This morning’s news carries a story about permanent ink that isn’t. In context: a new brand of tattoo ink (developed under the name “Freedom 2″)contains specially formulated microbeads of pigment whichbreak down during a single laser treatment, permitting removal of tattoosthrough a reportedly less painful one-step process(as opposed to the current process of laser removal, which requires many excruciatingtreatments). The article also reports the primary drawback of Freedom 2 inks: they’re more costly than their permanent counterparts.
In other words, if you want something permanent that isn’t, it’s going to cost you – and people just don’t like paying more for the option.
In and of itself, I have no problem with easily-removable tattoo ink. If anything, I think the idea has merit (despite some clear marketing issues). My issue lies with the underlying argument – and theory – thatwould saywe don’t just need the ink, we need it to be just as cheap and readily available as the traditional kind, because nobody should have to live with a tattoo he or she doesn’t want, and nobody should have to sufferpain or high pricesin order to have a permanent tattoo removed. Do what you want, when you want, how you want, and don’t worry about the consequences because there shouldn’t be any.
In other words: “Everyone should be able to decide what is rightfor himself or herself, andthose choices should be free from costs and conseqences.”
Society now spends a remarkable amount of time, energy and money developing ways to insulate people from their own choices, and dedicates remarkably few resources to teaching people to make good choices in the first place. This makes sense, of course, if you start from the proposition that all choices are created equal.
Assuming I am the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong in my own life, andassuming Iam permitted to ignore both evidence and other people’s opinions when determining “right” and “wrong,” my choicesare – by definition – always right.
Assuming that people are naturally good, and assuming that naturally good beings are inclined to do good, my choices are – by definition – not only right but also good.
Assumingthat it’s wrong for people to suffer for doing good, I should never have to suffer as a result of my own decisions (which we have already established are good ones).
The problem, of course, is that only the first part of the last set of assumptions relies upon natural law (aka “reality”).
It is wrong for people to suffer as a result of good or appropriate behavior. (Note, however, that it’s also not uncommon.) The idea that someone would suffer punishment or pain as a result of good behavior violatesthe innate sense of justice common to all people (or at least all people whose consciences have not been seared to the point that they no longer recognize fundamental principles of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – but that’s another entry). Few people would argue this point.
The issue lies in the other assumptions. Working backward:
People are not the ultimate arbiters of individual right and wrong. The concept of natural law – which incorporates the idea that all people possess an innate, common understandingof right andwrong, justice and injustice – cannot coexist with theprinciple thateach personcandecide for himself what constitutes right and wrong in any given situation without regard to outside influences.
For example, if people should not suffer as a result of good or appropriate behavior, my decision to kick the child who just returned my lost puppy is not “right,” situationally or otherwise,because it conflicts with the first principle (not suffering as a result of kindness). The facts that I don’t like this particular child, that I think he needed a swift kick,and that Ihappen tolike kicking people are irrelevant. Those who accept fundamental principles of natural law – the idea that certain things are “just wrong” and others “just right” and that “everyone knows this is true” cannot then argue that each individual has the power to determine right and wrong on the basis of individual judgment and circumstances without creating an irreconcilable conflict.
The next phase of argument, of course, attempts to harmonize this conflict by stating that individuals can make these determinations because human beings are fundamentally good and inclined to do what is right. Sorry – that’s another non-starter. From the two year-old who hits his brother to get control over a favorite Matchbox Ferrari to the twenty-nine year-old who stealsa real Ferrari froma parking lot, people – individually and collectively – frequently place self-interest over moral right, particularly when circumstances suggest they can get away with doing so. The vast majority of people do not instinctively choose salads over ice cream, walking over taking the car, or work over play. They do so, as a rule, only after evaluating the choices and making an objective determination about the relative merits – and consequences – of each choice (often on the basis of factors outside immediate gratification and self-interest). Those who omit (or lack the capacity for) objective evaluation frequently end up making the selfish choice – not the one moral people would consider objectively”right” or “good.”
Attempt to eliminate individual responsibility for (and consequences of) personal choicefeeds the humanistic, relativistic worldview which seeks to crush personal responsibility beneath the heel of homo faber. Yet the farther a society moves inthe direction of individual choice-without-consequence, the more that societydeteriorates, because the society which seeks to immunize its citizens against the consequences of their own actions infects itself with a terminal disease.Natural law requires people to choose between responsiblebehavior and removal or alienation fromportions of society. Anysystem which ignores or minimizes this realityleadsto chaos, because human history demonstrates that people devoid of responsibility will behave irresponsibly. That’s not rhetoric, it’s fact.
So. “Wouldn’t it be great to make that commitment without really making it … forever?”
Not really. Because when ‘permanent’ isn’t, nothing is.
Trackposted to Pirate’s Cove, Stuck On Stupid, Webloggin, Conservative Cat, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
