Guilty of good?

Notwithstanding their intrinsically ascribed cognitive capabilities and exalted epithets, humankind — the crown of creation — lacks an inherent compass for living a mutually productive life. This absence has, for millennia, compelled humans to explore, evolve and deduce frameworks to distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong, and productive and unproductive choices, thereby giving rise to moral codes and notions of dos and don'ts.

Morality — rooted in and influenced by biological, personal, religious, spiritual, cultural and philosophical inquiries, including consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics — serves to define right and wrong and, if acted upon, helps establish a just, collaborative and inclusive society operating on a normative standard of truth. Based on their relationship with and practice of morality in different contexts, societies tend to either conform to, openly defy or exploit moral principles, or engage in all three to varying degrees.

Societies that genuinely conform to morality invariably and holistically reap the best dividends. In contrast, those that openly defy moral values inevitably collapse under the weight of their own misdeeds. Worst, however, are the societies that neither fully adhere to nor explicitly reject their own moral frameworks and instead wear them to veil their wrongdoings. This framework is characterised by multiple, mutually reinforcing parallel moralities that selectively preach and justify actions and lead to moral hypocrisy. Ironically, these societies are sustainable and devastating, largely due to their exploitative, hypocritical moral foundations.

Our society exhibits the classic characteristics of those that cash in on manufactured and selective moralities. The personal or group interests — or even the failings — of counterparts often shape an indefensible defence, built heavily around ethnic sensitivities, selective divine interpretations and other debatable pretexts presented as irrefutable. Each group — political, ethnic, sectarian, institutional, bureaucratic or judicial — has its own morality, refined and evolved in ways that often mask its wrongdoings, serving more often as a justification or refuge for vested interests and immoral acts disguised as service than as a guide to virtue.

For instance, the 'morality' of bureaucracy and judiciary justifies disproportionate privileges and perks in the name of futile public service; that of media-persons and writers centres on accolades and envelopes; that of the clergy rests on promises of divine and worldly salvation; that of feudal and tribal warlords is rooted in archaic bonds of obscurantism and subjugation; and that of the educational system is structured to ensure that the educated submit to any or all of these moral codes. Together, they sustain one another through state-sponsored complementarity and, more importantly, through the support of the powerful.

They have done the worst that evil can do — yet each moral group claims to be the only one on the path to truth and public salvation. Their self-righteousness stems more from comparative criticism of others' weaknesses than from the virtues of their own. In this way, every group's morality is seemingly righteously wrong and wrongfully right to one another.

Above all, the morality of power defines the fate of all other moralities. When threatened, it pits carefully nurtured competing moralities against one another — and against the actors who challenge its long-installed authority — thereby keeping the public entangled and endlessly wrestling within the ring. This has long and largely eclipsed the days when moralities improved lives. Instead, they have multiplied and mutated into facades that the powerful use to disguise their guilt.

Had Voltaire foreseen our society today, he would have revised his oft-quoted adage "every man is guilty of all the good he did not do" to "every man is guilty of the good they do and the bad they restrain themselves from doing." Nevertheless, isn't being guilty for good, where evil claims the most reward, worth it?

The solution? Restoring every individual and group solely to their assigned roles, along with a renewed social contract, defined and directed by the people of Pakistan, for the people of Pakistan.