Is it Time to Deconstruct Our Morality?
Actually written MARCH 1, 2012 -
Nothing matters but through our desiring it. And I mean absolutely nothing matters, not your life, not the lives of others, not the fate of this world, not love or hate, not rape or murder. Desire is the sole reason any of this matters to us. [Excuse me while I pretend to be certain of this. It probably seemed very certain to me on the day I wrote this.]
And once we fully grasp this fact, morality must disintegrate in our minds, for morality is precisely that pretense that something matters regardless of desire. Morality is that great engine of human action disconnected from mere personal desire. It is the edifice of one group provoking another group to comply against their will. Morality has always proclaimed loudly, “To hell with your subjective desires, do your objective duty!”
But once we finally understand that desire is the only basis of “mattering” or concern for life, we must shake off the illusion of morality and face the balance of our benevolence and malevolence head on. Never mind doing the “right moral thing”. The real question is now: How much are we willing to help or hurt our fellow creatures? This has always been the real question.
We’ve been so distracted by morality from this real question that we've been conveniently anesthetized from the answer. We’ve hidden from ourselves the balance of benevolence and malevolence we feel for one another, buried it under false moral issues like “social justice” and “good vs evil”. While we’ve been arguing over these moral myths, our true concern for one another has been a neglected topic. We never asked ourselves such questions as “How much do I want to help others?” because we were instead asking “How much am I obligated to help others?” But when the fact is that obligation is an illusion, all answers are false and we waste energy on precisely that illusion.
The morality illusion itself is harmful precisely because it buries the real issue of help and harm beneath its anti-concepts of “obligation”, “duty”, and “right”. “Why kill the Native American, enslave blacks, exterminate Jews? Because it is our right, even a duty. Never mind the harm it does to others. I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s just stay focused on morality.”
I beg you, back up. Deconstruct your moral obsessions and face head on the balance of benevolence and malevolence you feel for others. If you find your benevolence lacking, at least for once you can take corrective measures honestly.
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