Religious Education

TOPIC: Ethics/Social Justice
AGE: 14-18 years, Gr. 9-12

A Moral What?

by Justin Whitaker, Fall 2001 issue of Synapse, a newspaper for Unitarian Universalist youth.

We live in a society that has lost its morals to the daily attractions of political manipulation. We live in a society that has lost sight of the democratic process, and has now begun to use its democratic theories to push corporations, political capitalism, consumerism, and consumption into our schools and our media. Now those theories have begun to permeate into all tiers of our society. But as ethernet and internet cables carry these theories throughout our planet and into our skyscrapers and business proposals, the earth’s population seems to be screaming at me to buy and sell. Get this toothbrush that can be used once and then thrown away! The undertone whispers in my ear to pack everything in its own plastic container to ensure cleanliness, completely depleting our environment at the same time. As all this chaos plagues my thoughts and eats away at my morals, there is a voice that calls me. It calls with a voice that is pleasant to my ears and calls my name. This voice is embodied by the Unitarian Universalist Association. As a minority in the battle for responsible consumption, we must stand as a creator of change, we must do our best to stand tall and respond strong to our moral imperative.

A Moral What?
It is an imperative. It is our obligation to respond. Webster defines imperative as one issue not to be evaded, peremptory. These are words that leave us no option. They provide us with no choice in our actions; but rather they require something of us. They call for an imperative. It is something that we must act on now, but how can we do it? Where do we start? How can we act on this imperative? First question: Do we act on issues within our own control or do we address the problem in our community and society? I advocate that change must originate from within. For example, the one time I attended a UUA Board of Trustees meeting my colleagues and I were provided with boxed lunches courtesy of the UUA. Inside of the box everything was wrapped in plastic wrap, and under that wrap each dish was in its own plastic container. I’m sure that either one of these protective coverings would have been sufficient on its own. Nonetheless, two salads, a sandwich, and a fruit bowl all were wrapped separately. My guess is that the 10 lunches provided used near enough plastic to make a rain parka for a homeless person in the Pacific Northwest, and maybe even a matching hat.

It’s an imperative. Think about it. Think about the last piece of trash that you threw away, and then think about if there had been a better option for that “trash.” I think about it everyday. In fact, the rough draft of this essay was on the back of an old report I wrote. But does that make me some sort of Super Moral Responsible Consumer, simply because I take notes on recycled paper? Am I now the almighty moral consumer? No. Never. Why? Because the word imperative has implications much larger than our actions. By adopting this goal as an imperative, we must do our best to overcome decades of poor teachings, thoughtless actions, and societal degradation on the part of the education system, the government, and the media. Where can we go to change the big things, the mindset that creates irresponsible consumption? How do we affect the way a person thinks?

Philosopher Martin Heidegger asked the same questions when he examined the way people think. He classified thoughts into two types of thinking, calculative and meditative. It is calculative thoughts that dominate our society, that calculates constant addition and use, construction of one thing to the next without analyzing the effects. Calculative thinking promotes incessant use of products simply because we have them, but not necessarily because we need them. Meditative thinking contrasts the calculative theories. Meditative thoughts are content with the current status, or often promote a digression to a previous societal state. Most important, meditative thoughts promote analysis and understanding of overall implications prior to action. It is this mindset that must be sought. The mindset that Heidegger promoted is the one that we must attempt to create throughout our society.

In 1997, John Berger, author of Charging Ahead and analyst of the U.S. energy grid, predicted a forthcoming energy crisis. California is currently experiencing this crisis. In this millennium things are no different from what was written in the original “Study Action Issue”: “We are [still] caught up in a consumption treadmill that is morally questionable and that is not sustainable...” Although our nation has been struggling to improve this condition, I feel as though we have only further entrenched ourselves into the crisis. This crisis is one that also must be addressed by our imperative. It is our role as Unitarian Universalists to take our imperative to an international community. Whether through the WTO or through day-to-day use of CFCs and aerosol cans, our environment is being destroyed. Our consumption has reached levels that are no longer acceptable. What can we do? Where can we go? How can we take our imperative to an international level? These are the questions that must be answered, these are the imperative questions.

It is the calling of our culture, it is the calling of my religion, and it is the calling of my morals to step up to our imperatives. We must understand the implications of our goals, we must remember that the value of starting our efforts with ourselves and our own actions, in no way can compare with the value of ending our efforts on a global scale. We must remember that we have agreed to take this issue as an imperative. By embodying this imperative through both social and mental changes, we will achieve our goal. We will answer to our morals and we will be able to answer to our moral imperative--our imperative of responsible consumption.

Justin Whitaker is currently living in the Portland, OR area.

Last updated June 12, 2005