“Right” On

I was recently moved to the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments while listening to a radio advertisement. (These are, by the way, not recommended activities while driving a 5000 lb vehicle – it, um, interferes with safe driving.)

The ad in question was for a firm that “freed” deeply indebted people from the “burden” of their debts. The money quote that induced said poor driving practices was something along the lines of, “You have a right to be debt- and worry-free.”

Oh really? So, I guess by extension, I have a “right” to own a home, car, flatscreen TV, boat, vacation villa, all of which I cannot afford? After all, if I have a “right” to be debt-free, then it follows easily that I need not be overly concerned about incurring the debt in the first place.

Absurd? Of course. What is most troubling here, though, is that the people peddling this “service” are doing so knowing full well that there is an audience for their sophistry. In a sane, ethical, and thoughtful society, such claims could never get traction. An advertisement like this would be jeered for the moral corruption that it represents. But a good part of “modern society” is so fundamentally ethically debauched, that this sort of thing passes almost without comment.

So how, exactly, did we become so morally numb? What is it about free people that causes us to buy into utter nonsense when we really do know better? I’d suggest three root causes:

• As Western society developed, there was a shifting emphasis on just what living was supposed to accomplish. In the early days, living was defined primarily by survival activities like reproducing, fishing, farming, and building. As the blessings of Liberty began to produce wealth – in some cases, great wealth – we looked at ourselves and began to think about living our lives to “do good”. A poor man doesn’t have time for charity. Charity is a rich man’s hobby. Andrew Carnegie had the time and wealth to do this on a scale that Thomas Jefferson, for example, could not have contemplated. But in the 2oth century especially, we’ve come to see life as a quest for pleasure, contentment, meaning, and even just wealth itself. Notions like honor, truth, and goodness have become almost entirely overshadowed by “how I feel about things“. Crushing debt makes me feel bad. I can’t possibly allow that to happen – feeling bad is the only “sin” left in our narcissistic culture. Clearly, anything that remediates my feeling bad is a “good” thing and thus ought to be pursued with all haste and vigor.

• Most people are personally pretty honest. If you drop your wallet on the street, most folks will happily return it to you. But the same honest citizen manages to have moral amnesia when the victim is anonymous. The same wallet-returning saint will often have no problem commiting a minor act of larceny when the target is a faceless corporation, for example. The claimed “right to be debt-free” works precisely because it is some “evil” bank or lending institution that will suffer the consequences. In actual fact, of course, we all pick up the tab for bad debt in the form of higher prices. But “we all” is just as anonymous as “the eeevil banker” and thus similarly fair game to be defrauded.

• For the better part of 300 years, we’ve been busy enjoying the blessings of Liberty bestowed upon us by Locke, Jefferson, Smith, and all the rest of the Dead White European thinkers. In so doing, we’ve mostly stopped thinking about just why this all works. In particular, we have a deeply polluted notion of “rights”. In today’s vernacular, a “right” is anything I desire highly. According to the culture-at-large, I have a “right” not only to not pay my debts, but also to a “quality” education, “decent” living conditions, and “good” healthcare. At this rate, I shortly expect to be granted the “right” to a Ferrari and a mansion.

Meanwhile, back in Reality, we really have only one real “right” – We have the right to that which we have earned or what someone will voluntarily donate to us. Anything else is simply fraud. Worse still, the getting of something other than what we have earned pretty much always involves the use of threat or force. Here again, we see the convenient distinction between personal and anonymous morality. A good many “decent” citizens – who would never contemplate violating their neighbors’ property or stealing from them directly – think nothing about voting in laws that have essentially the same effect. Do you want a better school for your children you cannot possibly afford? Vote in higher property taxes. ‘Don’t like what you pay for prescriptions? Pass a law that has “government” (aka “All the rest of us”) pick up the tab. Does your neighbor’s choice of vice offend you? Well, get together with the rest of the mob and make those activities illegal. The list is endless and grows daily. Until and unless we reclaim the intellectual traditions of the Enlightenment and once again declare ourselves to be both free and honest, we will continue to drown in the moral abyss that is our culture.