The construction of the human personality occurs without blueprints, plans, or schedules.
I doubt that the journals of Dr. Frankenstein would give much detail on the formation of disposition. Geneticists claim evidence of behavioral causation encoded in the DNA. Developmental psychologists discern deeply imbedded patterns of permanent parental conditioning. Therapists and evangelists engage strategies for programatic modification and transformational change. Accidents and activists trigger reflective interpretations and reconstructions of meaning and purpose. Indeed, Francis Galton, a pioneer in the field of behavioral science, exposed the debate of Nature vs. Nurture as "a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed."
Composed of innumerable elements, held together by more or less lasting adhesives, subject only sometimes and under the right circumstances to renovation and reform, human personality eludes our efforts to master it, yet remains malleable and vulnerable to a wide range of benevolent and malignant forces. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) builds on the understanding that behavioral change is mediated by cognitive events: right thinking guides right doing. We may postulate that the inverse in also true. A pseudo-scientific outgrowth of behaviorism known as Affirmation Therapy centers its methodology on the powerful role of positive and negative reinforcement from a trusted mentor -- hardly a new concept, but a new context for the ancient appreciation of blessing and cursing.
But what of the untrusted mentor, the impostor impersonating an instructor, who affirms things which are not true and denies the things which are? What do we make of the toxicity and destructive power of the caustic critic who tears at the seams and dissolves the adhesive which binds the innumerable elements of our personality? Is it enough to say that they should be ignored and avoided? Dare we presume that they are well-intentioned, that their motives are pure, that the damage they do will be counterbalanced by the kindness implicit in their "trying to help"?
Cultures vary in their means of understanding and dealing with defamation, and in the severity of legal restrictions upon it various forms (libel, slander, vilification). While there is a global movement afoot to eliminate criminal penalties for defamation (with the European Court of Human Rights, among others), civil protections against malicious speech are generally upheld. While children may myopically retort, "words will never hurt me", the history of jurisprudence recognizes the substantial harm that may come from verbal injury and attacks upon one's reputation. Defenses offered in defamation cases (beyond the simplistic "freedom of speech") mix claims of truthfulness and denials of malice with the privilege of privacy, but little leeway is granted to the intentional, malicious, public attack upon the integrity and reputation of another person.
It is evil. To damage and destroy, with malice of forethought, the infrastructure of human personality is beyond rude, beyond unethical; it is comparable to the brutal torture of the spirit, the premeditated murder of the soul. The one who commits such a crime is in danger of damnation to the fires of Gehenna.
Applied to the Divine Personality of God, it is blasphemy. From this crime there is no retreat, no potential for remorse, no opportunity for repentance. It is unforgivable.
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And what of slander said not with premeditation, but with passion in the heat of the moment? People, for all their conditioning, as you put it, to be rational, logical, cognitive beings, are more likely to lash out in response than to offer a well-spoken retort full of thought and calculated incisiveness.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time not too long ago when all someone had was their reputation. For certain classes of people (preachers and salesmen, for instance) that's still true. Does a premeditated speech full of calculated malice hurt worse than someone's passionate declaration of spite and bile?
You say that defamation, calculated defamation, is sin. What then of uncalculated defamation? Does it equivocate to uncalculated sin? And if so, does sin not require intent?
This may have been a bit rambly, but hey, I'm in awe. :P
Tim
I say that calculated defamation is evil.
ReplyDeleteSin can be intended (disobedience) or not (falling short of righteousness).
Unintended damage opens the door for remorse, repentance, and forgiveness. Reckless disregard closes that door, but leaves it unlocked. Conscious determination to do harm bolts it shut from the inside.
I may be nitpicking, but wouldn't that imply that sin and evil are not necessarily competely concatenated?
ReplyDeleteI do see where you're coming from, however, and the door is a nice analogy. But the question that arises in my mind is one of complete remission from remorse. Can one not later regret and repent their actions, however conscious and intended at the time?
Nitpick away, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThe argument does indeed imply than sin and evil are not coterminous. Sin can include mistakes, slip-ups, shortcomings, omissions, outbursts: anything that is other than healthy, holy, and righteous. Evil intends harm, promotes disorder, and opposes redemption.
It does seem logically and theoretically possible that any present word or deed could be the object of future remorse, but my own experience tells me that some damage is permanent (see Humpty Dumpty). More to the point, much of my reading and reflection leads me to the conclusion that a conscious decision to pursue evil and oppose Good is a decision from which there is no known retreat, one which in effect permanently disables the internal mechanisms of repentance.