Monday, April 9, 2018

living by a code

 We have all heard and read about chivalry. Proud Knights fighting for the right and treating the maidens fair. A period in history romanticized in books and films. It was a code that really did exist. It was a loose collection of religious, moral and social codes or behaviors practiced by the knights. It was never formally codified but its' tenets were passed down by tradition. Still, the basic concept has existed since. In America it developed into the Code of the Old West. Where there actual practitioners of this code ? I suppose that depends upon who you ask and how you wish to define that code. That there were certain expectations back in those days can't be denied. In a land where actual law and order was scarce and a man had to defend himself,  I'd say it was a necessity. People weren't quite as trusting of others as they tend to be nowadays. There was good reason for that. There were bad people then and there are bad people now, that much hasn't changed a bit.
 Now when I was growing up we lived by a code as well. It wasn't anything so defined as the cowboy way or anything like that. It was a loose collection of accepted and expected behaviors. Yes, I'd say that is what it was. There has certainly been some revisions to that code in the last fifty years or so. What I think of as the " man " code is quickly disappearing altogether. Many of those behaviors are being thought of as misogynistic ! That's a word we never heard of back in those days. Now you have to be very careful about any of those behaviors. Just saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time,  can be labeled as an assault ! Even suggesting that women are somehow different than men is an offense. It seems the goal here is complete gender neutrality. That's a concept I will never grasp. I may not be highly educated, I may not be current, but I do know the difference between boys and girls. They are fundamentally different creatures designed for fundamentally different functions. It's just a fact of nature. Yet, many will take exception with my saying so. A battle of semantics will follow, along with a listing of exceptions to the rule. I won't deny there are exceptions, but stand by my general statement, boys and girls are different !
 You see all these codes over the centuries developed for the same reason. The purpose was to establish rules for people to get along with each other. At the most basic level there are boys and girls. So, it stands to reason that is where a social code should begin. Call it simplistic, label it black and white, day and night, whatever you choose,  but there are two distinct entities at play in this dynamic.
 All codes define how we should interact with one another. Even today,  with all this talk of equality,  a man striking a woman is considered especially vile. A man striking another man, ah, not so much as long as it was a fair fight. Why is that ? The answer is because that's different. Women being raped is a horrific thing, everyone agrees with that. If a man gets raped ? Well, now that is debated, ignored, or just not spoken about. Why ? A man should have been able to fight off the attacker, it was a failure on his part if he did not ! That's the general perception isn't it ? Yes, it is.
 Moral virtue is a part of this code. I don't think anyone can deny the definition of moral and virtuous behavior has drastically changed. For some, if you are to believe what they say, it has been abandoned altogether ! Morality has come to mean, I won't speak against your " choices. " The only moral choice is to keep my mouth shut, to tell you otherwise labels me as prejudiced. If it is profitable, I enjoy it, and it doesn't directly hurt anyone else, it is a moral choice ! That's the thinking now.
 I find this all very troubling. How are we supposed to function in a society without boundaries. Yes, those codes defined a boundary. They did establish an area in which you where expected to operate. Go outside the boundary and you would be corrected. None of those codes had the " rules " written down. There is a good explanation for that as well. All codes form in response to the society. The codes were enforced by the members of that society. But if a society once decides there should be no boundaries, no expectation of compliance , can we expect an ordered society ? I just don't see how that is possible.
 The thought I had this morning was, just what is the code today ? What are the expectations of society ? Are there any boundaries ? For an ever increasing number of folks the removal of boundaries appears to be the priority. Could it be that is because the removal of boundaries is the removal of self restraint ? With the removal of restraint comes the removal of responsibilty. I believe we do have a responsibilty to our fellow man. It isn't all about us, but about something much bigger. That something bigger, whatever you choose to call that, has been recognized since the beginning. Each time that has been denied or ignored the collapse of the society followed. It really does go back to a code. 

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