LIFE SKILLS II: MORALITY

Today is going to be a unique lesson for you. For once, we are not going to look at a chemical reaction or talk about a book and it’s lead character’s secret desires.

Today we talk about morals.

We’ve broached this subject recently when covering American History X but today will be a much more obvious discussion. When you think about morals, how do you see them? Is it as simple as black and white or are there a world of greys between moral and immoral?

Let us look at the age-old dilemma. A train is hurtling down a track at an ungodly speed and is approaching a junction. You hold the lever for that junction in your hands and the options you have are to send the train left or right. On the left, a young boy of no more than ten years has fallen onto the track, broken his leg and cannot get up. On the right, there are 5 pensioners who have met the same fate. You must choose the direction to send the train.

What do you pick? Do you pick the numbers – saving five lives is surely better than saving one, after all! But is it? The young boy has barely begun his life, surely the right thing to do in this instance is to spare him so he can live his life! After all, the pensioners have already lived a big part of theirs.

Right?

At that moment you’d quickly consider if you could send it towards the boy but get to him in time and to move him out of the way. You can’t though, because you’re not faster than a train.

Suddenly you conclude that you must make an immoral choice either way because there isn’t really a choice any more.

This moment, this recognition of defeat, signals the loss of hope. The loss of humanity. And this moment is exactly what Nicholas Mammon thrives in. There is a difference though, because Mammon would have tied the boy and the pensioners to the tracks and driven the train himself. He is the master of artificially creating these impossible choices.

Mammon manipulates people until they see no other way but to lose hope, then gives them an impossible choice. There is a lesson to be learned from this, class, and I hope you remember this well. There is always hope against a snake like Mammon.

The best way to stop these impossible choices from occurring is to stop the source, so I refuse to allow this manipulation to continue, because it’s wrong. The time is always right to do what is right. Mammon, hurtling down his track, asking people to choose an impossible choice, doesn’t see that we hold the key. To the left of the lever controlling the junction, on a wooden table, sits a radio transmitter.

This week I send a message to his receiver, loud and clear. Mammon must learn his own lessons this week. His assignment is simple – he must learn to live and let live. Yours is simple too – never lose hope, and never panic.

Class dismissed.