Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009

Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality.

- Clarence Day, writer, born on this date, 1874

Do you remember (if you are old enough) the TV program “Life with Father”? It ran from Nov 1953 to July 1955. It was based on a Broadway play written by Clarence Day about his father, Clarence Day Sr., and his family, first printed in the New Yorker magazine. Leon Ames played the Father (he was perfect!) and Lurene Tuttle played the Mother, Lavinia. It was a picture of upper middle class life in Manhattan in the 1880’s. “Father” Day was a total stuffed shirt. I loved it! The father’s “stuffed-shirtedness” was parodied – but the nice thing was that his family loved him in spite of it. And their love helped him to see his behaviour and – somewhat gruffly – to see his folly. (In 1955, I was 9 years old; I don’t remember if I saw the originals or reruns.)

Clarence Day Jr.’s quote is right on. People who get on their high moral horse, railing against whatever “vice” they disapprove of, very often “begin with a dislike of reality”. That dislike completely erases any sense of compassion and sympathy for their fellow human beings. Once compassion is gone, so is basic humanity. Morality degenerates into self-righteousness, which is always callous and un-self-aware – the basic ingredient in the inability to understand the Golden Rule.

Take anti-abortion supporters. In my view, they claim high moral religious ground. But they ignore, “dislike”, reality. They ignore the reasons why many women seek abortions. They ignore the continuing subjugation of women in patriarchal American culture, and the many ways in which women are denied equality. They ignore the woman as a person and the hardships many must suffer. No one, including myself, likes the fact that abortions happen. But harassing women who seek abortions and even murdering doctors who perform abortions without trying to understand why so many women feel they must have abortions will never resolve the issue. Only looking reality in the face – the continuing oppression and inferiority of women – will result in a resolution of the abortion issue.

Ignoring reality always leads to treating persons as abstract objects. It demands that we suppress our hearts. The inevitable result is the infliction of pain in the service of a desire to dominate and control masquerading as morality. You know the consequences. We live in a World suffering terribly because of the choices we have made to “dislike reality”.

Brian+