Integrity and Hypocrisy: The Challenge to the Exo-Skeletons
These fears of traditionalists reflect a lack of integration-- the morality is not fully integrated into the psyche.
St. Paul lamented: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." Truly, he wanted to do the good. But it is not entirely true that the evil he did was something he wanted not. For a part of him did want it, or he wouldn't have done it.
Well, yes and no. Yes, in that they are not practicing what they preach. And that does represent a kind of lack of integrity. But the "dishonesty" involved is not about lying to others so much as it is a natural outgrowth of the identification with only a part of the self, the moral part, with a concomitant sense that the other part, with the forbidden desire, is the not-I.
So that is the hypocritical part: the failure to embrace the whole truth about the self-- that is comprised not only of the "righteous" part but of the "sinner" part as well.
If the moral order of the society around him weakens, the person with a moral exo-skeleton is genuinely threatened --not just regarding his conduct, but also even regarding his identity.
The Dangerous Blindness of Some of Us Moral Endo-Skeletons
Those of us with the endo-skeleton structure --who can live moral and orderly lives even if we live in an "anything goes" society-- can reasonably be tempted to feel superior to those others with the exo-skeleton dependency on the moral sanctions of a more straight-and-narrow society.
And indeed there are theories of moral development according to which the internalization of moral order is a more "advanced" form of moral development.
But, at this point in American history, it can be seen that the quest for advanced consciousness has many dimensions, and neither side of America's divide has aced the course. This is part of the cost of our cultural polarization-- two forms of moral blindness, very different but also two sides of the same coin.
Just as the cultural right has damaged America because of its failure to acknowledge its inner sinner, the left has damaged America through its failure to recognize its inner moral structure.
This was one of the greatest shortcomings of the counterculture that arose in the 60s. We --and I was a member of that tribe-- simply tore down a great many of our society's moral structures and assumed that all would be well. We had half-baked theories of human nature, and of society, that justified "letting it all hang out" and "doing our own thing" and "if it feels good, do it."
History has shown that we were naive. Not all has been well. Indeed, I would argue that this naive miscalculation is part of what has led, ultimately, to the rise of the dark and destructive forces from the right embodied by the current dangerous Bushite regime.
Living Off Our Moral Capital
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