A (not so) Brief Introduction To This Blog

I actually started this blog a year ago. The original explanation of the title and purpose are below. I never posted to it but I put together a basic premise of what I felt passionate about writing. Sadly, I just don't have the time to put into a blog that is completely devoted to that topic, the Sole Morality that the blog is named for.

I keep coming across items in the news or online that I feel a need to talk about and wanting to share with friends and family. So, I have decided to post what I can on here. Some of the content will be serious and in line with what I originally intended this blog to be for and other postings will simply be other things I come across that I want to share, be they funny, thought provoking, or exasperating. I'll do my best to keep any personal entries at least moderately interesting.

In the end, keep in mind that I am doing my best at juggling a family, school, a job, and an internship, so some postings may simply be a line or two and a link.

With that out of the way, on to the original explanation of "The Sole Morality."

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In his 1905 State of the Union address, President Theodore Roosevelt said the following:

“There are those who believe that a new modernity demands a new morality. What they fail to consider is the harsh reality that there is no such thing as a new morality. There is only one morality. All else is immorality. There is only true Christian ethics over against which stands the whole of paganism. If we are to fulfill our great destiny as a people, then we must return to the old morality, the sole morality.”

Roosevelt is addressing a problem that I see everywhere. It is the faulty premise that what is morally right and wrong changes with the times. Society at large seems to preach one of two views concerning morality.

The first theory of morality is that morality is what we make it and that it can be changed at any time simply by the majority of people changing their definition of what is moral. Thus the idea that any single point is morally right or wrong (let’s take abortion as an example) is purely a majority decision.

An extension of this is the idea that the law is what makes things moral or immoral. If a particluar item is against the law, having been made so by the legislators that the majority have elected, then it is immoral and if no laws prohibit it, it is moral. Those that subscribe to this philosphy don’t have any morals themselves, but only those morals that others say they have.

The second theory of morality is that you, I, and everyone else has not right to be dictating what is right or wrong for anyone else at all. They believe that morality is what you make it and if another person disagrees, well then they aren't wrong, they are just different.

While the second school of thought is dangerous in its own right because it advocates a free for all in morality, it is the first theory that I believe is the most dangerous to society as a whole. The only way to base things off of a majority opinion is to poll the population or at least a significant part of it. This is hardly possible in today's society.

From the legislative view of morality, with voter turnout around 55% (actually hit 60% at the Bush-Kerry polls), we can barely tell what the majority of people want if all votes were unanimous, let alone if it is a close poll. And that is if it is a big election. Mid-term elections tend to run 10-15% lower in voter turnout. Secondly, those who turn out are largely uninformed about issues and candidates (see this National Review article). A good portion of the rest of voters are activists in one area or another and are often the ones encouraging and coaching the uninformed about how to vote. Then there is the voter fraud that takes place. The majority is hardly, if ever, a "simple majority."

Consequently, morality founded on common belief isn't necessarily commonly believed. In far too many cases, it is simply the voice of the more popular activists. Morality should not be established based on who or how many yell and how loudly they do so. Morality cannot be established like that. Morality is not something that can be changed or adjusted based on who thinks what.

Roosevelt believed, and I believe with him, that there is a higher source of morality than what others say. There are eternal morals that stand higher than and cannot be overruled by common consent. Even if laws are passed to the contrary, it does not mean that such morality is wrong or changed, it merely means that people have chosen to ignore a moral in much the same way they chose to ignore their mother when she asked if they would jump off a cliff just because all their friends were.

I believe that mankind as a whole is on a downward moral spiral. We are abandoning the morals that made us great in favor of what is popular with the shrill common voice that often isn’t even the majority of people, but simply those yelling the loudest.

There is a sole morality that we must return to and abide by if we as a people wish society to become as great as it can be. I don’t claim to completely understand what that sole morality is or what it encompasses. I don’t claim to be right in everything I write on this blog. In fact, I expect to change or at least adjust my position on topics that come up as intelligent comments and emails are submitted. All I claim is that I worry that we keep slipping further away from that sole morality.