New World Ethics

Judging large-scale ethical behavior is a tricky thing. Crime statistics will go down then all of a sudden, whammo! a string of school shootings, car-jackings, or destructive flash mobs will take place. Or people will declare their concern for individual liberties (a la the Tea Party) then suddenly opinion polls show that the majority is okay with our freedoms being usurped in the name of safety.

I’ve noticed some trends myself. I’m starting to worry about the direction of ethics in our society, especially but not exclusively, our youth. My concern does not seem to be the same concern the older generation had with teenagers and young adults (“listening to that crazy, decadent music,” etc.) but more to do with trends in 1) attitudes and 2) technologies, and where these trends will lead.

Current attitudes lean towards believing that other people will make important decisions for you, not you yourself; your own right to free choices should be restricted to the area of entertainment and appearance. Technologies are developing that keep us personally disconnected from each other, from social-connectivity – even though this seems paradoxical. We use more impersonal electronics to stay in touch. Actual, live, in-person, human connectivity and the impact resulting from that live, in-person, human connectivity, is disappearing. Compassion and fear are playing less and less a role in our decision-making due to the electronic socialization of people; yet compassion and fear have historically been two of the most self-governing characteristics of humanity.

Attitudes:

I’ve been teaching at the community college level for over thirteen years. In class, I ask questions to initiate discussions and I try to rebut the responses given by my students – by playing a little devil’s advocate. Whenever I ask my students “How much freedom should a person have?” the general response is, “Not too much.”

As odd as this sounds, the idea of freedom seems to have a negative connotation with young adults. For the past three or four years, there has rarely been any student in class who believes we should have as much freedom as possible. Almost all believe that people cannot handle freedom; freedom makes people steal and kill and drive like maniacs; they have sex with everyone they can and use all the drugs they want. “People go crazy when they have too much freedom!”

I respond by saying, “Do they really? But wait a second, the question is How much freedom, not ‘Should we be totally free with no laws or limits.’” They continue to reply with answers such as, “No, we’ll have anarchy without laws.” I repeat several times, “No one is saying that we shouldn’t have laws, but how many laws should we have and how intrusive should they be?” The overwhelming majority sticks to the original sentiment: We need more authority to protect us from the crazies out there.

I usually bring in the Bill of Rights about this time. “What about the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution? It protects certain freedoms that we should have. Freedom of speech, religion, the Press, the right to bear arms. What about those freedoms?” They reply with answers such as, “Yes, but you can’t say whatever you want so we really don’t have freedom of speech. You can’t offend others with certain words or lies. I think you should be able to do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others.”

“So what can you do without affecting others? If you sleep late so end up going to work late, doesn’t that hurt your co-workers? Should sleeping late be against the law, punishable by fines or jail? If I say I like gangsta rap music and you had a relative who was shot by a person who was listening to gangsta rap music, does that mean we should make rap music illegal? Should a redneck’s ‘YeeHaw!’ cry be banned because past racism was sometimes accompanied by yeehaws?”

Silence. “How free should we be?” I re-ask.

Usually one person will speak up and say something like, “Everyone is different. What’s right to me is not right to others; what’s good to them might not be good to me.” I usually rebut with, “So should we have no laws, more laws, the same amount of laws, or different laws for different people? Are you suggesting that because people are different they should follow different laws, based on how responsible they are? Who is to say what laws we’re supposed to follow? If you want more laws, will you follow those new laws?”

“Should not we follow all the current laws?” (class makes murmurs and snickering sounds) “No? Do you follow all the laws? Do you always drive the speed limit and never smoke pot? (laughter) Why not? It’s against the law to drink alcohol if you’re under 21. Does everyone here obey that law? Or do you follow some laws but don’t follow others? Martin Luther King, Jr. says we should follow ‘just’ laws but not unjust laws, to follow God’s moral laws.

“Who’s to decide which laws are just and which are unjust? Is it fair to leave law-making up to our government? Of course, at every level, that is exactly who makes our laws. This is why voting for someone to accurately represent us is important."

Getting back to our topic, should each of us choose which laws are good laws and which aren't? A drug addict thinks he or she deserves compassion so relieving his or her suffering with more drugs it's a good thing. The addicts think the laws they break are unjust laws so shouldn't be followed. Thieves, murderers, drug gangs, car-jackers, all commit their evil deeds even though there are laws against them and police officers trying to prevent them. Police are, in fact, catching and incarcerating the law-breakers – yet people still break laws – day-after-day, year-after-year, people break laws – yet you want more laws?”

So I have to wonder, do we really need more laws and more enforcement to keep us safe? Or do we actually need more morals instilled within our cultures? If parents instill a strong sense of right and wrong behavior, what should be considered good and what should be considered bad, then maybe more children will grow up to be moral young adults.

Students often say, “Yes, but who’s to say what is right or wrong? Whose morals are we supposed to follow?” Most world religions have the same basic morals: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, & Confucianism all teach to help your neighbor, honor your parents, to not steal or kill. I would rebut their rhetorical questions by saying that society already has a general set of moral principles called the “Principles of Ethics” that specifies how and why we should behave; it's based on both religious and secular reasonings. We should be good to ourselves and others, prevent harm, remedy harm, be fair to everyone, treat groups with equal respect, and give each person the individual freedom and dignity they deserve – unless they are breaking these morals and trying to hurt others.

Moral concepts such as these should be followed regardless who you are, how you were raised, or regardless what the laws state. But very few of my students seem to feel this way. Even after the semester on Ethics is completed, they continue to believe that everyone has their own definition of right and wrong, and that people cannot help but exploit, steal from, cheat, and even kill others. So, they reason, we need parent-like governments to take care of us, to guide us, and to punish us if we do bad things. This is the current attitude among teens and young adults. Maybe they are right; maybe they haven't been knocked around enough -- like we have -- so are not capable of controlling their impulses? Nahh!

Technologies:

We have probably all heard others, especially old folks, criticize the new social media. “They’re addicted to their phones! Why don’t they pay attention to the people around them? Phones are for talking to people! They’re going to kill someone while they’re texting and driving!” I happen to agree with some of these statements and you might also but alas and alack, the times are a-changing and we have to adapt. We can rebut this argument by saying, "People have always been distracted and always will be; it's not the new technology -- it's human nature!" Then again, we do need to be careful when adapting to powerful new technologies that allow us to be connected to our family and friends 24 hours, day-and-night.

To understand this new addiction to social media, remember that human beings are social animals; everyone should be aware of that ingrained fact. We tend to herd together and share thoughts, fears, and feelings with our fellow humans. People have always done that, only it used to be much more difficult, logistically speaking. We have always craved company, to share our emotions and experiences with others, at least with one person or a few significant others.

Mammals have a need for a sense of belonging; they also need to find a mate and care for immature young – social media assists in this process. Mammals need to gather information in order to protect themselves – social media assists in this process. Mammals need to feel secure, which social media can do by keeping in constant touch with a confidante to share emotional feelings about an array of topics. Humans seek to avoid anxiety and existential angst at all costs; however, anxiety used to be inevitable and an important part of our maturing process.

Think about it: Social media can help young people avoid many of the fears and challenges that used to accompany growing up. Dealing with friends and enemies face-to-face changes one’s behavior in a dramatic fashion, yet that live, in-person experience, with all its drooling, fears, and adrenaline is being eliminated. Now the new generation fears losing their constant communication with others and feeling cut-off and isolated, forced to deal with their own inner thoughts and feelings. This is a new de-emphasis on physical contact and emphasis on virtual contact. In this respect, the concepts of right and wrong take on a very different perspective.

One of the first things a new initiate to the world of social media notices is how blatantly uninhibited people tend to be compared to speaking face-to-face with a person. People will make the most inappropriate, opinionated, unthought-out, and personal comments, apparently not believing there will be any consequences. Some postings I’ve seen on the comment-boards are incredibly rude, have no truth whatsoever, and would lead to a punch in the nose if it was actually spoken live, in person. Social media, on one hand, has given people the opportunity to be friendly and social, but on the other hand, has made people extremely rude.

One can anticipate that in the not-so-distant future a generation of young adults who have never reflected on their thoughts and feelings; a generation of people who are used to being interconnected with their “friends” yet not in a physical, face-to-face manner. In other words, they will be filled with other people’s impulsive thoughts and feelings, which they will undoubtedly compare and synthesize with their own thoughts and feelings. Whether this massive influx of other-people’s-voices motivates them to particular, actual behavior is uncertain but seems likely.

People will become more impulse-driven to express their thoughts and feelings since they will be so habituated towards immediate expression of their thoughts and feelings. Without reflection or contemplation – two of the main ingredients that separated humans from other primates – the new generation will become more instinctive, like non-human animals, and with their instincts being controlled not by their DNA and culture but by social media -- the information (commercial) source of their electronic devices will become their inner “id.” Yahoo-News, Facebook, Wikipedia, and such would be their guiding “super-consciousnesses.”

You can see how television programs reflect this idea. Writers used to struggle to come up with relevant human themes: boy meets girl, seems inadequate at first then proves himself and wins girl; conflict at beginning drives entire story that ends up with a "moral to the story." Today, most programs are insightless reality shows. What drives todays programs are gut-level, animal-like base needs: sex, anger, jealousy, revenge, survival at all costs, fear. The modern viewer desires to be like an animal again instead of a human. We used to separate ourselves from animals through our creativity, our reflective ability to find meanings in the things we did, and so on. We developed values that symbolized our hopes and fears and search for meaning.

Most of us older types struggled on our own in a solitary manner during our young-adult years. I joined the Navy at 17 years old, just out of high school. I came back after the Navy and worked in a local shipyard. Later, I lived out of my car for some months while I worked and saved money to rent a room. Years later, after deciding to go to college, I lived out of my van for several months, during my first semester at a university, until my veterans benefits arrived. These times forced me to reflect long and hard about what my values were and what my goals should be.

Will the new generation find a new way to discover their values and goals – or will they acquiesce to the powers that be on the internet? Will their values be determined by their parents, culture, or religion – or will they be determined by the U. S. Supreme Court, Yahoo, Wikileaks, or others who have commercial and ideological agendas all being promoted on the web?

If the new generation believes that more government is needed, which is what most of my students believe, yet they believe that right and wrong are simply individual opinions, which is what most of my students believe – then most young adults will eventually find themselves in conflict with the governments decisions, since a single entity (the govt.) cannot address all the people all the time. Either that or each person will not be deciding what is right and wrong, good and bad, on their own. They will let the government decide for them, and then they will choose to follow some of the rules and not follow others, which is the norm for a society that uses sporadic and inconsistent enforcement of the laws. The problem with this outcome is that the government, unlike family-religious morals, will have the power to enforce their values onto the public – not the reverse, which is what has made our country different from other countries over these past 230 years.

The new power invested in the government will eventually allow them to fine you, imprison you, or force you to do community service if you don’t recycle or drive a fuel-efficient car or have health insurance. And you will think these things are justified since you have been wired in to the group-think modern ethics via a constant connection to the social media, a media that gives the illusion of being grass-roots controlled but is actually controlled by the providers of the media.

Just as newspapers used to be able to influence readers’ opinions in the past, modern social media providers run daily stories that provide a barrage of titillation and political bias that no one really rebuts or checks the relevant facts. This leads to the susceptibility for rampant disinformation; and with the 24-hour-per-day communication between people, rumors become exaggerated, truth (if it could be found) becomes distorted, and countries will fall to the most aggressive – physical – leaders. People believe most things that are repeated on news blurbs -- even though much of it turns out to be false.

Conclusion:

Current attitudes of young adults, waiting for the unseen “other people” to make important decisions for them, coupled with technological devices that allow them to stay in constant communication with each other and the world-wide internet, will likely create an entire generation of sheep-like citizens who are easily manipulated and will be capable of doing great immoral acts since they will not have deeply ingrained morals and values created by their own experiences. In the same way that “flash mobs” appear and destroy an entire city block, these young adults will be manipulated into causing anarchy and chaos in our urban centers.

What can we do about this predicted behavior? I’ll cover that in a future blog.