The Rise of the True Moral Order

A very, very old fable

Once upon a time, there was a group of friends and colleagues who finally figured it out. After millennia of debate, after much conversation among themselves, they came upon the simple moral calculus for what was right and what was wrong. They discovered how to articulate it, how to apply it, and how to determine the moral worth of every act, every person, and every system. While many in the past had claimed the same of their own calculi, these people were aware of the manifest failings of prior efforts. They meticulously examined their new system and could not find any such failings. It was a revelation, and they were in awe of what they had created.

These people put their ideas out into the world, letting them spread, evangelizing them to small groups and then to larger groups. Many took notice. They saw the truth of the new moral system, and they pledged their hearts, minds, and bodies to it. Each adherent realized that they had a part to play in the eventual triumph of this moral system, whether that part was small or large. Some were destined to be clerics of the new order, some were destined to be stormtroopers, and some were destined only to provide backline support for the more prominent evangelists of the new order. But all of them pledged themselves to it with resolve and fervor, contemplating and repeating the moral framework until it echoed in their minds with great resonance.

The true moral order found simpler and more powerful forms of expression as it spread. Sometimes these reformulations triggered acrimony and small schisms, but the new system contained within itself the means for determining which formulation was correct, ensuring that the wrong side could be called out and either corrected or exiled from the movement. The losing side usually conceded their position, acknowledging that the underlying moral truth had been preserved in the winning formulation. Its success validated its truth.

Adherents of the true moral order had particular criticism for the dominant moral systems of their time, those which they hoped to topple. Perhaps they were not the worst systems ever, but they were the most evident, most present, and most threatening. Naturally the adherents of the true moral order came to see those with old beliefs as being enslaved to dangerous and defective dogma, ceding their ethical obligations and lowering themselves to the level of the subhuman. Adherents were aware of the dangers of associating with the old orders, even if they could not avoid doing so. The danger of being tainted by the old orders was great, and the struggle to differentiate oneself cleanly was exhausting. Adherents of the true moral order could only hold fast to what they knew to be true and good.

Fueled by conviction, hope, and fear, adherents, the movement captured the hearts and minds of small institutions first, then larger ones. The many failings of these baggy, sclerotic institutions only illuminated the superiority of the true moral order. Some of the officials of these institutions were merely fellow travelers who saw the true moral order as nothing but a fig leaf to be placed on business as usual, distracting from the manifest problems of the institutions (which no one in their hearts denied). This cynicism was naive, because mercenary expediency cannot compete with moral zeal. Soon, opportunistic leaders found themselves making surprising concessions to adherents they had previously considered to be useful idiots. The adherents of the true moral order were not surprised, knowing that first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. The biggest institutions were far more impermeable to such foundational changes, yet even there the currents of the true moral order ran quietly through the minds of many and reassured them that their time would come.

Adherents did not delude themselves that their true moral order would easily or quickly take root in all of society; humanity was too fractious and variegated. As the true moral order grew in prominence, there were reactionary groups that felt intensely threatened by it. They created systems of their own in opposition, systems even worse than the old ones which the true moral order was trying to dispose of. Some of the resisters reveled in maligning and ridiculing every aspect of the true moral order, whether sacred or trivial. The adherents of the true moral order reacted in different ways to their opposition: pity, dismissal, contempt, rage, disgust, and above all sheer incomprehension. In the face of such a milestone in human existence, who could possibly want to go backwards? Had they not seen the dismal state that the old ways had put our society in? They not only wanted to return to that hopelessly broken system, but they wanted to amplify its worst traits. Such people were either fooling themselves, slaves to defective moral codes, or simply evil. Adherents observed the reactionaries obsessively, isolating and intimidating them when it was possible, grumbling loudly when it was not.

c/o Cadell Last

The adherents of the true moral order were not perfect themselves. There was much handwringing when it became apparent that one of the adherents had committed sins that went against the very essence of their moral code. The more prominent the member, the more difficult the debate. Sometimes, if the sins were so egregious, there was no choice but to admit that the adherents of the movement, still fallible and human, had simply misjudged. They reevaluated the sinner and ostracized them. In other cases, particularly when faced with the jeering calls from those opposing them, adherents found that there was in fact a perfectly good explanation for the sinner’s behavior that exculpated them from the harshness of the judgment that would otherwise be passed. The true moral order, however simple its formulations, could be quite complex in application, and since extremism in defense of virtue is no vice, the worst that could be said for such sinners was that they had made colossal errors in judgment--but not that their souls were hopelessly tainted.

Nonetheless, the true moral order endured setbacks and brought much solace to those who had previously struggled with deep questions of meaning, purpose, and virtue. Better to suffer for the true moral order than wallow in the fetid marsh of other inferior, prodigal ideologies. Suffering for the truth was hardly suffering, and even if it was, its contribution to the success of the true moral order made the suffering itself an unalloyed good.

Doubts persisted. Many adherents thought their triumph was inevitable and that their opposition would inevitably fail in the face of what was, after all, fundamental truth. Others were not so sure. History had too many examples of good losing to evil, and even if those earlier goods had previously been tainted and premature, some adherents began to doubt whether their own victory was assured. Those adherents kept their worries to themselves, lest they undermine their movement, but anxiety and brittleness burrowed into their voices and betrayed them. By itself, doubt was not a mortal sin, since it did not doubt the true moral order itself but only the inevitability of its success, but too often the doubt became a danger to success--the worst sort of betrayal. Doubt tainted the soul as much as any actual violation of the true moral order, if not more.

In the darker times, the most devoted adherents saw the less committed drop away or even turn on them with hateful viciousness. Any loss of momentum was discouraging, and larger setbacks were devastating. The adherents of the true moral grew increasingly anxious and brittle, inflating slight disagreements or faux pas into great offenses, lest any one fester and damage the cause further. The most zealous adherents purged doubters, even mild ones, out of the fear that they would erode the very morale necessary to recover from the setbacks and elevate the true moral order to its rightful place in society. Purging the doubters united the remaining adherents of the true moral order and reinforced their certainty of their eventual triumph. Although flickers of doubt privately remained in many of them, most still slept soundly dreaming that even if their truth was not recognized in their time, even if it was never recognized, they could still die knowing, at the least, that they had been right.

(This story is its own sequel.)