Being Good

There's always a moment at the Christmas party where Santa says: "Have you been good this year?" and everyone laughs. If I were forced on to Santa's knee and directly asked this question I think I would say "define good". This would probably disqualify me from presents.

Actually the smart arse who says "define good" turns out to be the problem that Professor Blackburn only just disposes of in his book Being Good. He satisfactorily gets us to the point where we can say that there is a need in human society for rules governing behaviour, but he can't get us to the point where we can make these rules universal without a bit of fudging. The closest he gets is Kant who suggested that we test each of our rules as if it were going to be applied universally. If we could live with the rule as a universal principle then it is probably a good rule.

Of course there are all kinds of potential problems around this. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fine and noble thing on the whole, and it is very brave to put some of these things down on paper, but when you start to poke even the simplest of the rights you end up with all kinds of debates. Take the third article:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person

I couldn't agree more. Of course there are the small problems of abortion, euthanasia, war, and capital punishment to be negotiated. Further, what about the problem of rights that require other people to give up something? If everyone has the right to life, and the right to medical care (Article 25) then this means someone else has to give up a portion of limited resources to pay for the liver transplant of an elderly alcoholic.

Personally I agree with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in entirety, and find this sort of intellectual hair-splitting distasteful. I also think that countries that criticise the Declaration as being Western, or disrespectful to Islam, or whatever, are... well, not to sugar coat it, wrong. Who can disagree with this: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood? Notice that it doesn't say we are all equal in ability, just that we are equal in dignity. Any qualification on that equality is wrong.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems to me a good balance between rights and responsibilities. For every right that is stated you must imagine the unstated responsibility that goes with it. It is not simply a list of things that we should feel we are owed, because every right has an unspoken responsibility, and, I feel, a duty attached to it. Everyone has the right to life, and so we therefore have a responsibility not to take life, and a duty to speak out when we see this right threatened for others. The rights of the individual are really the rights of the individual within a community, and the community in this case is supposed to be the brotherhood of man. Relativity taken to its conclusion works the other way and becomes the subjectivity of the individual, alone, proclaiming their opinions to no one. Being a person is being a member of a group. I will let KC speak for me here:

"At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I'm sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed that much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I beleive in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.... I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs."

Kenneth Clark

I think it must been horrendously unfashionable to love Kenneth Clark, but I unashamedly do, and this statement from the end of his fantastic series Civilisation is something that means a lot to me. The end of this series is actually somewhat pessimistic. He quotes the following portion of the Yeat's poem Second Coming,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

For Kenneth Clark in the 1970s it seemed that there was no centre, and it can seem that way now too. We have a centre though if we choose to remember it. The best of civilisations have maintained themselves through tolerance, and tolerance is about brotherhood and brotherhood is about love. This is very hard work. It is much easier to practise fanaticism. Sometimes I am pretty intolerant. Sometimes it is just easier to be rude, meanspirited and petty, even to people I love. Mr. Munro Leaf had this to say in his children's book Manners Can Be Fun,

Very often the people we like most live in the same house with us. We see them so often we sometimes forget to be as nice to them as we are to others. Most of the time it is just because we do not think of it.

The society we want, and the centre we crave is in our home and with our family. This might be why the story of Christmas has some resonance still. I have not always been good this year and I ask your forgiveness. There is always today, and renewing ourselves.