December 13, 2015
by Rev. Kirk Ballin

READINGS

RESPONSIVE READING # 651 “The Body Is Humankind (7 Billion)” Norman Cousins

TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE Walt Whitman

Be composed–be at ease with me–I am Walt Whitman, liberal and
lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.
My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you
make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me

BETTER TO LIGHT CANDLES Merle Shain

It is better to light candles
than to curse the darkness.
It is better to plant seeds
than to accuse the earth.
The world needs all of our power
and love and energy,
and each of us has something that we can give.
The trick is to find it and use it,
to find it and give it away.
So there will always be more.
We can be lights for each other,
and through each other’s illumination
we will see the way.
Each of us is a seed,
a silent promise,
and it is always spring.

SERMON: POWER AND CONSCIENCE

The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person…. 7 Billion People…. A World Community with Peace Liberty and Justice for All….. That is our Challenge… Our Means is The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process….

The human species is the ONLY, the ONLY species that has the power to destroy EVERY form of life on this planet. Maybe not each of us individually could pull this off, but the means exist for someone or someones to destroy everything from the smallest microbe to every animal, plant, and human on the planet. What an absolutely remarkable Power we have as a species! There is no such threat of such power against us as a species from any other species – except, perhaps, from ourselves.

And I would venture to say that this Power to kill has served us well as a species in order to perpetuate our survival as a species. To kill or be killed has been the modus operandi in lieu of being able to flee what threatens our survival. You can see this in our evolution: killing to secure food, whether plant or animal, killing to ward off threats, whether it be animals or other human animals, for animals is what we are – just more effective at killing than any other form of animals.

And our human history is saturated with blood of other humans; as humans began to live ever closer to each other, the threat of other humans to one’s own group of humans was most effectively dealt with by killing those humans who were a threat to one’s own group – or to oneself.

And even the eventual attack on and killing of bacteria and viruses that have threatened our survival is witness to our excellent capacity for killing that which threatens us. Killing has been an effective way of assuring the survival of a human individual, a tribe, a society, a culture.

But along the way in our cultural evolution the use of violence, of killing each other for the perpetuation of our human survival, has given way to other means of existence that are not so dependent on violence and killing of other human beings; the unfolding discovery, if you would, of human groups being able to survive using less violence to sustain a group began to emerge. This is not the time to explore that in depth for it is a study in itself, but suffice it to say that violence as the preferred means for survival has given way to social order and some established structure of values within human communities that has reduced the use of violence, of killing as the expected norm of sustaining human survival.

For a better understanding of this shift and reality of our human condition I refer you to Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,”, and more specifically, to the summary of his work found in the WSJ in 2011 (see list of links below).

He essentially shows in his research that: “We believe our world is riddled with terror and war, but we may be living in the most peaceable era in human existence. Why brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise is what his work is about. “It’s more likely that human nature has always comprised inclinations toward violence and inclinations that counteract them—such as self-control, empathy, fairness and reason—what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature’. Pinker contends that violence has declined because historical circumstances have increasingly favored our better angels.

In fact it is because of the increased rise of in the favor of “our better angels” for dealing with human relations that we ae SO impacted by the ongoing presence and use of violence, of killing when it happens, and why we are at such conflict with ourselves when debating the use of violence to address our human conflicts. No longer do we the majority of humans simply accept killing as the default survival tool. So we are tuned into killing, into violence in a heightened way, because we see the threat of the use of this survival tool anywhere in the world as an increasing threat to us! And this is especially true where the ideal of true democracy is the practice of the social group! For the killing of aother human being for the purpose of power is an anathema to the practice of a healthy democracy, and we, in the United States, are not immune to still addressing that threat from within our own idealized Democracy!

The ideal of Democracy is one of our “better angels”, for at its heart are the Principles of the inherent worth and dignity of every person (“Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you…” as Whitman puts it in the reading; we are all born as equal human beings, all 7 billion of us), and the fostering of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all – all 7 billion of us.

But what gives rise to these better angels? If these better angels, such as the rise of democracy as a more effective means for fostering human survival, are emerging against the preponderance of violence and killing as survival tools, from where has this been given brith?

Well it is not something that has come to us from outside of ourselves; it comes from the only place it can come from; it comes from us as human beings. It is our practice our behavior our choices that have given birth over the ages to the emergence of our better angels. This emergence comes from within us as human beings, for not only has violence been a useful survival tool in ages past, but something else in us as human beings has been there but not able to fully express itself in its role for our survival as human beings. And that something else is also found in the statement of our fifth Principle. That of course is the Right of Conscience.

Conscience. You all have shared your take on what “conscience” is [each person who attended of the service shared her/his definition of “conscience”]. No one said, it doesn’t exist. And the references to conscience in the professional medical, psychological, and sociological literature is abundant!

A very significant book that addresses the importance of conscience, to which I referred a couple of years ago on the biology of the biological roots of violence/crime, is the Criminologist/Psychiatrist/Psycologist Adrian Raine’s book, “The Anatomy of Violence”, where he supports the understanding of how biological conditions, i.e. conditions of the brain can affect criminal behavior.

One of the strong references he and others maintain is that psychopaths and sociopaths have no conscience, so violence and killing are often, but not always, default modes of addressing human relations. People who exhibit such behavior, who don’t have or have a very undeveloped conscience, don’t show little if any sense of responsibility, accountability, or remorse, something to keep in mind when I talk more specifically about where we locate power in society. This lack of conscience could be the result of brain damage, substance abuse, trauma, or simply the genetic makeup of the individual. I recently read a story in the New Yorker about a child soldier who was in the Sierra Leone Civil War for several years and subjected to abuse, trauma, and substance abuse (cocaine and gunpowder injections called Brown-Brown). What do you think he has turned out to be like? How do you think his conscience has developed? He barely has an understanding of what a conscicne might be, so riddled is his psyche with fear and trauma.

But the presence of a conscience in being human does seem to be almost universal, if only in some small degree. The suggestion is that there is somewhere within the human brain itself the locus of conscience; that it is something that is there within our being human but most importantly conscience requires cultivation so that it can be exercised. At some point Evolution has allowed or even selected for the presence of a conscience as a tool for survival, although it has seems to be something in the brain that requires nurturance in order for it to be effective in what it has to offer. Really quite remarkable to think of; that a behavioral/psychological trait can be present but vastly unused until the environment demands the nurturance of that trait, of the conscience in order for us to survive; that it is the conscience that gives rise to our better angels.

In my searching on this topic I came across 2 websites that offer some perspective on what a conscience is. One site is actually an Evangelical Christian Bible Study site and the other a Humanist site.

The Christian site, of course, tries to tie the presence of a conscience with the presence of God within us, which is not something I necessarily believe. But I did appreciate this from the writings: “Conscience is an aspect of self-awareness that produces the pain and/or pleasure we “feel” as we reflect on the norms and values we recognize and apply. Conscience is not an outside voice. It is an inward capacity humans possess to critique themselves… The critique conscience exercises related to the value system which a person develops…God desires that his creation conform to divine values by a process of rational (my emphasis) renewal. The Scriptures provide the content for this renewal.”

The Humanist site states among other things: “The voice of conscience is not divinely inspired…It is no more transcendent than the everyday voice that reminds us to carry an umbrella or take out the garbage. And yet conscience dares to pronounce on matters of morality, often highly serious matters with profound implications. That voice comes from within our very human selves: it has been constructed by our own deliberation and reasoning. It should never be ignored, although it is human, fallible and utterly mundane”.

Thus the role of conscience is of utmost importance to being a healthy human being. And that leads me to frame it this way. That the most mature conscience is that which asks: Is what I am doing (or what others are doing) healthy for me and for all others? A simple but a being-shaking question that goes to the core of our survival as human beings. How each of us wants to define what HEALTHY is is part of the challenge within the question. But what does seem apparent to me is that in order for us to cultivate, nurture, and mature the conscience in ourselves we have to create and seek out value systems, cultures that allow the conscience to grow, not suppress and even kill it. The conscience yearns for those environments that allow the conscience to live and prosper.

So we are a Powerful species, and each of us is a powerful cell in this species. But our survival is strongest in numbers, thereby we do live in social orders, and within those social orders we give or are forced to give a certain amount of individual power to a limited number of people – whom many call politicians. And in our culture and in many other cultures, now, we also give a LOT of power to corporations – including the media corporations. I have a presentation devoted an entirely to this topic (see link reference), but suffice it to say, here, that between the politicians and the corporations who are increasingly locked at the hip, much of our power as human beings is in the hands of the politicians and the corporations. And if our better angels are to prevail and serve the survival of humanity – perhaps all of life rather than exercising of our Power to Kill, it is the presence of a mature Conscience in our political leaders (and by extension our police force as well) and corporations that is absolutely essential. For such Power without Conscience is to allow the immature conscience, even allowing the psycho-paths and the socio-paths to continue to foster violence as the option of choice for our survival and spell our demise of honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person, of using the democratic process, to foster a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all and thereby our future as a species. Because our survival as a species is fully dependent upon such a community!

We are fortunate that in this country, the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country in the world, we have the better angel of democracy as our ideal for a healthy government. But this does not by itself assure a healthy conscience within ourselves, and certainly not within our politicians and our corporations. To the contrary, if democracy isn’t adequately exercised i.e. people vote, it leaves plenty of room for the unhealthy to force their way in. I saw that happen in a UU congregation, where apathy and resignation allowed a person who was hell-bent on being President walked into the leadership role unopposed resulting in the breakdown of the integrity of the congregational process.

Our nation is faced with probably the most significant Presidential election in our history. The planet is faced with the forces of Climate Change and the violent clashes of human cultures in ways never known by humanity before. Although the degree of human violence has been diminishing its reaching affect has only been growing, especially since the weapons of violence are all the more powerful. It is paramount that our next President reflects a person of a mature conscience, someone who comes closest to displaying what I mentioned earlier: Asking the question, Is what I am doing (or what others are doing) healthy for me and for all others? That person must come as close as possible to affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person, to fostering a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, by using a democratic process to get there! And in doing so, calling to be his or her allies the other politicians and corporations to make it happen. A formidable task indeed, but, I think an unavoidable one. And it is our job as UUs, as US citizens, as World citizens to engage our own consciences in this democratic process to hold our politicians and our corporations responsible and accountable, and for them to show remorse or regret if the exercise of their power is harmful.

This is still a violent world, but the use of violence must not be done without deep reflection and self-confrontation. As the Christian website put it: Conscience is an aspect of self-awareness that produces the pain and/or pleasure we “feel” as we reflect on the norms and values we recognize and apply”. Without this actively happening with our politicians and corporations we are simply fodder for their acts of immature, unhealthy, and exploitive behavior.

I truly think one of the Republican candidates for the Republican nomination is a psycho-path and I think another one might be borderline. Both have been insulated by their material wealth, but there is bankruptcy when it comes to conscience. What of course is most important about this and of greatest concern is the number of people who can vote and who support these prospective leaders of Power.

If the conscience of this nation, of the world is to be strengthened and given adequate nourishment to continue to grow into maturity, it is up to the Power of each of us to exercise our consciences in the use of the democratic process. Hatred, oppression, bigotry, punishment, arrogance, denigration, to name a few behaviors, will not save us from ourselves. Only the “network of mutuality”, as MLKjr. called it, will save us, as it emerges out of that inherent part of each of our beings called a conscience.

Our unique Power to Kill must continue to recede into the background  as the equally unique Power of Conscience takes the lead in fulfilling the only viable outcome to our survival: A World Community with Peace, Liberty, and Justice for All.

So once again: The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person…. 7 Billion People…. A World Community with Peace Liberty and Justice for All….. 7 Billion People….That is our Challenge… Our Means is The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process….

And as the poem Better to Light Candles put it: “The world needs all of our power
and love and energy, and each of us has something that we can give.
The trick is to find it and use it, to find it and give it away.”

It’s up to you and me to Speak Truth to Power.

CLOSING WORDS: ISAIAH 9:2 for this season of lights (Solstice; Hanukah; Kwanza)and the honoring of the humble Christmas child (the conscience of each one of us)

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

LINKS

THE “ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE” ADRIAN RAINE – NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/books/review/the-anatomy-of-violence-by-adrian-raine.html?_r=0

A HUMANIST PERSPECTIVE – CONSCIENCE
http://www.humanistperspectives.org/issue151/whatis_conscience.html

AN EVANGELICAL PERSPECTIVE – CONSCIENCE
http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/conscience/

STEVE PINKER – BETTER ANGELS
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180

“CORPORATIONS HAVE FEELINGS, CORPORATIONS HAVE SOULS”, REV. KIRK BALLIN, UUCR, 09/06/15
http://uuroanoke.org/ss.php#current

“BETTER TO LIGHT CANDLES”, MERLE SHAIN
http://www.greatthoughtstreasury.com/merle-shain/quote/it-better-light-candles-curse-darkness-it-better-plant-seeds-accuse-earth-world-ne

“TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE”, WALT WHITMAN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjhrRHGF4eE