The world is complex and our
knowledge of it is small.  Each and
every one of us benefits from knowledge we do not have used by people we do not
know.  Virtually nothing we “know”
is based on first hand experience. 
In terms of our awareness of our complex environment we may be ahead of
a termite’s awareness of hers, but not by much.  Perhaps mostly we are ahead in our awareness that our
environment is complex and if we are honest with ourselves, that we know little
about it.

But there is one other important difference
between ourselves and a termite. 

We are able to care about beings
who are of no use to us; both people and other beings.  So far as I know, the empathetic sphere
of even the most moral of animals, such as elephants and chimpanzees, is
connected to their personal experience of another.  Perhaps because of our greater ability to abstract, people
are able to care about others whom they will never meet and who will do nothing
to help them personally.  Think of
the motives behind most of us who donated to Haiti after the quake, or who
support the integrity of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge while not ever
expecting to visit it.

It is our expanded capacity to
care for others that most distinguishes ourselves as a life form.  Intelligence is highly overrated, and
as we learn more, if we are honest, we also become progressively more aware of
what we do not know. Expanding the heart has no such internal paradox.

Other animals make tools, the
supposed mark of human distinctiveness I learned about when young.  Now we also know that other animals can
learn simple English. Culture also exists among animals.  All these time-honored marks of human
distinctiveness have broken down.

I think that is good.

But one remains: our ability to
practice genuine care for others simply because they are sentient beings and
without regard to their usefulness to us. 
Whether we call them love, care, empathy, compassion, or even simple
respect, these qualities are open ended. 
They have no internal paradox, as does knowledge and learning.  They can extend indefinitely.  In addition, the more we practice them
the more we encourage their being practiced by other people.

And these qualities provide us a
pretty good way to navigate in a world where if we are honest with ourselves,
we know very very little. 

Here is perhaps the greatest
practical value of religion: it situates our capacity to love, care for, and
respect others within a context that tells us it matters.  In doing so, religion can strengthen us
when we are feeling weak. (Any so-called ‘religion’ that does not do this
scarcely deserves the name.) 

I was led to this chain of
thought when I read about a recent panel at the libertarian CATO Institute  featuring three Republican Congressmen discussing whether the attack on Iraq
was a mistake.  One had initially
voted against the war, one for it, and one was not in Congress at the time, but
based on his subsequent behavior likely would have initially supported American
aggression.

All agreed it was a mistake, nor could they mention the name of
any Republican in Congress who thought otherwise. As Grover Norquist pointed
out, that’s 100% who feel it was an error.  Not that many have the integrity to say it out loud. All
continue to vote to support the war, except for Jimmy Duncan, one of three
Republicans who had opposed it. 
For nearly all loyalty to party trumped refusing to support mass
killing. A big majority of Democrats are not any better.

The nihilism that infects almost
all ‘conservatives’ and a great many others as well deprives them of the
strength to exhibit their most human qualities.  They do not have the courage of their hearts.  They fall far short of their human
potentials, potentials that do not require great learning or wealth to
manifest.  When they abandon these
qualities, they are left with ego and power alone as guides through a complex
world.

When I spoke out against the war
before we attacked, I was pretty sure that the charges against Saddam Hussein,
bad as he was, were trumped up.  I
was sure Bush was lying to us.  I
was very sure that Iraq would not become a free democratic society in my
lifetime, and certainly not because of anything we could do “for” the
Iraqis.  And finally, I knew that our
leaders would kill huge numbers of innocent Iraqis and Americans by attacking.  It was my awareness of the massive
crimes about to be unleashed in our name that gave me the courage to speak out
repeatedly against the looming war. But I admitted there might be WMDs in Iraq, though based on what I had gleaned
from the reports I doubted it.  (At
the time none of us knew of Iraq’s real reason for being somewhat evasive on
the issue.  But we were well aware
of the weakness of Bush’s arguments that they did.) 

When the evidence points one way
or another, basic morality provides a compass more likely to be right than
wrong.  Acting from a position of
greater care is less likely to be mistaken than acting from a position of less
care.  Everything that has happened
to American society since those crimes against the Iraqi people were
implemented has shown that when we abandon our most human capacities and give
ourselves over to ego and power, the direction is down hill. It is an old
story.  Thucydides described it,
and a somewhat similar Athenian degeneration into nihilism, in his history of
the Peloponnesian War. I challenge any reader to show how this episode of
deliberate murder is in any sense less depraved  than the actions by Nazis or
Communists.  Or this one where
women were murdered and then apparently had the bullets dug out of their
bodies, and their deaths blamed on honor killings.  More background about NATO’s atrocities and the constant cover-ups can be found
via Glenn Greenwald. 

Only a country’s moral fiber can
prevent such outcomes, and America’s elected representatives, the media, and a
great many Americans despite all their talk of ‘values,’ did not have it.  Nor do they seem yet to have found a
moral compass.  Hopefully these
latest atrocities might finally reach and touch the withered hearts of our
fellow citizens. There has to be a time when decent people say “enough!” I
think this is it.