Friday. April l2. I963

SCARLET AND BLACK

 

By lonN M. cuosscrr
(classics)

It is true that personal crises
drive us to philosophy. in the
harsh particularities of our
daily lives we seek the shooting
and justifying generalization.
Most such generalizations take
forms of proverbs and truisms,
the small change of philosophy,

But sometimes a personal
crisis of such intense magni-
tude confronts us that we can-
not be content with traditional
Wisdom; such wisdom seems to
us merely crudential, the re
sult of conventional and uncrit-
ical thinking -— for in our own
sense of anguished wisdom we
feel as alienated as Achilles.
We abandon the standards of
our society, of our age, of our
culture. of the world and na<
ture, and tom instead inwards
in order to ﬁnd there some
flaming and pure standard.
That source of inner ethical
wisdom is, generally, called
conscience.

Now the "war" in Vietnam
ls just such a personal crisis
for most Amerlcaus, and espe-
cially for the young men of the
country, who are belng asked,
and ordered to run the risk of
making what is called “the su-
preme sacrifice" for a cause
about which many have doubts.
We should observe that they
are being asked only to run the
risk of making such a sacri-
fice; were it absolutely certain
that each young man would
have to die or be maimed —
or to kill and to maim — the
problem would admit of a
much easier solution, at least
in so far as ethics is concern-
ed.

Few of us have difficulty in
making, decisions where the
choices are clear-cut; it is in
that imprecise area of doubt
and uncertainty, of darkness
and bewilderment, that our
souls become lost

It has seemed to me, in the
course of the past few years,
that more and more w ll mean-

 

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that mere fact lies reason to
challenge the popular notion
that consciences are individual,
that each man has his own,
that it is unique and personal
and hence beyond public scru-
tiny. Those who take their
stand on conscience cannot, in
all conscience, make con-
science a mysterious entity.

Historically, etymologically,
logically “conscience" is a
form of knowledge, and of
shared knowledge. The natural
questions arise: (1) what is it
knowledge of; (2) with whom
is it shared?

The oldest definition of con-
science which I know of in the
Western world is that given by
Antiphon, the Greek orator and
statesmen, in the iitth century
before Christ: “to know with
oneself that one has not Com-
mitted a homer-tin". The word
hammla — which Aristotle
uses to define tragedy and
which means “mistake." So
conscience in our oldest defini-
tion, then, means “knowing
with oneself that one has not
made a mistake," or —— in later
Christian terms — that one has
not sinned.

As modern clergyman and
atheist unite on this point, so
did ancient pagan and Chris-
tian. The permanence of the
definition is a striking Confir-
mation of the continuity to be
found in Western civilization
Both those who support and
those who attack what the
United States are doing in Viet-
nam act as they do because
they do not wish to have a se-
rious m' take or sin on — or
rather 'n" their Con-
sciences, They do not wish to
do what is wrong

The roots of the desire for a
clear conscience may be “con-

Now 1 would suggest that we
confine the analysis, for now,
to the word “mistake,“ for the
Christian term “sin” is too con-
troversial for rational discus-
sion. All of us, however, will
admit that we make mistakes
— or practically all of us:
there will always be someone
who will deny any proposition
But mere denial is not an argu-
ment, and if anyone wishes to
deny that he makes mistakes,
and to follow out the conse-
quences of his argument, I
shall be glad to accompany
him down to that dull spot-la.

Let us, then, take as tme
that men make mistakes; and
let us follow out the conse-
quences of that argument, We
shall not, I fear, much like
where it takes us, but beggars
for truth cannot be choosers.

Mistakes are not subjectiv
if you add up your bank-state-
ment incorrectly, you cannot
avoid either the fact or its con-
sequences by claiming that 5
and 3 equal 8 or 9 at will. You
may rename 5 and 3 and 8
and 9, but the reality will not
alter — unless, of course, we
elect to practice the solitary
and insane solipsism of Dustoy-
evsky’s “Underground" man or
collective — and equally insane
k solipsism advocated by
O'Brien and the Party in Or-
well’s 1984. In short, to know
that you have made a mistake
(hamam’a) is to recognize that
reality is objective and that
propositions accurately made
in accordance with reality are
true,

A clear “conscience,” then,
consists in knowing with one-
self that one has not made a
mistake, that is, that one's pro
positions and actions have been
made in accordance with the

The question is pertinent. in
answering it, we should begin
by observing this tact: if
ethics are not objectively
grounded statements about
reality, then the word "con-
science” is not applicable No
one who denies that objectiv-
ity of ethics can claim to be
guided by his conscience, for
he will be saying that he has
conscious knowledge of what is
unknowable.

I am perlectly willing to stop
here My principal point in
writing was to get those who
misuse and abuse the word
“conscience” to stop their de-
graded and debas'lng arglo
ment. If all those — like the
editor of the Pterodactyl or the
spokesman for the Vermont
Council of Churches —- who ap-
peal to conscience in opposing
the action of the United States
in Vietnam will substitute such
word as “feeling” or even
“op' on," a great and neces-
sary step forward will have
been taken in progress toward
a solution Conscientiously
speaking, such persons ought
not to use the word “can-
science."

Such an alm may seem trlv~
fall to some, a mere qiilbbling
about words. But Words, the
icons of ideas, have conse-
quences: men who are willing
to fly to Canada or to desert to
Sweden are surely engaged in
some serious decision and ac-
tion.

“Thus conscience doth make
cowards of us all," Hamlet
says: he is speaking in his
most famous soliloquy in
Shakespeare, in English, in the
World, which begins “To be or
not to be, that is the question.“
His specific problem is sui.
cide.

Page Thirteen

not separate the two. for both
are forms of self-knowledge,
man's goal at least since the
Delphic oracle.

Canada and Sweden may well
turn out to be forms of “that
undiscovered country from
whose bourne no traveller re—
turns"; and those who elect to
“hear those ills we have” but
rather to “fly to those we know
not of.”

will they, for making the
choice, be better off? “Ay.
there’s the rub." i run arguing
that only by a full examina-
tion oi the word "conscience”
can the rub be smoothed out,
or at least made tolerable.

Are "consciousness" a nd
"conscience" no more than
“the pale cast of thought," as
a result of which we are “sick-
lied o'er"? Is the action —-
even if it take the form of a
decision not to act — as found
enterprise of great pitch and
moment?

The doctrine smacks of mere
existentialism, and atheistical
existentialism at that — the
exact opposite of Hamletﬁg
Christian conscientiousness. We
must never forget that Ham-
let’s problem arises irom pro-
found awareness of the super-
natural, from a ghost. Once
again those whose “con-
sciences” deny the existence of
objective and real and true
standards — whether grounded
in a "better nature or God” —-
cut the ground out from under
their own feet.

In a recent issue of the so«
called Grinnell “underground"
paper, the editor Richard
Schneirov devoted every page
to advocating resistance to the
draft. Two editorials appeared
in that issue: in one, the edit-
tor supported his own candl-
dacy for a post in the student
government; in the other, he
stated that resistance to the

FIRSTii'LL COLLECT
ALL THE PEOPLE who DON'T
atom in PEME,..

nau- os,5llt. now but You
PREVENT homo [MR 1:]; lF
memo?

ing citizens have justified their
unsure commitments [or or
against the “war" in Vietnam

» aptly symbolized in the con-
ventional and traditional beast-
imagery of hawk and dove —
by appealing to conscience.
The conscience is treated as a
kind of ultimate arbiter on su-
preme ethical questions.

Yet upon asking many men
and women What the con-
science is. I find that few have
any sense of what the word
means, or what it is that the
word denotes. Many of the
very same people who appeal
to the conscience deny its bio-
logical and physical existence;
they assert that there are no
absolute moral standards; they
argue against the existence of
God or the soul; and — ironi<
cally _ iind themselves being
counselled and supported by
men who dilier with them point
for point on each of these mat-
ters. Clergymen and atheists
find a common ground in con-
science. clearly such a funda<
mental term deserves some
critical attention,

Though etymology be a frail
reed tor the thinking of man
to lean on, we must clutch any
reed in the winds of doctrine.
Both in Greek and Latin, the
word “conscience" means, lit-
erally, "to know with.” And in

ditioned” — as we say nowa-
days, where we really mean
“taught" (paideia) — but it is
a “conditioning” that dates
back at least 2500 years, to the
wellsprings of both GrecoRo
man and JudanVChl'istian cul-
ture. The desire for a clear or
clean conscience is the essence
of conscience.

it will be a legitimate and
touchy problem for those who
wish to explain away con-
science as mere “condition-
ing,” as a holdover and hang.
over of the sl‘rcalled “Puritan
eLl'lic," to explain how such a
phenomenon arose by chemical
processes, Its presence in the
lives of most men is Vivid
enough; we may remember
Huck Finn’s plaintive observa-
tion: “A person's conscience
ain't got no more sense than a
yeller dogr"

nature of things. Since reality
is objective, mistakes will be
universal. With this admission,
with this recognition, one must
abandon the whole notion of
conscience as something indi-
vidual, personal, merely sub-
jective, Conscience truly does
become a matter of ‘knowing,"
and of “conscious" knowing —
the roots of the word ”con-
scious” are the Same as those
Of “conscience,” Such is what
is meant by “knowing with
oneself.”

Thus far, however, we have
used examples drawn from the
simpler elements of reality,
those that are mathematical
and quantitative. (me might
ask here, “What of ethical
matters? Is there an objective
reality here? And if there is
not, then your theory falls
down."

“Being" and “suicide," how-
ever, take various forms, from
physical death to that “liiedn-
death” celebrated in Edward
Everett’s story “The Man
Without A Country.” Philip
Nolan may be a pale and min-
uscule Hamlet, but he ﬁts the
genus — and so do the vari-
ous kinds of modern youth
who burn draft cards, who go
to jail, who flee the country,
and who desertt

We cannot dismiss them
merely because they are epig—
onl.

when Hamlet uses the word
“conscience." he means pri-
marily “consciousness," “re-
fle c t i o n,” “introspection,"
“brooding," “though ” but
secondarily the Christian Con-
cept of “conscience" is hover-
ing and haunting his sollloquy
and situation. indeed, we can

drait was ”a matter of personal
conscience which boils down to
the question of how far a per-
son should go in opposing what
he considers evil.”

The editors statement re-
sembles, in general, that made
by most at the “selective con-
scientious objectors” — as they
call themselves — in the word
“personal” and in the clause
beginning “boils down,” the
editor reduces conscience to a
questlon of individual decisionl
all sense of “knowledge" is
lost But suppose l were to de-
cide that Mr. Schneirov was
eVll ._.. would I then be justified
in conscience if i were to kill
him? If Mr. Schneirov means
what he says, he would have
to, in his dying gasp, defend

CROSSE‘IT—
(Continued on Page is)

 

