relativism

more on this...

Measuring others according to moral standards becomes tormenting when (as is often the case) people you love and respect do things you cannot understand and would judge harshly if you had done them yourself. So can we avoid judging them (harshly), should we avoid judging them at all, or ought we to judge them just as we judge ourselves?

Suppose I judge the behaviour of the super-rich to be selfish and damaging to the structure of society, to the state of human rights around the world, to the potential for improvement and change, and to the system of predominant values. Then I suppose I have to judge friends or relations in that way too, if they approximate, or head towards the realm of the super-rich. There seem to be few other options.

Here are some possible let-outs:

1. Reverse my judgement

I could try to stop making the judgement at all - by trying to persuade myself to think as they do - that is (in this case), to believe that the super-rich have no negative impact on all those things; and that if individuals were to change their behaviour the world would not get better, but worse (or only stay the same). If I became able to persuade myself of all of that, presumably the judgement would cease to apply to myself (hypothetically) as well. In which case I could go and get as rich as I wished; could stop feeling guilty as I walked past homeless people in the street; could consider myself generous if I shared any part of my worldly goods with others; and could stop worrying that my hourly income might exceed the daily (monthly? annual?) income of people in other parts of the world.

I suspect that is the easiest path to take - I mean in terms of getting rid of the guilt and anger that can otherwise come to dominate one's life; and in terms of feeling better about oneself and feeling better about others. But it depends (in this case) on altering one's view of -

a) economics
b) personal responsibility (and guilt)
c) (I think) human nature.

So I need to look at all those 3 at some point...

Apart from that, and if I can't quite come to share their point of view on a), b) and c), or when it comes to other questions - how else do I react?

Perhaps I could isolate the 'judgement' so that it only applies to myself. For myself, it might be shaming to be super-rich, might 'feel' wrong, perhaps it might even be wrong: could it still be 'right' for others, or at least none of my business whether it is right or wrong?

Those are 2 different positions:

2. Different standards

'It is wrong for me but could be right for others'. In other words, different standards may apply to me - for example, because I am a different person, have different expectations and different possibilities for action. So according to this view: I cannot make a judgement on someone else's behaviour (because I don't know which standards to use)

This position is very suspect, although in a weak sense it is obviously true. As long as we make the standards general enough and put the bar high enough - for example: 'Torture is wrong', or even 'Deceit for personal gain is wrong' - then there is no earthly reason why they should not apply to everyone, as much as they apply to me. In fact there needs to be a very good reason why they should not apply to some particular person.

3. None of my business

'It is wrong for me, but I am in no position to judge whether it is right or wrong for others - because I cannot understand their point of view, because I am not them, and because it is not my role (right? responsibility?) to judge others.'

This is a cop-out: why is it not my role? It is obvious, again, if we take a universal standard, such as the case of torture, that on this issue, it is irrelevant why someone behaved in such a way: the act is still wrong. We do not need any further information in order to decide whether a torturer did the right thing or not (except, possibly, whether they can be said to have been forced to do it).

This non-committal stance has 2 close relations:

4. Judging the act but not the person

'What x did was wrong, very damaging, should never have been done... but I pass no judgement on x him/herself. The act was wrong but I make no claims about x, although s/he carried out the act deliberately and knowingly.'

Another cop-out - with the proviso that we should obviously be very careful about passing 'judgement' on people, and these should almost never be judgements extending beyond the concrete act, the specific instance on the basis of which they were drawn up. So, for example, we might say that x has a violent streak, as evidenced by the fact that s/he appeared to derive some satisfaction from applying torture on several occasions; but we would not want to say that x is bound always to be violent in all his/her activities and interrelations with other people (let alone that s/he is out-and-out evil).

5. Turning a blind eye

'It is wrong for me and may be wrong - or right - for others, but I am not going to make that judgement. I could make the judgement, quite justifiably, but I am not obliged to. I can shut my eyes to that issue (for example, in order to retain x as a friend, in order to keep my job, or in order not to stick my neck out and be judged for judging).'

This is my favoured position in cases of non-judging - the only one I think is really honest, and not too cowardly (as long as it is not applied universally). Perhaps, then, one could even apply that sort of reasoning towards oneself:

6. Never passing judgement

'I am not going to judge myself or others: what will be, will be; we do what we can and should not torment ourselves that we could not do otherwise. I shall not look at whether I or anyone else might have been able to act differently, and to different effect.'

This clearly goes too far, and is anyway disingenuous. I don't believe there are really people prepared to give up completely the moral discourse - which is what I think it amounts to.

The middle 3 positions seem to be common among the HRE-ers, to a lesser extent the last two as well. My suspicion is that in fact, those who are unwilling to look at other people's behaviour from a moral standpoint are nearly always doing so on according to the 5th position. In other words, although HRE-ers (and others) tend to hide behind positions 2 and 3, I think that what they are really doing is deliberately turning a blind eye (often in order not to stick their necks out, lose their jobs or - heaven forbid - appear to be moralistic and superior).

Position 5 is fine, and almost inevitable in certain cases - in fact I see it as the only hope of retaining our sanity and friends in a complex and corrupted world. But I wish people would be clear that they are refusing to make a judgement not because they think that moral standards cannot be applied to others, nor because they do not feel they ought to engage in moral evaluation - but because they want to retain friends, keep their jobs or not be seen as being judgemental. It is a personal and pragmatic choice, and not a moralistic one.

What people are (were?) really saying in advocating tolerance is that we should be tolerant towards ideas and ways of life that are merely different from our own. Even the pathetically anodyne Declaration of Principles on Tolerance makes this clear:
1.1 Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, and freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Tolerance is harmony in difference.
The promotion of Tolerance was a reaction against people being intolerant towards (mere) difference. But the concept has now been extended to mean we should be tolerant of pretty well everything... that if something jars: Be Tolerant! Tolerance has become a value in itself; intolerance a vice.
What if something jars for good reason? Are there then 'good reasons' for advocating tolerance in this case? Possibly: if the benefits of doing so are greater than the damage done by being intolerant. But there's another point here which is often missing in debates on tolerance, related to the jarring. In the old (pre-UN) sense of tolerance, the term applied to something hard to bear, something we should tolerate for a greater good. Tolerance was a shield that stood between us and whatever it was that jarred (protecting the tolerated thing rather than the tolerator).
There are two problems about valuing that shield in itself. The first is that the virtue should come further back: it should be virtuous not that we manage to hide our dislike or disapproval of something merely different, but 'virtuous' not to feel that dislike or disapproval in the first place. Valuing tolerance is like valuing George Bush's missile shield.
The second problem is that the jarring is often (but not always) an important reaction to something in itself non-virtuous, unsatisfactory, unjust. That reaction is a vital element, an essential precursor to acting against injustice. Without the jarring, we don't get past first post. If we put the shield up as well, tell people to sit on their inclination to react to anything that jars - we can be quite sure that the jarrers will rule the roost.
The issue, of course, is where the limits to 'tolerance' should be: which things we should tolerate and which things we should positively not tolerate. The safe (and easy) answer is to draw the line where international law has drawn it for us: 'Tolerate everything that is not a human rights violation'.
Rubbish. Firstly, because there is no reason on earth why we should accept the line drawn by our politicians and their lawyers without question, without thinking; no reason on earth why they - of all people - should be regarded as the ultimate authority on questions of jarring.
More importantly, because even if we do take this to be the line in the sand, we should be very clear that international law offers the bare minimum, a pathetic level of guarantee and even of moral rectitude. We can stay behind the line and still have people homeless on the streets of Oxford; millions dying from AIDS or starving to death in Africa; depleted uranium being fired at children in Iraq; and EU bureaucrats eating up the money meant to go to those in desperate need.

Should we judge others as we judge ourselves? Should we apply the same strict and rigorous standards to other people's behaviour as we apply to our own? The current craze for 'tolerance' seems to say not: judging others is Out Of Bounds. We should be Tolerant.
One can see where it came from - and I think it came from noble motives.
1. Judging without knowing the whole story should be avoided.
2. Condemning someone for ever, just because they have slipped up once, is unfair.
3. We should try to understand the reasons for people's behaviour rather than taking the actions out of context.
4. People are only human.
But these are red herrings: they only say we should be cautious, and understanding. In the same way that we should when we judge our own behaviour. And they say that we should not make blanket condemnations which cannot be reversed if the behaviour or the attitude to the behaviour changes at a later date.
What do we do with our own behaviour, and how would we wish that others responded to our 'slip-ups'? I think I would wish that people judge my bad behaviour harshly, at least until I recognise it myself - and come to regret it. Then I would wish them to be understanding. How can we come to know our behaviour is 'bad' if people are only ever understanding and tolerant towards it? I don't want people to tolerate my bad behaviour.
And why on earth are we bothering to teach people what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' if we don't want them to apply these terms to anyone (except themselves)? What happens if - perchance - that sacred cow International Law happens not to have got it quite right what is 'Right'... but no-one dares to make a judgement outside its boundaries? How, after all, does human rights law develop if not by people making moral Judgements outside what is written now in international law - and pushing to bring it inside? Yet making moral judgements is seen to be no part of human-rights-education (so-called).
The power of human rights is not in what is written down in international law: it is in its inherent moral force. If Human Rights Education is to have any meaning and purpose - surely we need to be teaching people how to make sound moral judgements, and act on them. Tolerance of this unequal and inhumane world-system is precisely what is keeping it going.

Of all people one might expect to be absolutist about morality, human rights educators must rank quite high. These are people who have apparently chosen one system of morality above all others - that of human rights - and are so sure of its authoritative position that they even educate others to believe in it.
Their absolutism in this respect often worries me: not only because human rights is a huge, complex and even disputed field, about which those working in HRE apparently have little need to know. But also because the 'slogans' of irreducibility, universality, interrelatedness, indivisibility - among others - are thrown about with little awareness or discussion of what they might mean; and with almost religious devotion. These slogans are either very radical indeed - and few people live up to them in practice - or else they are empty slogans. Then let us discuss them properly.
But they are discussed very little, and indeed, morality per se is discussed hardly at all within the bounds of HRE. HRE-ers seem almost afraid of morality, unwilling to commit themselves morally, disapproving of those who dare to make moral judgements. When it comes to the small, everyday decisions that people make, HRE suddenly becomes intensely relativist. Things are 'personal decisions', 'none of our business', 'individual choices'.
Yes - but all human actions are, at the end of the day, 'personal decisions' and 'individual choices' - with the exception, perhaps, of those carried out under torture. Even the act of torturing could be viewed as a personal decision: but how is it helpful to view it in that way?
If HRE is to make any changes in the world - which is what it says it aims to do - then surely it needs to start committing itself to something beyond what is written down in international law, to stop hiding behind the weakest and least controversial versions of the moral system it claims to believe in, and start realising that large violations are the result of small, personal decisions by individual people.
It is perfectly possible to respect - in the weakest sense - those people while still condemning the acts.

Still troubled by standards and applying them. In particular, by how we can avoid applying our own standards beyond their realistic limits, given the ruthless and pragmatic world we live in; and by how we should react or respond to behaviour that technically violates our standards, and that we would judge harshly if we did it ourselves. Triggered, this time, by revisiting George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, but worried by it in general because -

a) I am suspicious of the position of educators - and by the HRE-ers in particular - who mostly refuse to make moral judgements, except when these are securely backed up by international law (and then they are no longer really moral judgements, but legal ones). In other words: what clearly violates international law can be safely condemned within the realm of HRE, otherwise 'we do not judge'. That position seems to me to be both inconsistent (because we make moral judgements about our own behaviour without any difficulty), and unhelpful (in terms of making progress).

b) I am worried by the fashionable position among 'progressive educators' which is that judging (on a personal level) is to be avoided - even disapproved of - and yet I do not want to slip into the non-progressives' realm of constant disapproval, of marking everyone as hoodies, foreigners and vandals, of condemning, failing to understand, feeling superior.

c) I am worried by how one stops making judgements about what is right or wrong. In other words - where one continues to measure behaviour against the standards, where one refuses to do so, and then where (or how on earth) one alters the standards to make them not what one sees as the 'right' ones, but the ones that fit the ruthless and pragmatic world, the ones that work in practice (the unwritten rules that I have talked about before).

For this last reason alone - that of not knowing where to stop - I am half-inclined to plump for the HRE-ers non-judging stance. But then I go off and become a business magnate (or at least one in the form of a roaming 'Consultant'); or else I buy myself an aspidistra.

Troublesome cases, which others do not seem to mind about (and which I have mostly written about before, ad nauseam):

- Western consultants and ngo-businesses eating up the money meant for people genuinely in need.

- Nice, respectable, kind, generous people leading their lives, and living in luxury (or relative luxury) while others die from poverty-related causes.

- Nice, respectable, kind, generous people making a killing out of others' ill-paid labour.

- Nice people (and all the rest of it) working for and benefiting from corrupt institutions, institutions which according to most 'standards' should be cleaned out if not shut down completely.

(You can't do that! Doesn't really matter. Someone else would work for them instead.)

And perhaps above all - nice people not minding about most of these things. Or thinking they are just inevitable, part of the daily fabric, cannot realistically be changed. The trouble is, I sometimes fear they may be right.