I never understood what it meant to love children until I had my two. I came from a family who were quite clear that they wanted their lives to come first, and the best I could do was to tag along and survive, in spite of uncertainty and occasional violence. But I took responsibility for my own life. I don't claim that what I am now is anything other than what I have made of it, and the Grace of God and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
I know that my kids are loved, and they know it. And so it is with great pride, and and also relief, that my two darlings are doing ok. Whatever background we come from, we have the power to make or break our children. However poor or difficult our lives are, if we have love for someone other than ourselves, it will be the making of us.
Yes, there is a spiritual dimension to this. I am not talking about the Pope either. What I am talking about is vision and direction in life. For me, it is Christianity. It may not be that for others. Having a moral code, even if you can only aspire to it, ultimately impacts on the wider world. Currently, society revels in nihilistic relativism, which has the disabling effect of making all issues morally neutral. It's belief in nothing. And when you believe in nothing, you will believe in anything.
You only have to read the news to see that this is true. We have created a society where someone who claims to be "offended" about something can call on the authorities to do something. The police can be called in on the flimsiest premise and yet nobody says, hey, wait a minute, this is wrong".
A recent case concerns a father and daughter where relations appear to have broken down. It was a Tory MP who was arrested and put in a cell on the say so of his children. He lost his seat at the election, and although there may have been other reasons, it is possible that the incident played a part in his defeat. Well, the news is that not only has Nigel Waterson been fully exhonerated, the police have declared that the charge was "wholly unfounded" and have agreed to pay damages and costs. In other words, they did not have a leg to stand on. At worst, they should have concluded this was a "domestic" and retreated after a few words to calm things down, but they decided to imprision the man on the words of his moody teenage son and daughter. Clearly, the police, and other public servants, have no sense of proportion. When we dispensed with the bobby who could administer a clip round the ear, we dispensed with natural justice.
Moral neutrality is the same thing that gave us 9/11 and Hitler. You have been warned.
4 comments:
The worst thing about the case of the MP was that, after his arrest, the news was leaked to the media, ensuring the maximum publicity for what was, after all, a private incident. I don't know who did the leak, but it was around the time when the police seemed to be keen to curry favour with their parliamentary masters (Ian Blair, cash for honours, Damian Green), so I know who my money is on. A man's life in ruins and his career, as you say, possibly destroyed. But hey, he's a Tory, so it's fair enough.
"Moral neutrality is the same thing that gave us 9/11 and Hitler. You have been warned."
I have to disagree with that. Hitler was not amoral, it was just that his morals were a little different from everyone else's. And the 9/11 terrorists are arguably the most moral of people, doing exactly what their (version of their) religion tells them to do. Moral neutrality has given us multi-culti relativism and a total lack of shape to society, all of which I deplore, but it hasn't started any wars yet. It's more likely to appease dictators than fight them.
'Moral neutrality is the same thing that gave us 9/11 and Hitler.'
If so, it's nothing new then. That rather contradicts the weary fin de siecle theme of the post I'd say.
Moral neutrality probably created the anger that triggered 9/11, that allowed appeasement that emboldened Hitler.
As others have said, I suspect Hitler and the 9/11 organisers and perps had morals, their own, very strong, black-and-white ones.
I base my life on non aggression, Rule of Law, freedom of association. Chock full of morals.
It is a surplus of Socialism, of Authoritarianism, of Fabianism that is the source of this situation, engineered, I suspect, from a desire by such people to break the ties between people so that only the tie to the State remains in any strength.
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