on telling and being told

So this is weird. I have been thinking a lot lately about the need to "DO THE RIGHT THING". That's why I started writing this blog. Now the other night I see a new commerical on TV for some insurance company. the theme of the commercial is--guess what--DO THE RIGHT THING. Guess there are lots of people to whom this idea has occurred lately. Anyway--seeing this ad got me to thinking--what is THE RIGHT THING. how do you decide? That leads me to something we are seeing more of in this country and it really disturbs me. that is a growing number of people deciding for us what constitutes the RIGHT THING. i have a problem with this that is many faceted. first off--if someone is trying to push me into a set kind of behaviour--i don't doubt for a minute that they have a vested interest in wrenching the behaviour from me. the problem is--they won't tell me what that vested interest is. will they profit financially from me doing something? will some of their family members, or people who can return the favor to them get something out of my willingness to be told? or will they just gain some sense of smug satisfaction from being the "person in charge" or from forcing a set of beliefs on someone else. so when someone tells me to do what they consider to be the RIGHT THING, before i act upon their mandate, i have to run it through my own internal filter first, because i can't trust that they are acting in my best interest--or in the best interest of anyone but themselves. this is just human nature--you have to be a realist and accept that. its not a judgemental statement--its just the TRUTH.
now--a great many things masquerade to us as THE RIGHT THING. the people that live in that cult in texas convinced themselves that it is right for old men to marry and impregnate teenage girls. they have twisted their religious beliefs to accomodate a form of brutality and pedophilia. terrorists think it is the RIGHT THING to pass judgement on and kill people they have never met and know nothing about. the fact that they kill themselves in the process is supposed to make this act okay. politicians think it is the RIGHT THING to tell us all how they think we should behave and pretend that they behave in this way themselves. apparently winking and nodding at us while they engage in behaviours they know is wrong excuses them somehow. if they show us they know it is wrong then that makes them good people.
well it doesn't work that way.
if you want to be a good person--do it and forget about how you can go about making other people into good people too. i remember seeing a sign on the cable car in san franciso--home of the free spirited, unchained beautiful people. the sign told me that if an old person got on the cable car and i didn't stand up to give them my seat i would be fined.
now i am all in favor of standing up and giving my seat to an older person--and i would gladly do it because it is the RIGHT THING. and if i do this in front of other people i serve as a living example of how to act on a cable car. they can then follow this example without being told by someone who (for all i know) has probably never ridden a cable car in their life--or has never given up a seat to an older person and simply wants to exercise their power by dictating a kind of behaviour. While this is an innocuous thing--and certainly a good idea--it pushes the door open to regulating other behaviours. i saw it all over San Francisco--the home of the free spirits and unconfined wonderful people. rules everywhere. i must do the RIGHT THING as it is interpreted by people whose moral compass is completely unknown to me. maybe some crabby old person who is perfectly capable of standing but is too lazy to stand up on the cable car got that law passed. maybe some councilman was trying to increase tax revenue to the city figured there are a lot of rude people riding the cable car and this is easier than ticketing speeders. i don't know. and thats the point. you DON'T KNOW. but each time we mutely accept directives from others as to how we should DO THE RIGHT THING we let a piece of our personal power to direct our own lives slip away and that power slides neatly into their hands instead.
but we have to careful--how do we decide on THE RIGHT THING. its not that hard--its called a conscience. you remember that word. we all had one once. but we have been told and shown in living pictures (TV) that conscience is a sliding scale that we can alter to accomodate our lives. here's a newsflash--thats not true. you know when you do wrong. you may try to convince yourself its right by twising a phrase in the Bible, Koran, or Talmud or by putting the blame for your own bad behaviour on someone else (the naughty bankers told me i could afford to buy this house) or by doing drugs or drinking or having sex too much to push the feelings away. but they are there for a reason--your conscience is there for a reason. it is essential for our survival as a species that we live within a society--especially now that our society has become so diverse and complicated. so your conscience isn't going away--no matter how hard you try to leave it running along behind you like a dumped dog chasing its owner's car. if you go against it, it will find a way to punish you. why not make friends with it instead--and put it where it belongs--in the drivers seat of your behaviour. in order to DO THE RIGHT THING you have to decide for yourself, within the text of your life, your experience and your own best nature--what THE RIGHT THING IS.