Saturday, September 10, 2022

Morality & Abortion

Many ancient religions, long before Christianity, advocated for some sort of Golden Rule.


There is no need for prophets, actually, as humans probably evolved altruism as a smart cultural adaptation. Living in small affinity groups that interacted with many other small affinity groups, cooperation became an evolutionary advantage over excessive competition.


Gift exchange was their form of trade and economy. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(cultural_anthropology)

Therefore, there is not much in the way of moral universalism, except for very basic Golden Rule concepts. How that code extrapolates varies greatly by group, time, and place.


Therefore, the idea of needing prophets to remind people of how to live is quite ridiculous. There is no "One Right Way" to live. However, moral hypocrisy (Do as I say, not as I do) tends not thrive, and survives only to the extent that the powerful hypocrites can exert oppression upon the enlightened revolters. (The non-enlightened can presumably be duped into submission).

So morality is more about what works well for groups of people and groups of groups of people. The lowest common moral denominator can be the only universalism. So what is the lowest common moral denominator? Some form of the Golden Rule is probably all there is:

Treat other people how you would want to be treated if you were them.

This can also be considered as a balance of your individual rights and the rights of others you interact with, insofar that they differ and there is chance of some sort of conflict.


Again, this is intuitive. Every toddler understands this, and lives more or less as such unless they have unresolved pain; ie, were neglected or abused.

Our culture, which I define as this particular global civilization, is one that perpetuates neglect and abuse. Not all civilizations have or need to. But this one is especially so, and this generational pain is built up and passed on, growing in time.

We see this in hyper-individuality such as conservatism and capitalism; in destruction of war, genocide, ecocide, consumption, and industrialism; in totalitarian systems such as organized religion, statism, and mass surveillance; in our health and education; and in our parenting, to name but a few broad examples. We are completely divorced from from our nature, from ways of interacting with reality that we have successfully evolved over past three million years.

No wonder people look for a savior. We don't need a savior. We don't need prophets. We need to rediscover who we actually are beneath the conformity to the current culturally suicidal hers behavior.

Back to morality: so when it comes to things such as abortion, we must realize two things: that there is no universal norm, so the most liberal should be preferred, and how would you feel if it were you. Therefore, it's nonsense that men even legislate or judge on this at all. Until such a time that men can conceive a child and carry to term, or until such a time that humans develop extraordinary empathy, the opinion of men is completely irrelevant, or enough so that they should abstain.

And it just so happens that women who are anti-abortion suddenly become supporters when they realize that they could be in the position to want one. 

How much easier all of this would have been if everyone simply applied the Golden Rule from the very beginning.

However you judge another person or rule on the appropriateness of their freedom, remember: what if you were them?


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