"Human beings have been debating this since time immemorial, does might make right, or is there really something out there like truth and justice?
In Plato we see it clearly, Thrasymachus arguing that justice is the rule of the stronger. Socrates' reply is as valid today as it was over two thousand years ago:
"Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case?"
The more that people become parasitical and the more that the virtues are ignored, the more chaotic things become and eventually even the powerful people will fall before it because we will all be at war with one another. Such a situation makes any productivity impossible and can, and will not be tolerated.
What we are experiencing today is a kind of mass delusion in which people have come to see moral values as subjective luxuries. As society collapses before them they will see just how necessary these values are. Unfortunately, in the quest for a state of justice, people may choose to support demagogues and tyrants, further pushing back the time when things get better.
Its up to us to make sure that doesn't happen but in order to do that we can not fall into the defeatism that virtue no longer matters."
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Excellent reply below.
Dave said...