Greetings everyone,

Today, I am honored to share with you the first of a four-part series on morality that I’ve co-written with my friend Coach Mahr. Don’t worry this won’t be some pedantic, boring, or overly righteous exposition but rather a serious look at the role that ethics plays in building a good life.

Coach Mahr and I met through this burgeoning online world of independent newsletter writers, podcasters, and content creators. After following each other’s work for a while we started up a correspondence and would regularly connect to talk shop, compare notes on the world, and trade ideas. After several such discussions, we decided to experiment with a writing collaboration. So, here goes nothing… 

Nick:

Being a parent, you learn pretty quickly that though children come into this world innocent, they certainly aren’t born as angels. After a few magical years, your life turns into one continuous, never-ending lesson in morality, ethics, and basic human decency. 

Kids will scream, hit, cry, throw things, run away, flail on the ground, resist, refuse, deny, talk back, push boundaries, manipulate, …. And you can drive yourself crazy saying things over and over like: “Please Stop!” or “Remember, you have to share.” or “No, you cannot hit people when they don’t do what you want.”

What you realize in these moments is that morality is something that absolutely must be taught. As a parent, you know instinctively somehow that it would be crazy to just let this stuff go. So, you intervene and begin the long process of helping your child develop some semblance of a moral compass.

What’s happening in the standard tantrum episode is actually something rather psychologically profound. It’s part of the process of coming to terms with the harsh reality that the world does not exist for your gratification! It might not even care about you at all, at least in the way you want it to. Now, some people never quite figure this all out—we all know the type—but that’s a story for another day. 

The tricky part about teaching morality is that it is something that is neither absolute nor relative. Take for example, the commandment “Thou shall not kill.” It’s clear as day, right? But is it always true? I just don’t know. What about killing in a just war or when confronted with an impossible choice (like in the Trolley Problem) or dealing with a truly evil individual? In truth, we tolerate an awful lot of moral killing in our society but does that really mean it’s ok? 

While moral truth isn’t always so clear, we cannot just throw our hands in the air and say “Well, it’s all relative…I guess we’ll just do whatever the hell we want.” That’s what the Nazis thought and we all know what happened to them. No, morality exists in an objective sense, and as a human, we come equipped, with some guidance of course, with both the ability and the responsibility to learn what it is.

The tragedy of modern times is that as we have adopted an ethics of productivity and made achievement our god, we have lost our moral foundation. And just as an individual without a moral center is doomed, so is a society without one. 

To right the ship, there is serious work before us all.

Where should we begin? 

Enter Coach Mahr:

One of the first lessons I taught as a Character Coach, over a dozen years ago, to a High School football team was to be a thermostat and not a thermometer. It is a lesson about ownership and accountability but also about setting a standard. A thermostat sets the temperature of a room; it is specific and deterministic. It owns the outcome. Whereas a thermometer moves up and down based on external influences. A thermometer takes no ownership.

As a thermostat we have an internal moral compass that sets the objective foundation from which we operate. Without it we are subject to society’s changing tides. These shifting norms are like drafts of cold air that affect a thermometer, but don’t change the thermostat setting. Our feelings are subjective, they should not be the objective standard needed to distinguish between right and wrong or good and evil.

Our standard, or moral compass, or thermostat setting needs to be based on a long-standing moral code of conduct. We do not argue with science over the Periodic Table of Elements nor language regarding the alphabet or sentence structure. However, when it comes to Sacred Scripture and Scared Traditions on social issues there is no hesitation in debating the benchmark for right or wrong, moral or amoral.

To better equip ourselves around having an internal moral compass, it is important to understand the difference between knowledge and skill, which are morally neutral, and wisdom, which is not. Knowledge is the accumulation of facts and information. Skill is the ability to competently perform a specific task or activity. Wisdom is the mindful development of knowledge and experiences with insights that deepen understanding and inform action. Knowledge is a tool, and wisdom is the craft in which the tool is used. Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge. Isaac Asimov said, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

Whether as a coach for High School Football or Girl’s AAU Basketball, I was more concerned with the lessons being taught which could blossom later in life than the scoreboard. Some Coaches would argue that you build character from a winning program, but I have always seen that sustainable winning comes from a character-based program. My best character lesson was done with a tube of toothpaste. When you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, what comes out? Toothpaste. Why? The tube has been squeezed (pressure) and that is what was put inside the tube in the first place. Life is the same principle. When we get squeezed by life, what comes out is what we have put inside of ourselves. Circumstances in life will put pressure on us. In high school that can be a pop-quiz in math class, later in life that can manifest itself in many ways. Our actions will mirror our preparation. Have we studied or done our homework? Have we put morals, ethics, and values inside of ourselves to make correct and principled-based decisions? Have we developed wisdom?

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