#moral codes

1 Samuel 26:1-28:25, Psalm 68:21-27, John 19:1-27

“Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.”

-Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

I think what we see in the Pharisees when Jesus is on trial is horribly familiar. The thing is, they have something to protect. They need to protect their power and influence, but perhaps truly believe they are protecting this institution that keeps people following God. And because they do not draw lines that they will not cross, you find them saying, 'We have no king but Caesar." Something which is outright blasphemy. I admit that the gospel writers would have had a strong motivation to invent this line, but we have no evidence that that is the case, so whatever. In saying that, they betray where their true allegiance lies, with whatever power will allow them to advance their own cause. For some it might be money, influence, or respect. For others it might be legitimate religious zeal.

The thing is, most people don't even notice they're in a morally dubious situation until someone explains it to them, and even then we tend to rationalize why we don't have to treat this as a moral situation but rather a practical one. This is why it's so important to have a clearly articulated moral code, beyond simply, 'What would Jesus do?' I recommend the Sermon on the mount for a good starting place, because it sets both very clear practical advice: reconcile with your sister before worshiping God, and impossible ideals: love your enemies. Because the issue I find when I start constructing a moral framework for myself is that I can't construct one that I both feel good about and in which I rate well. Which is why I don't have a clearly articulated one and just have vague aspirations for the sermon on the mount.

I heard a story about Twitter's leader of content moderation pre and early Elon era, where he recounts writing out a list of lines he wouldn't cross, and discussed this with many of his staff. They were pretty specific, including breaking the law and lying publicly, but he ended up leaving for other reasons, specifically because he thought that Musk's decision surrounding the blue check marks was foolish. I don't think that Roth's moral code failed him here. I think it worked as it should, when an unforseeable circumstance showed up, Roth had already done the hard work of imagining being asked to do terrible things and decided what he would do. He left a job he loved because he was asked to do something he didn't want on his conscience or reputation.

When I teach kids to study nature, the first rule I tell them is to look closely at things, to notice things. Things are cooler the closer you look, more interesting, more nuanced. And this extends to all aspects of life. It is not simply a way of making life more joyful, it is a vital safeguard against becoming evil.