No place for ethics
In bitter hours I pace the whirling world,
Where gold and iron churn the child from dream,
And men with stone-cold faces, banners furled,
Crowd out the lamp, extinguish what might gleam.
The olden songs are trampled underfoot;
The sacred well is poisoned at its source—
What use in beauty, truth, or tender root,
When greed and silence chart their ruthless course?
Somewhere, beyond the sea’s slow, sorrowed glass,
A mother weeps as little bodies fall—
Not politics, but night that will not pass,
A blackening eclipse upon us all.
Yet voices murmur in the restless air
That blood and gold are gods whom men obey;
And those who cannot bear the world’s despair
Are swept aside, like withered leaves in May.
But I, old poet, shivering by the gate,
Still hope that conscience, like a waking swan,
Might rouse itself before it is too late—
And find in dust the dream it stood upon.
In many respects, it would seem there is scarcely any room for ethics in today’s world, across numerous spheres of life.
The normalization of extreme capitalism, coupled with the swift proliferation of the so-called “Calvinist work ethic,” has, to a great extent, enabled certain sectors of production to confuse political matters with the mere existence and defense of a system of values—a fundamental ethic.
Let us be honest: children are dying in Palestine. More to the point, they are dying because Israel is perpetrating a genocide.
This is not a question of politics, nor is it an excuse for the continued consumption of plastic, the ongoing production of microchips, or the relentless sale of services. It is, at its core, a human matter—a question of the most basic ethics—which, in truth, should present no conflict whatsoever for any reasonable person.
I believe the root of the problem is, in the end, far simpler. In many cases, those deemed “successful” within the current system are precisely those who possess the requisite degree of psychopathy to care solely for their own gain—even if such gain entails the death of a million children. The slaves of money acknowledge no ethic greater than the largest banknotes and the finest suits.