The little triangle of conscience...

Editor Frank Miele gave his readers an excellent contrast (“Editor’s 2 Cents,” Sept. 22) between government by power (Hamilton: those in power know what’s best) or government by our collective conscience (Jefferson: the people know what’s best.) I vote for Jefferson over Hamilton.

But there are red flags about conscience, too. One is its corruptibility. We talk about a “seared conscience,” for instance, a conscience that is rendered inoperable or badly distorted by someone’s repeated disobedience to its checks. Go against some aspect of this natural law, this inborn faculty, long enough, or brainwash a person well enough, and a conscience that once agitated ceases to function.

My wife, Karen, was a substitute teacher in Polson. In a fifth-grade class, she talked about conscience using a Native-American word-picture: “We all have a little triangle inside that cranks around when we do something wrong, “ she said. “But if we ignore the pain caused by that turning triangle, pain caused by doing wrong, we will wear off the corners, and conscience no longer warns us. It will spin, but it no longer disturbs, no longer can helps us.”

After class a student asked,  “What do I do if all my corners are worn off?” Her response: “Stop doing what you know is wrong, and the corners of the triangle will grow back.”

Conscience can be seared, corrupted, deactivated, or its corners worn off. And not only individually. It can happen in groups of people, even in religious groups. It can happen to a nation. Is it happening in ours? Is the Pope Catholic?

By a systematic program of “progressive education” debunking natural law; by mocking and opposing the Judeo-Christian ethic and worldview; by pooh-poohing the idea of the spiritual dimensions and absolutes; by eliminating the idea of a Bible-based God; by giving adolescents a long vacation from morality and responsibility; in these ways are we wearing off the corners of the nation’s “conscience triangle”?

Conscience alone, then, can be an inadequate guide to morality. But there is another guide, less corrupted (but still “brain-washable”), a much better guide to right and wrong. The “Golden Rule” is based on this and not on conscience. “Do unto others as you would like them to do to you,” is the most consistent ethical injunction across history’s cultures. Jesus Christ stated it most clearly. Some call it “The Judicial Sentiment,” our sense of judging. Judges and juries ask those “in the dock”, “Would YOU want done to YOU what you did to HIM?” The question is not based on conscience, but on the judicial sentiment, the golden rule.

A practical joker, say, finds it funny to rumple someone’s hair. But if HIS hair is rumpled, it feels far different. (Boy, what an antiquated illustration! Everyone today goes around with rumpled hair!) But kick in an example from the realm of torture, or dropping a bunch of bombs on a country: Would we want the Russians, the Chinese, the radical Islamists doing that to us? Sure didn’t like 9-11 and the Twin Towers, did we? We have spent billions trying to convince al-Qaida and the radical jihadists, and now Assad, that his conscience should be screaming, as should his “judicial sentiment.” But in that country, as was so tragically demonstrated in Germany, even the corners of the “judicial sentiment” are worn off. Assad and his supporters must not care if they would be treated like they are treating others.

Conscience has to have a foundation. Some see it as a wonderful gift of God, a guardian of morality, justice, and decency in the world, even a testimony to the existence of God. But others see it as NOT coming from outside humanity, NOT founded on any God, or placed in our nature by Him. No, for them it is only a collection of social mores, determined by the vote of the people, or parents or churches or universities or legislatures or supreme courts. Since those influences are different from nation to nation and culture to culture, these people feel conscience is only taught, and the sooner we get the kids under the proper “social construct” the better.

Is it disturbing to you when so many voters of our nation, to say nothing of highly placed leaders and opinion-makers, are doing things and deciding issues of such huge importance when their little internal triangle appears to be rendered useless?

So, with the corners of our conscience worn off, individually or nationally, how do we get them back?  When we ourselves are doing things against our own conscience or even our “judicial sentiment,” how is this corruption corrected?

Any suggestions?

Finch is a resident of Lakeside.