Integrity is Destiny

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.
Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day.
The content of your character is your choice.
Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.
Your integrity is your destiny ... it is the light that guides your way.
-- Heraclitus (?535 BC-475 BC) Greek Philosopher

Driving in to work Friday morning, I was listening to Peter Boyles, a Denver talk radio legend discuss the breaking news about the gunman who shot all those people at an Aurora movie theater. It was a search for answers. Caller after caller asked why.

Pete, who’s almost 70, brought up that we didn’t see stuff like this 40 years ago, and he’s right. We’ve always had violence, but this random stuff is a fairly new phenomenon. Many posited that it was generational—some blamed violent movies or video games, while others pointed to a lack of discipline and poor parenting.

No Respect

Me? I don’t know. We’re not a serious people anymore. Everything is an big f’ing joke.

We have no respect anymore, for anything. We have lampooned and demeaned every last institution in the country, a slow motion French Revolution where even the highest offices of government and church leaders do not escape the rhetorical torches and pitchforks. We've set it all ablaze and we dance with glee as we watch it burn.

Granted, government and church have earned it with their serial malfeasance. Their leaders don't appear to respect the institutions they were supposed to be guarding, so why should we?

We respect nothing but our own needs and our overinflated sense of self importance. Back in the day, people had more respect because the culture taught it to them. A person with little or no respect for anything was ostracized to the fringes with other malcontents, but it was a long trip there with plenty of opportunity to repent along the way.

No Cultural Norms

Punishment and guidance at school, getting fired from jobs, being shut out of polite society, getting punched in the nose for insulting something dear to someone or for impugning someone's character. These things taught us lessons and instilled virtues, if nothing else, just knowing when to shut your mouth. A person could learn, or not, by degrees.

Nowadays, there are no stop signs, no guardrails to block a person's free-wheeling descent to hell. Be as stupid as you wanna be. The football coach who used to teach respect has adorned the back window of his pickup with a cartoon character peeing on a Detroit Red Wing logo. How funny! It's in your face 24/7.

So yeah, its the video games, its the violent movies, its war without end, inspiring every jackass and he-man wanna-be to dress up in camo and act stupid. It's our trashed-out, stand-for-nothing, anything-goes culture  

Most importantly, it is what we allow into our collective societal consciousness. If the mind can conceive it, man can achieve it. Heraclitus knew it. It's the same now as it was 2500 years ago. Think up new inanities and novel modes of violence, and all your dreams will come true.

Garbage In, Garbage Out...

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls...

Heraclitus

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. -- John Donne

Z had a thought provoking post on Muammar Khadaffi's bloody exit from this world. The comment thread was full of thoughtful comments as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one grasping for a way to sort this out. Few of us kick up our heels and celebrate at these events, and that's a good thing. He met a well-earned end, but violent actions devoid of law or justice are an offense to humanity.

On the face of it, the cries from the international justice types is pretty funny, demanding a full accounting of Khadaffi's death.  The man brutalized a population for 40 years, and they don't expect a little retribution, some catharsis? 

The jostled videos of the dictator being beaten, dragged by his hair and ultimately laid out dead was a glimpse into the dark reality of human nature.  The monkeys escaped and turned on the zookeepers, cracking their heads open with rocks and tearing them to pieces.

Wars, executions...It is all a debasement of humanity, and as such, a debasement of each one of us.  This is why justice properly ordered and properly carried out is so important, and why wars without end, even when conducted via pilotless aircraft from 50,000 feet, will eventually corrupt a people and blacken their souls.

We all know injustice when we see it, and it most often it flows from an abuse of power. 

Shakespearean Power Failure

In Shakespeare's play, Measure for Measure, Claudio is condemned to die for knocking up his betrothed before the nuptials.  In act II, Isabella, Claudio's holy and virginal sister, pleads for mercy to Angelo the magistrate. 

Angelo rightly reminds her that True Justice lies not in some sappy sentimentality or misguided empathy.  True Justice, God's Justice, Nature's Justice, is blind to emotional appeals and always balances the scales.

Counterpoised against a righteous exercise of justice is abuse of power.  Isabella laments how men harshly wield the power lent to them by God:

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength;
but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

Abuse of power is timeless...

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder.
Nothing but thunder!

She reminds us that God loans power and authority to man so that we many model our societies upon His justice.  But "proud man..."

Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep...

Abuse of power is human nature.  We forget we are "dust and to dust we will return."  Flush with pride and earthly arrogance, we forget we are fit for infinity, and we end up as angry apes who make the angels weep.

WH - Power is the Most Abused Drug