Morality as a Language
September 24, 2013 at 12:54 pm
(This post was last modified: September 24, 2013 at 1:04 pm by Koolay.)
Morality is the most powerful and well understood language, bar any other dialect. Morality is not hazy and subjective, it is very cut and dry really.
For example, a parent that hits their child, yet says to the child "hitting other people is wrong" this inevitably sends the message to the child that rule makers do not need to follow the rules they inflict on others. Kids, especially, take this very seriously. Most kids that are hit, will most likely be more violent, since that is the morality, or lack of morality they learned.
Or if a parent peacefully negotiates with a child, that child will inevitably pick up and become proficient in non violent communication, where they can use their negotiation skills in all aspects of life, relationships, business, etc. However the child that has been brutalised, learning about peaceful communication is like starting a new language from scratch, it is very hard for someone that has only been taught violence, to learn peace. As it would be hard for someone that has not been taught or exposed to Chinese, being able to speak Chinese.
Teaching a child that 'rule makers do not need to follow the rules' or naturally makes them more susceptible to people who speak the same language, violent or abusive husbands/wives, associates, and even larger institutions that run on hypocrisy and irrationality like states or religions. Such institutions can not exist when a society is fluent in negotiation and peaceful communication.
A useful mental exercise to do, is when speaking to someone, ask yourself 'what moral language is this person speaking?', are they not using reason and evidence to make a claim?, are they telling you to do something as a threat of violence?, are they verbally abusing you for not agreeing with you? most importantly; are they following there own rules?. If people are communicating any of this, you should avoid them as much as possible, since you will pick up that language in some way. If you are surrounded and exposed to religious people, some of their irrationality will be passed on to you, the same with statists, who praise and talk about the virtues of initiating force upon people, you will take on that immoral message subconsciously weather you like it or not. It's annoyingly obvious, but the sheer amount of exposure we have to hypocrisy and irrationality in modern culture, it's easy to forget such a simple concept.
For example, a parent that hits their child, yet says to the child "hitting other people is wrong" this inevitably sends the message to the child that rule makers do not need to follow the rules they inflict on others. Kids, especially, take this very seriously. Most kids that are hit, will most likely be more violent, since that is the morality, or lack of morality they learned.
Or if a parent peacefully negotiates with a child, that child will inevitably pick up and become proficient in non violent communication, where they can use their negotiation skills in all aspects of life, relationships, business, etc. However the child that has been brutalised, learning about peaceful communication is like starting a new language from scratch, it is very hard for someone that has only been taught violence, to learn peace. As it would be hard for someone that has not been taught or exposed to Chinese, being able to speak Chinese.
Teaching a child that 'rule makers do not need to follow the rules' or naturally makes them more susceptible to people who speak the same language, violent or abusive husbands/wives, associates, and even larger institutions that run on hypocrisy and irrationality like states or religions. Such institutions can not exist when a society is fluent in negotiation and peaceful communication.
A useful mental exercise to do, is when speaking to someone, ask yourself 'what moral language is this person speaking?', are they not using reason and evidence to make a claim?, are they telling you to do something as a threat of violence?, are they verbally abusing you for not agreeing with you? most importantly; are they following there own rules?. If people are communicating any of this, you should avoid them as much as possible, since you will pick up that language in some way. If you are surrounded and exposed to religious people, some of their irrationality will be passed on to you, the same with statists, who praise and talk about the virtues of initiating force upon people, you will take on that immoral message subconsciously weather you like it or not. It's annoyingly obvious, but the sheer amount of exposure we have to hypocrisy and irrationality in modern culture, it's easy to forget such a simple concept.
The only freedom, is freedom from illusion.
