Ethical Universe: the Vectors of Evil Vs. Good: Secular Ethics for the 21St Century

By John W. McAlister

This book is the culmination of a 20-year project which synthesizes the work of renowned social philosopher and humanistic psychoanalyst neo-Freudian, Dr. Erich Fromm and the best of Aristotle's Golden-Means doctrine merged with Sigmund Freud's tripartite division of the human psyche - ego, id and superego. This dynamic merger dictates a spherical representation of infinite blends of character traits. Extreme (therefore evil) syndromes garishly emblazon the surface of the sphere; Aristotle's practical wisdom and moral virtues, Freud's genital character and Fromm's Productive Orientation electrifies the synergistic, creative center of the sphere. Friedrich Nietzsche's moral philosophy as well as Saint Thomas Aquinas provided excellent tests of our hypothesis. Fore more on the author, see the last section, "About the Author."

"For humanistic ethics all evil strivings are directed against life and all good serves the preservation and unfolding of life"
— Erich Fromm,
Man For Himself, 1947

"Fromm's affinity with Thomas Aquinas and the Christian theologian Paul Tillich shows us humanism and organized religion need not be hostile to each other!"
— John McAlister,
Ethical Universe, 2008

"Love ever your neighbor as yourselves - but first be such as LOVE THEMSELVES."
— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665511919

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© 2021 John W. McAlister. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/22/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1142-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1191-9 (e)

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Dedications

Charlotte and I dedicate this book to our grandchildren: Nicole Marie Via and John Marshall Ott Jr. It is our hope that both of them will someday read and understand the concepts the Ethical Universe is based on and then make up their own minds as to whether or not they agree with them all.

Of course, every child is a grandchild; so they are all special. Actually, when you think about it, every person that has ever lived is or was a grandchild. So in a sense we are also dedicating this book to everyone; we are just listing the grandchildren closest to us first.

Acknowledgements

I first want to express my indebtedness to Erich Fromm, the renowned social philosopher and psychoanalyst (1900-1980). Without his inspiration over the years, even attempting this effort would never have occurred to me. Also, without my wife Charlotte’s patience and steady belief in me, the project would surely have been short-lived.

I also want to thank Catherine Riley, President of Art that Works, in Deerfield Beach, Florida (http://ArtThatWorkslnc.com) for support and encouragement to this first-time book author. Catherine and her award-winning team, especially Jillian Curcio, the Production Manager, were helpful in many ways besides designing the cover and digitizing the 41 illustrations in the book.

Contents

Part 1       (Motive and Opportunity)

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Chapter 2 – The Cultural Malaise

Chapter 3 – Relativity versus Relativism

Chapter 4 – Evolution versus Evolutionism

Chapter 5 – The Crucible

Part 2       (The Transgressions)

Chapter 6 – Roadmap

Chapter 7 – Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

Chapter 8 – Freudian Psychodynamics

Chapter 9 – Erich Fromm, Humanistic Psychoanalysis

Chapter 10 – The 3-D Ethical Universe

Part 3       (Probative Evidence)

Chapter 11 – General Testing Considerations

Chapter 12 – Erich Fromm on Narcissism

Chapter 13 – Friedrich Nietzsche’s, ‘The-Will-To-Power’

Chapter 14 – Aristotle Revisited

Chapter 15 – Conclusions

Epilogue

About the author

PART 1

Chapter 1 – Introduction

I vividly remember, from years ago - first getting interested in philosophy and - frying a few innocent brain cells that were apparently not sufficiently challenged in Computer Engineering, by pondering the true meaning of time. Had the exhilarating yet often torturous path this would lead to been remotely conscious, second thoughts would have definitely been in order. Nonetheless, it became clear that time is the most perennial of life’s elements and in seriously contemplating its meaning for man, one is bound to run headlong into three of the most influential thinkers the western world has ever produced - Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.

At the chronological level of time, Marx redefines all of human history as a perpetual, dialectical class struggle of daily economic acts carried on by all involved individuals living out their lives at any point in time. We were indeed all connected materialistically, not spiritually – an ungodly notion to say the least! At the glacial speed of geological time, Darwin postulates that all species on Earth came into existence over long periods of time by evolving from previous species no longer extant - Noah’s arc was sinking! At the temporal level, Einstein overthrows Newton’s universal time by merging it with space, resulting in a 4-dimensional space-time continuum. Here, time stops altogether at the speed of light - was nothing sacred any more? Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation in 1886 that God is dead may have been premature. But, modern man’s conception of God had dramatically changed by early in the 20th century.

Quite predictably, all three of these philosophers were controversial for their radical proposals with each one spawning a revolution in their respective sciences; but, interestingly, and to varying degrees, they are still controversial over a hundred years later. Since much of Marx’s work has been largely discredited, especially since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, we will limit our focus here in Part 1 to Einstein and Darwin.

These two pioneers have become icons in orthodox science though certainly not embraced by everyone. Another common denominator is their theories are still not widely understood by the public and even scientists in other disciplines. This is understandable when we consider the sweeping nature of their bold assertions. Hard evidence was still rather sketchy at the time their theories were advanced; but it improved over time. There’s much more now and it would be truly unreasonable to expect that they got it all right the first time; neither man did; and each in his own way contributed to the ensuing confusion, much of which we still live with today.

Nevertheless, a central point here in Part 1 is that Einstein’s relativity and Darwin’s evolution had an enormous social impact on western culture far beyond their scientific implications. Important scientific discoveries precipitating social change, of course, is not unusual; but these seminal theories go far beyond the usual - their universal nature seems to make them particularly vulnerable to misuse in the social arena. In each case, there has been completely unsubstantiated ethical/moral analogues advanced that for some people naturally flow from these theories. Moral relativism on the left of the socio-political spectrum is prototypical of this abuse and it thrives more than ever today even though thoroughly denounced by Einstein himself.

Interestingly, Darwinism has been misused by both sides of the socio-political spectrum. Social Darwinism, for example, has an eclectic nature and has been used by the far-right at various times to justify laissez-faire capitalism, racism, imperialism and even coercive eugenics. But, unjustified claims by the far-left are also over-the-top at times. For example, some pundits insist that Darwin’s natural selection disproves a Divine creation and therefore proves there is no God - ergo, it’s a meaningless universe. This is a ludicrous assertion for three reasons: 1) the existence of God can not be proved or disproved, period. 2) Darwin’s natural selection is a gradual change of any given species into a different species - it therefore has nothing to say about the sudden appearance of life from non-life in the first place! 3) Rather than equating to meaninglessness, taking God out of the picture would just require man to define meaning for himself, which he is certainly capable of doing. Finally, Darwin eloquently acknowledges ‘the Creator’ (with a capital ‘C’) at the end of Origin of Species and distances himself from Social Darwinism in the Descent of Man and his later work.

In Part 1 of this book we develop the following 2 premises:

Premise 1: Convergence of the twin controversies and social distortions of relativity and evolution are at the core of the Cultural War in America. The warlike attitudes exacerbate the polarization which makes each extreme position part of the problem.

Premise 2: Extreme polarization creates an ethical and spiritual void at the center. However, a synthesis of the extremes is blocked by the lack of an objectively valid, secular ethical model.

In Part 2 we present the main hypothesis of this book:

HYPOTHESIS: The precursors for a humanistic ethical model already exist; and the ‘Ethical Universe’ is a distillation of these which is the right first step toward filling the void - synthesis and healing. Although only a framework, the 3-Dimensional model subsumes the pitifully anemic 1-Dimensional model, ‘left-right’ (as applied to ethics) and allows us to measure our ethical mental health and anyone else’s against a fixed, nontheistic standard.

In Part 3, the main hypothesis is tested in as many ways as we could think of - which, of course, is only the beginning. Ultimately, our assertions will have to be rigorously tested at all strata of our society, and hopefully even on a global basis.

The primary motivation for writing this book was the desire to make a difference in the tense cultural war in America - to somehow, in some measure help break the gridlock that paralyzes our great nation. It became increasingly clear throughout this project, however, that rather than over-turning long held ethical beliefs, more often than not, we were synthesizing and sometimes expanding on the views of many of the great thinkers that shaped western culture. In this respect, this work is more of an integrative process than an innovative one. The reasons behind the conviction that the makings of an objectively valid ethical model already exist for mankind was the culmination of 2 major factors, with the horrific events of 9-11-2001 literally being a kicker:

The first major factor was the realization that great minds like those of Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud and others that followed had already done most of the brain work. The renowned social philosopher and humanistic psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-1980) leaned heavily on these previous thinkers and fashioned his ideas of normative humanism in the 1940’s through the 1970’s which was in stark opposition to social relativism. He verbalized the foundations of a ‘science-of-man’ rooted in the humanistic tradition but solidly grounded in neo-Freudian psychodynamics he helped develop and promulgate. The main focus of this book will be probing at these foundations and hopefully rendering an even more comprehensive secular ethical system using Fromm’s objectively valid norms of human behavior as a starting point. Following Fromm, we do not rely on theistically based ethical definitions. This does not mean, however, that we think all religious ethics are wrong- quite the contrary; in fact there is much in the Ethical Universe reflecting the more moderate views of all the major religions - it was just not preordained by us to turn out that way. Nevertheless, as we have seen, religious views, especially literal ones, can be taken to the extreme, at which time they become part of the polarization problem we are gripped with.

A secular ethical system of this kind has been the holy grail of philosophers as far back as the ancient Greeks. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle certainly thought such a system was highly desirable and possible through the application of reason. We will return to these great thinkers to lay some ground work beginning in Part 2 of this book.

The second major factor deals with this writer’s frustration with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (see About the Author for more details); but, even more importantly, in the discussion that follows, there is a far more important aspect to relativity than the scientific one. In the process of wrestling with the physical theory, this writer became acutely aware of the social distortion side of relativity and the potential for disaster it represents. In retrospect, it seems certain that the intense desire to understand the relativity theory itself was motivated by a philosophical consideration rather than a purely physical, scientific one. Years earlier I had studied Erich Fromm’s work on human nature and social philosophy which subsequently became my real passionate avocation for many years. I remember being particularly impressed with his adamant opposition to social relativism. I now believe that a semi-conscious desire to understand the origins of the social phenomena was the driving force for the scientific curiosity some years later.

*****************************************

THE 9-11 KICKER: After lying dormant for several years due to more pressing issues, the cataclysmic events of 9-11-2001 reenergized our passion and set us on a course of feverishly searching for new insight into what brings us to the sorry state we are in today. It also seems certain that it is little comfort to an elder statesman like Zbigniew Brezezinski (Jimmy Carter’s National Security advisor) to have been so right about our culture drifting toward what he called a Permissive Cornucopia, ‘Out of Control’, 1993, making us such a conspicuous, inevitable target. Western culture, especially in this country, is certainly running open-loop as they say in cybernetics, and indeed out of control, minus significant course correcting moral and ethical feedback.

From this surreal and disconnected mind-set, it is apparently easy to rationalize market-driven conspicuous consumption (and the exportation of same) as actually being a good thing. Wide spread cynicism, regarding the proper role of an altruistic mindset, accompanies this alienated, everyman-for-himself attitude. Slogans like the best revenge is living well or only the little guy pays taxes exemplifies this grab-fest. Likewise, 5% of the world’s population consuming 26% of the energy produced – only obliquely sensed as our inalienable right to unlimited quantities of cheap gasoline - slides by as the natural order of things in a relativistic, Darwinian world unrelated to concrete notions of ethical fairness and fouling our own nest. In our view, relativism run amok has escalated sufficiently in this country to quality as another metamyth of the 20th century. It just seems to be taking longer to bring us to ruin than fascism and communism did for the coercive utopias (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) as Dr. Brezezinski so poignantly brought out.

We are decidedly not among the apologists for terrorism, however, and support the global thrust - we must vigorously defend ourselves. Nevertheless, Dr. Brezezinski’s prognosis on page xiii of his book should ring in our ears because it cuts to a key element of the problem: "Unless there is some deliberate effort to reestablish the centrality of some moral criteria for the exercise of self-control over gratification as an end in itself, the [present, circa 1993] phase of American preponderance may not last long ..." The sage words of Socrates should also echo in our ears - An unexamined life is not worth living. We must examine ourselves, critically.

After so many years of excesses unbecoming a great power, besmirching our national character, it would be immensely gratifying to witness such a catharsis. It would be better still to help bring it about. Besides wanting to be a part of the solution rather than a casual part of the problem, we dread the thought of our nation’s ignominious descent into mediocrity - or worse. But diverting a runaway train, steaming toward a precipice of our own making, will not be easy. We are victims of our own success in the sense that it is exceedingly difficult for individuals to moderate in the midst of a collective orgy - such prudent advice always plays better the morning after. Hopefully, however, a long and debilitating hangover is not the only remedy and we intend to help give a possible alternative our best effort. Part 2 of this book presents a 3-Dimensional ethical/moral spectrum that is dedicated as a first step toward that end.

I first conceived of a 3-D socio-political spectrum years ago; but it came flooding back shortly after the stupendous implosion of the Soviet Union in what seems like a heart beat. We certainly live in interesting and accelerating times! We had finished the relativity paper but not yet rejoined the work-a-day world. So, there was time to think about other things – a scary proposition in itself, one supposes. One day I was wrestling with a bit of punditry explaining that right-wing forces in Russia were driving them back toward a Marxist cocoon out of fear for the uncertainties of a democratic, free-market economy. An apparent, impassable contradiction hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, Wait a minute! It was the Joe McCarthy led right-wingers that conducted the witch-hunts for leftist pink communists in the U.S. in the early 1950’s, wasn’t it? So, does right-wing mean the opposite political direction when applied to other countries or ideologies? Confusion reigned and I spent quite a few days trying to sort it out before shelving the model owing to a lack of both geopolitical sophistication and economic uncertainty of my own. My subconscious mind apparently did not forget about it.

At any rate, the cataclysm of 9-11-2001 also changed many things suddenly. After the initial shock, we were (and are) apprehensive about our response to the attack. Will we make the same mistakes in the war on terrorism that we did in the war on drugs? Namely, focusing almost solely on retribution and interdiction with scant attention to peering inwards for possible root causes like our hellish demand for illicit drugs and rampant consumerism in general? There has been precious little evidence to the contrary from government, academia or the media. After punishing the perpetrators and encouraging more Islamic introspection, we must come to terms with our increasing gluttony and other extreme ethical positions or we could easily go the way of ancient Rome in a lot less time.

In Part 3 of this book we attempt to utilize the Ethical Universe concepts by applying them to some of our most pressing public issues. Beyond this, however, we repeatedly stress the need to stringently test our hypothesis; and we challenge those in the social sciences to undertake this massive effort in all due haste.

SOME PRELIMINARIES: Throughout the rest of this book we will constantly make reference to morals and ethics which we recognize as meaning different things; therefore a clear distinction between them needs to be drawn. Unfortunately, simple dictionary definitions do not help much in this respect. For example, Webster’s New World Dictionary defines:

Moral: adj. relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between, right and wrong in conduct. Syn: Ethical

Ethical: adj. having to do with ethics or morality; of or conforming to moral standards. Syn: Moral

Philosophy texts do a better job but still often blur the distinction. So, just to be clear, the dictionary definition for ‘moral’ will be used (codes of conduct for determining right-wrong); however, rather than a synonym, we take it be a subset of ethical. So, moral refers strictly to issues of right and wrong in a particular system of human conduct. Ethical, on the other hand, refers to all areas of ethical philosophy which can be meta-ethics or just the particular system of human conduct that lays out the moral code, for example. The class of ethical system we will refer to in this book is called normative ethics because it seeks to measure and define what are good and bad ethical positions. The particular type of normative system is virtue ethics - with virtues obviously being good and vices being bad. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, the term ethical will mean virtue ethics, the one based on character structure and pioneered by Aristotle.

When reference is made to the one-dimensional ethical/political spectrum, we are talking about the traditional left-right designation of socio-political affiliation. Now in order for the left-right spectrum to have any meaning, what is being measured must be clearly defined. Unfortunately there is little consensus on what that is; as we alluded to earlier, what is measured can certainly be different from country to country or in the same country at different times. In other words, the term left-right is a nebulous distinction that has evolved in different ways in different places over time. The original terms came into usage during the French Revolutionary era where they referred to the physical seating arrangements in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791. The royalist Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber and the radical Montagnards sat on the left side.

Since this book is about morals and ethics and not political affiliation per se, we will designate the relativism-absolutism controversy as what is being measured, as shown in Figure 1 below. This dichotomy is generally considered to be subsumed within the larger framework of sociopolitical issues; so, what we are doing is simply narrowing the scope for purposes of developing the Ethical Universe. The extent to which the ethical results we arrive at are applicable to politics will be addressed in Part 3 of this book.

figure%201.png

Figure 1 - Traditional left-right spectrum

In order to maintain continuity, we will use this spectrum intact throughout this book. Even when we introduce a 3-Dimensional ethical spectrum in Part 2, the above spectrum will be one of the dimensions. A few clarifying remarks need to be made regarding this traditional spectrum. Formally, the spectrum can be described as a straight line or the x-axis in Cartesian coordinates. This can also be looked at as a mid-point or 0 point with lines going off in opposite directions, one to left and the other to the right. In either case, however, it’s still a one-dimensional line.

From a content point of view, the conservative (or traditional) positions are from 0 out to the extreme right that most people equate to the ‘Absolutism’ position; this is often described as the point at which people make literal interpretations from religious doctrine or other ideologies – for example, extreme Islamic or Christian fundamentalists, hard-line Maoists or Leninists or even rabid Czarists would belong here on the graph. The Liberal (or progressive) positions are from 0 out to the extreme left that most people equate to the ‘Relativism’ position; this is often described as the point at which the existence of any ethical absolutes is denied, i.e., ethics are all relative and none are intrinsically any better than any others here all ethical/moral judgments are taken to be situational.

We should also point out that any position along this line depicts where people look for their moral/ideological guidance more than it does their stance on any particular moral issue. So, the so-called ‘right-wing’ positions look more toward external sources of ethical/moral authority for their position or conduct on particular issues. The external precepts of course are often internalized and become what is known as an authoritarian conscience in the Freudian lexicon. Even in this case, the original source was external (parents, church, conventional wisdom, public opinion, etc) so the external characterization still holds. At the most extreme right position, people use no reasoned ethical/moral judgment of their own and simply operate on literal interpretations of external moral codes and ethical positions- a very dangerous and scary position.

The so-called ‘left-wing’ positions look more to pragmatism, their own wits or just expediency for guidance on particular ethical/moral issues. The further people go to the left, the more inclined they become to have disdain or ultimately contempt for external moral authority - an extreme anarchist of nihilist may well fall at the leftmost position. Here, where nothing has any intrinsic value, the ethical/moral code is also that no objectively valid code of conduct exists for mankind - so everyone is entirely free to roll their own with none being any ‘better’ than the others - another very dangerous and scary position.

It should be noted that this position is definitely not the same thing as being amoral which means being completely devoid of moral consideration of any kind. Stone-cold murderers who don’t have an iota of remorse for their evil deeds could well be accused of amorality. Where and how this position is represented graphically will only become apparent when we add the other dimensions in Part 2. Actually, the fact that amorality can not be plotted on our 1-dimensional graph we take as defacto evidence that we are definitely on the right track by adding dimensions; but, that’s getting ahead of the story.

The center point (0) in Figure 1 is not at all extreme in either direction. This is where people accept that some things are relative and some things are absolute. They do not necessarily reject moral notions just because they are also supported by external authority figures; but, they also do not automatically subscribe to a moral concept just because they are told it is right or because everyone around them seems to accept it. In short these people have to think their way through issues based on objectively valid moral principles and reason. So, just because it is in the middle-of-the-road, so to speak, this is definitely the most challenging position to maintain because it requires so much mental work and there are few absolute guidelines to follow - it is, of course, also the most rewarding!

John W. McAlister, December, 2007 - Delray Beach, Florida, USA

Chapter 2 – The Cultural Malaise

Much has been written and spoken about the Culture Wars in America over the last 15 years. But, here in the early years of the 3rd millennium, we have little to show for all the dialogue- we are more divided than ever. Probably not since the Civil War have we been so deeply and widely polarized on so many public issues at the same time in America. If by some demographic wizardry we were able to quantify the total amount of ideological disharmony playing out, by factoring in the number of people involved, things are probably worse today because there are 4 times as many of us!

For all of our ancestor’s disagreements in the mid 19th century, most people could have at least agreed that family and some church affiliation were the anchors of their communities. But now - with all things being relative - we can’t even agree that either of these institutions are necessarily good things in themselves. One tragic irony of all this is that today we are more connected electronically, than at any time in human history, yet at the same time we are more isolated - not only from the rest of the world but from ourselves. For example, cell-phone misuse has become epidemic in modern America that builds shells around people that veritably shouts do not disturb - my private phone conversation is far more important than you are! The Internet once touted as the information superhighway has as much disinformation as legitimate information and teems with predators bend on corrupting and abusing our children. In a sense, the more wired we are, the more estranged we become.

Thankfully, a shooting war has not been declared in our fractured society, unless one counts the daily carnage of murder and mayhem playing out on the mean streets of every major city in America. At any rate, the polarization of our society becomes evermore palpable and adversarial. The color-coded symbolisms of Blue vs. Gray, at a terrible but defining period in our history, being supplanted by Red-State vs. BlueState mindsets on a massive scale has an ominous ring today. Unfortunately, debating the issues does not seem to help. Public dialogue over recent years has rapidly degenerated into sound-bite dueling or shrill monologues designed to shock and disorient the opponent and amuse, thereby winning over the audience, rather than convince through reason. Gone are the days when it was impolite to interrupt; now politeness is seen as a sign of weakness. In general, the coarsening of America worsens as civility at all levels of society continues to erode, becoming as anachronistic as the bicycle-built-for-two. In our rude, crude, relativistic culture, extreme ethical positions become commonplace and are tolerated as mere eccentricities, not condemned for the evil they represent. If a celebrity happens to be involved, a media circus also ensues. Rather than recoiling in horror and demanding a measure of propriety from all, we seem to relish garish spectacles like Hollywood idols supporting the right of privacy for pop star Michael Jackson (or as the British seem to prefer, Wacko Jacko), a really strange, middle-aged humanoid (one supposes) who publicly declared there is nothing wrong with inviting young boys to share his bed over night!

At roughly the same time, Sister Janet has her breast bared - accidentally by a wardrobe malfunction named Justin Timberlake – during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII, being broadcast to billions of viewers around the world. Interestingly, by stark contrast, women in some of the countries receiving the broadcast can’t even bare their face in public without the threat of being stoned to death. Nevertheless, enlarged color shots of Janet’s star-studded pride will probably still be accessible on the Internet when she is old and gray - not that anyone will much care by then.

Unadulterated greed is praised and rewarded in our culture rather than despised for the corrupting force it is; meanwhile the master of the ‘art of the deal’ revels in his new television persona bent on glorifying his unabashed narcissism and further lining his own pockets. Thankfully, Donald Trump hasn’t publicly repeated the 1980s mantra, greed is good.

He just now says that amassing obscene amounts of money is ‘fun and a good way to keep score!’ Like other self-aggrandizing pitchmen before him (P.T. Barnum springs to mind), Trump, and others like him, apparently believe that out-maneuvering the other guy is the most important criteria for self esteem. In the meantime he is training a generation of wannabe entrepreneurs to follow his lead. Hopefully, Trump or his minions do not aspire to public office or being a U.S. ambassador to any other country in some misguided future administration.

Even doing jail time as a convicted felon doesn’t detract from celebrity status these days - indeed it’s a shot-in-the-arm for their business. Rather than hiding her face from public view after doing 5 months behind bars for federal convictions on insider trading and obstruction of justice, Martha Stewart instead launches new careers – real estate developer and talk show host. In October 2005, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia launched a line of houses that carry her name that will be built by KB Homes Inc. The first target area was Cary, North Carolina to be followed by other locations around the country. Initial construction, patterned after Stewart’s homes in New York and Maine, were completed in early 2006. A total of 650 homes were planned with prices ranging from low-$200K to mid-$400K. In addition to television and merchandising, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia launched a 24-hour satellite radio network with Sirius in November 2005. The plan is to have Martha host a weekly call-in show. Crime does seem to pay in our topsy tervy culture.

While this lusty beat goes on, organized religion, which 100 years ago was the moral bedrock and the heart of the social life of much of the country, no longer provides an effective moral counter balance. The Church steadily lost influence throughout the 20th century; and the slide seems to continue into the 21st. Much of their troubles today are self-inflicted. The Catholic Church in the U.S., for example, still struggling with the cancer in its midst of pedophile priests preying on young children, was recently compelled to admit the problem isn’t new. The Church’s newly formed National Review Board in 2002 commissioned the John Jay College of Criminal Juctice to do some national research. Among its findings, revealed in 2004, was that there were 10,667 cases of abuse committed by 4,392 priests over a 50-year period. After allowing for lost, obscure or non-existent records over a half century and different reporting practices from different dioceses, the real numbers are anybody’s guess - it’s highly doubtful the Church’s problem was over-stated.

The horrendous child abuse, the cover-ups and the resulting lawsuits (and huge financial settlements resulting in some bankrupt dioceses) in recent times have seriously weakened the Church’s coffers and more importantly their ability to speak forcefully on moral issues. A casual observer may think that all this bad news may threaten their very existence as a moral force in this country. But, that would be under-estimating the forgiving nature of the faithful and their need for a spiritual center. The Church will survive this internal crisis and hopefully be much wiser in managing its own house in the future. But, to what extent the Church or organized religion in general can ever again be a moral bedrock in our society is an open question.

In fact it is unclear at this point whether any institution can turn the tide of moral decline in America. In stark terms, drunk and disorderly seem to understate the materialistic, carnal degree to which our popular culture has descended. But, alas, public ethical breaches that would make denizens of Sodom and Gomorrah blush are not our only problem. Even a partial list of other issues facing the American people is intimidating:

Culture Wars

Moral-relativism versus Absolutism

Evolution versus Creationism

Global warming

Energy policy (or lack thereof)

Stem Cell Research

Race Relations (or lack thereof)

War on Terrorism

Widening gap between rich-poor (domestic & international)

Gay Rights controversy

Growing social divide, increasing alienation

Abortion rights

Immigration policy

Middle East morass (sometimes called politics)

War on drugs/crime

Deteriorating infrastructure (roads, bridges, water supply etc)

Trade deficit (with China, India and Russia)

Looming demographic wars

Growing entitlements (with smaller percent working)

Health care crisis

World hunger, health and education

Domestic Education

Gender divide

Science/engineering gap

Evolution vs. creationism flap

Campaign Reform

We will touch on some of these issues in Part 3 of this book. But, with so many intractable problems on our national plate and with the quality of public discourse at such low ebb, it is hard to imagine how we solve so many complex issues anytime soon. Every one of the above items deserve (and it fact has had) volumes written about it. Yet, they remain largely misunderstood and scarcely addressed - we can’t even agree that there is a problem on some deadly serious issues. For example, each side of the Global warming debate trots out experts to support their positions. AI Gore’s side claims the evidence is too overwhelming to ignore any longer and if left unabated, lower Manhattan and much of South Florida will once again be under water in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush’s side insists we are seeing only historically normal fluctuations in weather patterns and are therefore loath to take actions that may adversely affect the economy. Bush gets a lot of help from partisan colleagues. The chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, Republican senator, James lnofe, chimes in by stating on the Senate floor, 1-4-2005, A I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, ‘much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science.’ I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the ‘greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,’ a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.

Nonetheless, caused by global warming or not, devastating hurricanes make parts of the American Southeast look more like Southeast Asia after the catastrophic tsunami of 12-26-2004. If an issue so vitally important to our future and our children’s future that should be based on hard science can get so politicized, and therefore polarized, there does not seem to be much hope of resolving any of the issues we face. In the meantime where do our people look for answers and direction on anything?

Certainly, colloquial idioms are of little help in guiding us. To illustrate the futility of attempting to base ethical choices on often well meaning ‘advice,’ this writer compiled a list years ago of pairs of adages that are diametrically opposed to each other. The exercise was done mostly for fun but it also had a rather serious purpose - convincing myself of the utter absurdity of blindly following other people’s advice. It is also sobering to realize that each of the items can be carried to an extreme; and that there seems to be a philosophy of life for every conceivable point of view! The following is a sampling of the list that grew to over 100 entries. The reader can no doubt add to the list:

Unfortunately, on a more serious note, science is not much better at handing out advice. With the notorious flip-flops on important issues we have seen from the scientific community in recent years (e.g., coffee used to be really bad for you but now it’s actually good for the liver according to N.C. McAvoy, Clinical Research Fellow, and P.C. Hayes, Professor of Hepatology, Liver Unit, Royal Infirmary Of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland), the general public does not know what to think; so, consequently it doesn’t think about the serious issues we face very much. The feeling seems to be that somehow public officials will recognize the tremendous needs and set about addressing them even though none of them have been given a mandate by the people to do so.

Our public institutions in general are little help in our collective paralysis. They seem powerless to even adequately define the problems, much less agree on comprehensive and painful solutions. The U.S. Congress has lost so much credibility with its perpetual gridlock that we have come to expect self-serving partisanship, extremism, corruption and gross incompetence. We have not been pleasantly surprised.

The tremendous influence of special interest groups also continues to exacerbate the problem. Even ostensibly looking out for everyone’s best interest does not guarantee an ideal outcome. For example, the separation of Church and State advocates (some would say zealots) have been uncommonly successful at protecting us from state sponsored religious dictums. But another consequence of this otherwise honorable goal is that morals in general seem to have also been largely removed from our political process as well, being replaced with extreme ideologies from the left-right political dichotomy. As long ago as ancient Greece, it has been known that ethics can not be separated from politics. Plato and Aristotle taught over 2000 years ago that they are reflections of each other in a democratic society. Deviation from this fundamental truth fosters political expediency of the worse kind and of course moral decay at the highest levels of governance.

But, of course, our elected officials only reflect the ethical makeup of their various constituencies. And American voters seem determined not to give any side a significant mandate to really change things. So, the real problem points back to us, the people. Before we will see significant progress on all the public issues we face, we the people must stand up to the question underlying all the others: Why are we so extremely divided on every public issue?

Our answer to this vital question goes something like this: At the most fundamental level, the cultural war in America is a moral struggle. Not just about individual moral issues of right and wrong; but, rather a fierce ideological struggle over where we should even look for moral definitions in general. The extreme right insists that moral principles are absolute and must come from a Divine, extraterrestrial source. The extreme left insists that there is no legitimate external source and morals are all relative anyway, which of course makes them devoid of any real meaning.

Now, as in any war, the opposing sides get more polarized over time; and the polarizing mechanism takes on a life of its own; which in turn drains vital energy away from the center; which is where real solutions to real problems can take place in a democracy. In short, the very framework of our moral ideology in this country has itself become an integral part of the Cultural War that divides us.

Unfortunately, from both sides of the struggle, the old axiom, ‘The first casualty of war is truth’ continues to hold up well. Gross distortions characterize the battles as each side demonizes the adversary. So, since every major issue on the American agenda has a moral/ethical component, each one now is fraught with frustration and controversy – virtually assuring that gridlock will continue or escalate on these vitally important questions until the underlying fundamental issue is resolved.

It is our contention that there is only one cultural war in this country, not many; and the kernel of this war consists of two key ideological battles, Moral Relativism versus Absolutism and Evolution versus Creationism. Our approach here in Part 1 will be to analyze these two issues separately to determine the origin of the extremism and then look for commonalities. We hope to be able to show that in reality, they are two different aspects of the same problem - if one can be successfully addressed, perhaps the other will be also.

Chapter 3 – Relativity versus Relativism

‘’All things are relative," is one of those modern, 20th century aphorisms people hear a lot; but, the ones advocating it (and even those that hear it) apparently don’t critically analyze it very much. This is quite peculiar because this sweeping generalization can not possibly be true! Yet, we continue to hear it over and over from seemingly sane people. In fact, its use even bestows a certain seductive aura of worldly sophistication upon the user rather than what it should convey - an utterly cynical worldview!

It has long been known, of course, that incessant use of a fallacy, as though it were true, eventually makes it sound true and many people stop questioning it and even start using it themselves. When this point is reached, inanity has corrupted rationality once again in the lexicon and becomes more entrenched with longevity. So, to strike a blow for reason and sanity, let us apply a little simple logic to this ubiquitous proposition.

First, the modifier ‘all’ makes this an absolute statement – no exceptions allowed - proclaiming that anything whatever that can be considered a ‘thing’ is relative. Well, since the aphorism in question is a ‘thing,’ in order to be universally true, its meaning must also apply to itself. So, we are now confronted with an absolute ‘thing’ being relative at the same time! Since this absurd outcome is an obvious contradiction,