The Meaning of Moral Values

A sermon by

Dave Weissbard

from The Unitarian Universalist Church

Rockford, Illinois

December 12, 2004

Immediately after the presidential election, the worst fears of liberal and progressive people of both political parties were confirmed: George Bush had been reelected in a landslide by an outpouring of support by people on the religious right - an event which had been orchestrated by the brilliant, if evil, Karl Rove. America was sharply divided into the red states and the blue states, and never the twain should meet. I had Chuck Sweeny, the political editor of the Rockford Register-Star as a guest on Fusion to discuss the implications of the great divide – in fact, I invited him back for a second program because we never quite got to the issue in the first half hour.

It was Chuck’s contention that this “great divide” does not exist. I don’t get a lot of mail about Fusion programs, but I got one from a distressed person with a liberal orientation who insisted that Chuck was part of the right wing conspiracy to deny the reality of the reactionary takeover of our nation.

Much of the talk about the split and the nature of the split was based on an exit poll among voters which ostensibly revealed that “moral values” were the dominant issue for those who voted for George Bush.

In our reading [Moral Values Myth], Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist who provides diversity for the Washington Post, pointed out the fallacy in the poll:

It is a thin reed upon which to base a General Theory of the ‘04 election. In fact, it is no reed at all. The way the question was set up, moral values were sure to be ranked disproportionately high. Why? Because it was a multiple-choice question, and moral values cover a group of issues, which all the other choices were individual issues . . .

If you pit group against group, the moral values class comes in dead last: war issues at 34 percent; economic issues variously described at 33 percent and moral values at 22 percent. [Washington Post, 11/12/04]

The respondent to the Fusion program could suggest that Krauthammer is also part of the conservative attempt to obscure the truth, but virtually all the commentators who were not congratulating themselves offered a similar analysis.

Dick Meyer, the Editorial Director of CBSNews.com, writing the day after the election, headed his analysis “Moral Values Malarkey.” He led off, “Let’s try to snuff this election’s new Big Theory before it becomes Conventional Wisdom, although it’s probably too late.” Given that the Bush campaign had worked so hard to identify its candidate with the phrase “moral values,” Meyer suggests that the phrase had come to stand for “Bush’s positions.” To him it is therefore logical that people who supported Bush would hold up that phrase as most important.

There’s only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify our 24/7 media’s conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results – and about American culture itself – confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry’s defeat notwithstanding, it’s blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since election day with a vengeance worthy of “The Passion of the Christ” should wake up and smell the Chardonnay. . . .

At 78 percent, the nonvalues voters have far more votes than [the values voters] do, and both parties will cater to that overwhelming majority’s blue tastes first and last. Their mandate is clear.

George Lakoff, writing in The Nation magazine insisted that, “The Democrats failure was a failure to put forth [progressive’s] moral vision, celebrate [progressive] values and principles, and shout them out loud.”

One analysis I read after the election suggested that just as conservatives feared that Kerry was lying about his support of the war in Iraq just to get elected, progressives hoped he was lying and that as soon as he got in office he would end the war. What does that say about his veracity?

The problem here, to a significant extent, is language. Those who are progressive (which I am beginning to be persuaded is preferable to the term “liberal”) have allowed the reactionary end of the spectrum to lay claim to the term “moral values.” Since they proclaim their support of “moral values,” by which they mean being anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-erotica, anti-honest sex education (you know the list), we deduce that we must be against moral values, which is about the stupidest thing I can imagine. It’s like the way we have allowed reactionaries to define what it means to be “pro-life,” as if we who differ are anti-life; and pro-American, as if we who oppose empire-building were anti-American.

Jim Parrish, at his 50^th birthday party, loaned me a new book which he suggested should be required reading for all Unitarian Universalists. The title is The Science of Good and Evil. It is written by Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine. He states his thesis clearly:

. . . morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait; that is, a human universal. Think about it this way: evolution created moral sentiments and concomitant behaviors over hundreds of thousands of years, so that today even though we agree humans created morality and ethics (and thus we are empiricists) it is not we who created the moral sentiments and behaviors, it was our Paleolithic ancestors who did so in those long-gone millennia. We simply inherit them, fine-tune and tweak them according to our cultural preferences, and apply them within our unique historical circumstances. In this sense, moral sentiments and behaviors exist beyond us as products of an impersonal force called evolution.

In his careful, but speculative, analysis of the development of morality, Shermer asserts that morality developed before religion, and that religion evolved to enforce the principles that had already been found to work. He writes:

The moral sense (the psychological feeling of doing “good” in the form of positive emotions such as righteousness and pride) evolved out of behaviors that were selected for because they were good either for the individual or for the group; an immoral sense (the psychological feeling of doing “bad” in the form of negative emotions such as guilt and shame) evolved out of behaviors that were selected for because they were bad either for the individual or for the group.

Central to Shermer’s analysis is the principle of “fuzzy logic.” That sounds at first like something we should avoid, but in truth it is about reality. We have too often bought into the Aristotelian box of thinking of everything as either/or: good or bad, moral or immoral, true or false. In the real world, most people are, according to Shermer, “moral and immoral, good and evil, altruistic and selfish, cooperative and competitive, peaceful and bellicose, virtuous and non-virtuous.” He asserts that:

Most people most of the time in most circumstances are good and do the right thing for themselves and for others. But some people some of the time in some circumstances are bad and do the wrong thing for themselves and for others.

I resonated with his assertion of the “Captain Kirk Principle.” In one of the episodes of the original Star Trek (behind which was the Unitarian Universalist genius Gene Roddenberry), on star date 1672.1, episode 5 called “The Enemy Within,” Captain Kirk, in the process of being beamed up from planet Alpha 177, is split into two beings. One represents his “cool, calculating, rational” side; the other his “wild, impulsive and irrational” side. The problem is that both are a part of him – he cannot function as a person, as a leader, without both dimensions. As Shermer points out, this tension is actually a part of almost every episode because Spock represents the ultra rational and Dr. McCoy the hyper-emotional. It is the captain who is balanced. We, of course, similarly are complex beings composed of rational and irrational elements.

Shermer asserts the importance of “Provisional morality,” which is neither a rigid moral code, nor a flimsy moral relativism. He believes that we have inherited a moral intuition and learned valuable moral rules from our culture:

As an evolved mechanism of human psychology, the moral sense is transcendent of individuals and groups and belongs to the species. Moral principles, derived from the moral sense, are not absolute, where they apply to all people in all cultures under all circumstances all of the time. Neither are moral principles relative, entirely determined by circumstance, culture and history. Moral principles are provisionally true – they apply to most people in most cultures in most circumstances most of the time.

It is clear that “Provisional Morality” does not make it in the eyes of moral absolutists – at least they do not admit it. They value every line of the Bible as equally true and binding on them, except . . . they do pass on Deut. XXI:18-25 which insists that disobedient sons should be stoned to death; Deuteronomy XXII:5, which insists that a woman shall not put on anything that pertains to a man; they do not follow Deuteronomy XXII:22 and kill all those who have been caught in adultery. They are, in fact, very selective as to which of the “moral absolutes” they actually apply to their lives.

Good acts give us pleasure, but how it happens that they give us pleasure? Because nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses.

The great Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, wrote of his experience as a four year old of having been about to kill a tortoise.

All at once something checked my arm and a voice within me said, clear and loud, ‘It is wrong!” I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the new emotion – the consciousness of an involuntary but inward check upon my actions . . . I hastened home and told the tale to my mother and asked what it was that told me it was wrong? She wiped a tear from her eye with her apron, and taking me in her arms said, “Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, then it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right; but if you turn a deaf ear or disobey, then it will fade out little by little, and leave you all in the dark and without a guide. Your life depends on heeding this little voice.

If we are to be serious about our responsibility as citizens, we need to get serious about our commitment to moral values. As George Lakoff suggested in the Nation, we need to put forward, celebrate and shout out the values for which we stand. There are far more moral values we share with religious conservatives, than there are moral values that separate us. We may not agree on the source of those values, whether they are the revelation of a deity or a product of evolution, but the values themselves are less in dispute.

We agree on the moral value of the “golden rule,” which can be found in almost every religious tradition in human history. We agree on the moral value of truth telling. We agree on the moral value of compassion. We believe in the moral value of responsibility. We believe in the moral value of freedom - for ourselves and for others. We believe in the moral value of reverence for life. We believe in the moral value of fairness. We believe in the moral value of self-respect. We believe in the moral value of the preservation of our environment. We believe in the moral value of generosity.

Rushworth Kidder, an ethicist who has spoken at Chautauqua several times, organized a Global Values Survey at the State of the World Forum’s annual meeting in San Francisco in 1996. 272 participants from 40 countries and 50 religious orientations were surveyed and they showed a high level of agreement on what were the most important values in their lives. The top ones included those I just named: Truth, compassion, responsibility, freedom, reverence for life, fairness, self-respect, preservation of nature, tolerance and generosity.

Each of these moral values has proven through the centuries to be of value, both to individuals and to groups of people: tribes, nations, the species. Following them most of the time in most circumstances generally produces greater fulfillment than their violation does.

It is, however, interesting to note that the philosophical guru of the neoconservative movement is a University of Chicago teacher, Leo Strauss, who insisted that those who are in charge in society should use noble lies and pious frauds to keep the masses in line. Truth, to him, was an obstacle to responsible leadership. The superior few needed to shoulder the burden of truth to protect humanity from the “terror and helplessness of life.”

It is clear that most of those who declared that they chose a candidate on the basis of what they believe are “moral values” are unaware of the dependence of their leaders for Strauss’ teachings, which are almost never mentioned in public.

I don’t want to appear naive. I am not suggesting that because we are in agreement on fundamental moral values, there are no differences between those who voted for George Bush and those who voted for John Kerry. What I am suggesting is that the failure of Kerry’s supporters to clearly articulate a moral position, or to have that moral position heard, caused some of the polarization which we experienced during the campaign.

Can you imagine conservatives saying that they do not believe in truth, compassion, responsibility, freedom, reverence for life, fairness, self-respect, the preservation of nature, tolerance, or generosity? We do not live in different worlds! If we can be clear about the moral principles on which we agree, then we can move to exploring the next step which is to explore the ways in which we differ – but we would do so in a very different setting than if we sat down as believers and unbelievers in moral values.

We all believe in truth. What then are the implications of going to war on the basis of alleged facts which are not based in reality? We all believe in compassion. What then does it mean when the rich are made richer by reducing the support we provide to those among us who are in need? What does responsibility mean when we send soldiers to die because of a lack of equipment and those who make the decisions are not held accountable? What does freedom mean when people overwhelmingly testify that the rule of a tyrant was preferable to life under an occupying army? What does reverence for life mean when a respected medical journal estimates the civilian deaths in Iraq at 100,000.

The discussion should have been on the basis of how are we proposing to live out our moral principles, not the opposition of believers to non-believers.

The issue here is not that religious leaders got involved in a political campaign. The issue is whether in their involvement, they were faithful to the religion they espouse?

My friend, sister Joan Chittister, in speaking to a national convention of Catholic educators told an old story about a teacher who traveled with great difficulty to a far away monastery because there was an old monastic there who had a reputation for asking very piercing spiritual questions.

"Ah, yes, then," the old monastic said, your question is 'what do they need?'"

The teacher wrestled with the question for days but then, depressed, gave up and went back to the old monastic in disgust. "Holy one," the teacher said, "I came here because I'm tired and depressed and dry. I didn't come here to talk about my ministry. I came to talk about my spiritual life. Please give me another question.

"Ah, well, of course. Now I see," the old monastic said, "in that case, the right question for you is not 'what do they need?" the right question for you is 'what do they really need?"

The point according to Sister Joan is “the ability to give meaning to life is of the essence of spiritual leadership.” She told the Catholic teachers:

Immersion in the immediate, a sense of spiritual vision-- the pursuit of meaning-- and the courage to question the seemingly unquestionable is the essence of spiritual leadership: we cannot--and should not-- attempt to lead anyone anywhere unless we ourselves know where we are, where we're going, and what dangerous questions it will be necessary to ask if we really want to get there.

In a century that has spawned Adolph Hitler, Ferdinand Marcos, and Nicolae Ceausescu, on one side, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dan Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mahatma Gandhi on the other, the problem of spiritual leadership and the questions that underlie it have never been more urgent-- or more confused.

We find ourselves confronted with conflicting notions of leadership. Is it force or is it persuasion-- is it power or is it passion? What kind of leadership is really needed to save the soul of a society? Are we to be faithful followers or independent individuals? The definitions seem to shift and sway.

There were Roman Catholics bishops who forbade teachers from the dioceses to attend the convention because they knew where Sr. Joan was likely to go, and she did. She asserted, as we do, that the spiritual life is one which focuses on and does not duck the implications of applying to the everyday situations of this life, the moral values which often stand in contrast to the practices of those who cling to power.

In a post election press conference in Washington, held by progressive religious groups, UUA President Bill Sinkford asserted:

Moral values are not just particular opinions on “hot button” topics in a divisive election year. Moral values grow out of our calling as religious people to work to create the Beloved Community. Moral values instruct us to “love our neighbors as ourselves” and always to ask the question, “Who is my neighbor?”They are fundamentally inclusive rather than exclusive, and they call on generosity of spirit rather than mean spiritedness.

In this post election season, let me express some of the moral values held dear by the Unitarian Universalist community, which I lead, and by many other progressive people of faith:

● We believe that feeding the hungry and clothing the naked are moral duties, and we will continue to work on behalf of economic justice.

● We believe that ensuring equal civil rights for gay and lesbian families is our moral duty, and we will continue to work for Marriage Equality nationwide.

● We believe that serving as stewards of the earth is a moral duty, and we will continue to do everything in our power to protect the environment.

● We believe that safeguarding a woman’s right to choose is a moral duty, and we will vigorously oppose any efforts to eliminate or significantly compromise reproductive freedom.

● We believe that providing affordable health care for all Americans is a moral duty, and we will continue to advocate for medical rights for the young, the old, the frail, and all of those in need.

We need to work to establish dialogue between people of good will who may make different moral choices. We need to learn from each other because we dare not assume that we have an exclusive handle on the good and true. The basis for that conversation lies in the establishment of the common ground we share, which is a belief in the importance of the fundamental moral values which unite us.