Opinion: It’s about time we freed ourselves from shackles of human-made oppression

Nathaniel Johnson
Aug 22, 2017 · 5 min read

Universal morality doesn’t exist. In fact I’d even go further than that, and argue that morality doesn’t exist — period. But let’s start from universal morality; ask yourself a simple question — would there ever be wars if universal morality existed? Would ever there be murder, or crimes in general? Would people lie, and cheat on their spouses, or better yet — could they? Or would they be prevented by the very existence of universal morality from doing so?

Morality is a human concept, and a social construct, based on mutual agreement of people in our society that some things are ‘bad’ and some things are ‘good’. But not everything that was once considered bad, or good, still is.

Being gay used to be bad. During certain times in history being gay was illegal, and sexual activity among the same sex was even punishable by death. In some places in the world, that is still a thing. But in a lot of places, especially countries of modern world, being gay no longer is considered bad, nor is it against the law to engage in same-sex relations. In other words, our perceptions of “Good” and “Bad” have changed through history, and will continue to change.

However, I posit that — given various reasons I will list below — the concept of morality should completely be abolished, as well the laws based on them.

1) Is murder bad? It’s a question that will undoubtedly bring a loud “Yes!” from each and every person reading this. Countless people have been punished for murdering people, bound to spend their lives in jail, and some have even been executed. However, the loud “Yes” if uttered as soon the question was asked would have been premature — if you read the previous sentence you’d have seen I brought up two different examples of murder, one where a person murders others, which we consider “Bad”, and another where the said person is executed, which is often looked in different ways, from “Good” to “Deserved — okay”, to “Bad”. Nonetheless, execution is legal in more than few places — a type of murder we allow.

Which is interesting, if you ask me. If murder was bad, then all murder — period — would be bad. But it’s not; would a murder in self defense be bad? Would killing a terrorist be bad? And so forth. The point here is, exceptions exist, and murder isn’t inherently bad, even within the concept of human morality.

2) Exceptions. We murder 56 billions of animals per year. Yes, I can hear you — they aren’t human. But ask yourself, why is your life more worth than theirs? Who are you to say that, and what gives you the right — other than you yourself, and other humans that support it?

And not all human life is equal. Just last year alone, 660.000 fetuses have been aborted in US. 660.000 of legalized murder, because those human lives might have inconvenienced someone that only wanted to feel pleasure for a short period of time. In fact, that human life is so meaningless to us that we value pleasure over it — the argument of choice doesn’t even come into play, given the consequences are well known.

Exceptions are created time and time again, because it suits us so. In some countries you can get executed for blasphemy. In some countries you can get punished by rape — for being raped. And so forth.

3) Morality doesn’t exist. Yes — it exists as a concept among majority of humans, and we tend to violate our own morality for our own benefits, selfishness, and convenience, but morality, as in “Good” or “Bad” doesn’t exist outside of human perspective. Just look at animals. Animals kill other animals — including their own. Have you ever seen a dog defending a person from another dog, to the point the other dog is no longer alive? Or simply two dogs fighting to the death? I’m sure you can imagine it for the purpose of this point, which I’ve stated at the beginning.

How many humans and animals has Earth killed? Earthquakes? Falling trees? Storms?

4) It’s oppressive. Just like we’ve learned that being gay isn’t “Bad”, even within our own concept of morality, and that it’s a natural, inborn part of being human — unchangeable and unmalleable, just like autism, or any sort of disablity, or neurodivergency isn’t bad — neither is the urge to murder.

And such urges, for someone even to want to murder another person, can come from different places — from history of abuse, lack of morality, to neurological reasons.

But we already know those that aren’t neurotypical aren’t bad, even within our concept of morality. It’s also obvious that our concept of morality has tons of exceptions, sometimes for rather trivial reasons. As is that morality outside of human perspective doesn’t exist. So the question here is… should it? Should we punish people for being different than us, and having — at times — uncontrollable urges?

My argument earlier wasn’t that abortion is ‘bad’, nor that killing animals is bad — and so on — on the contrary. My argument is that neither bad, nor good exists. And the question that naturally arises is — why should it? Why should there be human laws, or human rights, when they themselves are abused constantly — and they are oppressive to those that want, nay, need to do things that are against the current laws?

The only law or a right there should be, is for there to be no rights and no laws. No protections. No exceptions. Nothing to stop us, what we do or say, nothing to control us. Everyone is equal, and isn’t. Everyone’s life is valuable, and isn’t. Everyone just *is*. Anything but is not only bad, within our human concept of morality, but oppressive to each and every individual on this Earth. And I think it’s about time we addressed the issue, and freed ourselves from our oppression. The sooner the better.

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