Out to Sea... Aub and Me

Ohhh the beauties of a warm summer weekend... Thats right, folks, this Saturday marked the first family bonfire of the season. Yesss!! Now in my family, this entails hot dogs, baked beans, rootbeer, peanut butter smores, you get the picture. Delicious. There was also a long and angry phone call to my soon-to-be-sixteen cousin Rachel, who forewent a trip to Utah in favor of a smashing co-ed birthday party. Psssh. Later, there was singing and ukulele accompaniment. Somewhere in between all of that bliss, however, my cousin Aubrey and I (see the picture below) took a walk down the the old field and parked ourselves on top of the old truck. (Get it? Parked?) That is where our philosophical discussion began.

Ok, so it didn't really begin philosophically... but once we got high school graduation and boys out of the way, our conversation somehow turned to the ethics of our generation. The political atmosphere seems so saturated with "Whatever is right for you" and "Who am I to judge?" If you can't picture exactly what I mean by that, check out the comments under this blog post by Erik Folgate. I left one also, expressing my belief in the unchanging moral code that Folgate references, and also recognizing his significant interest in social media. I'm not sure if the comment is up yet, it said it was "waiting for moderation", but I'll be interested to see if he has any opinions on how the media affects our moral ideals.
Anyway, these philosophies of moral relativity may sound harmless, but when applied to the character of our country, they hold grave implications. What happens when a justice system simply refuses to judge? Some things are right; others are wrong, and I trust the law of our nation to mark that line, no matter if one or another individual complains against it. There seems to be less and less sympathy for this point of view, however, as my generation grows more and more libertarianist/morally passive than ever.

Thinking back on my novel, however, I see the opposite extreme. Hester's Puritanical society exercised extreme judgment on her, under the pretext of concern for her eternal welfare. As I mentioned this to Aubrey, my mental reflex twitched back to the topic of digital media. How does that tie in to the moral attitudes of the past and present? This was my initial conclusion: These open lines of communication and methods of self-exposure have ripped the blindfold from our ethical eyes. One can no longer hide or deny the human tendency toward sin and imperfection, and perhaps because of this, many are led to excuse these perversions as an undeniable, individual matter. After all, in an era of pintrest, paparazzi, and an online press, can we crucify the individual simply because his sins are not as easily hidden as in decades past? Modern populace seems to answer "No!", and yet I feel the answer is less simple.

There is no doubt that social media makes social knowledge very accessible, and its sphere of influence almost exponential. Information about an individual can finds its way through the airwaves to even the most unimportant or obscure follower. Not so in Hester's day- her public retribution was a rare one. Nevertheless, "if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's." (pg 80) Sin, therefore, hasn't sprouted up anew in the last two decades. The novelty encompassed by digital and social media is rather that society can no longer ignore it, and must address the issues it presents.

Here is where the road splits- media (and by media, I mean the kind that presents or exposes serious sin) can take you one of two ways. It can lead you "carefully down to hell" (2 Nephi 28:21) with its erosive influence, introducing fatal curiosities and feeding mortal instincts that one would otherwise seek to control. Or it could serve as a warning: an honest-to-goodness, slap-in-the-face reality check about the ways of the world and the fallible state of mankind.
So what about our moral pacifists, those who want "whatever is right for you"? They are those that surf the modern age, proclaiming the right of each individual to do what they wish, to advertise what they wish, and to extend their influence on society's sea of morals however they wish. What these individuals fail to realize is that by granting others this unrestricted privelege, they put themselves in danger of being swept away by the moral current of the majority.

I hope they're good swimmers.