A Rant Concerning Postmodern Notions of Right and Wrong, (with apologies to John Ruskin)

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME…

Walter Williams, the noted economist and educator, recently said during a radio address that when he was a young man, it was commonly understood in the African-American community that “Urban Renewal” was simply a socially acceptable substitute for “Negro Removal.” Over the last couple of centuries, professional philosophy’s fascination with definitions and subjective reality have crept into everyday life to an alarming degree. “Intact Dilation and Extraction” sounds clinical enough to be welcomed as a necessary and acceptable part of medical reality. The Romans simply called it “Infanticide.” All of us who are old enough to remember the 1990’s recall one of our elected leaders discussing the meaning of the word “if” with reporters. Subjective use of vocabulary has become in our day an acceptable means of what might be called a nuanced approach to verity. I cannot help but think that we would be better off to call it what many of our great grandparents called it: lying.
A century and a half ago, John Ruskin addressed this same problem in his essay “Of The Pathetic Fallacy” (Modern Painters, III, 1856) “German dulness, and English affectation, have of late much multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable words that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of metaphysicians,- namely, ‘Objective,’ and ‘Subjective.’ No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless…” He complains that by means of redefinition and cunningly reasoned argument, there were those philosophers who denied the place of common sense and of what Jefferson called ‘that which was self-evident.’ Ruskin realized that the word games of the philosophers ultimately meant that there was no categorical imperative, no right and wrong determined by a loving Creator, no ultimate rule of justice, or of pragmatic utility, or even of nature. Where subjectivity replaces objective reality, what is right to me is just as valid as what is right to you, or right to anyone else, even if I am dead wrong.
Certainly, I doubt many of the holders of such beliefs would apply them to the medical or structural world. My contention that I felt very deeply about healing and that I had field dressed many birds and rabbits, and a few deer, would not in their eyes qualify me to perform experimental surgery on them when they were in the hospital, even if I were convinced that my procedures represented a great advance in medical science. In the same way, I doubt that many of them would board an airplane made of hemp and recycled plastic, and powered by an inadequate engine simply because I believed that it was good for the environment. And yet in the areas of cultures and morals, they are adamant that subjectivity is the norm that must be applied. I would differ. It was good that the British outlawed suttee and slavery in their empire. It was also good that the Nazis were defeated, and that Marxism-Leninism was discredited and lost its base of power with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some ways of doing things may not be perfect, but they are better than others. It is also better not to steal than to steal, and to maintain the nuclear family as a committed body for the rearing of children than to declare sexual freedom for all, with its inevitable results of fatherless children and widespread venereal disease.
Ruskin makes a good argument in “Of The Pathetic Fallacy” that objective reality, or categorical imperative, or the Law of Nature’s God, is much more real than many of us moderns are willing to admit. I daresay that we would all be better off if we would be honest with ourselves, stop playing at redefining words and splitting hairs, and realize that there are certain laws of creation that we ignore or deny to our peril.