Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Part II

Ethics.

Months ago, I started debating on the idea of ethics – what defines right from wrong, what would be the empirical scales which weighed the defined and approved concept of that which is to be determined as ethical, and how volatile and/or nebulous ethics are/have been/will be.

Some rabbit holes are too daunting to explore lightly. Elephant caverns is more like it.

I took notes… they are everywhere – in digital drafts, on various pieces of paper around my immediate workspace, wedged into books, scribbled in margins. The nest of ideas oftentimes is chaotic, disjointed, and never easy to deconstruct for deciphering.

Moral right… Machiavellian right…

Machiavellianism is “a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality.”

Ethos, pathos, and logos… ethics, emotion, and logic…

Oh, that last one dislodged a few ideas in relevance to my previous post about Dietrich Bonhoeffer – that, perhaps true ethical behavior would appeal to both emotion and logic…

However, Bonhoeffer embodied the notion of the relationship between morality and ethics – by my understanding of the much larger concept, they would have been classified as “supererogation.”

Before the eyes of the reader glaze over with the film of dry interpretation of complex philosophical ponderings, I shall venture to remind you that this ethical concept was brought to you today by the 2009 reboot of Star Trek – specifically, that one fleeting moment when young Spock is being run through an academic gauntlet and one snippet/gratuitous bit o’ foreshadowing and offers the flat answer:

When an act is morally praiseworthy but not morally obligatory.

A longer definition – one of many, it turns out – fleshes the idea out a bit more:

[O]nly actions that are morally praiseworthy, valuable, although not obligatory in the sense that their omission is not blameworthy.

Back to Bonhoeffer…

I found it intriguing that he had travelled to the United States in June of 1939 – on the very eve of the Second World War – yet chose to return to Germany with the understanding that his nation was on a very dark path. One cannot venture to guess if Bonhoeffer had any idea that the ideological fanaticism would claim not only Jews, but those who aided as well as those who dared to speak out against the reprehensible acts of the next six years. However, his justifications for returning resonate strongly with me:   

I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people … Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.

This might have been what bugged me so much about Ashraf Ghani’s departure from Afghanistan in August – that he represents what I feel is becoming the global political norm and the antipode of people like Bonhoeffer. Ghani was not living in Afghanistan from 1977 to December 2001; while he was pursuing studies abroad, the corresponding events in Afghanistan would suggest that his was (and continues to be) a “choice from security.”

Another “most qualified candidate.”

What happens when things elsewhere turn irrevocably sour? Would it surprise anyone to see sudden resignations, retirements, or other relinquishments of power… to be followed by more bold visions… which, upon failure or frustration, finds the cycle repeating without improvement?

Is there a difference of ethics between the moral right and the Machiavellian right? Should we even consider/suggest that there is a fine delineation between the comfortable heuristic absolutes of “if/then” and “either/or”?

Ethos, pathos, and logos… ethics, emotion, and logic. It seems that we can only choose two and not all three:

            Ethics + emotion = illogical

            Emotion + logic = unethical

            Logic + ethics = emotionless

Perhaps this is what one gets for thinking in boxes, for I prefer neither black or white thinking but the shades of grey which can warm or cool… depending on the context or situation. In the meantime, the tragic of Bonhoeffer’s decision to return to Germany because of the very peril which ultimately cost him his life on 9Apr1945 will continue to compel my desire to understand the motivations behind such conviction…

…And, of course, to continue being viciously optimistic.