Opinion

 

I work a second shift as a union operating engineer for a small, private college in Minneapolis. At about 1pm in the afternoon, while I am eating lunch and making my lunch, I like to listen to Dennis Prager on talk radio.

 

Yesterday, when this occurred (1/24/24), at the end of his show as I drove to work, Prager said he has always had a low opinion of humans, and that their sinning, wickedness, foolishness, and cruelty do not now, nor never did shock him. He added that he is more shocked, but immensely pleased, when he runs into so many kind, pleasant, well-behaved people.

 

Now, this seems paradoxical: on one hand he has a low opinion of people, stating that people’s natures are not basically good, if not downright bad, with some modest innate goodness still in their souls, for them to build a decent life around. On the other hand, he is constantly pleased that he runs into so many polite, civilized, well-behaved people?

 

If he constantly runs into well-behaved people, should we not assume they are basically good, or that they are born morally neutral, about one-half good, and one-half bad?

 

This paradox is superficial and easily solved if one knows just a little more about Prager’s moral view of humans. He does not think that we are born good: but, I think he would agree that it is the case that America is grounded in an altruistic-egoistic morality, in part growing out of Greco-Roman individualism and reason, and in part of from Judeo-Christian ethics, based on the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments.

 

When Americans, the majority of them, even the secular millions of them, are spiritually and secularly grounded in the ethos, most citizens are largely behaved and amenable, most of the time. They were born evil but became as least modestly good in behavior so when mature, they are a pleasure to mingle with. That is why Prager is surprised and pleased by their kindness, tolerance, civility, courtesy, cooperation, and good will. Their civilized behavior is merited not natural and easy to demonstrate.

 

 Conservatives push objective morality and universal moral training for fear that the failure to instill such values in every succeeding generation of children will result in lawlessness, the loss of civil society, rampant immorality, disorder, and chaos in just a few years.

 

When one thinks how demon-ridden we are in the bowels of our consciousness, and how bad it can get if that veneer of civilized behavior is not instilled in most children, it is a miracle each day to come across well-behaved, courteous, peaceful at home, at work and in the neighborhood. This is why Prager, Peterson and I are constantly amazed and pleased at how good people are. We also know how fragile is the human heart, and easily bent to corruption and sin.

 

I too have a low opinion of people, and I might be more pessimistic about the natural, initial moral nature of a postlapsarian child. I think we are born bad, whereas Prager waffles on that, one time declaring people are born fallen, and the next time, he claims they are just not born good—whatever that means—that they are born morally neutral or bad, and will be selfish, lawless savages if reared up without a religious, moral upbringing.

 

Yes, I have a low opinion of people, if they are not civilized by their parents by being morally taught limits and self-control. If they are reared up with altruist-collectivist morality, rather than egoist-individualist morality, then they are taught to be only half moral, half decent. Much of their adult nature is still very evil, for they still hate themselves, and evil multiplies from its source, that is hatred, especially self-hatred and low self-esteem.

 

They are not taught to maverize, to individual-live, to recognize (and emulate these divine paragons) that the good deities and the Good Spirits are individuals and individuators of varying degrees of love, intelligence, power and ability, but all good, nonetheless.

 

Because Christianity is more altruistic than egoistic, altruists like Prager, Jordan Peterson and other Jews and Christians see the selfish individual as evil, and the selfless or self-sacrificing individual as noble. Because they accept this mistaken assumption about how to describe altruism and egoism, they overemphasize that the solution to rearing evil children is to curb their self-indulgence through inculcated good will, good habits, and good character for each child as a self-controlling, well-behaved, considerate, polite child.

 

That traditional Judeo-Christian ethics works well enough, but it did not prevent German Catholics from killing French Catholics in God’s name in the first World War. Traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the 20^th century failure of Christianity to condemn or evil understand how collectivism (radical collectivism marching across the world as unleashed mass movement promoting the murderous, bloodthirsty ideologies of Fascism and Communism) in Russia, Germany, Japan, China and Italy.

 

Prager and Peterson are quite good and wise thinkers, but morality cannot be successful in the West or anywhere just be insisting that parents teach their thuggish, savage children self-control (Self-control is critical to teach children, especially that they should discipline and restrain themselves, delaying gratification and self-sacrificing, but not much for the group or nation as for reasons of releasing and unleashing their own enlightened self-interest, a command for them to obey to divine call to maverize, as commanded and demanded of each human by the individualistic, individuating good deities and Good Spirits.

 

The Good Spirits and the good deities want us to teach our postlapsarian children to exercise self-control more out of self-interest than out of other-interest, though this maverizing kind of self-control paradoxically and unexpected benefits the public, the family, the community and the country more than any altruistic plan can deliver.

 

What the Good Spirits want us to teach our children is that self-control, the kind that grows out of rational egoism, is the heightening of resolve, awareness and determination that each child’s will, as a maverizer, as part of her self-control, will allow her to say no emphatically  to allowing her identity and interest to be defined and determined by other-control, being dominated by others, by what others expect and demand of her. When, where and how much she cooperates with and complies with their expectations will be determined by her alone (as an adult); their interests matter to her, but she will control and balance their expectations in line of what serves her self-interest. In the final analysis, she is the decider of her fate, her alone.

 

 

This maverizing child, as she grows in love, wisdom, and power, increasingly is in charge of how she lives—with her parents’ guidance, blessing and their slow, steady release of the reins, placing them in her competent hands. She decides how, when and to what degree her belonging instinct to be other-controlled will be held in check by her as she self-controls her interactions with others, and to what degree they have say in how she lives and acts. She is running things.

 

 She is self-controlling and is self-realizing, though the community interests are always a concern for her too. Her self-restraining behavior empowers her to decide what she will tolerate and to what degree: to decide what she can stand and still remain healthy: how much group-living, living by altruist morality, nonindividuating, and living by feeling and being an extreme joiner more than living as a rational, temperate loner, the degree of control of her—allowed or disallowed by her--by others and the groups she associates with and belongs to organically.

 

Like Prager, I have a low opinion of people, but we think that is the postlapsarian human starting point; it need not be predestination that we are condemned to hell. There is always hope, divine mercy and potential salvation for those that accept the freely offered grace from Christ and other good deities, and those struggling but self-exerting persons will to be saved.

 

I am not surprised by low human morals, but I am still angered by it, and want to fight evil and injustice any way I can to grow the Divine Couple’s kingdom of love, morality, and spiritual goodness, to reduce the power and reach of the Dark Couple’s kingdom of hatred, wickedness, and demonic spirituality.