Staring at the Sun (Ethics Part One)

Well folks, as a token of my appreciation for your faithful patronage over the past two years, I have made all drinks available free of charge, compliments of the quandaries of life. As promised, I now present to you my newly refined cocktail, mixed with the finest ingredients that manage to kick just as much as they slide. It is likely that the question of what it means to be ethical has been asked (and perhaps answered) by those who frequent thesecondchance. The context from which your bartender speaks concerning this issue is that of a formerly "active" Christian who continues to study and wrestle with issues that revolve around what it means to be a presently active one. While I will not pretend that the following statements sufficiently answer the question at hand, I do believe there are some underlying principles involved that are perhaps fundamental to engaging it. Shall we?

"I'll stare straight into the sun and I won't close my eyes, til I understand or go blind." - Dustin Kensrue, Thrice

The question of ethics, as everything, begins from where you are, where I am, and the place in which we all reside at each given moment. It is for this reason that the universality we all so desperately seek when it comes to ethics is always there but yet just out of reach. How do you form a system of ethics when the nature of life works against all systems and forces you to grapple with the circumstances of life as they come? How do you find purpose in a life that gives you all the reasons in the world not to do so? How do you begin to ask questions about the "right" way to live our lives when the only life you can ultimately understand is your own? Can there be an ethics that applies to other people besides you? Well, let's hope so...but let's think about it first.

As influenced by certain theorists (if you're interested, I'll cite them), I believe that there are an infinite number of factors that play into this game we call life. There is no escape to the "game." And yet, the game can only be a game with the people who play it. We do have the power to play the game and change the course of history. There's rules that change and rules that don't change but herein lies the key: If you stop playing the game, the game plays you. Stay with me here, we're still on ethics.

I think that the way we play the game is what ultimately matters. Here's how I play it. There are factors beyond my control and factors wholly within it. For me, it's about commitment...resilience...an unwillingness to let the game play me. It's a stubborn denial of letting "them" have the ultimate say. It's a relentless and ultimately absurd drive to risk everything in order to understand just what the hell is going on here. Why is this required? Because if you wake up everyday bringing your system of ethics to your circumstances of life, you'll never see the other person for who they are. There's something to be said for suspension of disbelief; there might be something to say about suspension of belief as well. The only reason I say this is because that thing we call contradiction will present itself with an ugly head right about the time you think you've got it figured out. It's why Bonhoeffer was a Christian pacifist who joined a bunch of communists and atheists in a plot to kill Hitler. It's why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (this is why I settle with just "thewalrus") couldn't find a way to keep his pants on with women other than his wife and yet changed the course of history by being willing to give up everything for the sake of a principle. It's the utterly unlikeable person of Martin Luther who was just happenstance enough to be the only bastard who found a way to say "Here I Stand" at the precise moment it needed to be said (I'm tipping my hat to our good patron liveforwhatever here). It's the unwillingness to let the "how it's supposed to be" control how you do things. If I'm not mistaken, Jesus hung out with thieves, deadbeats, and professional assholes. How you face yourself and the Other person is how you begin ethics. How you find a way to keep doing it despite everything is how you proceed.

When we question the relative "rightness" of a particular issue perhaps we should consider all the X-factors that come into play. Why do people do what they do? That's the question that keeps ethics from truly being ethics. It's the "priestly" that conditions the "prophetic." Ethics lies somewhere in between these two poles. "Priestly" is tending to the particularities of life and personhood in order to properly enact that which one considers is right. "Prophetic" is saying "fuck you" to particularities and to waiting around for people to be ready. The truth lies in both but mostly somewhere in between. If you give up on either one, you've given up on ethics.

What I'm saying to you here, as long-winded as it might be, is merely to take a glance at what it means to be ethical. I want this to be the beginning of an extended conversation because in the core of this conversation lies what it means to be a patron of thesecondchance. It is within this conversation that your life is questioned and ultimately rendered worthwhile or...not so much. This is why I do what I do folks. It's why I keep fighting in a battle that surpasses reason, a battle that sustains my being on the edge of life (sometimes quite literally) despite all my misgivings. I could go further into all my personal reasons that drive this conversation but I'll save that for the jukebox. On that note, I'll leave you with this:

"We will overcome if no one sleeps tonight. We will wait for this. We waited too long to see the Promised Land...We will overcome." - Geoff Rickly, Thursday