Systems, Morals, Rulers, and Rebels

A knock on the door.  It opens, and the party of armed officials who knocked push past the person who opened the door, tear the place apart, find what they’re looking for, detain the person who owns the place (who is not what they’re looking for), and march back outside.  Wrong?  Right?  Justified or unjustified?  Is the answer merely “it depends,” or can we come to some more definitive statement?  Does the scene make you feel a particular way, and, if so, is that something we can consider fundamental, or is it the result of exposure and acceptance of a system?

I attempted to paint this scene with as little detail as possible, because I’m seeking to explore with you something more fundamental, free of the baggage that would come with more description and specifics.  We’ve looked at morality, and the notion of moral relativism in particular, at least twice before, and in one sense this is a continuation of that examination, but this is cutting, perhaps, deeper, to the heart of the tension in that debate.  It ties into the thoughts I shared about deriving “fundamental” rights in my reflections on Areopagitica, amongst other posts.  How much of what we consider “wrong” and “right” simply a matter of agreement or disagreement with our expectations?

Most of us, reading the scene with which I opened this post, likely have an immediate sense that an injustice was committed.  In my case, I subsequently temper that sense with questions about the amount of information we have and do not have, what exigencies there might be, and all of the other details that go along with an answer of “it depends,” but those are justifications and contextualization, which do not alter the initial sense.  A few centuries ago, we might not have the same reaction.  How we feel about it, our perception of the event, is based on what we expect in such circumstances.  Respect for property, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, ways of treating a civilian in this interaction: these are expectations built upon the societal contract and made explicit (in the case of America) in our founding documents and legal system.  Thus, our sense of right and wrong in this circumstance is based, not on something fundamental, but on the expectations we have based on how the system in which we live functions.

Usually, the fear of the dark is not so much a fear of the darkness itself, but of what it might conceal.  It is a fear of the unknown, which most people share to varying extents, although how we process that fear can vary vastly from person to person.  Put another way, we fear that which does not conform to our expectations for how the system is supposed to function.  Expectations are safety, a sanctuary of sorts, because, if we know how something is supposed to play out, if we know what to expect in a given circumstance, we can plan for it, adapt for it, be prepared for it.  Even atrocious conditions can be tolerated if they become normal, that is, if they become something expected.  Societies and cultures are systems we’ve built to establish expectations for interactions between people.

We rely on those systems more than perhaps we realize.  I can get in the car, drive to a supermarket, buy my groceries for the week, and come home because of those systems and shared expectations.  Without them, I might find that the store doesn’t accept as valuable what I’ve brought to trade for the food, or I might find the roads unmaintained, or I could have to wear armor and carry a weapon to protect myself.  Everything about the functioning of the modern economy is predicated and reliant upon shared expectations and enforced systems.  Rules of behavior which can be enforced in some way because, for as much as these systems liberate us from fear and concomitant uncertainty, they do so by being constraining.

Systems and rules establish shared expectations by constraining the possibility-space of existence.  Like a video game, if someone says hello to you, there are a number of responses you might select, but these are but a subset of an infinite possibility space.  If you say hello to someone and they punch you in the face, it’s not just rude – it’s unexpected.  Someone could throw my money back in my face and refuse to accept its store of value (based on the good faith and credit – i.e. a shared delusion – of the people collectively forming the economy) in exchange for goods, but it would be unexpected because of those systems and rules.  Well, aside from the fact that an increasing number of places refuse to accept cash, despite the fact that it says right on our currency that it is “legal tender valid for all debts public and private.”  At a national park I visited recently, they didn’t accept cash, which means the federal government is not accepting its own currency as a legitimate store of value…but that’s a tangent.

The point is that systems, rules, and expectations form a semi-acknowledged basis not just of a functioning society, but also for morality and authority.  It works because we don’t think about it, because it benefits us more than it harms us, and it is difficult to break those expectations (and not only because they are often enforced with authority, force, et cetera).  They are the basis of what is sometimes called the societal matrix, in which we all spend most of our lives, and from which, in the modern world, it is all but impossible to fully escape.  That morality, right and wrong, and what is evil can be largely reduced to a matter of conforming or failing to conform with expectations is what the idea of moral relativism captures and should be deeply concerning to those who stop to consider the matter.

When I shared that notion – that evil is a matter of mismatched expectations – with some colleagues in a conversation, they thought I was making a joke.  It’s not intended as one.  Indeed, it is a somewhat frightening, and certainly disconcerting, idea to countenance; it appears counterintuitive at first glance, especially to those of us steeped in genre fiction and the conventions of the Abrahamic faiths, both of which emphasize a dichotomy between good and evil.  Despite how it may appear, it is not far removed from the conclusions of moral relativism – merely stripped of the philosophical packaging.

That which does not conform to our expectations, which operates asynchronously with the established system, constitutes what we find morally questionable.  Now, why some of those expectations exist can be traced back to fundamental needs and proclivities of the human condition, much as Milton derived the freedom of speech as a fundamental right in Areopagitica less on moralistic grounds and more on the practical consideration that it is a natural inclination which can only be suppressed, not eliminated or prevented.  Other fundamental rights which inform our expectations and thereby our understanding of right and wrong include the right to protection from unreasonable search a seizure and the right to property, both of which are tied to protection of basic physical needs.  Systems can attempt to suppress those needs, to violate property rights and boundaries, but no ruler can obviate the needs from which those rights are derived.

Derivation of rights from the practical consideration of natural inclinations and needs which cannot be eliminated can form a non-expectation-based foundation for morality.  When the systems, rules, and rulers which form and enforce our expectations contravene these inclinations and needs, there becomes space for justified and sympathetic rebellion; elsewise, the natural inclination will be to maintain the status quo, to conform to the expectations which enable a society to function in conversation with itself.  Even when a rebellion meets the standard of furthering rights pertaining to those natural inclinations and needs, there will remain an uncomfortable sense of wrongness because of the breaking of expectations.

Let it be noted that none of these terms should be taken in an absolute or literal sense.  Rebellion need not refer to the prototypical band of rebels engaged in an armed resistance against an evil empire, and evil need not refer to the kind of blatant immorality encapsulated in horrors like the Holocaust.  Rather, rebellion can in this context refer to an act as small as actually telling someone what you think or how you feel about something, instead of the typical, socially acceptable platitudes.  That’s breaking expectations in a way that can be almost as jarring as being spontaneously punched in the face, and arguably more disconcerting than a full-on armed rebellion against the state.  Thanks to stories, we’re acclimatized to the latter under certain circumstances, even if we might not be prepared to actually engage in one.  Less so to asking a colleague how work is going today and having them launch into a semi-coherent rant about feeling insulted, deceived, demeaned, and wasted by the utter dearth of meaningful, substantial, or productive activity they’ve been able to engage with in the past three-plus months.

Expectations.  Like assumptions – expectation and assumption are arguably two sides of a coin – expectations shape the way we see and interact with the world in ways we may not even recognize, and which are rarely explicit unless we take the time to examine them deliberately and carefully.  The capacity and willingness to do so is a key element of being a critical thinker and expanding your mind.  Inane as it may seem after this heavy discussion of the nature of good and evil, examining expectations is also vital to storytelling.  Not only are stories in conversation with the expectations of the audience, they are also filled with characters and societies graced by their own expectations.  If those expectations, systems, and rules are merely reflective of those in our real world because the author does not take the time to fully understanding what those underlying expectations and assumptions are, and how they inform the societies and characters in the story, there will inevitably be an absence and missed potential.  The story will likely be flat and uninteresting because it won’t challenge the characters, and by extension the readers, with difficult questions, and sometimes it will result in disconcerting and off-putting dissonances between what would be appropriate for the story’s context and what is implemented because of our unquestioned real-world expectations.

Questioning and examining the impact expectations have on our convictions and behavior can be an uncomfortable experience.  It certainly is for me, raised to be, and by inclination, a rule-follower.  I must confront how reliant I am upon conformance to expectations, in myself and others, and how that translates into a tendency to hold as too preeminent the status quo.  What’s right, what’s wrong, in the grandest and smallest of senses, and simply how to affect change at any level, requires interacting with expectations.  Most vitally, it necessitates knowing how and when to conform to expectations, and when to break them.  Stories are a way to explore those spaces.