And now for something completely different...
"...for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." said HAMLET in Act II, Scene II of the classic play of the same name. If that's true then we're all in trouble - and here's why. Without a recognised standard of what's good or bad, right or wrong, society stands on the brink of chaos. Another old saying, "One man's meat is another man's poison!" is a different way of saying the same thing.
Someone once told me that somewhere in Africa, there are tribes where fathers deflower their daughters (or perhaps it was uncles and nieces, I forget which) at around the age of 11-13. They don't regard it as being bad, wrong, or evil, and don't have the same attitude towards it as you and I do. In fact, not wishing to be crude, they actually think of it as 'sex education'. Does the fact that they don't consider themselves to be doing anything wrong make it right? I'd say no.
There's a huge outcry in sections of the media at the moment about female circumcision - also called female genital mutilation. It sounds awful, though I entertain similar reservations about male circumcision, to be honest. Some cultures have been performing these rituals for centuries and don't see anything wrong about them, but does being a tradition with apparently no moral stigma within the societies that indulge in such practices automatically make them right or acceptable? I'd say not necessarily so.
Dramatic as it may sound, society is under threat. All around are cries for the legalisation of drugs, government approved (and taxed) brothels, the lowering of the age of consent (to 13 - and that's just for starters), and all the standards to which society once aspired are seemingly being rejected wholesale. After all, runs the argument, things are only bad if you think they are, so if you think something is good, why should you be denied it simply because 'narrow-minded' or unenlightened people disapprove?
I can't believe that people actually fall for such warped 'logic'. For example, legalising drugs wouldn't take them out of the hands of criminals, it would merely supply them with a 'legitimate' business through which to launder profits from other illegal activities (and fund them). Having state-approved brothels wouldn't protect all prostitutes from disease or attack, because there are always those (within all sections of society) who object, on 'principle', to declaring their income and having to pay tax on it, who would operate outside of such 'licensed' premises and go it alone.
Some people, it seems, believe that the most effective way to win the fight against crime is to abolish the very concept of criminality - legalise everything, that's their solution. If we cease to think of things as bad, wrong or evil, then they're not - so there's no need to prosecute anyone for anything, is there? Ridiculous, isn't it? Not everything is subjective, and when it comes to the nature of good and evil, right and wrong, society is far better served when it takes an objective stance on the subject. When 'anything goes', usually everything goes - morals, ethics, standards, the lot! And that's never a good thing, I've found.
Agree? Disagree? Couldn't care less? The comments section, as always, awaits your response (if any)!
