Ethics and Morality

High Ideals

What would you do with 21 BILLION DOLLARS? Well if you're Bernie Madoff then until March, 2009 that was a serious question for you. Bernie Madoff was a Wall Street investor who was the leader of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a confidence trick where investors are paid back from other investors' money. Bernie Madoff had probably been doing this for twenty years, but no one knows exactly how long the fraudulent activity was going on. An estimated twenty-one billion dollars of the investors' money was lost. Early in his adult life Bernie Madoff was a plumber; then he was a legitimate stockbroker. How did this man con the most amount of money in history? Why did this honest man become one of the biggest cheats in history? He was entrusted with an enormous amount of money and was unable to handle it. He was held to high ideals and he was unable to meet them. Although his case is unfortunate, it is not rare. History is full of Bernie Madoffs.

Some claim that humanity is naturally good, that we can live up to high ideals, but this is not true. Let's look at this from the evolutionary standpoint. In a "survival of the fittest" scenario the one who survives is not the most charitable but the most selfish. Being greedy is natural for humans; we want to help ourselves, not strangers. There are some extraordinary people who have not just met high ideals, but have excelled them; however, these people are far and few between. Far more numerous are rapists and murderers than members of charitable organization. Since 1961 only 200,000 people have signed up for the Peace Corps. In 2009, there were 1,318,389 violent crimes in the United States. There were a million more violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) in one year than there have been volunteers to the Peace Corps in forty-nine year. The high ideals and morals of our society cannot be met by most people, and this is the case in many eras, including the middle ages.

Geoffrey Chaucer, a famous 14th century writer, understood that mankind could not live up to high ideals and included this fact in his satirical social commentaries. Chaucer wrote about men who were supposed to be great but really never lived up to the high ideals of the time. The Monk from the prologue of the Canterbury Tales is a man who is not willing, or is unable, to live up to the high ideals of monk life. In St. Augustine's rules a monk is allowed only to do godly things; you can't hunt or gamble or get rich. Of course this is exactly what the monk does. In an excerpt from the prologue of the Canterbury Tales,"Grehoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowel in flight; Of priking and of hunting for the hare" (Canterbury Tales) this refers to his hunting dogs, which monks are not allowed to have. A monks' life is a hard one to live, and this monk couldn't live it.

The pardoner is another character that is does not live up to high ideals. A pardoner is someone who can pardon your sins if you can pay him. This pardoner also carried around a bag of illegitimate relics, which he sold to unsuspecting country families, as said in the Canterbury Tales Prologue "But with thise relikes, whan that he fond/ A povre person dwelling upon lond, Upon a day he gat him more moneye/ Than that the person gat in monthes tweye." (Canterbury Tales) This is saying that he makes as much money with one day of selling relics, as the people he sells them two make in two months. The pardoner is basically a medieval con-man. Chaucer's work is full of characters like this, but history is also full of scandalous characters.

So whether you look at modern day or history, one comes to the conclusion that people cannot live up to high ideals; it is just too hard the average person. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to live up to high ideals. Try to one of the exceptions, try to be extraordinary.