Friday, September 2, 2016

THE INDISPENSABLE MAN


    There are certain values which persons and societies must observe if they are to live and prosper.  These values may be construed as general, but they are both necessary and sufficient for any civil society to exist.  There are only three of these general values from which all other values are derivative.   The society in which these values are widely practiced will be exceptional and the individual person who practices these values will always be indispensable. 

    The first of these values is the personal appropriation of the idea that the observable universe bears moral content.  This is a conviction that regardless of any other religious or political belief the universe as it is contains discoverable moral imperatives. Simple examples of these moral imperatives would include values such as that murder, fraud, and theft are wrong.   Existentialism or any other philosophy in which values are the arbitrary invention of man will be destructive of civil society.  Every manifestation of moral relativism will be corrosive of civil institutions and traditions.

    A second general value is that all persons are created equal.  This is a phrase which has been much more frequently used than it has been understood.  The meaning of this statement is that none are endowed with a right to dominion and none are endowed with an obligation of servitude.  The civil society cannot be an instrument of the subjugation of some for the benefit of others.

    The third value necessary and sufficient for a civil society is the general disposition of every citizen to other members of the civil society.  Every person must love others no less than himself.  

    In the event that any of these three values is ignored or repudiated the civil society will cease to exist. Embracing only one or two of these values is insufficient.   They must be taken together.   These are the indispensable values of the free state.  Those who faithfully observe and practice these values will become the indispensable ones.   They will be the few or the many on which fragile rights of man depend.   Without the indispensable ones the rights of man will be extinguished.