Ethical Houston

  In a recent PBS program entitled “The Emotional Self—Family, Friends and Lovers” several studies were sited concerning children’s bonding to caregivers being crucial for future relationships with others.  In particular several studies of children raised in Russian orphanages where the children received little adult holding and love, showed that the children had great difficulty in developing a trust in others as well as a disassociation with the world in general.  In other words, there was little interaction and trust.  One of the themes in previous articles is that there is a mutual relationship and understanding of what ethical standards will be followed by each party or the society will be bound.  Morality is just that—a moral compass, whereas ethics is more systemic and may not always reflect the morality of groups within the culture.  The program went on to say that humans are hard wired to connect.  Ethics is one way a society in general defines the standards by which we will connect. Ethics is one way that we define our roles in these trust relationships.  If trust does not exist, it is difficult to relate.

Think about when you were in elementary school.  If a group of you were playing kickball and someone broke a rule, if would often result in either some of the players leaving the game or the ostracizing of one of the players or someone picking up their ball, leaving, thereby breaking up the game.  The infraction was a breach of the implied ethics of the game.  If you can remember being a part of something like this, you may also remember how you felt.  For me, it was a feeling of betrayal by the person who broke the rule.  I may not have totally broke off the friendship, but at least I did not allow myself to be put in the same vulnerable situation.  I also learned some empathy for others who suffered injustice.  Unfortunately, not all children internalize these experiences and generalize them to their relationships with others. Trust is learned from birth.  In a healthy human relationship, I learn that when I cry someone would come to feed me, change me or meet my need to be held and comforted.  I came to trust that those needs would be met by my mother or father.  As I became older I became either trustful or distrustful of other people in my life to be consistent and trustworthy.  Hopefully, I also learn that it’s okay not to be the center of the universe and that others rights and feelings are important, not only for them, but for me too.

 But along the way, we all have to recognize that we are not the center of the universe and that we don’t make all the rules.  I am not entitled to do things only my way.  As a result I have to adhere to the standards of others.  Some people, throughout their whole life, feel entitled to doing things their way and that ethics, morals, and laws only pertain to other.  They have no covenant with others.  They may adhere to the rules for a while until they decide for whatever reason that those rules are not in their interest, so they set up their own rules, which most often are about them and them alone.  Whether this action is a result of too much permissiveness in childhood or an anomaly in hardwiring or a lack of bonding in early development is not clear, but the way we are raised and nurtured plays a part in the way we respond to the rules and conventions of the culture. 

 This is why it is so important to both nurture children to trust in the world through the love of parents and caregivers, but to also teach children beginning at an early age, the difference in right and wrong, the reciprocal nature of relationships, and to empathize with others  and how to evaluate ethical dichotomies. As we become adults, we have the opportunity to develop deeper and more intense relationships.  The same principles will apply as with children.  How do I share, how do I get my own needs met, and what role does empathy play in these relationships.

 Childhood family relationships are one way that we learn these roles.  School is another. And our faith traditions are another.  To me our faith traditions are a method that in today’s pluralistic society is of utmost importance; to be able to see that God is both a loving God and that God has laws, that if broken result in consequences.  These consequences are not acts of punishment, but that come about as a result of our own actions in a universe of natural laws.  These natural laws are not just physical laws.  They are also laws of relationships.   We don’t always understand these laws but ut none the less, we are bound by them. 

 But even when we break God’s laws we can live in the assurance that through grace we can start over in our quest for connection.  We do not have to be bound by the act; that God is always with us and loves us unconditionally.  That’s a difficult concept for us all.  Again, remember when you were a small child and you did something that you shouldn’t have.  When scolded by your parent you might have said, “mama, you don’t love me anymore.”  And if your mother were a wise mother she might have responded, “no honey, I’ll always love you.  I just don’t like what you did.”  That affirmation has to be repeated over and over so that we see the conceptual dissonance between love and non love. 

 The reinforcement of unconditional love helps us understand that there are things that are constant. Within the world of the moral and ethical constants are important, even though we may not fully understand them.  When, at our core we have these constants it gives us a grounding that makes connecting to one another and to ethical standards easier, even if the constants sometimes seem blurry.  Concepts such as empathy, rationality, and justice override and over shadow more mundane acts of purification and outward adherence.  Jesus said in Matt. 23: 25-26 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee!  First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”  Ethics is more than a set of rigid rules.  Ethics and morality reside in the core of our being.