The division of society into secular and religious, has a long history, and the separation has cultivated inconsistencies in the practices of both aspects. Secular life forms the ground for ethical practice ( spiritual or otherwise ) and ethical practice inevitably has its impact upon the secular functioning of society (spiritual or otherwise). But what is secular* ethics**?
The historian Tom Holland has suggested that 'the secular' as an idea originates from Christianity itself, created to demarcate the boundary between what was a priestly or a kingly domain of influence. Many democratic constitutions still erect such a boundary, at least in principle, in the hope of keeping religious and secular concerns fenced off. And these still operate, in the US for example, as an excedingly leaky religious exclusion zone. The separation is an ideological one, and in everyday life and practice it does not really exist.
In the UK we live in a society that sees itself as predominantly secular. Religions exists as a choice, a private affair. Despite having an established church with a monarch who is the figurehead for both state and church. This is a formal symbolic deception. As the country at large operates outside any collectively held religious framework. Whenever an Archbishop pipes up about an unethical aspect of government policy, they are sternly told not to interfere in politics, to just hop back over the other side of the moral fence will you.
After millennia of top down religious impositions of godly power and disapproval. From the Reformation onward religious devotion, and ethical practice with it, has become more and more a private individuals concern. Though there has always been an understanding that society in general still held shared 'common values and ethics' that are Christianity Lite.
Increased secularisation and individualism has left us with a Christian infused, but 'relative' form of values out of which some form of rough cut secular ethics flows. People now speak their 'truth', however contradictory that maybe to the facts of the matter or their ethical probity. Governments no longer uphold 'common values' nor hold themselves to a higher standard of ethics. Its all about what you can get away with, free of consequence. They say black is white, and say the exact opposite an hour later. Its all relative to place and who you are speaking to. To point out this ethical duplicity is mere nitpicking.
And into this secular ethical black hole has come a trenchant surge of secular puritanism, from both the left and the right, attempting to command the moral high ground, from where they can point the finger of shame. Social media is full to the brim with it.
I find myself dwelling on a question in the middle of this puritan rinse cycle - is it actually possible to have 'common values and ethics' that are purely secular? Isn't a prior historical religious context always lurking unacknowledged in the background? Ethics arise from values and values arise from core beliefs about human behaviour and metaphysics. Where else would the values for a secular ethics emerge from? Is simply to vaguely secularise our pre-existing Christian based values going to do? Because that appears to be what we are attempting.
I started reflecting on this for three reasons. First, Five years ago I left a Buddhist Order. Since then I have remained Buddhist in essence with exploratory forays into the Christianity that in a sense had preceded it. My ethics have remained largely unchanged, still guided by the Ten Precepts that excited me early on in my spiritual life as a Buddhist. At the time I first heard them, they spoke deeply to my own innate ethical sense of the values I wanted my life to be guided and motivated by. Prior to that I'd had no conscious template, other than the Christian one I was brought up with, to frame that innate ethical sense within.
Why did I not feel the same about the ten commandments? Well they were commandments, from God, which were two large and problematic concepts for me. And I am not alone in finding them a troublesome obstacle. When we have values within such a context, we find ourselves framing our ethical views within a language of prohibitions. God's commandments are there to prevent us doing things, things we may still want to do, even though they are bad for us individually or for society. Commandments place hard boundaries to contain the worse instincts of our human nature, and assert compliance by anointing them with divine authority. That is one way to create 'common values and ethics' I guess.
The Ten Buddhist Precepts are couched in terms of being principles that you practice. There is no God punishing you to get you to practice them. When you inevitable fall short of them, the sense of shame you have arises from letting your better self down, that is seen as sufficient in itself. You move on, rededicate yourself to your continued,if faltering, practice. Buddhist ethical practice is always in the process of not quite becoming perfect. One's ethical sensitivity, at best, is constantly evolving and deepening over time.
The second reason, was reading Tom Holland's book Dominion, in which he lays out a convincing case for Western Civilisation being entirely constructed on the revolutionary impact of values, ideals and ethics from Christianity. However secular we may try to be ethically, these remain fundamental underpinnings for how our society functions. They have their authority for existing, through there Christian origin and mindset, that they came from God. This raised the idea in my mind whether any ideal or ethical sense, cut off from the religious ethos that spawned them - well can that really work?
Third, I recalled a phrase from the late Buddhist teacher Sangharakshita, who being quite pragmatic, said that 'It was better to have a Christian sense of ethics, than no ethics at all'. It's was a warning to Buddhists not be too partisan in their attitude to another religions ethical practice. Ethics from within a religious context, he considered were better than doing without.
Though we all may have an individual ethical code, should that really be one we pick n mix to suit ourselves? There is a rigor in applying ourselves to an external code of ethics with a collective ethos behind it. This supports and brings confidence to the practitioner that they are applying themselves to doing the right thing. Is it important that an external spiritual framework exists behind any individual ethical practice, in order for it to be most effective?
Can we trust ourselves not to be ethically self serving? There's always a public and a private face to our ethical practice. Ideally they ought to be the same, but they frequently are not. The tendency being to let ourselves off our ethical practice when we think we are not being seen. The 'ethics of the private moment' as the teacher Subhuti once called it. Its what feeds most scandals and moral outrages. People forget that social media is not a private moment, but a public one, and fall fowl of it being exposed.
When an apparently popular, even saintly, figure is revealed to have reprehensibly soiled feet. They may have performed a sin in private, and now its distasteful moral underbelly is there for all to see. We cannot bare the sight of other more famous people's moral flaws inconsistencies and imperfections. This says a lot about how prudish we feel about our own. But also highlights how much our desire for moral exemplars still exists. But is our bar, in our secular age, always being set too high?
There is a sense still of there being a residual 'common values and ethics' but paradoxically, not ones entirely universally held. Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum. So what we currently appear to have is the 21st century version of a witch trial, where social media platforms act as moral arbiters, like a modern, perhaps more rabid, version of the Inquisition. Virtually stoning, torturing and disemboweling the object of their opprobrium. It has all the ethical sensitivity and rectitude of a comic book superhero. There is little wisdom or compassion here. Just ethical cleansing.
Where do we go from here?
* Secular - a part of society without overt religious affiliation.
** Ethics - rules, codes of behaviour, ethos or principles by which one could live ones life.
To follow .
SECULAR VALUES - Where The Values Are
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