our hands in consternation over our inability help every suffering individual on the planet? And when do we decide to act like some Old Testament army and simply kill every living thing in some annoying part of the world?
Parenting the world
Parents are required to teach their children subjects that they don't want to learn and to force them to behave in ways that they don't like. Everyone agrees that parents have an obligation to do this. Luckily, parenting is over in a relatively short period of time -- and children are usually weak and pliable.But, are we our foreigner's keeper? They are most likely not weak or pliable. Do we have any right to try to change other people's destructive behavior? Do we an obligation to do so? And to whom would we be obliged? If the obligation is to our definition of what God wants, then why aren't the people on the other side of the world obliged to their own definition of God's will to come here and change our behavior?
And what if these people are behaving like children? Are we required to forgive them their trespasses against us -- such as murdering 2300 people who were literally minding their own businesses -- the way we forgive our children -- who don't know any better? Or, are we to defend ourselves against nuclear armed terrorists by killing them first?
After all, the police arrest gun-toting teenage gangsters -- even if that means getting into a gun fight with them.
Behaving morally while being shot at
Is it moral for us to do, as we have done in Iraq, by starting a war which is close to the terrorist's home base so that our soldiers can be attacked there instead of here -- on our own soil? Is it moral of us to trick Al Qaida nut cases into blowing up Iraqi school buses instead of American?What parent wouldn't trade someone else's child's life for his own child's life if there were no other obvious choice? Isn't the war in Iraq just another one of those areas where we must simply wring our hands in consternation that we are forced to make do with the poor options that are available to us since everyone in the world isn't nice -- and since there is no world government to appeal to for help?
Is this just a case of "Better the Iraqis than us?"
Maybe we can make it up to them, somewhat, by actually helping them establish a democracy -- but if we don't, so be it anyway.
Opponents of the war don't want to hear this question, and when it is forced on them, they just shake their heads: "Isn't it better that someone else's children be shot at than yours?" Yes, of course our children are also being shot at in Iraq. But these "children of America" are professional soldiers, not elementary school students. Maybe it is immoral to do what we have done in Iraq, but are you willing to let your children be blown up to assuage your guilty conscience?
Blowback: repercussions of our behavior
Grownups, of course, are supposed to take into account how other people will react to our actions. How has the world reacted, and how will they continue to react to what we are doing in Iraq? Lots of people around the world are outraged at our actions. Those who condone or agree with them are much less vocal.What governments, however, have severed diplomatic ties with us? Which countries are actively blocking us in world cooperative bodies? Only those countries which didn't like us in the first place. Even the Europeans who have almost universally railed against our actions in Iraq have continued to work with us as they always have. Yes their citizens who oppose us are very vocal, but then that's what happens in democracies.
There is now a great hew and cry against us in Muslim countries around the world. Islamic governments let their citizens blow off steam, just as the democracies do. But, will the man-on-the-street in the Muslim downtown grow bored of the whole issue and will it just blow over? Or, will they militate against their governments who are still doing business with us at the same rate as before and create an anti-American superstate with which we will eventually have to contend? Or will more and more rootless people in Muslim countries join Al Qaida or organizations of the same ilk and be a never ending thorn in our side?
Only hindsight is 20/20 -- and even then, not always. Some things just aren't knowable. Decisions have to be made with the firm knowledge that no matter what we do, bad things of one kind or another are going to happen. We try to take actions that will minimize the number of things we'll regret later -- but the number will never go to zero.
What should a moral person do when all the choices are bad?