On the moral bankruptcy of human society, and the one sentence that can save us
Nietzsche, Darwin, Foucault and the incredible power of It is what it is
Let’s get this out of the way first―this essay is not a moral indictment of humanity, or of society, or of any country, and it is certainly not an indictment of you.
It’s more of a question, followed by a few answers.
Question: Is there any provable moral truth in this world?
Answer: No, save for one sentence.
What is that sentence?
The sentence is this―
It is what it is.
It is what it is
At first glance, the phrase It is what it is hardly seems insightful, let alone inspiring.
Or is it?
This essay will argue that it is indeed insightful, and with the help of Nietzsche, Darwin and Foucault, we’ll understand its true meaning.
And it might even provide a moral framework for our future.
This essay will have three parts―
- Part 1 — Examining the provable moral bankruptcy of human society, and showing how our conceptions of right and wrong are built upon an arbitrary foundation
- Part 2 — Showing how Nietzsche, Darwin and Foucault gave us one true, provable moral sentence — It is what it is
- Part 3 — Showing how this powerful sentence can provide a moral framework for our future
All right, let’s begin―but first, a preamble.
Preamble to Part 1 — this is not a nihilistic argument, nor an indictment of anyone or anything
Let’s repeat what was said earlier―
This essay is not a moral indictment of humanity, or of society, or of any country, and it is certainly not an indictment of you.
It is meant to help reframe our conceptions of society and our understanding of right and wrong, but it is not alleging that anyone is wrong.
So now let’s truly begin.
Let’s delve into the moral foundations of our own local and global societies, which are hypocritical at best, and overtly fraudulent at worst.
Part 1 — In which the entire system of human morality is shown to be baseless
The moral hypocrisy of human society, explained briefly, and without blame to anyone
It’s not that difficult to find moral hypocrisy around us in this multifaceted, overpopulated world.
Why do most countries drive on the right side of the road, while a few drive on the left?
Because they do, and within that country it is wrong to drive on the opposite side of the road.
Why are drone strikes of foreign targets allowed?
Because they are, and if a few innocent civilians get taken down as well, this is ok provided that no one knows about it.
Of course there is one caveat to this―
If it is a foreign country targeting us with drone strikes, such actions are always morally bad.
But let’s speak a little more broadly, and look a little more deeply, because moral hypocrisy isn’t just relegated to driving norms and Pentagon briefing rooms.
Moral fraudulence is right in front of us, and in fact makes up our entire foundation.
To see the hypocrisy in front of us, let’s listen to a free-thinking Canadian.
And to see our bankrupt foundation? All we need to do is look down.
But first, the Canadian.
Malcolm Gladwell, the coal miners and the strong safeties
In 2013, the public intellectual Malcolm Gladwell was invited to the University of Pennsylvania to give a speech to the Benjamin Franklin scholars, which represent some of the best and brightest undergraduates from UPENN’s four undergraduate schools.
Gladwell’s speech first outlined the work of a statistician in the early 20th century named Frederick Hoffman, who saw that coal miners were getting respiratory diseases at extraordinarily high rates.
Full disclosure―Frederick Hoffman was known for some unrelated apocryphal theories that were unspeakably destructive, but his argument about coal miners was not one of them.
In the case at hand, Hoffman argued that sending coal miners into the ground with absolutely no protection is harmful to their health.
Hoffman’s data was undeniable, but it still took 50 years for the world to accept this seemingly obvious truth, and legislation to improve mining conditions only began in 1975.
We look down upon those who denied the consequences of early unprotected coal mining and ask―how could rational people be so wrong?
But then Malcolm Gladwell’s speech took a turn, and he asked―
Why do we still have football?
Unprotected coal mining is bad, but American football might be worse
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a devastating disease that is at least comparable to anything found in a coal mine.
And the link between CTE and football is undeniable.
A recent study showed that 99 percent of NFL players have some sort of CTE.
In addition, 91 percent of college players have it, and 21 percent of high school players have it.
There is absolutely no doubt that the collisions in American football bring this horrible disease, and will continue to do so.
So why, Malcolm Gladwell asked, do we still allow football?
The answer in this case, is because we do.
Our society’s moral construct might have its codes, laws, debates and oaths―but at times it just looks the other way.
That is a bit of moral hypocrisy protected by a $25 billion dollar a year industry, and it’s in front of us every Saturday and Sunday.
But if you want to see true moral hypocrisy in action, you have to go beyond a single sport played in a few countries, in only part of the year.
So let’s think bigger than American football.
Let’s look beneath our feet to our very daily foundations, foundations not built of reason and compassion, but of unspeakable and persistent torment.
No matter how good of a person you may be, no matter how strong your moral code is, if you look down, you’ll realize that roots of our global society are built upon Hell.
The Hell beneath our feet
Let’s shift gears with our public intellectuals, from the particular-thinking Malcolm Gladwell, to the more broadly thinking Yuval Noah Harari.
Harari outlined in Sapiens the global phenomenon that is the world of livestock, and here are his thoughts on the dairy industry―
The dairy industry has its own ways of forcing animals to do its will. Cows, goats and sheep produce milk only after giving birth to calves, kids and lambs, and only as long as the youngsters are suckling. To continue a supply of animal milk, a farmer needs to have calves, kids or lambs for suckling, but must prevent them from monopolising the milk.
One common method throughout history was to simply slaughter the calves and kids shortly after birth, milk the mother for all she was worth, and then get her pregnant again. This is still a very widespread technique. In many modern dairy farms a milk cow usually lives for about five years before being slaughtered.
During these five years she is almost constantly pregnant, and is fertilised within 60 to 120 days after giving birth in order to preserve maximum milk production. Her calves are separated from her shortly after birth. The females are reared to become the next generation of dairy cows, whereas the males are handed over to the care of the meat industry.
And the dairy industry is but one of the persistent nightmares we encourage to bring a bit of flavor in our breakfast.
I won’t get into further detail than this, lest the horrors detract from the argument, but know that it gets worse.
There are millions of animals living wretched lives, and meeting slow, torturous ends.
And what is our moral solution to this?
We tuck the slaughterhouses away in unmarked, camera-free buildings so that the consumer only sees a package of anonymized meat in the grocery aisle, and then give the slaughterhouse workers earplugs so that they don’t hear the constant screams.
The point here is not animal rights, it’s that our moral foundations are arbitrary at best
Malcolm Gladwell gave us a bit of a dilemma with his speech on football, but Harari gives us a veritable nuclear bomb to our moral code.
No matter how much you recycle, how much you give to charity, or how many people you help across the street―you live in a world where 200 million innocent animals are killed every day for our meals, and the vast majority of them live wretched lives up to that point.
Even if you argue that animals are animals, people are people― the sheer size of the livestock industry should be sufficient to overcome any differences in intelligence.
And if you don’t watch football and don’t eat meat?
You’re still complicit in a world that does both on an unimaginably large scale.
We’re comparing a lot of variables here, of course, so let’s put it all in a table
There’s driving on the left and right, and drone strikes.
There’s watching football and eating meat.
To make sense of relationship of these moral norms, or perhaps to see that they don’t make sense―let’s throw them all in a table, to see if our moral code holds any logic when we see it at a glance.
The chart of a thin slice of morality
Here is our chart of just a bit of our morality, filled in only with what we have discussed so far.
It doesn’t quite make moral sense, does it?
So can we be truly and arguably good in modern society? The short answer is no.
If you really examine a life in modern society―any life―there is bound to be enough ambiguity to render any moral code meaningless.
The businesswoman moves into an impoverished community and brings a thousand jobs, but the tax revenue helps construct a drone missile that takes out an innocent family in Pakistan.
The priest sets up a shelter for dogs rescued from fighting rings, but to feed them, the priest requires dog food, which in turn requires thousands of other animals to be ground up in the most wretched of ways.
Any statement of This person is good, requires a willful ignorance of a thousand other factors.
Or perhaps―
Or perhaps it requires an understanding that the concept of right and wrong is arbitrary at best.
So rather than dwell on this, let’s take a step back until we can find one objectively provable aspect of morality.
We only need one, and fortunately there is one―
It is what it is.
But before we explore that phrase, let’s explore its foundations.
These foundations began with a German philosopher and an English naturalist, and were refined by a French literary critic.
Part 2 — Nietzsche, Darwin, Foucault and the one provable moral sentence
There are plenty of moral guides in the world of philosophy.
Plato started the conversation about making a just society, and Reinhold Niehbur showed individual leaders how to maintain their own moral code while still dealing with the competitive nature of life.
But neither of those characters had an objectively provable methodology for understanding right and wrong.
Neither of those characters could walk through a modern-day slaughterhouse and say I can make moral sense out of this.
But one German philosopher was a bit different from any other thinker of his era, and around his time there was a British naturalist who was able to strip the mysteries of biology away, and reveal the unadorned truth beneath.
And later there was a French literary critic who made a bit more sense of it all.
But first, let’s visit the German philosopher, who once again was a bit different from the rest.
Nietzsche — the philosopher out of left field
If our philosophical heritage were to be considered a family gathering, most of the philosophers would be sitting around talking to their ancestors or heirs, and might situate themselves in the formation of a flowing river of thought, one that twists and turns, but still maintains the basic shape of a river moving forward.
But Nietzsche would be sitting off to the side with his own stream, a stream whose water may have come from a different source.
Nietzsche had his own way of thinking, and some say that his insights were born of the insanity that ultimately did him in.
Nietzsche is often remembered for the ways his philosophy was misinterpreted by various tyrants throughout history, but he certainly had quite a few great ideas, and one of his works lays down a foundation for all morality.
The Genealogy of Morality — A book with an important insight in the title
The Genealogy of Morality was published in 1887, and it was an attempt by Nietzsche to explain morality by writing about the history of morality.
He explained right and wrong by showing the history of right and wrong, and the book was a juggernaut.
But one of the insights, perhaps the most powerful insight, is in the title.
Nietzsche’s book and Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault brought the world quite a bit, and among other things, he provided an insight into Nietzsche, and The Genealogy of Morality.
In Foucault’s Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, Foucault saw that Nietzsche saw morality as a genealogy.
That seems self-evident from the title of course, but if we dig a little deeper, that is where the provable insight lies.
Nietzsche didn’t call his book The Foundation of Morality, or The Goal of Morality ―it was The Genealogy of Morality.
Foucault saw the connection between Nietzche’s morality and genealogy―between right and wrong and a straightforward passage through the generations, one filled with tendencies, environmental selection, mutations and drift.
Morals behave like genes―and that is it.
Here is a graphic showing biological genealogy
Here is a graphic showing moral genealogy
As you can see, biology and morality hold similar genealogical flows
Morals mutate and evolve more quickly than genes of course, and they can change many times within a single lifetime.
But their flow is the same.
Conceptions of right and wrong flow through time, and they change according to evolutionary whims.
And with each generation, person, family, nation and world―wherever the morality is at the moment, that’s what it is.
A family might have two black-haired children and one blonde-haired child.
That is what they have.
One child may love to eat meat, one might dislike it but find it acceptable, one might consider it murder.
Those viewpoints are what they are.
A nation might find unprotected coal-mining acceptable one century, and disdain such a harmful activity the next.
In both times, the morality is what it is.
In all times, genetics are what they are.
It is what it is.
It doesn’t sound that insightful, let alone inspiring, but if we take a small step back from Nietzsche, we see that it might be both.
A few decades before On the Genealogy of Morality lay Charles Darwin, and though he stripped the biological world of much of its mystery, he added so much more.
And Darwin’s insight might give us a provable meaning to our moral foundations.
Darwin took away the magic of our natural world, but gave us everything else
Darwin gave us the theory of evolution, which in turn took away the magic behind our natural world.
Why do some birds have incredible feathers?
Darwin showed us that this colored plumage might confer its organism some advantage―perhaps better signaling, or perhaps a display of fitness―but in any case it may give the bird a better chance of reproductive success, and then that bird can pass those genes on to its offspring.
The colors may have also arrived by evolutionary coincidence, because of genetic drift.
And that is it.
So what is our goal as a species?
Darwin answered this succinctly, at least in biological terms.
There is no goal.
Evolution has no goal. It is goalless, purposeless―it allows biological organisms to adapt to their environment, but there is no goal.
Species adapt, sometimes they drift, but they do not get better with every generation. They just adapt.
In short, It is what it is.
But Darwinian thinking shows us that here is something real here.
Something that provably and arguably exists, something whose antecedent provably and arguably existed.
As an example of this, let’s look at the blue whale, and its ancestor the pakicetus.
The little coastal predator and the blue whale
The blue whale is the largest creature ever known to have lived on Earth.
52 million years ago, its ancestors were not large by any means though.
And they were almost nothing like whales.
These meter-long creatures may have roamed the coast, and may have dived in the water to hunt small prey.
And then evolution happened, and the pakicetus’s descendants dropped all external appendages, shed their hair, grew tails, and grew in size.
One of those branches became the largest creature ever known, and became a hunter of krill, which are among the world’s tiniest creatures.
So why did the pakicetus turn into the blue whale?
We know that it was due to changes in environment, but what is the underlying reason why the blue whale ended up like it did?
The answer to this is that there is no underlying reason.
It just ended up that way.
It is what it is.
And when considering the pakicetus―
It was what it was.
The blue whale arguably and provably exists now.
The pakicetus arguably and provably existed back then.
Darwin took away the mystery, but he gave us truth.
There is no why, but there is an is, there is a was, and there is a will be.
The blue whale exists.
The pakicetus existed, and before that, the dinosaurs existed.
There isn’t, or at least there might not be a why.
But there doesn’t need to be a why for the blue whale to exist.
And there doesn’t need to be a why for our modes of morality to exist.
Our current conception of right and wrong exists, and like the blue whale, its existence is all we need to make it real.
Darwin brought the provable structure of evolution to biology.
Nietzsche applied this provable structure to morality, and Foucault interpreted it.
It is what it is.
Now, let’s update our chart, and throw the blue whale in there while we are at it.
Our updated chart of morality, with a little biology in it as well
Let’s update our chart, with the blue whale, and two fields―logical justification, which will be the why, and Does it exist?
What does this mean?
It means that though there is no logical foundation to the blue whale’s existence or our moral code, this foundation is not required for existence.
You might not have an answer why, but maybe you don’t need one.
You can just answer the why with N/A―Not Applicable.
But does the blue whale exist?
Absolutely.
Is it ok to eat processed meat while watching an American football game?
It is―from a societal level at least.
It is what it is, whether you are speaking of biology or morality.
We might not be able to argue the nuances of our current conceptions of right and wrong, but we can prove they exist, and there is truth in that.
So let’s take that one truth, and see what we can do with it.
Part 3 — Showing how It is what it is can provide a moral framework for our future
So now we have a rational, solid―and somewhat uninspiring―foundation for right and wrong―what now?
First of all, at least we have a foundation. In short:
Morality is whatever we define it to be at the time. But after we define it, it exists, and is real.
It is what it is, and―
It truly is.
Nietzsche’s goalless, decidedly undivine explanation of right and wrong might not be inspiring, but it’s not hypocritical either.
And this statement can reduce the hypocrisy in other moral systems when you place his thinking on top of them.
It is what it is can go on top of other systems without destroying them
For example, let’s take one of Nietzsche’s nemeses―organized religion―and examine Exodus 35:2.
Exodus 35:2
Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
This leaves an evangelical Christian with two options―
- Allow execution of any people in this world who do any work work on Sunday.
- Ignore this rule, and admit their hypocrisy when it comes to their belief that the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
Now let’s put Nietzche’s genealogical view of morality on top of it―
Morality is whatever we define it to be at the time. But after we define it, it exists, and is real.
The evangelical Christian has a third option now―
3. Recognize that the current time frowns upon the execution of all those who work on Sunday, and then recognize that this verse need not be followed.
It’s not moral to execute Sunday workers now, because we believe it not to be.
So the moral evangelical Christian should just ignore this verse, and in fact oppose all efforts to execute those who work on Sunday.
But the evangelical Christian might be inspired by Proverbs 19:17, one of many Bible quotes about helping the poor―
Proverbs 19:17
Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.
That is acceptable in these times, and we are fortunate that it is, because 60% of homeless shelter beds come from faith-based organizations.
In this day and age, it is wrong to execute a stranger because they work on Sunday, but it is right to help the poor.
It is what it is, and this current morality exists.
So again, now that we have a rational, solid―and somewhat uninspiring―foundation for right and wrong―what now?
That is the question, isn’t it?
Nietzsche and Darwin explained just about everything except for what next?
In fact, they all but proved that there is no preordained next, aside from what we make it of course.
If we all decide tomorrow that it is ok to punt kittens in the street, that will be a morally righteous act―at least to us.
If we all decide tomorrow that freedom from poverty is a basic human right, that will also be a morally righteous. In that circumstance, passing a poor person on the street without helping would be akin to passing an injured person without helping.
In that circumstance, poverty might disappear, and our future selves would look with disdain upon the current times, when we allow poverty to persist.
But that still begs the question―what now?
There’s a lot of ways we can go of course, but the fundamental insight is that―if morality is what it is, then it can be what we make it―
And if that’s the case, let’s take control of morality.
We can’t quite control our genealogies, or at least for the most part we can’t.
But we can control our conceptions of right and wrong.
We can make arguments and defend them. We can change our minds, and then change our minds again.
And what we choose to be right and wrong will be that way.
So let’s make our conceptions of right and wrong the best they can be, and to do this, we should make a Global Constitution of Morality.
A Global Constitution of Morality
The vast majority of countries in this world have their own Constitutions. There is also a global body named the U.N., and despite what its critics say, the U.N. has been effective in quite a few regards.
So why not have a body that makes a global Constitution of Morality?
This body’s goal: Take morality from It is what it is, to Morality is what it should be.
Like the UN, the body would work slowly and allow every country, and a wide variety of voices to be heard.
It would start off with a basic Constitution that holds some basic agreeable moral norms―like It is wrong to kill an innocent stranger or It is wrong to steal, and then go from there.
What would this moral document look like?
Whatever it would be, it would not be long. It would end up closer to the U.S. Constitution in length than that of a thick legal book, and its brevity would allow a universal understanding, while also bringing a new class of experts into being―moral scholars.
We have constitutional scholars here to interpret the Constitution―which is under 5,000 words, and still under 8,000 if you include all the amendments.
So we would have moral scholars debate this document, and answer questions like―
We know killing strangers is wrong, but what about killing civilians during a drone strike?
We know that stealing is wrong, but what happens when that theft is at the hands of a Wall Street trader? Or how about a high-speed trading algorithm?
This body would make a Constitution of right and wrong, but it would not be legally binding
This Moral Constitution would not be binding to anyone. Since it is determining morality and not law, there would be no enforceable edicts from it.
The Moral Constitution might determine that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on gender, but it could not force a country to correct its hiring practices, let alone correct any disparity in suffrage.
But a group of oppressed women in an oppressive environment could certainly cite the Moral Constitution in their own arguments.
That’s not quite the way to change the world quickly of course, but consider this Moral Constitution a guiding light rather than an invading army of right and wrong.
This Moral Constitution would not get that particular, and not concern itself with Social Norms
Current moral norms suggest that the Germans are punctual, and the French are less so.
But neither the Germans nor the French would be right or wrong under this document, because the concept of punctuality might be a little too specific, and a little too close to Social Norms.
This Moral Constitution would not concern itself with punctuality, or tendencies to drive on one side of the road or the other, for that matter.
This Moral Constitution might not be able to address everything that some consider wrong, but it would allow new voices to be heard
The world might not be ready to determine that American football is wrong, let alone the global livestock industry.
But the body that maintains this Moral Constitution would certainly allow voices to argue the above.
Malcolm Gladwell himself could present an impassioned speech, filled with data and case studies―all in the hopes of having the Moral Constitution show that physically deleterious sports such as American football are wrong.
Of course, this body would also allow experts who argue that American football is right, and necessary.
Malcolm Gladwell might not persuade the body to add to their Constitution, but his argument would be recorded at least, and future generations would be allowed to build on that argument.
And yes, animal rights activists would also have a venue to speak.
These activists might not persuade the world to become vegetarian, but they would be allowed to make their case. If that case is written by someone with the clarity of Yuval Noah Harari, the livestock industry might have a hard time making a counterpoint.
And that might be point enough, because animal rights activists―and all those who think morality needs updating―will be allowed to return.
The Moral Constitution would be a living document, because morality is living, and changes
Our conceptions of right and wrong evolve over time, and what is right today might be wrong in the future.
So Malcolm Gladwell could make his case about American football this year, and if he doesn’t convince the world―which as of today, he would not―he can come back the next year.
And if the cause is strong enough, others will join in and come back year after year, decade after decade.
The Moral Constitution should encourage positive change―it should at least
There is no guarantee of this of course, but this persistently evolving body should encourage a positive progression of moral values.
A rational, fair body that updates this document shouldn’t bring humanity backwards, if the term backwards holds any meaning of course.
The world might eventually get to the point where it thinks violent sports that leave lasting physical damage are bad, but the Moral Constitution most likely won’t return to allowing colonialism with the next vote.
Conclusion
So what does this all mean?
You might think that stripping all morality of objective meaning is a dispiriting act.
And in certain regards, it is―there is a certain beauty in the ideal that there is some higher truth, one that requires us only to open our consciences to hear it.
Taking away that higher moral truth takes a certain beauty away.
Darwin took away any notions of biological purpose, and Nietzsche―at least with one of his points that Foucault understood―showed us that there is no moral truth beyond its existence.
But we could also argue that Darwin gave us quite a bit in return. He took away biological purpose but gave us an understanding our past and future.
Paleontologists gave us dinosaurs through this Darwinian understanding, and geneticists employ Darwinian thinking in the hopes of understanding and curing diseases.
And Nietzsche, with the help of Foucault―
Nietzsche and Foucault stripped the world of any artificial moral foundation, so that we can rebuild the world with a morality that makes rational sense, or at least comes as close as it can.
And we should embrace this line of thinking, and make a centralized document that shows right and wrong not necessarily the way it is, but the way it should be.
This Moral Constitution would not be legally binding, but would serve as a guiding light for the future, and would allow a voice to all those who believe there are rights and wrongs that the world does not yet see.
Darwin took away our mythological foundations, and Nietzsche and Foucault showed us that the world is ours.
We should take control of this. There will still be only one arguable moral truth after this―It is what it is.
But if we take control of right and wrong, that moral truth will be followed by―if not a truth, then an arguable opinion―
It is as it should be.
Jonathan Maas has a few books on Amazon, and you can contact him at Goodreads.com/JMaas
