Toward an Ontological Ethic

Forgive me, I've always loved big words. "Ontological" means "of or referring to being". I simply mean your ethic, how you behave, flows from who you are. In the 60's, when we loved beautiful, schmaltzy poster sayings, we used to say, "What you do speaks so loudly I can't hear a word you say."(Ralph Waldo Emerson?) It's schmaltz at its smelliest, but it's also very true.

During my summer vacation, I've become borderline addicted to some TV shows they rerun during the day. My wife and I have watched several dozen episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Streets", "Frasier" (I was already partial to that one), and "Crossing Jordan". And I will miss them when school starts back next week. An episode of "Jordan" we watched yesterday really wounded me. It was about child prostitution. When our heroes rescued the Hispanic teenager who had been kidnapped and forced into this lifestyle, the young police detective wanted to interview her to try to capture the people who had enslaved her. He called her name and said, "Will you do something for me?"

She looked as if she were going to start crying, she huddled into herself, and she said, miserably, "Do I have to take off my clothes?"

I thought I was going to cry.

It hurt me because I know such things happen. People entice young women, girls, from underprivileged countries with promises of honorable work and a better life in the United States. The next thing you know, the girls are slaves, serving the lusts of American men. Some times the death penalty seems like a better idea than others.

Watching that yesterday has prompted me to sit down to this blog again, because I think I have a message that needs to get out. I am convinced that people don't do these things because of how good they think they are. I am convinced that people live up to, or down to, their self-images.

I was the best teenage boy you ever met. I was the poindexter all the mothers wanted their daughters to date. (Funny. None of them seemed to want to date me. They were happy to cry on my shoulders about the boys they did want to date! Ah, well...!) I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs, I didn't try to get the pants off the good-looking girls I knew. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't immune to temptation. I was curious. I seriously wanted sex. But I saw myself as a good boy. And I knew there are some things good boys don't do. It was a terribly difficult time.

I don't think I've progressed from that. I think I've regressed. I've learned self-indulgence. And guess what? Self-indulgence is hard too. It's hard to have lost so much of the self-respect I had 30 years ago.

I learned in seminary to be much easier on myself, and on others. That is good, to a point. Jesus, after all, did not condemn the woman taken in adultery. But what were his final words to her? "Go and sin no more" (John 8:11). He called it sin. She knew it was sin. He did not punish her for it. But he did not minimize it either!

When did self-indulgence become a virtue? How is self-indulgence that far removed from incontinence? An adult who cannot control most bodily functions is a person to be pitied. So why should we admire a man who cannot control his libido? Why don't we condemn as infantile people who cannot say no to themselves? We call children in that state "spoiled brats".

A few years ago I drove past a billboard advertising a club for "adult entertainment". Still tempted by such things, yet it occurred to me that a true adult wouldn't need such entertainment. The same sign called spoke of a "gentlemen's club". Gentlemen? How?

No, I am persuaded that we will behave up to our self-image. I do not believe that we will behave out of fear of punishment, entirely. We learn how to get away with things as little children. I am persuaded that we will live up, or down, to our self-image. There are things good boys don't do, and things good boys do. If we learn to see ourselves as good, perhaps we will behave better.