Survival requires that we change our moral compass!
Our moral compass and the underlying morality helps each of us determine how we think of right or wrong. It defines the principles that we use to a determine right from wrong or good from bad. My bias is toward a morality based on Christian beliefs about how we should treat people. I start from the premise that we’re all created equal in the eyes of the creator. Where do you start from? That my tribe equals right and if you aren’t a member of my tribe then you’re wrong?
This tribalistic point of view is where we started from during our hunter-gatherer days. When we weren’t able to find enough food for ourselves and our tribe then it was difficult to worry about others. However as time passed and we became more mobile our understanding of morality changed because we weren’t clear who our tribe was.
Unfortunately, we’re starting to rebuild a tribalism of sorts based on color, political labels, and any other way we can easily recognize individuals and classify them. For example, we have political conservatives and liberals; black, brown, and white races; Canadians, Australians, and Americans. The major issue with this is that unlike the period of our hunter-gatherer days we no longer are living in small groups that rely on each other for survival.
A New Morality of Inclusiveness
As we face major social and political problems in the world today, we can’t afford to amplify our differences and we need to become focused on a new morality of inclusiveness rather than the old one of a multifaceted set of moral structures. We are, first of all humans. It doesn’t matter what color our skin is, where we live, or what our political beliefs are. We’re all a part of the human race and it’s time we recognize this.
Society Based Morality
In a society based on moral structure, you can get a definition of right and wrong and good or bad based on the way the winds blow. We had the Roaring Twenties, the Trump era, the Moral Majority to name a few. Whatever country you grew up in you could come up with your own list.
But, as had been said before, “the times they’re a changing.” Regardless of whether you think societies morality is good or bad, it needs to change. We have to change our moral compass so that we can work together to solve our problems.
Your Personal Moral Compass
We can no longer afford personal morality that considers people worthless because of their skin color. We have to learn to get to know a person before we jump to a conclusion about what they believe. So, how do you develop this common morality.
Steps to building a common morality based on solving our world’s problems.
- Acknowledge that they’re worldwide problems not just local ones.
Some examples are hunger, medical help, climate change, and national boundaries.
2. Start or participate in dialogues among the diverse interests to find common ground.
3. Supplying shelter, food, and medical attention to everyone will require a major mindset change.
It’s beyond my abilities to identify all of the real barriers to dealing with problems like pandemics. There seems to have been little planning and execution of a worldwide attack on the virus. Similarly, whether the climate change is happening or not happening seems like a ridiculous question at this point. We should be focused on what we can do collectively to mitigate the effects.
4. Governance and economic structures will require a radical change if we’re going to attack the problems we’re facing with a united front.
The concept of farmers having to throw away food while people are starving is preposterous. But our current way of thinking about decisions is one of my economic good rather than what is good for the world.
The creation of castes based on who has money and who doesn’t is also getting in the way of finding ways to solve these problems.
5. Nationalism is a major barrier to solutions to our world problems as are ideologies.
These are going to be almost impossible to fix but we have to start changing our mindsets.
Big problems, like these, aren’t ones that will be solved in our lifetimes but we have to start changing our thinking so that eventually the world’s problems will be solved. My way of approaching insurmountable problems is from the optimistic point of view. I believe in this approach and encourage others to do so as well, because otherwise you will become despondent.
Changing our point of view is going to require incremental changes, almost imperceptible, that requires us to consider the bigger picture rather than our own little microcosm. So, let’s get started now!
