Decisions II

Decisions and the Moderation Imperative

By John Taylor; 2007 July 23

Yesterday our family went to Hamilton's Baha'i picnic at Battlefield Park in Stony Creek. After that my mission was to buy a new computer for Grampa, whose computer's on/off switch had been crushed and disabled by Silvie's accusatory finger. A minor repair but he wanted an excuse to get a new one. So I waded through the confusing mass of new computer options, paid for, delivered and installed it for him, in exchange for a shot at his old machine.

The store was empty and I had an enthusiastic young salesnerd all to myself for an hour and a half. He showed in great detail how bewilderingly broad the choice really is, from laptops to media machines. The more I knew, the further I seemed to be from knowing what to do. I was aware that I was in a position of trust and restrained myself from going hog wild, buying a supercharged machine that Grampa did not need. In the end I chose what seemed to be a middle course, considering I did not want to spend weeks on this decision. I settled on an HP computer with 22 inch LCD HP Monitor, for about 1200 bucks, purchased from Office Place. Prices have been dropping. Even a few months ago, it seems, this system would have cost hundreds more.

In making my relatively uninformed decision, I had to balance my knowledge and my feelings, my sense of what was the right thing to do. What I really needed to keep it all in my head was some kind of visualization computer program for simplifying and visualizing the interplay of factors, considerations and emotions inside me. Such a program would connect to disinterested experts, as well as the inner imponderables, perhaps by wire connections to my vital signs. It would mediate buyers in the broader computer market, as well as local dealers for those, like me, who like to carry the purchase home right away.

Although it would be relatively easy to make up such a computer program, the basic problem is that corruption and immoderation are built into the very core of our law and values. It would not work for the same reason that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Our inner reality is just too corrupt to arrive at such a system. For example, the first human rights document, the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man," Article #5, states that,

"Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law."

This was useful at the time in curbing a despotic legal system that made everything illegal until proven otherwise. But think about the huge implications of what it says. The only real restraint is an established legal barrier. Thus it implies: do whatever you please, and as long as there is no law against it nobody can say boo. As a result of this attitude, now we are being choked to death by a thousand grey issues. We are breathing grey air and nobody has a right to say anything against it. The past two nights I have had to shut all of our windows to keep the acrid coal smoke out of our house. I feel like the Jews on the first Passover eve. The mist, the spirit of death lurks outside. What about the poor animals in the forest, they cannot shut themselves away from it. Their health is compromised by decision makers who have felt so pressured by finances that they chose the most environmentally damaging choice imaginable, burning coal for electric power. If that is how responsible decision makers are in the richest place on earth, imagine what is going on in poor countries! And because there is no law saying they cannot do that, nobody can say a thing, we just can shut off our doors to this latest plague of Egypt.

But still, I like to think about this hypothetical consultative, self-moderating decision-making program. Who knows?, maybe one day we will be mature enough to invent it. It seems to me that the one expert to turn to in a moderation issue is the philosopher of moderation, Aristotle. He gave the first consideration for tough decisions very briefly, in the following:

"In all arts and sciences both the end and the means should be equally within our control." (Aristotle, Politics)

If the end and the means are not in our control, it is not an art or a science. It is superstition. And since Baha'is believe in harmony of faith with science, we would agree with this restraint; especially since Aristotle gave the overall goal of ethics over to religious values.

"We are not studying in order to know what virtue is, but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in it." (Aristotle, Nichomochean Ethics, 2.2)

Although my choice of a computer yesterday was outwardly a technical process, I would have been wasting my time if I had not been mostly concerned with doing something that would make me a little bit closer to being a good man. I have a long way to go, I know, but a baby step is better than nothing, and better than too much. Such a leaning toward moderating extremes is essentially what justice is, as Baha'u'llah says,

"Whoso cleaveth to justice, can, under no circumstances, transgress the limits of moderation. He discerneth the truth in all things, through the guidance of Him Who is the All-Seeing. The civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men. Thus warneth you He Who is the All-Knowing. If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, pp. 342-343)

Since Baha'u'llah mentions the word "moderation" no fewer than three times in this paragraph, we should probably refer to this as His Moderation Imperative. If this imperative were instantiated in a communally run, open-system computer decision-making program, we might counteract the inherent tendency towards immoderation that is choking like a plague of Egypt our planet's atmosphere and all who must breath it.