Commentary: Everyone has own version of moral high ground

Everyone has own version of moral high ground

I've figured out the secret here. Everyone should act just like me. Except when they shouldn't.

OK, so that's either incredibly obtuse to you, in which case you're probably right there with everyone else, or it makes perfect sense, in which case, therapy might be in order. Don't worry, the couch is really comfortable.

The point is, generally speaking, all of us know exactly how we ought to act. Except when we don't act that way. At which point, we decide that it's OK, because, well, there are extenuating circumstances. Or no one is looking. At least no one we know.

Very few things in life are black and white, and whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, is often a matter of context. At least that's what I used to tell my father before parent-school conferences when he asked me what my teachers might want to talk to him about.

Yeah, he thought that was a crock, too.

However, I was reminded of this particular belief ( I say "belief"; you say "delusion") just the other day when I looked up from my cell phone just in time to see the light had changed and most of a lengthy line of cars waiting to turn had, in fact, done so. That is, all the cars in front of me had done so. The ones in back of me were still hanging out dangerously close to the interstate, but no closer to the intersection.

I suppose it would be adding insult (of which, I'm sure, there were plenty being uttered in the cars behind me) to injury to note I was able to speed up and actually make it through the light. It might have been on a yellow, which probably isn't all that important (particularly since I don't think that intersection has one of those "ticket cams."). Also, I might have been the last car to manage it, leaving the ones behind me to wait another, oh, 30 minutes for the light to turn green again.

Now, if it were me behind me (a feat of science I believe I saw on "Nova." Or maybe "Back to the Future." The first one, not the dumb one with cowboys. "Back to the Future." Not "Nova," which, I don't think had any cowboys.), well, it would just be a really great thing that most automobiles aren't sold with the optional flamethrower.

Since the only me in this whole deal was the one ripping through an intersection on three wheels, well, again, context is important. I may have been a little distracted because, in an effort to effectively use my time, I was catching up on important, work-related emails. Or I was watching that insurance commercial with the screaming goat in the peanut butter factory. Because that's never not funny.

Whatever the case, my momentary lapse of stoplight etiquette, totally justified (at least in my mind) as it was, is merely a reflection of an important fact of human existence. Namely, that we all occupy the moral high ground. Even if we have built our own hill, and move it on a dime.

This is reflected best by the great contemporary American philosopher, the late George Carlin, who said, "everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac and everyone who drives slower is an idiot."

And then there's a philosophical contemporary of Carlin's, the still probably very punctual Mel Brooks, who suggested, "If I get a paper cut, it's a tragedy; if you fall down a manhole, it's comedy."

So, I suggest that if great thinkers like these two can grasp the concept of personal moral fluidity, who are we to say they're wrong? Unless we want to. And don't happen to change our minds.

All right, all right, I will admit my momentary mental siesta at the stoplight was, on most levels, kind of ... jerk-ish.

I will say, however, that no one behind me during my moment of traffic light moral ambiguity honked. Could have been because they were so dumbfounded by the moron ahead of them who clearly wasn't paying attention they couldn't bring themselves to act.

Could have been because they understood that, every now and then, all of us just take a mental vacation and that, perhaps, we all shouldn't be judged too harshly in light of that fact. And that, in turn, we all should consider the age-old admonition to judge not, ourselves.

Or maybe, just maybe, I wasn't the only one catching up on a little screaming goat ad that morning. Because, again, whatever the context, that's never not funny.

"Rick, don't walk away from me ..."

Gary Smith is a recovering journalist living in Rogers.

Commentary on 04/17/2015

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