Posts
In his speech to the students and faculty of Liberty
University, Bernie Sanders continued his education of the American public mind.
Bernie sought to find common ground with his audience through a shared concern
for morality. If you recall, Jerry Falwell the founder and president of Liberty
University , created his following under the rubric of the Moral Majority.
Bernie argued
that justice is a fundamental moral concern rooted in the Golden Rule expressed
in the Bible (Mathew 7.12) as “Therefore
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Issues such as the extreme wealth gap
between the rich and the poor and the mass incarceration of young black men,
are obvious examples of this moral injunction. Yet they are disregarded in
favor of abortion and gay marriage as primary moral concerns.
I
suggest that the reason for this is the difference in the foundations for
morality. Morality founded on fictions such as those in religions founded on
creation stories with their all-knowing and all-powerful god have no anchor in
reality and can, therefore, become as fanciful as the human imagination can make them. When those fancies
are believed and motivate humans to behave in accordance with them, all hell
can, and sometimes does, break loose. Moral issues founded on the human
condition, such as Bernie’s concerns, are by that very fact more amenable to
rational resolution than those founded on the arbitrariness of human fancy.
I believe
Bernie knew what he was doing in his lecture to the students and faculty of
Liberty University, namely, evidencing the difference in moral bases and
helping those with a moral sentiment founded on the human condition to realize
the difference. That he succeeded in some measure is evidenced by a post in Daily Kos by a student who heard Bernie’s
speech and was impressed by it. It is not uncommon for young Americans to
become religious as a vehicle for dealing with their moral concerns about the
world. When those concerns are brought to religion they are often transfigured
into the dogma of the religion. American society offers very little, other than
religion, in which the burgeoning moral sentiment of the young can find
expression. The sterility of our polical process does not solicit the moral
engagement of the young. Bernie is changing some of that.
Once
again, in my judgement Bernie was teaching people. A President of Bernie’s
caliber would be a rare, if not unique, occurrence in American political
leadership.
Bob
Newhard
