Double Edged Sword

Morals, the line that is thought to divide wrong and right, what’s respectable and what’s inconsiderate, a line that, without, we couldn’t live as a society. But it’s also the thing that makes most look at the world in black and white. Looking back at the past and what humans are capable of, we definitely need morals. We are born with a sense of them and learn their significance as we grow up, but why are they important? A simple answer to that question would be that we would live in chaos without them, a complete catastrophe which can only lead to millions of deaths. Our morals and other human emotions, like empathy, keep that from happening. But morals are a double edged sword, that, like everything else, taken to an extent turns into a harmful thing, the Puritans are a good example of this. They had good intentions, but they took them to a point that, it would seem, only the perfect mold of a person was worthy of living. One mistake was all it took to get someone killed, and maybe not even a mistake but a lie that nobody could go up against; for defending themselves against the court or keeping quiet had the same fate. Society has far progressed since then, but is it really any better when having an opinion different from others, an opinion that could be considered polemical, can ruin someone? In the end, what’s better: a society oppressed by the government and people in power where no one can make a mistake or defend themselves; or one with so much ‘individualism’ that oppresses those who are seen as controversial to the majority just because of stigma? 

As complex as morality is, people seem to think they understand it. The truth is they didn’t and they still don’t. A few hundred years ago America’s society had a government that judged others for the smallest mistake. Some books like The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are proof that, no matter innocent or guilty, someone could meet their end any day. No one could go against the court and be seen as innocent: “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between” (Miller 87). No matter the argument or proof John Proctor had, the court would not budge. They would not listen to him. No evidence can prove his innocence since it was considered going against the court, and as Danforth said “No uncorrupted man shall fear this court” (Miller 91). They believed that no one should be scared of them if they were truly innocent, but they didn’t realize the fear they inflicted in the townspeople. Everyone was afraid of the court because once they were accused there was no way out of it, except for lying and admitting to their supposed crime. These examples are from the play written by Arthur Miller The Crucible. It is based on a true story that happened in 1692 in the Salem witch trials. Miller tells the story of how a seemingly innocent girl blames others for witchcraft and how these people were affected by being accused of a crime that was not theirs. Abbey, the antagonist of this story, craved power and when she got it she abused that position for as long as she could, bringing doom to the townspeople. No matter what the accused would say against her, she remained in power and was believed to be innocent in the eyes of the court. Because no one would question the accuser in court, no one would speak up and dismantle the truth. Proctor tries to prove his innocence by doubting Abbey, and, therefore, the court: “Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem— vengeance is walking Salem” (Miller 73).  From the moment he and his wife were declared witches Proctor tried to prove the court wrong, but he would not lie, he wouldn’t admit a lie for the court and shame his name, he refused to confess to witchcraft when he did not commit it. This brought him to his honorable death, where he ended up forgiving himself for a crime he truly committed, adultery. 

The way adultery was seen, and its punishment, because of religious morals brings The Scarlet Letter. A novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne that talks about a woman, Hester, and her sin, adultery. Hester’s character was wrongly judged. Her husband was believed to be dead, but society still punished her for finding a new lover. Nobody knew of Chillingworth’s true identity. The person believed to be an ex-captured physician was Hester’s ex-husband. Hester was forced to wear a letter ‘A’ on her bosom and suffer her ignominy because of it. Is it wrong that she found love after a loveless marriage? Nobody seemed to consider how unhappy she was with Prynne, or Chillingworth, the only thing they thought was right was to bring her sin to the light and shame her for the rest of her life: “’But she,-the naughty baggage,-little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!’” (Hawthorne 46). This was one of the few opinions people had on Hester not being executed. Nobody cared about her suffering, they cared about her punishment, and how the court was being too merciful with her. Hester never covered the letter, she wore it out for everyone to see it, to see her guilt and sin. 

These two books are an example of the Puritan society and how terrible it could be. It was full of judgemental people who only cared about religion, and while a lot of them shaped America to what it is today, they used religion as an excuse to punish in the name of God whoever they wanted. 

An example of how Puritans shaped America would be how the idea of a ‘salvation’ that they had has stuck through Americans after all these years: “The researchers found that the Americans –but not the Canadians– solved more anagrams with salvation on the mind. They worked harder” (Huston). Thinking that there is something out there to save us and give us redemption, while motivating others to follow the same rules, is simply ridiculous. If someone took the time to think about it, religion is just something that keeps humans going, that gives them a reason, but it’s not necessarily true. Thinking that out in the whole universe exists a being beyond human comprehension that is watching over a society, that is, looking at the bigger picture, less than a grain of sand, is foolish. While people can believe in this, to use it as an excuse to be immoral and think it’s right is something only a human being could do. Belief in God and religion–while at first it was supposed to be something good that helped guide people to the consequently ‘right path’– became the opposite of what it was intended to be. People used, and still use, religion as an excuse to hate, kill, harm others, and a political tool for control. An outdated book thousands of years old has brought spite in society one-too-many times. 

Moving on to three hundred years later, today’s society is not any better, and as individualist as it may seem, it’s not. Yes, we are more open minded and have more liberty to express ourselves, but what about deeds that are looked at as controversial? Just because something is polemical doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong. People criticize others for simply having different points of view than the majority. There’s a better definition of what’s wrong and what’s right, but for what is truly wrong no one moves a finger to change it. More people do something about opinions on the internet than about, for example, poverty. Morality is taken to an extent that it can hurt the other person. Society hides almost pushing someone towards committing suicide as holding them ‘accountable.’ Why not first hold accountable oneself before pushing it on others? 

The definition we have of good makes no exceptions. Today one can’t like somebody else’s art because of what the artist did in their life– an example could be Pablo Picasso’s art, famous for a reason, but someone can’t like the paintings without getting opinions about how they support abuse because Picasso used to abuse his wife– liking the products of others doesn’t mean agreeing with the actions they once took. On the internet, someone can hate on anyone else because of an old post they made when they were ten years old that, at the time, wasn’t considered ‘wrong’. It’s like we all should have the same opinions as the majority on everything or else who knows what they can do. It’s as David D. Hall said in “Peace, Love and Puritanism”: “In our society, liberty has become deeply problematic: more a matter of entitlement than of obligation to the whole” (Hall). The liberty which is granted to us now has become a problem, something being seen as bad could end a reputation in a matter of minutes. Taking morals to this extent is immoral and harmful, too, and humans can’t keep hiding it as ‘correcting’ someone else for having a different opinion. It is as Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his essay “Self-Reliance”: “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members” (Emerson). Society has always been, and will always be, immoral, just by seeing the way it works today and how it worked back then. The way the system works is to suppress others, whether the intention of it matters or not. The true minority is not taken into consideration when building society because humans don’t care for the people who are considered wrong, or bad, and don’t want to look at the situations more deeply than just the superficial. Nobody asked how someone repressed would be in the system, because repressed and controversial people are not supposed to exist in the small-minded person’s world who built this society: “Human nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! … They believe that a social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organize all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker than any living process!…The living soul demands life; the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics” (Dostoyevsky 263).  Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote this in his book Crime and Punishment This line, taken out of the book’s context, speaks for itself. The system that was created is a fraud. Humans are animals after all, and our instincts can be harmful to everyone around us. There’s always somebody who’s not going to be willing to follow our governments, and no sort of punishment can mend that part of the human brain and soul. No amount of punishment can make this world a just one, there have been many examples of it throughout history when humans have tried and there will continue to be more. Despite the time the book was written, the 19th century, it still applies to today, human behavior will never change, it remains the same and no quantity of rules can fix that. 

Morality is a double edged sword because of all of this. Without it we commit atrocities that in the future are looked down upon as tragedies, but with too much of it our right to speak our minds slowly disappears. This is because of stigmas people have engraved in their minds and refuse to look at the other side of things. The boring world everyone looks at is in black and white colored glasses. Not a lot of people consider the many shades in between these two colors. By the time society becomes ideal and truly moral, the sun would have consumed the Earth and humanity would be, hopefully, dead. Because, after all, who are we to decide what’s wrong and right?