Ronald Thwaites | Moral capital?

Mention was made in a previous writing about the low appreciation of the value of moral capital in Jamaica. In fact, many question the existence of such a thing. After all, “money talks, s--- walks”.

For others, when you have political power, or when you are possessed of a gun, a massive sex organ, social media prominence where truth and reasonableness are immaterial, or a death-delivering cyar or bike; power, swag or exhibitionism is all the capital you rate. And yes, brute force, more and more frequently promoted in Parliament, by the security forces and ‘rhygin’ criminals alike, is another immoral god.

The question that we Jamaicans consistently refuse to confront is whether a coherent social order, a just and peaceful society, can be built on those kinds of pseudo-values.

Well no. Not exactly. Looking at the faces of the hundreds of young-ish, probably professional and potentially productive people, who assemble in the visa lines every available day, I realise they catch the rake. Most are voting against the dearth of moral capital, the absent steel in the columns of the wholesome social and cultural construct which alone can “make Jamaica great”: a place where you want to raise your family.

MIA GETS IT

Mia Mottley, the leading intellectual among the governance class in the Caribbean, last week spoke of the affront to “Caribbean values” occasioned by the “televised genocide” in Gaza. She gets it. And she is no anti-Semite. As has become usual, by contrast, Jamaica appears to waffle on this and other issues of foreign policy which are reflective of moral capital. But at least she recognises that there is more to us than to be places of escape, extraction and Babylonian behaviour.

Johnathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind, defines moral capital as “a shared set of habits, values and norms that make common life possible. It is the antidote to the innate capacity for selfishness (because) without moral capital the struggle for power becomes barbaric. We are talking about codes of politeness, humility and mutual respect that girdle selfishness and steer us towards reconciliation”.

Pause right now with me and consider how public affairs and private interaction conducted in Jamaica measure up to these standards – consistently.

I hear you responding that we are better than many other countries. That is true. Give thanks and praises! But it is no cause for complacency.

SELL OUT?

In order to secure money from the European Union, the Jamaican Government now seems bent on signing all of us into an immoral regimen which would back future generations into accepting homosexual marriage, abortion on demand and force us, under pain of losing credit or foreign aid, to miseducate our school children about their god-given identities and relationships. Girl today, boy tomorrow and switch again when nature scratch you?

That is the kind of thing which government is preparing for us to say is OK. Do we really think the Europeans are going to pay attention to any “exemption” or reservation clause which we want to jook in? All this and more are happening without any consent of the people, so craven, dishonourable and drunk are some who wield power.

Love, tolerance, acceptance and non-discrimination are vital elements of moral capital. Those virtues and dispositions are very different from the rejection of our Bible-based and utilitarian-proven principles which we are being force-fed to abandon by our new colonial masters. There must be no compromise on the seminal values of humanism– the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, the banishing of cruelty and respect for creation.

MORE INSTANCES

The deficit of moral capital goes much further. We are being asked to suggest the form and content of gambling advertisement. Really? Well, promotion of gambling ought to have the same warnings as we put on cigarette packages. Gambling, gaming, call them any sanitised euphemism you want, are to the soul what tobacco is to the body. They create addiction, financial ruin, break families, depress savings; are the opposite of prudence and contribute nothing to productivity. Why promote something like that?

The behaviour of the banks are reflective of the nadir of moral capital in the society too. One bank is still fighting Fitz when they know his cause is just. Another has saved billions through reorganisation, but that money grossly outsizes the long-denied dividend offered shareholders, even as they project higher transaction fees for their customers. Legal? Sure! Equitable, proportionate, reasonable? No!

Property is devastated by inevitable, developer-created land slides at Jack’s Hill. Same time, the municipal corporation “tek bush” as far as any explanation of how any building or excavation permit could ever have been issued by them for that shaky, earthquake-fault, flood-prone land. The corruption money gone to foreign bank long time.

Then there was Minister Nigel championing borrowed money to build STEM Academies. Sounds good, but only if we blind our moral sensibilities to realise that it is a deceit to try to build the superstructure of STEM on the chronic and growing weakness of math and literacy education at the primary and pre-primary levels. That is what we must spend money on first. Ask the struggling school principals who can’t find or keep the math teachers required to prepare students for CSEC. and who at the high school level, given a fraction of the money to build one academy, could deliver twice the desired outcome of enabled students/workers in a fraction of the time it will take to get procurement and construction of a single new plant. That way we could get enough STEM facilities up and running in every parish by 2025.

Obtuseness and what Mr Matalon once identified as the “edifice complex” is afflicting politicians; these are moral deficits too.

Dr. Martin Luther King expresses our danger: “Instead of assured progress in wisdom and decency, humans face the ever-present possibility of (selfishness and divisiveness causing) a swift relapse not merely to animalism, but into such calculated cruelty as no other animal can practice. ”

Defining, refining, promoting and observing moral capital offers us a better way.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at the UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.