Values over Beliefs?

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” (Confucius). Will this mean the same thing for every person to walk the Earth? Or will it have various different meanings to interpret? One thing that should draw every human being’s attention is the main idea of morality. What is morality, honestly it depends on who is asked because answers will vary by each person.  By definition, morality is “the set of standards that enable people to live cooperatively in groups” (“What Is Morality”). Morality almost sounds like another version of empathy; they both work hand in hand and share somewhat of the same main idea. Empathy is when one senses another person’s emotion as their own. Since society has developed more as a whole towards inclusiveness, the real question is: Are we more moral than we were in the 17th century or does society as a whole just believe that we are? While we are more sensitive today as an inclusive society, we still are not fundamentally prepared to discuss how problems from the 17th century have not been fully resolved. As evidenced by the American Literature we have produced as a reflection of society, our criminal justice system, specifically the death penalty, and finally the innate human quality of passing judgement reveal our nasty true colors, and the stagnancy of our morality. 

Further points that we are still not as moral as we should be are expressed in The Crucible. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play that was produced in the 1950’s. The scenes in the story are focused on the time period around the 17th century. The Crucible is an inside point of view from the people that lived in the 17th century throughout the numerous trials and accusations. The story shows the peculiar ways people acted out of fear instead of looking at the true evidence and facts they had which points directly to McCarthyism. McCarthyism started with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s, he produced numerous accusations and investigations about multiple government departments and continuously questioned many suspected witnesses about connections with communists. Even though he never had found anyone guilty, he still persisted and continued to make accusations; just being accused of associating with the communists was enough for multiple people to lose their jobs and houses. This idea of McCarthyism was well demonstrated throughout the story in many direct and indirect ways. When all of the suspects on trial for witchcraft start accusing multiple other people of associating with the Devil, it reflects and circles around the idea of McCarthyism. Even though the girls from the Crucible know they are lying, they proceed to accuse people to stay in power and at the center of everyone’s attention.
“ Giles: He’ll lay in jail if I give his name!
Hawthorne: This is contempt of the court, Mr. Danforth!
Danforth, to avoid that: You will surely tell us the name.
Giles: I will not give you no name. I mentioned my wife’s name once and I’ll burn in hell long enough for that. I stand mute.” (Miller 97). Danforth and Hawthorne are two authority figures we see throughout the trials and imprisonments of all of these innocent people. They often used their power to try and make other people in the village accuse multiple others. For example, they would threaten Giles when he wouldn’t tell them who it was who told him about Putnam’s plans to accuse people of witchcraft just to inherit their land by force. The Salem witch trials was a horrific event that happened in history. Thankfully nothing relating to that would ever repeat itself… right? Well wrong, once again the human race hasn’t learned from their mistakes. Although we haven’t had a repeat of multiple people being hanged, we have had another horrific tragedy; instead of being hanged for a false accusation, people were being extinguished by the thousands because of their religion. Extinguished; not just killed. They were treated so inhumanly that they were killed the same way roaches were by an exterminator. The Crucible was written almost ten years after WWII, which means anyone reading it should have been able to draw a direct line from the 17th century to the 1940’s and be able to find similar moral injustices, this is not what we want. This suggests how far we still need to progress as a society. A holocaust survivor and author, Elie Wiesel, was chosen to place a wreath at the memorial of the Salem witches; this has a big significance, there is a connection between these two points of history; it is a very important step that leaders, governments, and people should head in the direction of.

Capital punishment seems like a step backwards, does it not? As a more inclusive and understanding society that we stand by today should we even have the death penalty? Who gives anyone the right to take away a person’s right to live? If we just end up killing a person for a crime they committed, are we really fixing the problem? Or are we just covering up a problem we think is too challenging? The purpose of a prison is rehabilitation, meaning the system should be trying to help the individual and get them ready to go back into the real world, without repeating a crime or progressing in a negative way. Society likes to think that we are more moral than we were in Puritan times because, but in reality how moral is capital punishment? No matter the kind of capital punishment it is a horrendous way to die. To die by lethal injection has often been considered “painless and quick” but this however is not the case. After doing a repeat of studies, autopsies from lethal injection inmates reveal that their lungs were twice the amount of weight of a normal human. The autopsy reports started to find a substance called pulmonary edema in the airways of the inmates, which means they were still alive and trying to breathe while slowly suffocating to death by the fluid filling in their lungs. There are three sets of drugs given during lethal injection, the first one is anesthesia, the second one paralyzes them, and the third one stops the heart. “All medical witnesses to describe pulmonary edema agreed it was painful, both physically and emotionally, inducing a sense of drowning and the attendant panic and terror, much as would occur with the torture tactic known as waterboarding,” Magistrate Judge Michael Merz says. (“Gasping For Air: Autopsies Reveal Troubling Effects Of Lethal Injection”). Torture tactic… should we as American’s in the twenty first century be allowing capital punishment if it’s described like a tactic for torture? Is that morally correct or does it start to bring us back to our Puritanic roots. The Puritans often tortured people and called it a “punishment for their crimes” by doing things such as stoning people and pressing them; much like like capital punishment. In just twenty years the statistics of the death penalty have changed dramatically. In 2000 there were about 220 deaths by capital punishment but in 2020 there were about 20, (“Death Penalty Information Center 2020 Year End Report”). This still has room for dramatic improvement. Twenty- seven out of fifty states allow the execution of inmates if found guilty and placed on death row. That is over half of the country. Capital punishment also varies on the judge and jury in the court that day. Race and ethnicity plays a big role in biased: “While white victims account for approximately one-half of all murder victims, 80% of all Capital cases involve white victims. Furthermore, as of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims,” (“Race and the Death Penalty”). Drastically more people of color were condemned to the death penalty for the same crime as white people were. Just by that statement, it reveals how skin color still, just like in the 17th century, matters even when we think we are acting in a just way. Our government is still racially corrupt even when trying to be fair. “The report shows that the federal death penalty, like its application in the states, is used disproportionately against people of color. Of the 18 prisoners currently on federal death row, 16 are either African-American, Hispanic or Asian. From 1995-2000, 80% of all the federal capital cases recommended by U.S. Attorneys to the Attorney General seeking the death penalty involved people of color. Even after review by the Attorney General, 72% of the cases approved for death penalty prosecution involved minority defendants.” (“Race and the Death Penalty”). This proves the states during a condemning of the death penalty is unjust and biased to a fuller extent towards people of color, demonstrating the ways humans judge and prosecute people without a good reason. We see the same integrated attitudes in the Crucible quote related to Tituba.

Judgement. Why do we fear it? Why do we personally judge if we know how it feels to be judged? Why does it come so naturally if we know it is wrong. You can thank the Puritans for that one. In the 17th century, Puritans believed they had very deep connections with God and morals.  Puritans often frowned upon socializing during your work because they believed that it would keep you from doing what God wanted them to do. This tendency and behavior, unfortunately, was passed down to Americans. Which is proved in multiple studies, one being by the psychologist Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks who “has found that Protestants — but not Catholics — become less sensitive to others’ emotions when reminded of work,” which could be a way of “possibly indicating a tendency to judge fraternizing as unproductive and unprofessional,” (“Still Puritan After All These Years”). Meaning even though society has tried to change themselves for the better, our roots still reside in us and continuously influence our lives. As a society, we love to say that in the 21st century, we are way more moral than in the 17th century just because society is more lenient and inclusive, but is this actually true? Are we more accepting because we are more moral or are we more accepting because it would be frowned upon to not accept and include someone? The fear of judgement is what changes many people’s emotions; if you don’t agree with the crowd you are more likely to stand out rather than fitting in. “People go to self-defeating lengths to elude the possibility of being negatively judged by others.” (Weber). As a society, we succumb to the majority rules state of mind. Therefore if you do not agree with someone but everyone else does, most people are unwilling to share their opinion. The same goes with judgement: if someone is being judged because they have a different style, no one steps in with a different opinion, showing how we are not as moral as we like to believe.

So are we actually as moral as we think? No! Have we made some improvements over the decades… yes. But that doesn’t mean we can stop our advancements; social changes can take years, decades, and even centuries to make an impact on people around the world. We may be a more inclusive society, but we still are still as judgemental as we have always been. Human nature always will override the worldly society.