A friend of mine made a seemingly innocent comment the other day that struck me. We were discussing a computer game that he had recently picked up. As he started to tell me about it, he uttered the following sentence: "I didn't want to pay for it, so I downloaded it." And the conversation continued. He said it as matter-of-factly as one would say, "I was hungry, so I got something to eat." The statement gave me pause, but I didn't comment on it at that point. However, it has gotten a train of thought moving.
I'm not sure where this comes from; whether it's a degredation of morals, some form of social phenonema, or what... But somehow, our culture has come to a place where the rules simply don't matter. We don't like the rule; therefore, we choose not to abide by it.
Somehow, we think that's okay.
As I sit here and type, I can think of family and friends who have simply made decisions along these lines; they did not like the way something affected their life, so they chose to violate it without a second thought. People pulling out a Sharpie and doing a line-item veto on the Honor Code at ORU, as if they actually could. Others ripping music and and movies, more than they could ever watch or listen to. Even people at a seminary doing these things, breaking Ethos Statement and justifying it a thousand different ways; it makes one think.
A guy came into my work the other day, ordered some drink with two espresso shots, and then leaned over the counter to inform me (with a conspiritorial wink) that I wasn't going to charge him for the second shot. I chuckled and proceeded to charge him the full price for his beverage. When he belligerently informed me that I had charged him for two shots instead of one, I agreed that I had; it's a company policy, and I choose to abide by it. He proceeded to rant and create a scene; but when other baristas refused to change the price, he realized he was making a fool of himself and left.
Since when is the price of a three dollar drink negotiable? Does one go to Burger King, order a combo, and complain about not getting the fries for free? Of course not. Were I selling him a car, I would expect some negotiation; I'd even try to get him a good deal. However, this is a latte, not an Infiniti. The wiggle room simply doesn't exist.
How did we think we had so much wiggle room to begin with? "I didn't want to pay for it..." So I didn't. With the culture we live in, it's possible to break all kinds of rules and never get caught. But that raises the question: does that make it right? Here we must be careful. If we truly can get away with anything (and we can, if we are willing to try) then we can go from getting away with movie piracy to getting away with murder. Quite literally. The same line of logic would apply. Rules are in place; I can break the rules and not get caught; therefore, when the threat of consequence is removed and it serves my interest to violate the rule, it becomes permissible for me to do so.
What the hell.
I'm not talking about Ethos; I'm not talking about RIAA or anything like that. It is easy justify whatever you do.
I'm talking about integrity. Someone once said that integrity is who you are when the lights are off and no one's looking. Does a person of integrity do these things? Does a steward of God's Kingdom place their own interests before the established order? Granted, there may be times when being a steward means defying the order; however, I would call this an extreme exception that is not to be confused with the norm. Especially not in matters of music, video games, drinking, tax evasion, and the like.
Our decisions affect people. I bought a Brave Saint Saturn album recently and Reese Roper said this on the inside of the back cover: "Thanks to you for buying this album instead of downloading it so that I can eat food." Many times they don't, though. And when they don't, are we the same kind of person that we strive to be when they do?
Father, please help us to be a people of integrity; a people who shine in the dark places, even when we think that no one is there to see the light. Please help us to be a people who are above reproach in our lives, so that we do not taint your name in any way. Thanks, Father.
Amen.
4 comments:
I have to say I've done a good job of making use of Amazon's mp3 store lately. =]
you would be proud sethers.
So - I have been thoroughly dominated. In a good way.
My good friend Julie Rudd and I had hours of conversation about this topic in the car to and from New York. Julie went to Houghton with me and talking to her about Houghton's Community Standards (which are also going under review...more on that later) made those conversations come flooding back to me.
Julie is at a Quaker seminary in Indiana. Quakers are all about unmediated exposure to the trinity through the Holy Spirit. She took me on our return leg to the chapel where two seminaries gather for worship. It is a large rectangular room that has no furniture or decoration apart from rows of pews all facing the center and a piano in one corner. In this room people will sit in silence waiting for the Holy Spirit to speak to them. Sometimes people will share when especially burdened. The community is the conduit of the Holy Spirit not the priesthood.
In a community like this you can see the importance of community. There are no community standards in this place but, like in any Friends Meeting (church as we would call it) any matter brought before the community is evaluated by two criteria 1. the Biblical nature of the activity and 2. the affect on the community.
You can see this sensibility in the preaching of the Chapel Speaker last week. He paralleled righteousness and justice in a beautiful way. The sex trade in Southeast Asia is directly funded by men and women who are sneaking peeks at inappropriate material on the internet in their homes or offices. Ouch. We are interconnected.
Sins and those evil things the Bible do not identify as sins are both the same in this regard. Pigging out on excessive amounts of food just because I can afford them is identified as a sin in the Bible. Notice the two effects it has: 1. I become engorged and suffer ill health and 2. the people in other parts of the world have less food. What about those matters of holiness of old that people have identified as evil without Biblical citation? The early Quakers, for instance, can claim good holiness background for their tradition of plain dress. An early American patriarch of the movement preached up and down the Eastern seaboard asking people not to purchase clothing with dyes because those clothes were produced on the backs of slaves. This founder saw the support of an unjust enterprise that marginalized a population as evil. And I think rightly so.
So there are my Netflix movies on my hard drive. I can excuse it by saying I have no time to watch the movie right now so I am saving them for another time. Or I could say those movies would be available to me for online viewing if I was not on a Mac so this is the same thing as that. But all these are, as Ted says, excuses wrapped in logic. Justification.
I miss your long theology blogs on (a)Typical. It's been mostly politics...we need a break.
It's good to see that at least one of my friends feels the same way I do!
Btw, I find it ironic that aspiring musicians are among the more 'entitled' when it comes to music.
Seth, I've starred your last three posts. That says something.
Post a Comment