Identity Is Better Than Any Moral Code

Your moral crisis is actually an identity crisis in disguise.

And here we are again, talking about morality when we should be talking about more interesting things. No one can help themselves, I suppose, myself included. We simply cannot resist getting up on our moral soapboxes, can we?

Let’s start our discussion by examining the condition of the mongoose and the snake. Both have a set identity and concrete goals that they wish to achieve that are opposed to one another. Watching their deadly dance at home on the cable, we do not choose sides when the mongoose enters into battle with a snake. Well, I do actually, on account of the mongoose being a mammal, and my mammalian in-group preference kicking in. But, in general, we simply see these two creatures as enemies because of their innate identities and do not view their conflict through a moral lens.

“It’s just nature,” we say.

Yes, and nature is “immoral”. Red in tooth and claw even. But that is not to say that nature is not beautiful though. That it doesn’t seem to be possessed with a certain kind of wisdom. That we cannot learn from it and so on.

Is it moral to kill? Well, no. Of course not.

But then, no one gets angry at the mongoose for killing the snake. Or at cops and soldiers for killing the enemy, do they? Sure, some people try to moralize even this simple scenario like they do everything else. They feel compelled to portray the dead enemies as literal demons that had to be killed to save the world. Modern wars and cop-killings are routinely portrayed as moral crusades. All the more so nowadays. But there is less and less of that the further back in history you go though. The ancient Greeks, in particular, would have considered such moralizing to be in very bad taste.

Is it moral for the snake to kill the mongoose? Does it consider that the mongoose’s pups will go hungry? That there are too many snakes now and that it is damaging the ecosystem? That the mongoose had a right to self-defense?

Somehow, I doubt it.

I remember someone wrote somewhere that suicide under any and all circumstances was a path to eternal damnation in Hell. And that Catholic fundamentalist position, in particular, really stuck in my craw. Officers, for example, have always understood that suicide was an option to be taken in case of extreme failure, refusal to follow insane orders or the desire to not be taken alive. As a kid, my dad and grandpa shared some of the tragic stories of heroic officers who had taken a bullet to their own heads rather than be taken alive by the Reds, for example. I can’t imagine standing in front of a company of even former Soviet officers and declaring that some of the men that they had known and served with had forfeited their souls to Hell. In fact, I’d pay good money to see a Bible-thumper try it after the vets put a few drinks down and see what happened to him.

My point is that morality is relative. Hardly an original thesis, I know and it sounds like something a hippy would say. But, my alternative to relying on a morality code is anything but groovy and free-flowing, as you will see if you read on.

Let me skip ahead and just say this: morality and moral codes, important as they are, are a function of identity, and a moral person is inferior to a person with a strong identity. Furthermore, one’s identity ought to inform one’s moral code and therefore, there is no universal morality that can be applied across individuals, sexes, classes, ethnic groups, religious groups or species too, I guess.

Actually, what we call morality is simply a series of compromises that people with different identities made to be able to share a society together.

So, we know that strong men, given the chance, would just have sex with as many attractive women as possible to spread their seed. We know that most women would, given the chance, have sex with the most attractive and dominant men even if commitment could not be secured and simply ignore the other men or try to trick them into raising the stronger male’s children. Read up on female hypergamy or just download Tinder if you don’t believe me.

To make society more or less work, we forced both sexes to compromise on their sexual interests, which are a product of their innate identity. Sexual morality was simply a tool then, with a goal in mind: civilization. Men’s sexuality was reigned in, and so was woman’s sexuality to get roads built and fields sown. The moral code that we settled on was a social control mechanism with a clear goal in mind.

And, clearly, it worked, if only for a time. Just look at all the nice things we built.

Other cultures came to different compromises though. There’s a lot of similarity in moral codes across cultures, but also many differences. Truth be told, I find myself looking to the past wistfully across different cultures and wondering if they didn’t have a better moral code worked out. Ancient Greece, ancient India and not-so-ancient Japan fascinate me.

But allow me to hammer home my point a bit further though.

The other day, I was talking to a Ukrainian girl and she was telling me that she and her friends had held a fund-raiser for Ukrainian troops. She was well-aware that most of the aid money from the West was getting stolen, so she and the girls wanted to help make sure that the men had warm clothes and body armor, at least. She, like just about everyone on the planet, considers herself a moral person.

I asked her to consider a scenario in which a soldier that she and her friends had prevented from dying of hypothermia went on to rape an innocent Ukrainian woman. Would she and her friends be immoral for sending this man clothes? What if the aid was making the war last longer and more death to ensue as a result? Would it not be more moral to not continue to fuel the conflict? Wouldn’t less bullets being sent to the front mean less death? What if the soldier went on to kill one of his own by mistake? What if the soldier was fighting for the wrong side?

Believe it or not, but my words had an effect. I triggered a real moral crisis when I explained to her that all of morality is like that. That there’s no black and white, cut and dry moral code that anyone can rely on. That is why society used to outsource this to priests who would lawyer out these complex moral dilemmas for them. And, of course, the morality experts of yesteryear relied on a few fundamental metaphysical givens i.e., religious dogmas to base their reasoning on, because, without these givens, there would be no basis on which to apply a moral code in any situation.

Anyways, I don’t consider her a bad person for sending money to Ukrainian soldiers on the front. If I applied this moral filter to the situation, then the people who are stealing money from Ukrainian soldiers suddenly become the good guys. Do you think Biden and Pelosi and Zelensky are the unsung heroes of this conflict for looting the country so thoroughly? No? Why not?

Just think about it: they are undermining the Ukrainian army’s ability to fight and getting hundreds more Ukrainians killed than probably would be had they gotten more supplies. And the war racketeers and swindlers are actually good people too then, apparently.

Finally, if we start doubting the priests and their sacred texts, then we lose the fundamental metaphysical givens on which our morality has been built. People seem to understand this, even if they unable to articulate it clearly, because they balk at anything that threatens any change to the moral code or the underlying religious narrative that underpins it.

But moral codes are often not so moral. In some cases, it would be better that a certain kind of morality code never came into existence at all.

Take Muslims, for example. Their entire morality is built on following the example of Muhammed. To those who do not know, Muhammed was a brutal Semitic warlord. But, if he did something in the Koran, whatever it is that he did, then it is considered a holy act and therefore a moral example to be followed by faithful Muslims. This has led to a lot of problems over the centuries, as I’m sure you’re aware.

But for all the time that we spend wrangling over moral codes, we would be much better served spending that time thinking about identity.

In other words, if I am a mongoose, I ought to adopt a mongoose mentality. What is mongoose mentality, you ask? Well, if I had to guess, it probably consists of a code of behavior that enables me to kill snakes better, feed my young, and maybe even look out for the interest of my fellow mongooses. Makes sense, right?

Now, imagine if I started thinking that I was a snake. What if I adopted a snake code? Would that make any sense to judge myself, a mongoose, by snake standards? To identify myself with the snakes and their interests? No! In fact, that would be a crime against nature. Especially if the real snakes still considered me to be a mongoose and therefore an enemy.

Now, I suppose if mongooses and snakes decided to get together and form a society, they’d have to settle on a compromise moral code with both sides conceding to an artificial set of behaviors that allowed them to live with one another and not struggle to the death all the time. But the fact that this has never come to pass is yet further proof of nature’s wisdom. No animal living in tune with nature would ever agree to such an unnatural arrangement. Mongooses lying down with snakes? Lambs lying down with lions? Me making peace with my next-door neighbors? Absurd.

Instead of asking ourselves whether we are moral people (the answer is always, invariably, “yes” anyways) we should instead ask ourselves who we really are. And, our identity should then inform our moral code. Put simply: an officer cannot be held to the same moral code as a housewife. Furthermore, it is quite clear that certain groups of people do not hold themselves to the same moral code that we do and will sadistically exploit our moral values, even use them as cudgels against us, to further their own ends. And they do it with glad hearts all the while, convinced that they are doing right by their group, their priests and their gods.

A person or a people that adopts a universalist mentality and the moral code that goes along with it is no different from a mongoose that thinks it is a snake. Such a person is suffering from an identity crisis and is actually clinically insane. In fact, most people who have their moral code called into question are often sent reeling into an identity crisis which they mistake for a moral dilemma. Their real problem is that they allowed their moral code to define them and then to mislead them into misery. They were so eager to be “good men” instead of realizing that they were “men” first and foremost. Perhaps Frenchmen or a Chinamen in ascending order of identity next. Stepping up to raise another man’s child? Believing that it was “her turn” to lead the country or in the workplace? Being tolerant and understanding of every single other hostile group of enemy men?

These are things that “good men” do, undoubtedly.

But this is not what men ought to allow.

Men have always taken what is theirs and only then appointed priests to explain why what they did was moral and correct in the eyes of their gods to subsequent generations. Real men only adopt a compromise morality when the other side holds up its end of the bargain. Real men are willing to reforge their plowshares into swords when the moral code becomes a weapon wielded against them by another identity group.

“Do unto others as you would have done unto yourselves” is a good principle to live by. But, it largely depends on your definition of “others” and yourself.

Men ought to strive to be good at being men and mongooses ought to give up on trying to be snakes. In fact, they do not owe the snakes any explanations whatsoever. There can be no debates with other identities over moral principles because they are not universal. The word we are looking for is “negotiations” and those are usually conducted before or after a conflict to settle on peace terms going forward. Men of European descent now live under a moral peace treaty that is far more predatory than Versailles ever was.

This sounds abstract, but when it comes to politics, people make decisions based on morality calls all the time. Why do some people support Russia? Well, because the West is in violation of the old moral code. Many people believe that God punishes those who transgress against the moral code. Russia then, being more moral, must be winning this war. Because the Moral triumphs over and informs the material consequences of events occurring in this world, apparently.

The only problem with this assumption is that it is totally wrong.

Numbers, supplies, competent generals and so on decide the course of wars, for example, not the laws laid down in Deuteronomy. As such, it makes perfect sense why there are two such vastly differing viewpoints on the course that the current war is taking. It explains why people cannot analyze elections or presidencies or foreign policy competently. The superstitious peasants instead fixate on morality plays. On trying to figure out who is the most moral. Being paragons of morality themselves, they consider themselves competent judges on the matter. And, they think that adherence to their particular interpretation of morality is a determinant of God’s approval and therefore real-world outcomes.

Despite this, they themselves will admit that it rarely ever is the case in their own lives.

But good luck trying to explain any of this to a deeply moral person.