Ethics and Consequences

I was reading my blog from last night and I thought about a statement I made about the movie, Casablanca. I said that I sometimes wished that I could live in a time period like Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca, where I could do something noble. I have often thought about this concept. It didn't keep me from sleeping through about 2/3 of the movie last night. Not an issue that kept me up all night. However...

Specifically, I have thought about what it would have been like to live in the South at the time of the Civil War. When you study the men who became great generals in the Civil War, you often find men who were floundering in their lives prior to the opportunity to join in the struggle.

I think of John B. Gordon, who was a businessman in Northwest Georgia and Northeastern Alabama prior to the war. A young man, struggling to make a living on what was a frontier in many ways. He had no military experience. Then the Civil War began and he gathered together a brigade of Alabamans from around Fort Payne and Scottsboro and went off to find adventure and fame. As the months became years, he found that he had a natural gift for military strategy and leadership.

By the end of the war, he was one of the more highly respected of Lee's lieutenants. His success in the war led to political and business success after the war.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was another one who had no military experience and little formal education, but rose to the top as a cavalry officer. He became legendary in his leadership of men who were uneducated, poor and seemingly untalented, but who did amazing things with what they did have. Forrest's motto? "Get there the fastest with the mostest." He did things which did not seem wise from a military perspective, but won the day through creative execution.

Perhaps the best example of rising above your circumstances was Ulysses S. Grant. A natural horseman, he wanted to join the military, but his father did not want him to go. Nevertheless, he was appointed to West Point, where he struggled, and late found some success in the Mexican War.

But he left the military to become a businessman like his father and floundered. He lost several businesses trying to make it all work. He seemed to be a real loser in life.

Then came the Civil War. Because of his prior military experience, he was given a entry-level leadership role at the beginning. Despite this initial position of leadership, his first encounter with the enemy was marked with fear and discomfort on his part. Perhaps he suffered from the memories of earlier failures. As he led his men slowly towards the place where the enemy was supposed to be camped, he worried about what might happen in the battle to come. Amazingly, when they arrived at the place, they found the Confederates had disappeared in the night, apparently scared by the possibility of battle.

Grant suddenly realized that the enemy was just as scared as he was. This realization became the basis of a very successful career. Grant was not the greatest tactical general. He often committed troops in places where they could create carnage both to the enemy and themselves, but he realized that he had an advantage of numbers and equipment. He could win a war of attrition and he did.

Even against a superb tactition like Robert E. Lee, Grant would win because he would just continue to take the battle to him. Ultimately, he just killed enough soldiers to wear the Southerners down. Even at the end, when many of the Confederates who hadn't been killed or forced to desert still wanted to fight, Grant could force them to surrender by his willingness and ability to continue the fight.

These are three examples of men who rose above their previous experience and abilities, and were successful in a time of trial. It makes me wonder how I would have prospered or floundered if faced with the opportunities of testing my mettle in such an environment.

But I also think about Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that the ultimate test of a man was how he responded when faced with moral choices in times of struggle. In other words, when you can make the right and moral choice when the consequences don't really affect you either way, it is a simple choice. For example, if you are wealthy and can easily afford to give a little to someone in need, then the choice to give something to the needy is of little consequence to you. However, if you are poor and are confronted with the choice of giving some of what you have to another poor person, then your choice is harder and creates a consequence to you and your family. In other words, when making the right choice is effected by the consequence to yourself, all of a sudden, the whole question becomes much more serious. And the choice you make becomes fundamentally serious and gains a moral component which it might not have if the choice had no affect on your life.

There is a sense that what we are talking about is exemplified by the parable of "the widow's mite." The gift of the widow, who has little to give, but gives all she has, is prized higher than the gift of the wealthy merchant whose gift means little to his own bottom line. Her act has more moral significance because of the significance to her own well-being. In other words, the act becomes "moral" because she has to choose between herself and the other person. In this regard, I have often been amazed at how much seemingly poor people are willing to give to others; whereas, their "betters" seem to give so much less. Watch the people placing money in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas time.

However, in the case of the wealthy merchant, giving a little to one in need loses its significance as a moral act, because it doesn't really impact his own well-being. It may be the right thing to do on its own, but it may not be the most right thing to do under the circumstances. Then the question becomes, would the wealthy merchant give at the same personal level as the widow if given the opportunity? What would he do if he was required to give more than just a minimal amount?

Then we need to consider the story of the rich young ruler. When he asks Jesus what he must do to attain eternal life, Jesus says that he must obey all the Jewish laws of the Talmud. The ruler assures Jesus that he has done this from youth. But then Jesus brings it home by saying that he must sell all of his things and give the proceeds to the poor. This, the ruler finds he cannot or will not do, because it would cause him to give up the comfort he has accumulated. In other words, when faced with the choice of doing something which will bring great comfort to others, but diminish his own comfort, he fails. He fails to enact the right or "moral" thing.

Now the next question to consider is this: when we consider the actions of the different people in these scenarios how do we quantify the actions on their own? For instance,the action of the widow in giving away what she had is clearly right and moral and is perhaps the ideal to aim for. Again, if the rich young ruler had given away all of his possessions for the benefit of the poor, we would label that as moral. Some of us might consider it impractical or even "crazy" but I don't think it would be considered morally wrong.

But if we consider the action of the wealthy person who gives, but gives a little in comparison to the widow, is his action morally correct? Or does his action lose its moral component because it costs him little? Some might argue that his action, in giving, is morally correct, but, perhaps, not as morally correct as the action of the widow, because its' significance to himself does not rise to the level of the the action of the widow. I think the most we can say is that his action is moral and right, but not as morally significant or valuable as that of the action of the widow.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. made his statement about the measure of a man, I think he was really referring to the value of the actor's character, rather than making a value statement about a particular act. He knew that white Southerners were being called to make moral choices about their African-American neighbors. He also knew that these choices often had consequences to them in their dealings in their own worlds. I think he was saying that when making these choices, the value of the choices were more significant when the choices caused others to adversely react to the actor. If given a choice between the morally correct thing and the morally incorrect thing, if one chose the right thing even though it created personal consequences to oneself, that showed the measure of the charactor of the actor.

Moral choices made in a vacuum are not as valuable and certainly not as hard to make as those we make when those choices have consequences for our own lives. Quite often, when given the choice, we might sluff off and leave the point of decision and avoid the possibility of consequences to ourself. Like Samuel Clemons, we might run away to the West and avoid the consequences of making a decision between which side is the right one.

Of course, by avoiding the moral choice,we do make a choice. I believe that if we look at the choice that Clemons made, some of us might fault him for his choice. If one is serious about the issues of the Civil War (or the War Between the States or War of Northern Aggression) simply running away shows that he felt that his personal safety was more important than the issues themselves. What would Martin Luther King, Jr. say about Sam and his decision? Might he fault the content of his character? Is his action immoral?

The question is complicated because of the truly complicated nature of the issues involved in the Civil War. Personal Freedom takes on Universal Freedom. When Clemons left Missiouri to go to California, he left behind the dealing with these issues for personal safety and accomplishment as a newspaperman and writer. The decision was certainly correct for Sam, but was it the right choice?

I don't think Rev. King would think so. Perhaps we should not think so either.

So what does all of this have to do with the Civil War and Generals Grant, Forrest and Gordon?
Well, I guess I simply wonder about what would happen if I was placed in that environment. Would I thrive or fail? It is the quality of my talents and my character which are at issue. The value of a person might be measured by the response of that individual to the choices he makes in light of the environment and world around him.

On the other hand, I am quite glad that Samuel Clemons got the opportunity to write all the books he did. Is his life more valuable because he skeedaddled to the West to become the most significant writer of the 19th century? Maybe so. I think it is fairly settled that his life was made better because he made the choice he did. And perhaps our lives are better because of that self-same choice. But there is no guarantee that every person who avoids making the tough choices because of the possible consequences of making the choices will turn out to be Mark Twain. On the contrary, I think most of us would just go on living our relatively insignificant lives, measuring them in teaspoons, like Eliot's character in The Wasteland.

One must stretch sometimes. That is what makes heroes and characters of significance and value. Huckleberry Finn ran away from the choices he had to make between the widows and his Pap. That running away was avoiding the choice and showed litle moral significance, even though we can't really blame him for it. On the other hand, he takes along the slave, Jim, and that is where his actions rise above personal safety and become morally significant. And Huck Finn becomes the most unlikeliest of heroes. I know why Sam liked him so much. It enabled him to live with the personal consequences of running away. I wonder what moral choices Sam made after running away? Perhaps the opportunity to write the story of Huckleberry Finn was a moral choice in itself.