Mariupol mon amour: morality large and small

We are having some trouble with the prospect of living together. We spent a couple of weeks together and tried to adapt to each other’s ways. We were both very accommodating, but still there were limits and there were frictions. She sums it up in this way: “You are very scheduled. I can’t live according to a schedule. I do things spontaneously.” 

I can’t help but hear a tinge of criticism when she tells me this. Is that in her voice, or is it only in my head? Is her intention to express disapproval, or am I just defensive and paranoid? 

I view moralism as the bane of human relations. The problem with moralism is that it is wholly superfluous but adds conflict. Thus: It could be a simple fact that my beloved prefers what she calls a spontaneous lifestyle to my much more structured lifestyle. This is itself a source of friction, but it is at base a practical problem calling for a solution – preferably a joint solution, especially between partners, calling for brainstorming, experimenting, potentially accommodation, negotiation, sacrifice, compromise. Over time the problem might even simply disappear, either because of a natural convergence, or one “side” or the other simply no longer being bothered by the discrepancy. 

But all of those avenues to resolution are blocked or impeded by the moral overlay that adds: “Your way of living is bad. It’s wrong. Mine is the correct (or proper or better) way to live.” Once this objective patina is applied, what was a simple practical problem in need of a solution becomes an intractable disagreement. In order for there to be some sacrifice or accommodation etc. one person would, in addition, have to swallow some ego. That is the most difficult thing in the world for most human beings to do. And, as I say, it is a wholly unnecessary obstacle being placed in the way of finding a solution, which may already involve some effort and sacrifice to achieve. It is, as it were, the proverbial adding of insult to injury. “Change your lifestyle to mine, and by the way you’re a schmuck.” 

The insult, the conflict only escalates. Thus, if my “scheduled” existence is being downgraded relative to her “spontaneous” one, I will likely be prompted to reply in kind. Thus: “I don’t think your lifestyle is spontaneous. I think it’s just a mess and inefficient. You never get done the things you want to get done! You always end up rushing, anxious, etc. My lifestyle is rational and time-tested.” And so on. Now she is riled in the same way I was. So of course we are even further from resolution, with two bruised egos instead of just one. 

Now, it is certainly possible, “in theory,” as it were, for us to exchange opinions about the relative advantages and disadvantages of our respective lifestyles, even in an effort at mutual persuasion. That’s just being rational. The problem is only when these are given or taken with a moral tinge or tone (not to mention explicitly moral judgments, like “The way you live is wrong”). Then the rational exchange becomes compromised by lack of respect, for one is in effect insulting or being insulted by the other. This in turn is likely to raise hackles, which in turn engenders conflict and impedes resolution. So I say: Scrap the moralism. 

But this project, even if correctly intentioned, itself presents practical problems. As already mentioned, there is sometimes the question of whether moralism is actually present or is only being hallucinated. A second problem is that, if it is actually present, how can it be addressed without introducing yet more moralism? Meta-moralism, you might call it. And here too it might be real or imagined. Thus: Suppose I suggest to my beloved that it would be helpful if she approached our differences simply as a (not necessarily simple) practical problem without a moral overlay. How can I prevent her taking this as a moral criticism? For that matter, how can I prevent myself making it as a moral criticism? 

Well, here too I suppose the key is to view these problems as practical problems in need of a solution. But if my beloved is a pure moralist – unlike myself, who am an adulterated moralist, that is, someone whose unreflective responses are moralistic but who, on refection, rejects them – then it would seem to be entirely up to me to figure out and implement a solution to the meta-problem, or failing that, the substantive problem. And I may not be up to the task of doing this by myself. 

There is of course a deeper problem as well, namely, whether the amoralism I have embraced is truly workable or desirable to begin with (even by my own subjective lights in light of the evidence). The example that is uppermost on millions of minds as I write is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.[1] Speaking for myself, but I trust also for many of my readers, what Putin has done and is continuing to do with ever greater ferocity is the epitome of evil. There is simply no other way to put it adequately. Furthermore he himself is the epitome of evil, or insanity, or self-delusion, etc. 

            But as an amoralist I make the same arguments as always: Viewing Putin and his actions in this way, with this “moral overlay,” only impedes finding a solution to what remains, at base, a practical problem – a huge, messy, bloody practical problem, but a practical problem all the same. Neither praying to God nor assigning moral blame is going to resolve it. But invoking the holy, righteous cause surely can inflame it, and would appear to be doing so … on both sides. For it takes two to tangle as well as tango. 

            What impresses, and amazes me, is that someone like Ukrainian President Zelenskyy can at one and the same time (at the time I am writing) rally his people to holy war and call on Putin for face-to face talks to negotiate an end to the conflict. This I guess is what it takes to be a true leader in wartime. Thus, at one and the same time Zelenskyy can condemn his nemesis in the starkest moral terms and yet be prepared to meet him for negotiations on purely practical terms. 

Of course the danger is that the former may preclude the latter, by making it politically impossible to reconcile his own crusaders, whom he has incited, to any kind of compromise with the devil incarnate, or by disincentivizing the other party, Putin, to countenance making any concessions. With regard to the latter, Zelenskyy must be counting on Putin to be the sort of person who recognizes he can be hurt by sticks and stones (practical measures like sanctions and armed resistance and political pressure) but is unaffected by names (moral attributions). 

It would not be correct, note well, to conclude that Putin has no conscience. I assume he has, like any moralist (or adulterated amoralist). It’s just that, by his moral lights, he is fighting for a just cause. That’s part of the problem. If he were making his decisions based purely on practical considerations and calculations, he would, presumably, provided he were rational and undeluded, be more open to ending this war (or not having started it), given its outrageous costs and risks of all kinds. 

On the third paw, if his aims have been guided by a very deep desire to strive for geopolitical dominance at whatever cost and even the risk of defeat, nothing short of his demise or overthrow would end the war. Amoralism does not promise a conflict-free world. It only offers the hope of ameliorating conflict in the world. And even that is on the assumption that conflict tends to lessen the prospects of people’s net desire satisfaction, and that people are capable of recognizing this sufficiently to undergo an attitudinal change.

[1] Like Newton and the apple: I see the local as manifesting and revealing the same principles as in the larger world. Except here it is not the physical world I am writing about but the world of interpersonal relations, both individual and social (and thus my title for this essay).

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