Our voice is the most powerful instrument we possess. How we use it is a choice too many of us fail to grasp. We find our voices turned against one another by a media that profits from conflict and a government that has sworn to serve some while denying the rights of others. Unfortunately, that always seems to be the case regardless of who is the government.
In today’s world, we’ve swarmed to social media, abandoning those more traditional methods of communication. Gone are the days of small family or neighborhood group gatherings; where the troubles of the day are debated and talked about. Now it is more about mob agreement and control. The foundation of debate and discussion, freedom to express your own view, is now regulated by the Government and the owners of those social platforms so popular in today’s world. They believe they know right from wrong, truth from untruth, and what is important or not. It seems obvious we are moving closer to a direct link between social media control and a single political party oversight.
In our world of relative morality, where no standard of behavior is fixed, I wonder where this path will ultimately take us? Some would argue morality is always relative, as the society evolves so does its morality. I can’t really disagree with that observation other than to ask what guides the evolution of society?
As we look to our shared history, we’ve seen societies rise and fall, generally associated with this “evolution” of relative morality. As social standards fell, and the distance between the governed and governing increased the strength of those societies seemed to wane. For better or worse religion has always served as a focal point for unifying societies. This was true in ancient times, and I believe it is true today. For example, with the revolution beginning in 1917 the Czars of Russia were replaced by the Communist Party. Once its power was consolidated it moved to shut down the church. The problem for any organization, especially one like a church, its leaders are torn between their commitment to the dogma of the church and the profits that come from its sponsors. It is the age-old problem of consolidating wealth and power. That holds true today, just as it did in the days of the Pharaoh. The communists recognized the need to gain that control and power, but at the same time how to unify Russian with one social standard?
Stalin’s approach was to use fear and to purge all those who could be viewed as a threat on any level. Unfortunately for the Communists, when you outlaw something you make it more attractive and the Russian Orthodox Church never fully disappeared. Now ask yourself, after nearly 70 years in power how well did the Communist (secular) regime do in unifying the various peoples of the USSR? With the failure of that government did the people remain united?
For us, the United States, stemming from our Judeo-Christian heritage, we can trace our moral underpinnings back to the Hebrews of old, and the rules they established as clarified by Jesus. The essence of these rules is to bind together a society. We can go around and around about the exact wording of each commandment, based on the translations throughout the years but their essential meanings remain clear, except to the most dogmatic.
1. “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex 20:3)
2. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Ex 20:4)
3. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord” (Ex 20:7)
4. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex 20:8)
5. “Honor your mother and father” (Ex 20:12)
6. “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13)
7. “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14)
8. “You shall not steal” (Ex 20:15)
9. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Ex 20:16)
10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Ex 20:17)[1]
Of course, like any maturing bureaucracy the Hebrew church leadership under Moses, went on to add a whole plethora of additional rules and guidance to what you could or couldn’t do on the sabbath, eat or not eat, and how to go about divorcing or what coveting as actually okay or what wasn’t to establish and maintain control of the people. “Leviticus is a manual of regulations enabling the holy King to set up his earthly throne among the people of his kingdom. It explains how they are to be his holy people and to worship him in a holy manner."[2]
Then came Jesus Christ, sent by God to clarify again what was important for the people. To inform the Hebrews and in the end incorporate those people not originally included in the first mandate. As John tells us in verse 3:16, “For God so loved the World he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
The guidelines for this New Covenant are laid out in his “Sermon on the Mount” as captured in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, where Jesus speaks for the need for compassion and love as an affirmation of one’s obedience and faith in God.
So now we come to our modern society where we increasingly reject these guidelines, or our religious institutions modify them to suit their particular needs, or we turn to ourselves to decide what is right and wrong. When this happens what becomes of the society, we grew up in. Does it evolve as the most progressive of us believe, or does it ultimately fail as the most conservative of us warn?
There seems to be one fundamental question for me. Is the role of society intended to further the species or not?
It would seem how you answer that question will form the basis for what you believe is right or wrong, and how you should use your own voice as part of the larger debate. Historically, moral choices that did not further the development of the species were viewed as questionable and maintained their status as outliers to the needs of society.
Now they have become central to the voices who want to dominate the moral choices for society. Claims of racism have become just one focus for those who demand legitimacy for their own moral choices. As a nation, we elected a “person of color” in 2008. When he was challenged for the economic policies, he and his administration chose to use the allegations of racism to hold off any debate. When there were questionable events around the nation, he willingly joined in the rush to judgment and advocate those outraged by the events also do the same. Clearly, his political decisions took precedent over his training as a lawyer, but then as a lawyer, he was clearly playing the critical race theory card we hear so much about today.
The thing about CRT in its context suggests only one side can be racist. CRT traces its roots back to the work of a couple of legal minds and is an offshoot of the Marxist “Critical Theory.”
Critical Theory is a Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work of the Frankfurt School. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed. Believing that science, like other forms of knowledge, has been used as an instrument of oppression, they caution against a blind faith in scientific progress, arguing that scientific knowledge must not be pursued as an end in itself without reference to the goal of human emancipation. Since the 1970s, critical theory has been immensely influential in the study of history, law, literature, and the social sciences.[3]
So, at the end of the day, as we shift from a common moral standard to one where the loudest voices seek to change us to a society based on the tenant that the power of the state is the ultimate moral authority what is the basis for that belief? Is it, as the Frankfurt School proposed, “the proletariat must be liberated from the bondage of capitalism? But, at the same time, the proletariat must not be subject to any other authority even it might be socialism or communism. In other words, the proletarians must enjoy full freedom regarding thought and ideas. A physical atmosphere shall be created in which the proletarians will be able to keep their independence.”[4]
If that is what the advocates want, then we see a distinct difference between philosophical theory and political reality. CRT has become the club against the proletariat, just as in a communist regime state control is the hammer used to control the masses. The question is which set of voices can dominate the masses more effectively?
