The End of Moral Ought

Used to be, fer the past 5000 years or so, that people did what they sposed to. There was somebody in charge, a king or ruler, and it weren't you. But as a subject of the king, ruler, or empire, yah did what you's told. Or they kilt you. Cuz by and large you weren't worth nuthin, other than you did what you were sposed to. That is, you worked the land as a peasant, and fought in the king's army. Now, this served us well throughout the millenia. People knew their place, and as long as they obeyed the rules, all was right on God's green earth.

Then Jesus came along and started the Catholic Church which codified the laws which were based on the Greek & Roman gods, and were mostly common sense. That is, someone was in charge, and told you what was right & wrong, and you did that or you went to hell. And all that worked, for the many centuries. Like, when Hitler wanted to conquer Europe, and Hirohito wanted to conquer China, we said no way pal. And thousands and thousands died to prevent that, and to restore order.

Then, along came the Vietnam War. And instead of fighting for your country and killing the bad guys, people said no, aint gonna do it. Cuz they figured their own lives were more valuable than simply dying for the state, which people had been doing since forever. And this changed everything. All of a sudden, this Enlightenment nonsense (Humanism) that people were not just important, but the most important thing there is, took holt.

And now, a scant fiddy years later, people are like, yeah that how it's always been. Cuz they aint never read no history or nothin else either. So, despite having no clue, they's completely assured that they right. There aint no God, and so still needing to worship something, they come up with - well, people are God, and we oughta worship people cuz, well, we're people too. So we can be one of the worshipped ones.

Needless to say, they completely overlooked the age old reality of - yall aint worth nuthin, other than doing farm labor and fighting in the army. In fact, these newly anointed God-people pretty much refused to do peasant work, and/or fight for their country. Cuz they got the notion that they oughta be worshipped, taken care of, and not gotta do a whole lot, or even anything, cuz they deserve stuff cuz they the most important thing there is.

Now this lunacy spread like wildfire. People be like, negroes oughta have the same rights as everyone else cuz, well, they's people. And don't matter who's capable or not, or that white built Europe and America and most of the world, cuz anyone who can identify as human deserves an equal piece of the pie that white people built. And women be like, yeah, we deserve that too, even though we never built nothin either. And gay people be like, we're normal, so you gotta respect us cuz, well we identify as human, in an odd sorta way.

And all of them was like, fuck God, cuz we're what's important. And fuck country too, they can't tell us what to do cuz we deserve stuff. Which is to say, the whole notion of authority and right and wrong, was eclipsed in a mere half-century's time.