even if the right won’t admit it, they hold
to situational ethics… if they allow torture because
a “state has the right to protect itself”, that is
situational ethics… the commandment that
says, “Thou shall not kill” is ignored because
the situation demands us to ignore it…
“The state must be protected” is such a situation
that allows us to ignore god’s prime directive…
but it isn’t enough to hold to situational ethics, we hold to
a “situational” beliefs all the time…for example let us say,
I was born in India within a Muslim family… the “Truths”
I would hold are vastly different then the “truths”
I hold to today…what has changed is the situation…
being born in India with Muslim parents… is a different
situation then being born in Minnesota with non-practicing
of any religion parents…
that my actual birth has created a different situation then
being born in a different situation, say in India…my beliefs,
my truths, my gods, my political and social situations would be
and are vastly different than my reality of being born in Minn.
in other words, the situation of being born in India would create
a vastly different belief system and a vastly different political, social,
philosophical, situation then being born in Minn.
so it isn’t just situational ethics that is about the situation,
it is everything about who we are, the different situations create
different beliefs, values, philosophies, dreams and hopes…
we live in a situational life, not just in ethics but in everything
about our lives…our own particular situation creates the
beliefs we hold, the values we hold and the politics we hold
and the philosophy we hold…
our own lives is a master course in situational living…
each differing situation creates different truth, beliefs,
values and meaning…
and within that particular situation, we may or may not change
our values depending on our own particular situation…
today, the values I hold “dear” are quite different than the values I held
20 or 30 years ago… as my own situation as changed as I have aged…
my “truths” at 63 are quite different than my “truths” at 36…
we are situational creatures… we believe and change to adapt to
our own particular situation… the situations we live in changes
the beliefs we can hold on to… I can’t believe in god…
and yet, the time may come, as my final day comes, I may
yet discover the value of holding to a god that gives me comfort
in the days before my death… or not…
my beliefs and values reveal, perhaps in no clearer way, my
own situation in life…
my own current situation means I am the most “stable”
I have ever been in my life… I have been homeless, I have
had a jar of peanut butter to last me, as my only food for three weeks,
I have been poor, really, really poor… and today, we will likely go
3 weeks to a month with no money coming in from me…
and yet, we don’t worry about it… we are good to go
a month without any income from me… that is how stable my
life is today… events that would have created great problems
earlier in my life are not a problem at all today…
my own particular situation has created a stability that I have never
known in my life… we are at situation where we could go a month
without any income at all and we are still good… down the road it
may pinch, but nothing that we can’t recover from with some work…
my own particular situation has, in large part, created the values
and beliefs I now own…and in the future, my changing situation,
will change my values, my beliefs, my hopes and my dreams…
we lead situational lives… in all aspects of it… we just don’t realize it
yet…the situation we live in changes the values, the truths we hold
to be true…situational lives… that is what it means to be human…
the situation creates the values of our lives…
Kropotkin
