Morality

[tagryn]

Context: in the comic strip "Funky Winkerbean", the title character has evolved into a recovering alcoholic. In the previous panels, he'd ruined his surprise birthday party by falling off the wagon and showing up totally trashed. Here, he's meeting with his AA sponsor afterward and discussing why it happened & how to avoid it again. This is a couple panels into it:

click here

The panel bugs me a bit. Perhaps it isn't meant to make any larger philosophical points, just that Funky needs to deal with some of his "baggage" or he'll go back to the bottle sooner or later. OK, point taken. However...if what the sponsor says is true, then if I were a homicidal maniac and enjoyed putting guns to people's heads and pulling the trigger, and felt no remorse over it, then by his standard it would be OK as long as I didn't feel any self-hatred over it?

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

More to the point, I think FW is trying to say that the root cause of you becoming a homocidal maniac who feels no remorse for these heinous actions is the true sin of self-hatred. If you didn't hate yourself, you'd never have become the sort of person who can perform these actions.

In other words, no, it's not the basis for an ethical system; instead, it's a recipe for recovery when you're ready to start the long, hard healing process.

[tagryn]

Erik - Thanks for the interesting reply. Whether psychosis is caused by underlying self-hatred is an interesting topic, and I hope the field of psychology doesn't consider it a decided topic, considering the role that brain chemistry and other factors may play in it*. Same deal with alcoholism, although the success AA has had is a strong argument that even with underlying factors in place, counseling in various forms can be enough to break the cycle of addiction for many.

Homicidal mania is an extreme example, of course. More common IMHO are varying degrees of sociopathic behavior. I think that the inability to feel empathy for others may not be a symptom of self-hatred neccesarily, but of a particular stage of psychological development that the individual just never advanced beyond - that's to say, still seeing others as an "it" instead of a "thou" (to borrow a little from Martin Buber). The person may not have any appreciable degree of self-detestment however...although dealing with that person may be an ordeal for others**.

I know that's rather afield from the original FW comment, but just wanted to explore it a little farther.


* - although as a believer in Gibson's Law ("for every Ph.D there is an equal and opposite PhD"), I'm confident such a fundamental issue will never be completely laid to rest, just developed in various directions.

** - though vastly preferable to dealing with the homicidal maniac, to be sure.