Taken from The Sun Newspaper 5th October 2009 issue, by Nury Vittach
With deep sorrow, I regretfully have to inform the world about the sad demise of Morality. She died recently after a long, slow illness. Morality was at least 2000 years old.
Her death was not unexpected, as her entire family has had a bad run in recent decades.
Morality’s mother, Values, died in Wall Street in the 1980s. Her father, Justice, was murdered in a contract killing by the world’s highest paid lawyers at O.J. Simpson’s trial at 1995.
Morality herself kept a low profile for the past 20 years, and now, at the time of her death, has been almost forgotten.
With deep sorrow, I regretfully have to inform the world about the sad demise of Morality. She died recently after a long, slow illness. Morality was at least 2000 years old.
Her death was not unexpected, as her entire family has had a bad run in recent decades.
Morality’s mother, Values, died in Wall Street in the 1980s. Her father, Justice, was murdered in a contract killing by the world’s highest paid lawyers at O.J. Simpson’s trial at 1995.
Morality herself kept a low profile for the past 20 years, and now, at the time of her death, has been almost forgotten.
She is being mourned only in churches, temples, and other places considered “old-fashioned and out of touch” by the majority of the people.
But her death matters: None of her three children – Integrity, Ethics and Humanity – are likely to survive without her…
But her death matters: None of her three children – Integrity, Ethics and Humanity – are likely to survive without her…
Such were my gloomy thoughts looking through my diary last week. Three incidents led me to believe that morality have left us.
First, I saw a pair of trainee filmmakers returning from an overseas trip with bags full of copied DVD.
They didn’t seem to realize they had just robbed themselves.
Second, the headmaster of a high-class school gave a speech to his pupils telling them they must not steal things from other students “because you may get caught”.
He didn’t realize that stealing is wrong even if you don’t get caught.
Third, I was at a meeting where a senior university administrator told students: “Do not download pirate software onto university computers. It’s fine to do that at home, but not here.”
Er, no, it isn’t fine to do that at home, either.
In a moral world, we do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. In a world without morality, everyone does whatever they think they can get away with: that’s an ugly, scary place, but that’s the world we are creating for ourselves.
But then came a piece of good news. A friend at the BBC told me that his organization had commissioned one of the world’s cleverest people, top Harvard professor Micheal Sandal, to identify the biggest problem of today’s world.
The boffin presented his conclusions at a series of talks called the Reith Lectures 2009, which you can hear free on the Internet.
The current global crisis was not caused by subprime mortgage defaults, bubble economies, or excessive pay for bankers, he said. It was caused by the disappearance of morality.
But it can be revived, he added.
The world has to engage in a debate “that engages more directly with moral and even spiritual questions”, and allow that to lead human society to “moral and civic renewal”.
I saw the pirate DVD collectors at the bar a few nights later. “why aren’t you at home watching your rip-off DVDs?” I asked.
Their sad reply: “Someone stole our TV.”
I realized it would be immoral to laugh at their misfortune. But I couldn’t help it. That was then second best bit of news I had heard that week.
First, I saw a pair of trainee filmmakers returning from an overseas trip with bags full of copied DVD.
They didn’t seem to realize they had just robbed themselves.
Second, the headmaster of a high-class school gave a speech to his pupils telling them they must not steal things from other students “because you may get caught”.
He didn’t realize that stealing is wrong even if you don’t get caught.
Third, I was at a meeting where a senior university administrator told students: “Do not download pirate software onto university computers. It’s fine to do that at home, but not here.”
Er, no, it isn’t fine to do that at home, either.
In a moral world, we do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. In a world without morality, everyone does whatever they think they can get away with: that’s an ugly, scary place, but that’s the world we are creating for ourselves.
But then came a piece of good news. A friend at the BBC told me that his organization had commissioned one of the world’s cleverest people, top Harvard professor Micheal Sandal, to identify the biggest problem of today’s world.
The boffin presented his conclusions at a series of talks called the Reith Lectures 2009, which you can hear free on the Internet.
The current global crisis was not caused by subprime mortgage defaults, bubble economies, or excessive pay for bankers, he said. It was caused by the disappearance of morality.
But it can be revived, he added.
The world has to engage in a debate “that engages more directly with moral and even spiritual questions”, and allow that to lead human society to “moral and civic renewal”.
I saw the pirate DVD collectors at the bar a few nights later. “why aren’t you at home watching your rip-off DVDs?” I asked.
Their sad reply: “Someone stole our TV.”
I realized it would be immoral to laugh at their misfortune. But I couldn’t help it. That was then second best bit of news I had heard that week.
Justice may be dead, but there IS a God, and He has neat timing and the wildest sense of irony.
2 comments:
why is morality a she?
Ask the author, I quoted him. This article is taken from a local newspaper. =)
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