                    MASONIC SPRING WORKSHOP 1977
                          M O R A L I T Y
                          THEME SPEECH #1

                         Bro. Ken Windolff


We live in an age of disillusion.  What hope is there then that we
may find our way out of the present dilemmas created by cynicism
and disenchantment?  We are on the threshold of a new freedom, and
clearer purpose, fashioned to the nature of man.  This is a time to
take our eyes off our own feet and look forward with mankind,
changing the present as we live it.

Morality is concerned with the questions, what do we mean by
"right" and what is the point of right?  Man is inescapably the
custodian of evolving life on this planet.  Moral values are thus
those values which should allow him to operate positively and
creatively.  An individual is naturally endowed to attain adult
life equipped with a responsive moral outlook, as distinct from a
sense of guilt drummed in by an education based on rules and the
fear of breaking them.  The development of this capacity is the
means towards a full maturing of responsibility in the individuals
inward life and in his relationships within society and in the
world at large.

There is evidence of an increase in individual desocialization,
alienation and stress: the delinquency figures, the drift to drugs,
apathy, character disorders, feelings of purposelessness and lost
significance, despair suicide.  It is not only that all these exist
in society - they will in any circumstances - but that they are
insidiously increasing.  It is as if more and more people were
passing a vote of non-confidence in life as it is.  Civilization
appears to be getting over-strained.

The temptation at such a time is to seek a solution in some
supposedly better state of society that existed before the
uncertainty set in.  "Back to the good old days" has usually been
the slogan when societies have faced critical times in the past. 
But the good old days have never provided the answer.  To me, the
way out of a crisis is to look forward and try to identify ideas
and values to deal effectively with the new conditions that have
themselves precipitated the doubt and malaise.  Today this task
faces you and me.

Take that yardstick you like to measure the moral condition of
society in the past, at any point you like, and you will nowhere
find a situation that, by comparison, makes modern society look
decadent.  Suppose we consider concern for others as a measure of
social virtue.  Never has so much care been provided for those in
need as today.  We have to set against modern welfare and justice
how things were a number of years ago:  the harsh treatment of
criminals, public executions, schools where flogging was a constant
occurrence, brutality to the mentally ill, and much else besides. 
Some people point accusingly at the gas chambers of the last war as
irrefutable evidence of man's moral degeneracy.  But is it?  I
think you will agree the significant point about the war against
Fascism is that mankind WAS revolted by what was happening in
Germany and elsewhere.  The civilized world rose against the
loathsome social disease and smashed in five years the New Order
planned to last a thousand.  At earlier times in history, political
acts of hate as murderously destructive in intent were tolerated,
even applauded, in the conducts of religious rivalries or war.  The
awful thing that the Nazis did was to take this hatred and
insensitivity towards a rival ideology - the abominated out-group
to its terrible, logical conclusion.  The subsequent strong
reaction felt around the world was a measure not only of horror but
also of man's advance in humanity and tolerance.  This is not meant
to be a sneer at our ancestors, they were what they were, and what
we are: Mixtures of kindness and cruelty, sensitivity and blind
indifference, virtue and vice.  But they were not, by any
comparison, our moral superiors.  On the contrary, allowing for ups
and downs and setbacks, the kindliness and sensitivity of human
societies have slowly been becoming more and more in evidence as
the centuries have passed.  Progress in humanity is undeniable.

What, then, is all the fuss about?  I believe it arises from
several sources.  Established authority is now widely challenged:
this makes people nervous.  Secondly, people are apprehensive
because, in some fields of life, person-to-person integrity has
diminished, and commercial expediency has taken its place.  You buy
something in good faith; it falls apart, and nobody seems to care. 
A pipe burst; the plumber promises to come for certain, but never
turns up.  A heavy bill for car repairs arrives you pay it and then
discover that the work has not been properly done.  There is a
feeling that you cannot rely on people as you used to be able to. 
That is the practical everyday aspect of our moral quandary. 
Another aspect is the crisis of outlook and attitude, arising from
the transformed situation of modern man.  Hundreds of years of
"Normal" development have been telescoped into the last fifty. 
Astride the present, with one foot still in the past and the other
reluctantly moving towards the future, we feel uncertain and lost. 
Man has only to find out how to co-operate honestly and effectively
and the quality of the human lot throughout the world can be lifted
to heights unimaginable a century ago.  Yet, instead of excitement
and satisfaction, we feel anxiety and frustration, and guilt.  We
are losing heart because it all seems too much for us.  We are
somehow failing to connect with the possibilities.

This faltering in commitment and vision is evidence not of moral
decline but of failure to develop the level of moral maturity that
man's new powers and responsibilities make necessary.  To be as
good as ever in the past, however good that may have been, is not
good enough.  We shall have to learn to be morally more mature than
ever before.  The human species, now very largely in control of
this planet, is out of the nursery, with its set rules and taboos. 
The days of certainty have gone.  We are facing an unpredictable
future.  As we move into it, we have to find, test and learn to
share principles that will enable us to enter into our inheritance
as responsible wardens of our own lives, of society, and of the
world in which we live.

The core of the problem is that the rapid process of change to
which men are struggling to adapt themselves has knocked away the
very props with which people, throughout history, have been
supported morally.  It is not through idealizing the past and
heaping blame on present failures that we as masons can tackle the
moral crisis of our age, but by understanding the nature of our
condition and the strains it is imposing on individual life and the
social framework.

One dramatic change with profound moral implications is the change
from small communities to mass cities as the characteristic habitat
of man.  A stable, intimate community is known to be a dependable
moral support.  It creates many values, relationships, mutual
obligation, and example which is a dependable source of moral
strength.  A mass society is an impersonal society, a society of
specialist functions, strangers in brief contact, high mobility. 
Mass society also produces pace and stress which can themselves be
demoralizing.  too much to do in too much of a rush means that
something has to go, or be dealt with careless haste.  Each defeat
leads to lowered aspiration, hence to frustration and finally,
perhaps, to a habit of defensive indifference.

The alternative to moral behaviour sustained by community or
fraternal relationships is for individuals comprising any community
or fraternal society to attain sufficient moral autonomy to stand
on their own feet.  such people are also the SOURCE of community or
fraternalism in the modern world because they are equipped to
create brotherhood everywhere they go.  Man and masons must strive
to be morally autonomous, capable of creating fraternalism and
brotherhood, and concerned for others all at the same time, to me
an example of heightened moral capability.  In other words, walking
tall.  Morality is not so much a change of custom as it is a change
of character.  This is where you and I as Masons have a distinct
advantage and moral obligations to each other and to our fellow man
to direct change.  The simple truth stares us squarely in the face: 
despite the seeming success of organized religion, most people are
still ethically and religiously illiterate.  We mouth religious
slogans which we have imbibed in our childhood; but we fail to act
upon them because we do not really understand them, in adult
fashion.  Unfortunately, we have learned religion much as we have
learned how to walk - after we absorbed the fundamentals, we
stopped thinking consciously about them.  As adults, we no more
ponder carefully what we mean when we spout religious phrases, than
we stop to consider the fluent movement of one foot after the
other.

Some people imagine that religion can be used, like any other item
of consumer goods.  All you need to do is reach for it, take it off
the shelf, stir and serve:  "Instant salvation" they label it.  But
when we use religion, instead of allowing it to use us, we always
end up abusing it.

Some "use" religion as a prop to shore up sagging nervous systems. 
They rely upon it for security and strength they refuse on their
own.  They would like to see life as neat and easy, a sweet and
simple affair.  So, they reach for "the Man Upstairs", as they
would say, reduce Him to their size, and carry Him in their vest
pocket - on the left side, nearest the heart, of course!

Others turn to religion as a respectable means of hallowing their
hates, not their loves.  Because of unhappy temperament, some
thrive only in vindictive isolation, fenced off from their
neighbours.  They need wide barriers and high walls to be happy
because, inside, they are so unhappy.  They flee from the world
because they are afraid of it.  They cannot abide its open
societies, its changing patterns, or the possibility of being
persuaded by its convincing opinions.  this kind of religion is
"useful" because it is safe - safe from the challenge of
involvement in the lives and needs of others.  but it can only be
"used" by "us" never by "them" and so, it is really an abuse of
religion.

Still others, the dependent and the emotionally immature, imagine
that they can quickly don a cloak of piety, grab the horns of the
alter, and easily acquire foolproof protection from anxiety and
trouble.  They are looking for shortcuts to circumvent the touchy
and thorny issues of life.  Unfortunately from what they have heard
about religion it appeals to their cowardly feelings, not to their
courage.  But this misuse of religion only succeeds in making
people weaker still.

Religion, thus, often comes under attack by those who label
themselves as "intellectuals".  no one can argue the need for
rationality in human affairs; we avoid the light at our own peril. 
Intellectuality, unhappily, is a sadly missed element in our
political and cultural life.  And yet, knowledge by itself can do
hard rather than good; this is especially apparent when we observe
the manner in which many modern intellectuals "ply their trade". 
They have succeeded in fragmentizing the world even as they have
been successful in splitting the atom.  In our day, the pursuit of
knowledge is often equated with intensive specialization in
fractional fields of investigation.  The intellectuals are indeed
right when they speak of the need for rationality in human
behaviour.  They are wrong when they identify wisdom with facts,
insight with information, humaneness with knowledge.  Indeed, our
generation suffers not so much from a lack of knowledge, but rather
from the absence of a passion for its righteous use.

Ours is an "expert" society so highly involved and so technical
that most of us leave decisions and conclusions to those whom we
think are more competent.  We worship and deify the technician. 
but, truth to tell, while they often look like gods, they sometimes
act like fools.  They take the adulation of the public far too
seriously imagining themselves really to be what the less-informed
public thinks are.

There are no greater follies than those of the so-called wise man. 
When he errs - he errs large!  He may be sure of his knowledge; he
is, often, much less sure of himself.  Sometimes his
over-concentration and "expertness" serve to trip him up; he
thought he knew everything, and he should have known better.

We admire proficiency and mastery and in our technological age,
those who know a lot about precious little, reach top status.  In
blind unsophistication, we snub broad, humane knowledge in favour
of "specialized" information.  Or what is worse: we disqualify the
good man on the grounds that he is not the best man.  The obverse
is more likely: the "best" man is not always a good man.

There are those, in addition to the intellectuals, who also
consider their views of human progress as an all-sufficient
approach.  These look to the law as the principal way by which
man's ethical and social dilemmas may be resolved.  Law, like
rationality, is a necessary and vital force for human betterment. 
It is a valuable weapon, for it can coerce our worst nature by
whipping it into better shape.  Legislation for human progress is
a significant and indispensable tool of the humane society.  Yet
the law cannot become a substitute for human will, for it functions
only negatively, only when it has been broken.  The Crucial problem
in the moral life of man centres upon the positives, not the
negatives; not only upon overt actions but upon covert intentions. 
Too, often, law but enshrines the lowest of our common denominators
and necessarily avoids dealings with the "imagination of our heart"
the truly crucial centre of our moral or immoral activities.

Once, so the tale goes, a plague raged among the animals.  The
lion, ruler of the animal world, determined to set up court to
discover who among his subjects had sinned, and was thus
responsible for bringing the dreaded pestilence upon them all.  All
of the animals were summonsed to appear before the court and
confess their wrong-doing.  The tiger, the wolf and the bear openly
admitted that they had maimed, destroyed, and killed animals and
humans, without a shred of mercy.  Despite their voluntary
admission they were exonerated from all blame by the judge.  Said
the lion: "You are held guiltless since you have only done what is
expected of you".  finally, the lamb made her appearance at court. 
The lion maintained a persistent and penetrating line of
questioning.  At last, the lamb did recall that on one particular
occasion, because she was very hungry, she had eaten the straw
which stuck from the shepherd's shoe.  Without further evidence or
investigation the lion pounced on these words, and hotly pronounced
the sentence of guilt.  Roared he: "For this grievous sin of the
lamb, this terrible disaster has befallen us all.  We condemn her
to violent death - to be torn apart by the bear, the tiger, and the
wolf."

The animal kingdom may have its own problems and thus abide by its
own peculiar rules, but this is no excuse for man to emulate the
beast.  Law is the armour of the weak; it constitutes their only
humane defence in the presence of the mighty.  But it, too, is not
immune from the selfish, haughty manipulation of the powerful. 
When the strong use the law as if it were intended to "protect"
them from the weak, they destroy its spirit, using it to abuse it. 
Often, law gives unethical majorities legal but immoral power. 
Inevitably, there is an ethical lag between law and the achievement
of a more humane society.

For all these reasons, the world, for its humanity, depends upon
its majorities more than upon its minorities; more upon the weak
than on the strong.  Power corrupts man, distorts his vision,
deflects his moral sense.  Instead of seeking to protect the
unprotected, the powerful turn the tables on them, exploit their
weakness, make a joke of their frailty.  But ultimately history
foils the mighty because it is hinged to the law of "measure for
measure".  The strong ones may grow from strength to strength only
to trip over their own power lines.  The meek can survive to
inherit which the mighty fall under their own weight.

The witness of conscience is found in the "have-nots" the "haves"
are often too busy getting bigger.  And so those who have something
to offer society need not pine after bigness:  the tragedy lies not
in being small or outnumbered but in desiring to become "as big as
the biggest", "as powerful as the mighty".  Majorities, then, have
more to gain, less to lose when they encourage the rights of
creative minorities within their midst.  They can hope to survive
only if they listen to what the powerless are saying and support
their right to say it.  Minorities may depend upon the majority for
the right to live.  But a majority needs its minorities even more;
it depends upon them for its moral health and its ability to
survive creatively.

It is therefore my conviction that the fundamental basis for
ethical achievement is rooted in a religious attitude towards life. 
Unless a man can view his neighbour as an equal in the sight of the
One God, as a fallible, faltering, co-creature in need of mutual
sympathy, understanding, and love, neither the purely rational nor
the purely legal approach to human betterment can avail us.  Among
the ancient iconologists, equality was symbolized by a female
figure holding in one hand a pair of scales equipoised and in the
other a nest of swallows.  The moderns have substituted a level for
the scales and this is the masonic idea.  In masonry, the level,
symbol of that equality, is the very essence of Freemasonry, all,
let their rank in life be what it may, when in lodge are brothers.

Religions were the first to teach love.  but few adults have gone
beyond a juvenile understanding of its truest, deepest
significance.  Unless we get to the core of its meaning we shall
all probably die loving the wrong things, in the wrong ways.  To
survive, we need an adult Declaration of Love - one that will
educate our hearts as successfully as we have educated our minds.

For those who still care, and I hope this would include all masons,
is a suggested preamble to such a Declaration:

1.   We pledge our lives in true faith, to seek to love people for
     what they are not to reject them for what they are not.

2.   We stake our belief in earnest on the proposition that unless
     we seek to love others in ways that earn their love, we
     ourselves cannot be loved.

3.   We affirm with the fullness of our being the truth that real
     love requires real concern.  Indifference to truth and
     kindness deflects our intentions, makes them into pious but
     ineffective syllables of solicitude.

4.   We shall be firm with ourselves in guarding against
     self-righteousness and self-justification.  Instead of asking
     "what's in it for me", we shall ask: "what can we do to help?"

5.   Above all, we shall be patient, conciliatory, eager to
     forgive, ready to admit our own guilt and error.

And even those who "love" the world, their neighbours or strangers
according to crisp scriptural imperative must learn to couple love
with freedom.  When do you love your neighbour, and how?  When he
thinks as you do, prays as you do, votes as you do, acts as you do? 
If so, your love is not love, it is hate for differences, inverted
as love for similarity.  The real test of our love comes when we
let him who must be himself, be himself and love him for what he
is; not for what he is not.

It is adult religion we need; no primitive, childish faith will do. 
I believe the Lodge does a fine job of educating us all in these
lessons of applied love.  It is up to each individual to practice
the same.  We must play an important role as the conservers of the
ennobling values of the past.  We must help to create individuals
whose concerns are social; to mould societies whose goals are
humane.  And to achieve these ends, we must practice the teachings
of our great fraternity and be willing to keep alive the search for
truth, even under penalty of being in the minority, earns for
itself a vital place in the lives of men.

Suppose you went to a fortune teller and she said, "My I have good
news for you today".  Of course you would want to know what it is,
"The crystal ball says you are going to heaven; ah, but here is the
bad news."  "What is it?"  "They are expecting you tomorrow!"  If
any one of us were told this today would we improve our
relationships with our God, fellowman and brothers?  Would we
attempt to walk a little taller in hope of a great reward?  Suppose
that the membership of your lodge were limited to twenty five of
the most faithful members, would you be in or out?  If you
membership were limited to a year, and it came up for a vote
annually, would you make it?  In a Rotary Club if you fail to
attend sixty percent of the time, or if you miss four weeks
attendance in a row, your membership is terminated.  Suppose that
your lodge membership depended on that, would you be in or out?

Brethren, as we leave this beautiful mountain setting let us
resolve to seek out untravelled paths of brotherly love and
friendship.  The Lodge is our common bond and there we unite, free
from the cares of the world, in our quiet search for truth and in
closing let me say, you can spend a weekend with some people; with
masons you invest it.  Enjoy yourselves for the remainder of the
weekend.

Thank You.
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