"There are no un-sacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places." Wendell Berry.
These words seemed to just pop off the page as I read this quote. Society would have me believe that there isn't anything as desecrate right? I mean, as a Christian: having somewhat of a conservative mindset regarding moral issues, I find at times that even my standards seem to be blurred by the rampant ideals of society of, 'anything goes. Do as you like, for it is acceptable to you and forget what anyone else says'.
That mind set, I loathe. I think that society is based on what a collective whole finds acceptable and abhorrent. With a legacy of 'anything goes' destroys the building blocks of society. If the collective whole beliefs that they are no longer accountable to their actions because no one else understands their behavior and therefore cannot be punished is outrageous! If you share the out-dated thoughts of propriety and social standard of self-control you're labeled as a bigot, banished for being old fashion and ridged to others with more delicate constitutions.
BAH, I think it is ridiculous to have this mind set of 'anything goes'. It had occurred to me that standards help nurture a society of equality. That is mind blowing?! If we all play by the same rules and keep each other in check, all of us have the same chances to progress in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now this doesn't work in all issues that seem to plague the market place of ideas in society. For example, gay marriage. One side has said that love is love, no matter where it comes from. The other side has said it is a scourge of a physical appetite. The idea of society is: majority rules. True equality will never occur while people still have choices to make according to the dictates of their own conscience. Though, having a standard of what is acceptable or not allows for liberty to give the opportunity to lobby for change, accept that society won't/will grasp to your petitions or leave and start a society of your own that allows for it. Whether or not those choices are viable, doesn't really matter as much as that the opportunity is available. The cost to make them happen will deter or drive the change.
Though, I'm not really concerned with specific problems that plague society. I'm more concerned with the idea that people don't want to be accountable to their actions; believing their is no such thing as desecrated things. To be fair, the sentence has a certain amount of background to it. One: it has connotation to religious/spiritual things. Two: things/places can only be sacred if people believe they are and treat them as such. I would also like to think that sacred and consecrated mean the same thing; they are set aside to preform a certain function and used for that function solely. So when the specific thing is used for something else, it is desecrated. Does not 'anything goes' do that exact thing?
On the flip side, this video clip shares what the opposite side of my thoughts could be.
Maybe with this clip in mind, if everyone embraces 'anything goes' then there is no more sacred at all, for all is desecrated. That would lead to a flip ideal- desecrated is now sacred.
I like to think that for me, I will not allow myself to loose sight of what is important.
