Prisons of the Mind Redux

Well, my miracle cure(see previous ramble) backfired. I got a post out of it, but no essay. Which is why I flipped back a bit and hit on Prisons of the Mind. I redid it a little, and handed it in. Yeah, I know I'm lazy. Which is why I just reposted it here.

I got this interesting article in my rss feeds, check it out if/when you get the time.


(commence pointless filler in a pathetic play for space)


Consciences are prisons of the mind. People without consciences are free.

There. I said it. But before you decide to lynch me, let me explain how I arrived at this somewhat unusual statement.

Our conscience dictates the way we view everything. When I say conscience, I mean our sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. Our morality, so to speak. Of course, morality is merely a part of our conscience. A huge part, to be sure, but only a part, nonetheless. So when we view certain things, say polygamy for instance, as “right” or “wrong”, it’s our consciences telling us that it is so.

The same applies to all our opinions. Our conscience dictates our points of view, which dictate our opinions. This can, and almost inevitably will, lead to certain paradigms which would be nigh unshakeable. Which is why it would be difficult for a person who’s grown up thinking that polygamy is wrong all his life to put himself in the shoes of a person who thinks it is right, and vice versa; his conscience tells him it is so, and therefore he is unable to believe anything else. Most of us think we’re immune to it or more enlightened than that, but we often fail to understand the depth to which the effects of deeply entrenched beliefs go. We’re not immune, and we’re not more enlightened; it’s just that our firmly-held “morals” require that we must believe that we are.

That a conscience prevents us from doing certain things, I don’t think anyone will dispute. That it often bars us from doing the needful, well, I imagine a great many would dispute that point. Often, this firm belief in what is “right” and “wrong” prevents us from taking the most pragmatic path available. We may decide to go against our conscience, but the guilt or shame that comes after would seriously mess with our minds, and could drive some over the edge in certain extreme cases.

A conscience does all that. It is what makes you feel bad after you get low grades, it is what makes you feel guilty when you lie to get an extension you need, it is what prevents you from telling an obnoxious/unwanted guest to get the hell out of your house. It does all this, and then some. Also, as mentioned above, a conscience often prevents you from gaining proper understanding of a situation by preventing you from being able to put yourself in the shoes of another, which, if nothing else, could lead one to making uneconomical choices, or inflicting suffering on a person for simply doing what he had to or what his conscience told him to.

Our consciences aren’t even something that we install ourselves, really; the base work is laid by the society we grow up in, and though we may later modify it, it’s a rare person who changes it against the dictates of her society, or really changes the foundations of her conscience. Such people are usually called “deviant”, or are said to have “gone crazy”.

So essentially, we punish others for adhering to moral standards – possessing consciences – which go against ours. In a way, it’s what’s happening to Saddam; he’s stuck to his standards, whatever they may be, and because they go against what we think is right and proper, we’re trying to have him punished. Yes, I know he’s killed a lot of people, and I’m neither condoning nor condemning his actions, but he listened to his conscience, whatever it may have said, and because what his said goes against what ours say, we had him executed. In my opinion, he should've been forced to eat rotten tapioca and listen to Kenny G 24/7. But then, that’s just me.

We say that people without consciences are monsters, but do they think so? Does a so-called “monster” care about his “misdeeds”? Not at all; he’d be perfectly happy so long as he gets what he/she wants. So in a way, a person without a conscience would be happier than a person with a conscience. He can do whatever is necessary to get what he wants, and would feel no regrets later; no pangs of guilt or shame to keep him/her awake at night, no moral dilemmas to brood over, nothing of the sort. Simply satisfaction at having gotten what he wanted. The only circumstance in which I can imagine that this wouldn’t be true is if our “monster” is simply incapable of getting what he wants. But then, that upsets everyone, conscience or no.

While it seems evident that if everyone had no (or really flexible) consciences, society would break down into chaos and anarchy, that isn’t necessarily true. Contrary to what most moralists and religious fanatics would have you believe, a lack of rigid morals doesn’t necessarily imply a state of lawlessness or that one is a wanton murderer or any of a thousand other such adjectives; all it means is that one refuses to do what the mob wants him to do when it isn’t in his best interest. Shooting that annoying motorcyclist who drives by my house with his silencer pulled out in the morning may be a very attractive idea, but I’d just as soon not go to jail over it.

Leaving morality to an individual instead of legislating it needn’t put an end to all laws; for while I’ll be the first to agree that all laws are connected to morality in some way or another, extremes are generally not a good idea. I’m not advocating that we abandon laws altogether, but neither can I extend my support to a system where we apply one set of rigid rules to every situation that crops up, regardless of the fact that the line between “right” and “wrong” is different every time. Sometimes it’s just a minor adjustment, sometimes it’s a major paradigm shift, but we cannot continue to call ourselves the purveyors of justice while we continue to treat the world as a monochromatic playground of the vocal majority.

While Anarchy seems like the ideal solution, it is beyond the scope of this inane rant and tired ranter to get into its details. Let’s just say it’s the ideal solution, and return to the topic in the hand of that fellow over there in the corner.

I’ve heard plenty of arguments against flexible personal morality, and most of them rely on the premise of ensuing lawlessness, and most who make these arguments seem to confuse immorality with amorality; they’re two very different things. As such, it still seems to me that a conscience is nothing but a prison for our head of society’s making, yet another way to make us fit in with the crowd. And this is why I still believe that only the amoral are really and truly free.

(end pointless filler in a pathetic play for space)

Break out the confetti - 200th hit sometime yesterday...after a few months...most of which were long and barren...better yet, put it all away, and just give me that paper bag to put over my head...