All Men (And Women)

“[A]ll men are created equal ...” That's what it says. That's what the Declaration of Independence says. Very few people really believe it, but that's what it says. Nonetheless, many assume this means that all their ideas are equal – and equally valid – though apart from its expressions of equality, all the other writings of the Founding Fathers are out of date. Consistency is not one of their strong points.

The bases for their disenchantment with the founding documents (apart from those aspects that are politically correct) are that times change and also that traditions vary in different places and among different people.

Chalk it up to moral relativism.

According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.

There was a time in our history and there were places in our own country when slavery was considered acceptable and, among some, virtuous. While a significant degree of prejudice remains, slavery is gone – at least in the United States and in most other countries. By such a definition as the one above, however, slavery was no less “privileged” then than freedom. In fact, it was probably more appropriate.

Similarly appropriate by such standards were child sacrifice among the Aztecs (and other civilizations), the burning of wives on the funeral pyres of their husbands, cannibalism, “honor” killings, female genital mutilation, Nazi eugenics and experimentation on prisoners, and a host of similar horrors. I shouldn't have said “horrors” since this suggests a rejection of the traditions of others. It suggests an acceptance of the heresy of “absolutes.” (True as that may be, admitting it is viewed nowadays as jingoism and bias, so don't quote me.) But all these acts were in keeping with the societies in which they existed.

For the last half century, therefore, we have taught our children – and we have convinced ourselves – that there is no such thing as absolutism. Our mantra has been “Live and let live.” Viewing the practices of others in the light of our own morality is judgmental and unethical. Indeed, we have made a point of exposing our children to the practices of others and sometimes espousing them. Ethnocentrism merits condemnation. So we have sacrificed history in favor of equal representation. Or greater representation of the unfamiliar – even if by doing so we create a new mythology. It is the affirmative action of pedagogy. Our own culture and traditions are of less consequence. There is more “truth” to the views of those uninvolved in world history than there is in the relating of what actually happened.

We have been brainwashed into believing that what happened as a result of “colonialism” should be minimized and that the stories of the “oppressed” are more important for us to learn. Thus our children are educated to be embarrassed by our own story (when they are actually exposed to it), and both texts and tests emphasize the virtue of other cultures, while subtly condemning our own. And all of this is taught at a level that will be understandable to everyone. We do not seek the highest truth, but the lowest common denominator. We serve the pablum of “feel-good” exposition rather the pabulum of honest evaluation. And we are left with a generation (and probably more to follow) of our youth and academic communities tainted by the guilt of their forebears.

We have become a nation in which sense is of less consequence than “sensitivity,” and everyone gets a certificate of achievement. Everyone is equal. All ideas are valid. We are all winners. There are no losers.

Except for truth, our society, and our future. They are the big losers.

Next episode: “Condemned” – Those were the days, my friend.