No Easy Answers

I always seem to be in a conundrum about something. Most of the time, it is rather mundane, simply deciding what I might eat this evening, or what book I might read before I go to sleep. Other times, it is more serious, and I suppose this evening would be one of those nights. I wonder often about our ability to know right from wrong, what makes us an ethical person, what drives us to slaughter in the name of well... anything. I want to ask these hard questions, and I know in the end, no easy answers come to me. Of course, I think many of use who do ask these questions find an answer, but find it is either too idealistic in one extreme, or too pragmatic in the other. Most compromise answers tend to enrage either side and can leave one no better, sometimes worse, than before.

So it is with me. I understand that war can be a necessary evil, but I am certainly against it in principle. I understand that every nation has the right to defend itself from harm, but where does defense end and theology (or ideology) begin? (or vice versa, perhaps) We have seen the rise of sectarian violence in recent weeks, months and years in many parts of the world, but it has been with us so long as people have been deciding Baal was better than Elohim or that Isis was far cooler than Ishtar or Astarte. Indeed, killing each other is humanity's number one or two favorite pastime, depending on who you ask (sex being the other). And for what? Well, far too many things to get into, but we all have our favorites: god, country, passion, fun, money or all of the above. Does it really matter why we kill? To me, it should only matter that we do; however, my own passions and patriotism have gotten the better of me, and while my idealism says 'stop', my pragmatism tells me 'they have it coming'. Maybe they do, or maybe, as Clint Eastwood puts it so pointedly in Unforgiven: 'Kid, we all have it coming.' I would rather not endorse that thought, yet because I am an American, do I deserve death as much as anyone else does?

I always liked to think we were born with the ability to determine right from wrong, that we did not need a holy ethics professor to tell us what should be inherent in our nature. Unfortunately, as I see more and more degradations in whatever name we choose to invoke, I find this is not the case. I suppose I should know better. I have read enough history to confirm my questions, to give me the answers. I suppose I simply do not like them.

One day, I suspect there will be a reckoning for all that we have done, in this life or some other. I hope it is not so. I would like to think we could reach out to the stars and create a destiny beyond this small world. Until the killing stops, until our bloodlust and zealotry is satiated, this world will be all we know.

C.