"Whatever makes you sleep at night"

Buddy Christ - Dogma

One of Hitler's baby pictures.

(originally published Nov. 9, 2011)
The title is the mantra of a good friend of mine - he used it to resolve every moral dilemma.  It has stuck with me.  I have spent much time, (many nights), contemplating its profound meaning and implications.

Think about it.  How did figures like Hitler sleep at night?  Or Pol Pot?  Or Stalin?

They must have felt satisfied with themselves.  Or they relied on drugs.  I find the first argument more probable, and for the sake of this note, it will be accepted as such.

How could they feel satisfied with themselves, at least, satisfied enough to sleep unaided?

Well, first off, they must have thought that what they were doing was right.  Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now, argued that "To be wrong is to die."  One implication of Tolle's argument is this:  people don't do things because they think they're wrong; they do things because they think they're right.

No matter how nihilist you might claim to be, you still have to be able to sleep in order to continue your nihilism - and that means you are going to have to be able to take a good long look at yourself and feel satisfied with your behavior every night.

We all have morals rooted in values that ultimately qualify our behavior.

The question of this note is not whether or not there are objectively "good" or "bad" morals/values, but "why do some people have more trouble sleeping at night than others?" (excluding uncontrollable unconscious biological factors)

Well, people have different sets of criteria governing whether or not they feel satisfied with their behavior.  I.e. different morals/values.

The problem, in this author's opinion, is that most people have extremely low criteria for self-satisfactory behaviour.

What do I mean by the former?

Well, in general, people in North America have a uniform perspective of what a "good" person looks like.  They're most likely selfless, caring, trustworthy, etc., etc., Jesus.

But here's the thing, how many of these people who consciously believe that Jesus is the model human being actually emulate his lifestyle?  And more importantly, how do these same people sleep at night if they don't?

Yeah, you have the whole "well I give myself up to God," but, if Jesus does not represent your ideal set of morals and values, then what does?
---------------------------------------------------(wait for it)
You do!  Yes, you do.  You must.

You set the standards on behavior.  Yes, holy books might influence these standards, but they don't create them.  You do.  You are the arbitrator.

As such, you are responsible for defining good and bad behavior.

I cannot stress enough, the importance of this responsibility.

As stated, it is the author's opinion that most people have extremely low criteria for self-satisfactory behavior.
If we create the criteria for good and bad behavior, then we have the potential to "let ourselves off easy."  Which, in the author's opinion, is exactly what's happening in North America.  I recently posted a status update: "We need higher standards for the good/right more than higher standards for the bad/wrong."  When I made that update I was referring to the ideas laid out in this note.

We compartmentalize the wrong more than the right.  I.e. the standards for wrong behavior are increasing faster than the standards for right behavior.  For example, people always have something to complain about.  Always.  However, the better things get, the more minute and compartmentalized these complaints become.  People used to complain about the Black Death, terrible rates of death during child birth, constant imperial wars, and dying because of your teeth.  Today, grievances like this http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/us/dover-remains/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 get global press. One thing has remained the same in this shift: the consistency of complaints (proportionate to size of population).  They haven't shifted in quantity, just in quality.

However, though there's been a significant shift in the standards of bad behaviour, the general perspective of the ideal human being has barely shifted at all.  It is the author's opinion that it is not the standards of bad behavior that need a raise, but the ideal human being.  Settling for Jesus isn't enough anymore.  We owe it to ourselves, to our communities, and to our future to seek out new kinds/levels of "good."
We have to be vigilant in our judgments of our own behavior, to a unprecedented degree, if we want to collectively raise its standards.  There's too much at stake to let ourselves off easy.

***Edit***
Before you attack me for taking a shot at Jesus, remember: Jesus believed in evil.  He was an exorcist.  The belief that there is an objective evil by definition rules out a capacity for absolute forgiveness.  Would/could Jesus have forgiven Hitler?