extrinsic-phenom’s blog

1) I am a weak person with a strong personality.
2) People are not meant to be as close as I think they are meant to be.
3) Contradicting what has been told to me, hope has its uses.

"I finished Tuesdays with Morrie the other night and an interesting scenario came into my head:

Envision Morrie living longer with the massive publicity he had. Normal people he knew would continue to see him, enthralled with his empathy. Celebrities would see him, enthralled with his ability to reduce everyone to the same level and see them for what they are inside. People would have to make appointments. Morrie would become iconic. People would start to try and top each other with their "humanity" and "ability to be human" and fight each other for who has the most favor in his eyes and who is the favorite 'pupil'. Try and impress him, which wouldn't work. Kill in his name. Morrie would die understanding them but the fights would escalate. His point of understanding would be lost in the melee...

Sound familiar?

empathy and understanding can bring with it a certain kind of destruction, too....."

(from my RL journal)

I've been thinking this over for a while now. I've taken Ethics; I know a little teeny bit. What I don't believe is that there is a strict moral code. Not one that works for all people everywhere. But I do believe that we can mix and match moral codes and have it work. Regardless of what the ethical scholars believe - that is, that we cannot swap aspects of moral codes - we do that every day to survive. If the scholars believe in their own rules anyway, we are currently all ethical relativists until there is an absolute, anyway.....[Here are the moral codes I use]
        
 But first I want to address animals. They are nihilists because they have no moral code but it has been proven that they are indeed moral agents in their own right. Animals have saved people and felt some semblance of something called compassion, but they lack the foresight and self-awareness they need to have a strict moral code unto themselves. So they have 'nothing'. And they function well enough this way, but in a society setting, there has to be some moral/ethical sense to function..like a pack of wolves or monkeys. I also want to compare animals in this sense to infants, because they too are moral agents without foresight.

My moral codes are: Nihilism, existentialism, Kantism, Utilitarianism and Nihilism again. My reasons are as follows:

Nihilism: We begin with nihilism before and during infancy..moral agents but completely dependant on family and without foresight or the ability to predict and incapable of making informed moral decisions. We begin and end life without this consciousness and the undertone of life is the fear of returning to the unknown, the nothing. Nihilism punctuates our lives but does not operate it -- few souls can operate in life only under this principle during a lifetime. It's near impossible to have a lack of moral code in this day and age. Also it is the overtone of life, because there is so much diversity that it becomes chaos which is one of the hgh notes in the concept of nothing. Basically, there is no meaning until you put it there --- but, lucky you! -- society has already put it there, which leads me into the next part:

Utilitarianism. The main point for utilitarians is "Whatever is good for the masses", sacrfice one for the many, etc. Democracy is a Utilitarian product and the majority's voice is definitely one to be heard. However, the needs of the minority are also needed to be heard so a strictly Utilitarian approach cannot work..Strictly utilitarian minds would see Jesus Christ himself asbeing immoral because he was defying the masses at the time....and he IS quite an influential moral icon now, so.....

Kantism is useful on an individualistic level. The focus is brought down from the masses to the individual quite nicely with "If it were okay for everyone to do this, would society still be able to function?" It's useful for bringing responsibility down to YOU. The rule of not using anyone as a means to an end is also good, too. So it's character-based...not just on results of actions, but also you are responsible for the reasons behind your decisions...

Relativism (On the descriptive level) is also important. The theory states that everyone's moral theories are different. It widens the capacity accept other people and their beliefs. However, in the ethics community this theory is not a good one....but people will continue to be diverse no matter what is said..

During a lifetime, everything happens between birth and death, and so many ignore what is at the beginning and end. Butt he most complete personalities I know have accepted and come to terms with that and let that chaos spice their lives... It should not be ignored.. it should be embraced in moderation ... life is not complete without a proper beginning and end and knowledge thereof. Hold everything but know that it is finite...

* Everything subject to change.

1) Be more responsible
2) Learn how to motivate myself
3) Be more a part of my family
4) Spend more time spiritually connecting to my creative process...and knit
5) As always, lose weight
6) Try to be more decisive
7) Journal
8) Decide on seeking therapy
9) Think really really hard about that modeling job
10) Learn how to manage my time better