Ends and Means

I grew up in the midst of the cold war, which for many of us was a clash between "godless communism" and democratic political systems organized around the judeo-christian tradition. The fact that such a division left out huge parts of the planet did not much concern us.

At the time I was taught (and learned) that the difference between them and us was they believed the end justifies the means. You could explain both fascists and commies by saying they were willing to do evil things if they believed in the importance of the ends achieved. Which is why we were better: we knew that the evil is evil, and no outcome excuses evil deeds.

So excuse me if, over the years, I've been a bit confused at the actions of some of those who define themselves, outspokenly, as christians. The so-called pro-life movement is one example: "violence against clinics, and against doctors, etc., is okay because: ..." --  you know the argument. Let me be clear, I do not say that all christians accept this reasoning. I do say that too many christians, especially those in positions of political influence and power (e.g., Randall Terry), do not make it clear that such logic is immoral and counter to their principles.

At the same time, I don't really think it should be only christians that reject the ends-justify-means formulation. From a humanist point of view, one big problem is that the ends are a promise; the means are the actions taking place in the present. If I'm being asked to trust in a promise I'm being asked to trust intentions, and I have no way to judge intentions. It's all about faith in another mortal. And mortals are inherently unknowable and therefor untrustworthy. So it's more realistic to judge actions on their own terms and leave intentions to individual meditation.

For instance, Dick Cheney et al. may have believed, even knew, that there really were WMDs in Iraq, no matter what the intelligence was saying. So invading Iraq, and incurring more than 4000 US dead, and many (200?) times that number of Iraqui dead, was OK because their intentions were good. Because intentions are as good as ends.

I have come to believe that the most important reason to deny ends-justifies-means is because it explicitly says that a superior moral position allows one to force acceptance by others. "I know what's best for you, so just do what I say." Which, while not only despots might say, is what despots always do say.

One of the other key lessons from growing up as a devout protestant (Lutheran) was that what differentiated christians from Old Testament believers (and other faiths) was the operation of choice. What made christianity meaningful, divine, a clear break from the past, is that it gives us the freedom and responsibility to choose belief. If one is coerced into righteous action, it is no different from sin. The ends are justified by the means.

When Christ commanded his followers to spread the Word, he did not say the evangelist's responsibility was to get everyone to believe. The charge to the faithful was to give a true accounting of the gospel, so that others could make the choice, the commitment, to follow. It is a way to make a believer consider his whole life an example of the power of the Word. Success would be measured by what happens on the inside, not the outside.

I have no doubt that my early upbringing in faith led me to be profoundly skeptical of organized christianity and any other belief expressed as a creed. I find almost all of them have been seduced by the desire to tell other people how to live. Religion becomes just another arena in which humans play out their lust for power. We give lip service to the idea that morality can't be legislated, and then we go try to do just that. And the US ends with up the highest total documented prison population in the world.

My early learnings have left me with the conviction, now tested by decades of experience in many different social settings, that freedom is better than coercion for forming constructive citizens, and building cultures (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.). My travels have also left me with the clear understanding that American culture does not (yet?) have the experience or vocabulary to fully deal with individual and cultural freedom. If it is a learning curve, we are ahead of many, but lag behind others.

There is also the very real possibility that human beings, as a group, will always swing between the dark sureties of faith, putting me squarely at the the center of the universe, and the unsettling brilliance of science, illuminating my insignificance in (and interconnectedness with) the vastness of the universe.

I suppose that sense of interconnectedness may be the most important thing I took away from my early experiences of faith. And it may the  thing I see the least of in most people who seem to connect to traditional belief. Are we all part of this universe (which I have come to think of as god), or are we each separate, vulnerable, estranged? Whichever reality I see, you have to find your own. That's what Jesus would do.