-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.15/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.15/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 15 </A> ----- The Laissez Faire City Times April 12, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 15 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 51 Percent Solution A modern theory of value and virtue by Wolf DeVoon Let's start by defining our terms. A "value" is something you want to gain or keep. A lot of people think that life is a fundamental value, to be preserved at all costs. "Family values" are a bundle of warm fuzzies: taking the kids to a park, teaching them to be nice people, helping each other through life's difficulties. Values are conditions we deem to be good. They are outcomes that require effort to achieve and maintain, something worth fighting for. "Virtue" is a purposeful action, required to obtain or defend a value. The American Founding Fathers declared that freedom was a fundamental right; they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the battle for American independence. If you are married to someone you love, the virtues of fidelity and honesty are actions that preserve an intimate partnership. If you are a banker, fidelity and honesty must be practiced to keep your job. Basic definitions concluded, we come to the controversial topic of standards. The purpose of having standards is to enable us to measure things, like the distance between London and San Francisco (5358 miles via British Airways, flying a Great Circle route, about 10 hours). Let's say, for instance, you decide that being rich is your No. 1 priority. If wealth is your basic standard of value, you'll measure everything in life according to its financial consequences. Telling someone the truth suddenly becomes a lot less important. Deciding who to marry is a question of which bachelor or heiress has the biggest fortune (or the greatest potential of earning one). If the Ten Commandments are your standard of value and virtue, everything in life is measured according to whether it was mentioned by Moses. Islamic revolutionaries select actions and targets according to the obligation of jihad. Zen masters organize their day around tea ceremonies and try to rid themselves of distracting passions. Catholic nuns and monks concentrate their efforts on transcendant communion with God, or they serve the needy, depending on which particular saint inspired their vows. Moral standards, therefore, tend to organize values and virtues into a hierarchical scheme. Fertile young women of child-bearing age are usually interested in finding a suitable husband, a good doctor, a comfortable home, good schools, safe neighborhoods, physical fitness, child psychology, nutrition, the prevention of infectious disease and ten thousand other details pertaining to offspring, marriage, and family life. The central organizing principle or standard of value in this case is the welfare of her children. To a military commander, first priority is the welfare of his troops, expressed in dozens of specific concerns: training, equipment, supplies, logistics, morale, command structure, communications, tactical use of diversion and surprise, how to retreat, etc. Pilots focus on flying the airplane and ultimately landing in one piece. Myth, Morality and Moderation Most people conduct themselves like pilots. They navigate their lives away from danger and toward successful outcomes, measuring "success" in terms of comfort, pleasure, acceptance by their peers, and a sense of mastery or achievement. The whole point of living is to get good at it, to see yourself as a competent individual, whose personal values were realized by virtuous pursuits and dutiful labor. Historically, this common-sense morality did not prevent people from joining the Nazis or the Communist Party, both of which offered comfort, pleasure, and social approval to millions of citizens who aspired to be "good Germans" and "pioneers of Socialism". The folks who followed Jim Jones to Guyana, or David Koresh to Waco, thought they were part of a success-oriented, life-sustaining enterprise. No one joined the parade thinking it would lead them to death and disgrace, that their children would be murdered, that their capacity to love would be recklessly extinguished by a charismatic fool. It is no excuse that the victims of fascism or fanatic religious cults were "brainwashed." Whoever you are, American citizen or stateless refugee, innocent child or college graduate, your brain has been washed by a thousand years of received wisdom, an ocean of culture. The young always follow their parents. We follow each other, because our survival is tied to social integration. Manufacturers make products that people really want. Politicians advocate policies that flatter and appease their constituents. In America, the penalty for expressing an unpopular opinion is political defeat, poverty and ridicule. In China, the penalty is prison "re-education" until you recant and beg for mercy. The difference is only in degree of severity. The overwhelming need to get along with one's neighbors, to accommodate and reiterate the dominant moral standard of one's culture, is a shared experience communicated from one generation to the next in the form of symbols and myths. The 'Stars and Stripes' are symbolic of the moral standard implied in the Declaration of Independence: that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. The mythic exploits of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy are vital components of every grade school curriculum. I think of them particularly in connection with the 1960s pop song Abraham, Martin and John � a tearful tribute to three slain moral crusaders who heroically sacrificed their lives for the betterment of humanity. In mythological terms, this is identical to the crucifixion of Jesus, who sacrificed Himself for the redemption of ignorant sinners and inspired David Koresh to end his life in a blaze of glory. Historical accuracy is not central to (or typical of) mythological moral standards. Neither is rationality. They exist because technical statements of good and evil are too sublime and intellectually challenging for ordinary people to comprehend. It is much easier to remember the mythical story of Jesus and obey His commandment to "Love one another" � without asking why? or demanding proof that Jesus was quoted accurately by biblical witnesses. Nor is it likely that an average person will attempt to govern his life 100% in conformity to a mythological standard. Mythical heroes are intended to open one's eyes, not to close them happily ever after. The job of living is infinitely complex. No myth, no received wisdom can exempt you from the direct, immediate task of sizing up your situation and making the best decision you can, often in stressful circumstances. Slogans and symbols do not tell you how to conduct your life in detail, nor would you want to obey unquestioningly someone else's creed. Ayn Rand said, "The moral is the chosen, not the forced." If you have no choice, you have no moral responsibility or personal participation in the outcome. Too timid to be a hero, too skeptical to blindly follow their neighbors, most people find themselves in agreement with Aristotle, who said that moral virtue consists of practicing moderation. A little wealth, a little compromise, a little courage, a little gratitude � constantly seeking the middle of the road leads to longevity and happiness. Against this, Western philosophy offered three important criticisms: that moderation is a prevarication (Ayn Rand), that personal happiness is an immoral standard of value (Immanuel Kant), and that human beings are innately selfish and evil (Thomas Hobbes). Small wonder that ordinary people feel uncertain about the source and meaning of moral values. Huddled together in spiritual darkness, we find ourselves drawn to traditional family values and silently pray that no one in the family forces us to examine or explain the difference between good and evil. Confronted with a moral dilemma, our first impulse is to forgive and judge not, lest we be judged, too. We practice the ethics of moral mice, fearful of being seen in the light of day, nibbling on life's crumbs, terrified that our inexperienced offspring will wander too far from the nest and encounter the cat of "philosophy." Orders of Magnitude It is not my purpose to indict anyone, nor to urge upon you a tough new moral standard. Rather, I should like to introduce a simple method for measuring value and virtue, based on the fundamental concept of measurement itself. To explain my theory, it is necessary to define two basic elements of logic: unit and predicate. It's a little boring, but stay with me for a few paragraphs and then decide if it makes sense. "Unit" is the first principle of arithmetic.1 In order to count 1, 2, 3, you must begin with the notion of "one", a uniform and constant unit of measurement. When we say that the flying distance between London and San Francisco is 5358 miles, approximately 10 hours by nonstop commercial aircraft, we are saying that units of measurement (miles, hours) are constant and interchangeable. Mile #1 is exactly the same length as Mile #2 and every other mile in the journey. Hour 1 is exactly the same duration as Hour 2, both in the air and on the ground. "Miles" and "hours" can be used to measure and compare all journeys, all methods of transportation, etc. In discussing my theory of value, we will need to accept as axiomatic that two is twice as big as one. In astronomy, the relationship is described as an order of magnitude. "Predicate" is the first principle of language and classical logic. It is also the central bone of contention in Western philosophy, theology, and politics. Say, for instance, that you are at a birthday party with a number of others. You decide to count the number attending the party: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. But eight units of what? � of men and women, boys and girls. You could have also said that there were eight "people" at the party, but children aren't quite the same as adults, and therefore we habitually count them as members of a different class. Likewise, it is customary and useful to distinguish between male people and female people, referring to them respectively as "men" and "women" on the doors of segregated rest rooms. Not so many years ago, it was customary to distinguish between caucasians and negroes, referring to them respectively as Whites and Colored on the doors of segregated rest rooms. Whether we prefer to call someone a "woman", a "female", a "negro", an "American", or a "person" is not the point. Rather, the point is that predicates are inescapable, when you count persons, things, or values. To predicate something (P) of something else (Q) is to identify an attribute or quality that makes unit Q a member of class P: Wolf is a person. Socrates is musical. All deer are ruminants. Some birds cannot fly. In discussing my theory of value, we will need to accept as axiomatic that a "class" subsumes and refers to all of the units or members of that class, and that it is impossible for a predicate to be both true and false at the same time. In logic, this impossibility is known as a contradiction. More or Less Value? Russian-born writer Ayn Rand, following Aristotle, advanced the two axioms of measurement already discussed, plus a third notion: that values are ordinate numbers. "Bad" Neutral "Good" <-------------------|--------------------> � o + Values are positive, making life worth living, or advancing our dignity as human beings. Whatever we deem to be "good" is neither indifferent nor "bad." Ayn Rand concluded that reason was the ultimate good, that rationality was the ultimate virtue, and that human life was the ultimate standard of value. Personally, I'm not so sure. As an artist, I've never cared a heck of a lot about my life. I smoke cigarettes, take enormous financial risks, and don't value myself very highly at all. To me, the ultimate good is artistic achievement. Living is only a means. I think I'm in good company (no pun intended). The American Revolutionary patriots cared more for liberty than personal survival. They were willing to risk everything, including their families, to free themselves from a tyrant. Heroism is not just a myth; people really do lay down their lives for values like freedom and justice. Therefore I've discarded half of Ayn Rand's theory of value. Instead of a two-directional ordinate scale, mine goes from zero to infinity. No Value . . . . . "Good" |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---> 0 . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 + Observe that my scale of value is divided into units of value. I think values can be expressed numerically, and that the correct way to measure value is in orders of magnitude. If my ultimate personal "good" is artistic achievement, and I arbitrarily give it the numerical value of 10, then whatever class of value is next in my personal hierarchy of "goodness" (survival, for instance) only deserves a 5, because 5 is an order of magnitude smaller than 10. It keeps things in their proper perspective: X is my ultimate value, Y is the next most important value (but only half as important as X). This way, there is never any confusion about a standard of value, because the unit-value of my ultimate No. 1 personal priority outnumbers everything else put together: WOLF'S PERSONAL VALUES Magnitude . Value Class . Unit Value No. 1 Artistic achievement = 10.00000 ...all the others summed together = 9.84375 No. 2 Survival/comfort = 5 No. 3 Social approval = 2.5 No. 4 Helping others = 1.25 No. 5 Political power = 0.625 No. 6 Place in history = 0.3125 No. 7 Talent to amuse = 0.15625 I hope and trust that this makes some sense to you, at least on the intuitive level. If values are not expressed as orders of magnitude, they tend to contradict each other, and pretty quickly you lose sight of your standard of value (your ultimate No. 1 priority). In my own life, for example, I occasionally catapult priority No. 7 to the top of my list and try to tell jokes. Friends and family politely point out that this is not a particularly good idea, since I'm rarely funny, and it's an occasion to remember that Humor is a relatively small magnitude in the universe of my values. We are only at the beginning, the theoretical starting-point of how to measure value and virtue. But I think you can see the direction I'm taking: an ultimate value must have real value, real meaning and weight, sufficient to inspire and outweigh all of your subordinate wishes and hopes. Whatever is first in your life deserves a majority of your loyalty, effort, conviction, and courage. We expect mothers to put the welfare of her children ahead of her own. We require our military commanders to put the welfare of his troops ahead of any personal ambition, and certainly not to sacrifice them uselessly or recklessly for abstract "glory". We expect pilots to fly the damn airplane and get us down safely, with no spiritual conflict-of-interest at 36,000 feet over Greenland. My definition of virtue is to concentrate on flying the airplane. The 51% Solution By nature, I'm a conservative businessman. I don't like 50/50 partnerships, because they always result in a deadlock over some trivial decision. It's much better to have a majority interest, even if it's only 51%. That way you can't be outvoted by minority shareholders. I trust you have already guessed what this has to do with moral values: the No. 1 value must command a majority of your loyalty and virtue, or else all the disgruntled lesser values could vote as a bloc and kick your No. 1 value-standard out of the executive suite. Moreover, to be the boss implies the power to hire and fire subordinates. If No. 7 is disruptive, working against overall corporate policy, and embarrassing everybody else on the team, he ought to be fired. I've never had the heart to absolutely banish my love of comedy, but it was demoted several times, from No. 3 to No. 7, and if Humor doesn't serve its immediate superior, a Place In History, then watch out! It'll end up peeling potatoes, right next to value No. 68, Good Housekeeping. The task of putting your spiritual house in order is largely a mathematical process. Make something your majority interest, the boss, the Prime Directive. Give it 51% of your time and attention � i.e., the virtue of acting in accordance with your ultimate purpose. Once you have chosen that first order of value, you still have 49% left to devote to something else (usually several something elses). As a practical matter, the Top Five are really all you need to consider, since they account for 97% of your values, even if you meticulously calculate an infinity of smaller magnitudes. For example, I seldom think about winning a Place In History (personal value No. 6). It's way down my list of priorities and tends to get pushed aside. The Top Five are a lot, both numerically and spiritually. Rare indeed is the happy saint whose 51% is never distracted or tempted by a second priority � like food or rest, for instance. His 51% is to love God with his whole heart and his whole mind, hunger or fatigue be damned. As an artist, I am intimately familiar with inner conflicts, because survival keeps howling at the door of my ivory tower: rent, food, gasoline, postage, you name it. Value No. 3, Social Approval tears my guts out every time I submit a work of art. Who among us does not want to be accepted, included, appreciated and praised by others? The specific details are unimportant, but I've had six screenplays, fifty essays, two books, and a television series tossed in the trashcan by Society. If social approval was my 51% � my ultimate standard of value � I'd be dead, insane, or learning how to produce something more popular. But value No. 3 (13%) is nothing compared to No. 2 (25%) in terms of inner turmoil. The second banana is always challenging No. 1 (51%), always doubting his moral leadership and criticizing the outcome. Like jealous siblings, your first and second notions of "goodness" compete for moral supremacy � i.e., to be recognized as Prime Directive, governing all else in your spiritual life. Class Warfare Perhaps you'll recall that my No. 2 was a hyphenated notion of goodness: Survival/Comfort. I used those words because I thought it would be easier for you to understand, rather than the technical term Marginal Utility, which is: pleasure greater than pain, in an economic universe wherein maximum pleasure results from uniform want-satisfaction. Whether we call it Survival/Comfort or marginal utility or something else is unimportant. What I'd like you to consider is the generality of this concept. It embraces an economic theory, a standard of value, and a thousand details of "goodness" and "virtue". This is the power and meaning of a conceptual predicate: a class of value-units that belong together and derive scope because they have an implicitly shared purpose. For instance, being Happily Married is subsumed and included. So is paying the rent on time, eating fresh food, buying a new pair of shoes, and doing part-time jobs that make use of my skills (sound system engineering, video production) instead of working for minimum wage as an unskilled laborer. Marginal utility results in want-satisfaction on the carnal plane of life: pleasure greater than pain. It is governed by the principle of diminishing returns, such as the declining enjoyment of successive bites of food. "The amount of one and the same enjoyment diminishes continuously as we proceed with that enjoyment without interruption, until satiety is reached." (Hermann Heinrich Gossen) Every aspect of Survival/Comfort involves some sort of trade-off between pleasure and pain. Marginal utility is the common sense strategy of maximizing pleasure. To be happily married, I must love and honor my wife, remain faithful and honest (no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, from time to time, when I have to admit an embarrassing truth) and work at making the relationship successful. It's worth the effort because I have a particularly wonderful partner: she knows and understands that my 51% is devoted to something other than being happily married or paying the rent. Her love, her moral support, the beauty of her soul and her intimate trust easily outweigh the "pain" I experience shopping, cooking dinner, hearing idiotic soap operas on our TV set, and knowing that someday we will be parted by illness and death. This is marginal utility in a nutshell. It is better to cherish my wife and someday lose her, than to have never loved at all. I hope you will accept my word for it, that being married to Queenie is terribly dear to my heart and that I receive enormous physical and spiritual pleasure from being married to her. Perhaps you will also take my word for it, that it cuts me to the quick, whenever I have to say "We can't afford to buy fresh food today" or "I bounced three checks, and the overdraft charges are going to wipe out everything I earned last week". The value of Survival/Comfort always finds a willing ally in Social Approval, ruthlessly attacking my soul for wasting 51% of my effort on something utterly devoid of utility � something so painful, with no commensurate return on investment, that no sensible person would want it: the unprofitable pursuit of Artistic Achievement. Even now, in this moment, I am painfully aware of the cost. It is highly unlikely that this essay will ever return a penny to me. The rent and utilities are past due, but I postponed making money or looking for work, in order to write a sermon about morality! I haven't spent two minutes with Queenie in a week, except for a peck on the cheek, because my whole concentration has been devoted to a non-profit lecture on a subject that no one will likely publish. If published, it will neither pay the rent nor rehabilitate my reputation in Hollywood. If anything, publication of this essay will push me farther away from career opportunities as a filmmaker, and make it harder to write marketable potboilers. It is imperative at this juncture to erase from your mind everything I've said about Queenie, Hollywood, survival, and Wolf's internal value-conflicts. Please consider instead what is meant by an abstract predicate of value. The term "artistic achievement" does not refer to one specific instance of achievement, nor to a precise outcome that can be gained by following a formula for success. The value of an artist's career is determined by an enormously complex context, including his native talents, his cultural environment, the history of art, and a long chain of events (study, experimentation, spiritual development) that may or may not culminate in a body of works. Acceptance of those works by others is irrelevant to the artist, because he is primarily concerned with his own subjective evaluation of the outcome as a lifelong process of inner refinement. It is an evolving, abstract statement of value that cannot be reduced to a laundry list of want-satisfactions. Indeed, the outcome cannot be described in advance. Every artist embarks upon the quest for achievement with the knowledge that he will probably fail. Painters are in competition with Vermeer and Monet. Writers must exceed the benchmarks of excellence set by Victor Hugo and Simone de Beauvoir. Anything less is failure � and the structure of achievement is undefined. One can only paint or write with his whole heart, struggling to reach something beautiful, original and previously nonexistent. I do not claim any such achievement. Nor the courage to continue. All I want you to consider and understand is that values are not laundry lists. It is nonsense to define one's priorities as 51% new car, 25% marry Elmo, 13% have a child, 7% lose weight, and 4% save for a rainy day. Values are abstractions: to love and obey God (Moses), to establish justice (Madison), to respect others (Kant), to win by any means necessary (Machiavelli). I will not urge you to pick any of these as your standard of value. But I suggest that, consciously or unconsciously, every one of us is seeking an abstract goal in life. Yours may be petty or profound, the result of fear or fortitude, knowledge or guesswork. And no one is free to suddenly choose or discard a standard of value, like ready-to-wear clothing, because moral life is an organic evolution that began on the day you were born. Acorns and Oak Trees To learn anything about morality, we have to accept the idea that reality is real: that acorns grow into oak trees, and never become halibuts or eagles. Growth does not occur backwards, with mature trees shrinking into seeds and leaping from the ground back into parental buds. Photosynthesis does not emit light back to the Sun, and time cannot be reversed, despite a half-century of science fiction. Your moral life is real: it grows from innocent childhood to maturity. I have reproduced this illustration of a tree trunk, felled at age 47, to discuss the history of its life, recorded in the size and shape of its annual growth rings. At five years old the slender tree, growing straight, was knocked sideways by the fall of a neighbor. It reacted by growing twice as strongly on the lower side in an attempt to correct its slant. When the tree was 14 years old a ground-fire swept through the forest. The bark and cambium on the windward side were destroyed. In subsequent years they grew over the wound by degrees. It took six years to close it completely. Other trees growing around gradually deprived the tree of light and robbed it of moisture. When it was 27 years old, "thinning" of the woods brought it suddenly into the open. There was a great leap in growth rate, still visible in the rings. Six years of rapid growth followed. Then came a drought; its effects are visible for six rings. If somebody sawed your soul in half, they'd be able to see a permanent record like the annual growth rings of a tree. As slender young spirits, we recover from all but the most fatal assaults. In adolescence, the wounds of firey passion take years to heal by degrees. Our socialization with others deprives us of moral independence and spiritual sustenance. In adulthood, some people "thin" themselves from the dense forest of conformity: rapid moral growth follows. And then comes a drought, because they are no longer part of the anonymous consensus. Standing alone, their spiritual growth depends entirely on whatever goodness and mercy they can catch by themselves. Look again at the illustration of the tree. The pointed scar in the upper right quadrant was caused by an injury, and for many years the tree struggled to heal itself by focussing its energies on that wound. People do exactly the same thing. Told by Catholic nuns that her soul was "black", my wife struggled for years to develop the independent moral conviction that the Church was wrong, that it was impossible for a child's soul to be "black" at birth. Her spiritual wound was healed slowly, a little bit at a time, as she studied and lived and grew more confident in the knowledge that her own mind was competent to examine and challenge the centuries-old dogma of Original Sin. For all those years, during which Queenie was engaged in healing the spiritual wound she suffered as a child, her 51% was deeply devoted to rebuilding her sense of moral competence. The exigencies of life challenge each person with an unique set of moral crises, a cultural time and place to be reckoned with and overcome. The battle for control of your soul does not end with college education, or wealthy parents, or commercial success. If anything, these "advantages" make it increasingly harder to resist the received wisdom of philosophers, role models, customers and cheering crowds. If you take nothing else from this essay, think again of your progress in life and ask yourself: How much of it was mine by choice? Joseph Campbell tells the following story in The Power of Myth: Before I was married, I used to eat out in the restaurants of town for my lunch and dinners. Thursday night was the maid's night off in Bronxville, so that many of the families were out in restaurants. One fine evening I was in my favorite restaurant there, and at the next table there was a father, a mother, and a scrawny boy about twelve years old. The father said to the boy, "Drink your tomato juice." And the boy said, "I don't want to." Then the father, with a louder voice, said, "Drink your tomato juice." And the mother said, "Don't make him do what he doesn't want to do." The father looked at her and said, "He can't go through life doing what he wants to do. If he does only what he wants to do, he'll be dead. Look at me. I've never done a thing I wanted to in all my life." And I thought, "My God, there's Babbitt incarnate!" That's a man who never followed his bliss. You may have success in life, but then just think of it � what kind of life was it? What good was it? � you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off.2 Going where your body and soul want to go is called "egoism", or "self-interest", or just plain selfishness. It is culturally frowned upon as moral wrong-doing, and many Western philosophers have labored to demonstrate that doing what you want to do is unethical. The Church said as much to Galileo, and England sent her redcoats by the thousands to quash the American Declaration of Independence. Without urging you to take one side or another, I suggest you read Thomas Jefferson's version of inalienable human rights. Risk and Reward It is not my purpose to agitate for a universal moral standard that applies to everyone. Frankly, I have enough trouble figuring out what to do with the unique problems of my own life, and I am convinced that very little can be gleaned from my personal struggle. I am a mystery to myself most of the time. All I know is that my 51%, for better or worse, is devoted to a passion that few people care about. Most people are concerned with earning a living and caring for their children, which are honorable virtues in my opinion. While waiting to speak to a client yesterday, I had to wait in the restaurant area. A mother and father, age 30-something, sat down at a pair of tables nearby with their four children, all bright-faced boys, ages 4, 6, 7, and 9. It was obvious to me in an instant of observation that Mom and Dad devoted every waking minute of their lives to the task of rearing those children. If you have children, God bless you and keep you from losing whatever happiness might be yours and theirs. If you do not yet have children � i.e., if your life is still yours to spend in some meaningful sense � I have one more topic to discuss: the equation of risk and reward. As the word "equation" implies, risk = reward, but it is important to remember that equivalent terms are identical. Taking a risk is the reward. There is no other reward, except departing from the safety of your known values and undertaking an adventure with uncertain consequences. In fact, most people who put themselves at risk end up losing something in the bargain. It is a maxim in Nevada, never to gamble unless you are prepared to lose. For simplicity in the accompanying chart, I used the $ symbol to represent Survival/Comfort and the cross to represent religious ideals. The circle represents leisure time. At left, Mr. X values money first, God second, and leisure third. He is considering whether to love God more than utilitarian Survival/Comfort. The risk is substantial, because he will have to completely rearrange his life, if he is to honestly pursue the new Prime Directive of religious values. Worse: there is no guarantee that he will succeed in this new venture, or that his understanding of God's will is even partly correct. He cannot consult the Almighty in advance, nor could he comprehend the Supreme Being's purpose if God spoke to him. I leave you with hope, each of you in every walk of life, that your 51% brings you comfort in your later years, that the god of your moral universe is one you will learn to understand through the hardship of seeking it, and that your subsidiary values and wishes don't mutiny too often. There is a story I remember whenever the burden of life seems too great, and my values are warring among themselves, each one claiming to be less cowardly. Mohammed was visiting the encampment of a great army, escorted by a cadre of hardened generals. They passed by one of the many injured, who involuntarily groaned with pain, because he had been horribly wounded. "Silence!" the generals ordered, "You must not cry in the presence of the Holy Prophet!" But Mohammed raised both of his hands, as a sign to the generals to refrain from reprimanding the wounded man, and said to them, in forgiveness and in peace: "Let him groan, for groaning also is one of the names of God." Mohammed's compassion seems feeble to me, for it cured no one of their suffering, and it did not abolish the cause of painful experience. Our moral life is one story told many times � of experiments gone wrong, of hopes dashed, and life's short span never attaining the perfection we believed would be ours. But I offer feeble compassion because I feel it firstly for myself, and I urge you to feel something similar, especially when you screw up in the values department. It requires courage to admit that your 51% is (or was) misguided. Having said you were wrong about something is the first step toward making an improvement, for which you should be praised, not punished. I have been wrong many, many times. Each time, I forgave myself after a lot of weepy, painful groaning. These emotional experiences are purposeful and necessary, however much we hate them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTES 1. Adapted from Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. The simplified restatement of her theory, presented above, is my view of a technically complex and important question. 2. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday 1988). "Babbitt" refers to the main character in a Sinclair Lewis novel of that name. The theme of self-abnegation and conformity appears in the literature of every country in the world. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 15, April 12, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved Disclaimer The Laissez Faire City Times is a private newspaper. Although it is published by a corporation domiciled within the sovereign domain of Laissez Faire City, it is not an "official organ" of the city or its founding trust. 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