One of the most confusing and terrifying phrases that angry lips spit out while a child is being beaten unmercifully is that “I’m only doing this for your own good.” “GOOD” is the subject of today’s essay. The pertinent question is what exactly do you mean by good? Another question is, whose definition of good are you using? If we were in ancient Greece, we would think in the philosophical terms used by Socrates and Plato who investigated the greatest good (in abstract “forms”) by performing your duty to the state of Athens. This was centuries before the time of Jesus.
Many punishments have been meted out by so-called Christians in the name of Jesus who, to my knowledge of the New Testament, never punished anyone. Nick Kristof in the NY Times this morning suggests otherwise. The arbiters of “good” have become the dominant force in politics and social life in our nation. Many places in America are suffering under the tyranny of Goodness and Jesus. Our elections have been affected by the impulse to legislate VIRTUE. I happen to think that making smoking forbidden in public, Hate-Crime unacceptable and both subject to severe penalties are good things. Recycling is good but Global Warming is not. These things can and should be legislated for the common GOOD. I read the following in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It is about the British ban on fox hunting and the author, a certain Lionel Shriver complained how urban workers want to eliminate a pleasure of the rural horse owning and fox hunting upper classes. I am borrowing a conclusion of Mr. Shriver when he says: “Thus Goodness is not about doing good but affecting it, and about telling moral inferiors what they may or many not enjoy.” There is a lot of that going around today.
I happen to think fox hunting is still much the same as when Oscar Wilde said nasty things about the “sport” back at the end of the 19th Century. It is a custom somewhat like the “coon” hunt in certain Southern States where men with guns follow hounds who try to “tree” a quarry. There is a world of class differences between the two practices but there are many who point out the unfairness of a bunch of “Toffs” in England, and some “Good Old Boys” in the U.S. who like to hunt defenseless animals. There is nothing “GOOD” about either.
What is bothersome to me is that a particularistic religious tyranny is backed by the office of the Chief Executive of this land and he cares not about the “GOOD” that can be done for the vast majority of our citizens. It is sufficient that he was born again in Jesus. I feel sure that he endorses the good, religious and well-meaning persons who want us to stand still and take medicine about prayer in school, prohibition of choice for women and forbidding unions between same sex couples. After all, it is for our own good.