Thus reads the title of this article. Once you finish reading the article, it becomes evident where the author’s stand lies. Says the author:

Early on, “church and state” became a euphemism for the separation of the private realm from the public – the separation of morality from law. “You can’t legislate morality,” Americans told each other. Because the language of morality was associated with religion, the discourse of “secular” politics became ethically hollow.

Note the underlined words. This is a reprimand I received from two Cartel members long ago when I spoke in favour of banning online lotteries. Which when I later reflected in the context of secular, democractic societies, seemed correct. And one of the thoughts I had was “you can only legislate/regulate so much, not beyond,” in the realm of private lives of individuals versus public/social behaviour.

Morality is subjective, and as this author says, it has been associated with religion in large parts of the world both historically and at present. And this is short sightedness if not a fallacy, in my received opinion (you see, this article was forwarded to me by a member of a mailing list I’m part of). And after this paragraph, the author takes off and pounds his lamentation about the erosion of morality in today’s world using doomsday-like instances: nuclear arms race. It is short sightedness because the author confines morality only to the realm of religion as if the concepts of morality didn’t exist before organized religion came to the fore. If anything, it was organized religion, which messed up the life of the Individual with twisted notions of morality.

In his eagerness to hammer his viewpoint home, he makes this assertion:

By removing considerations of “morality” from, for example, the Cold War construction of nuclear deterrence theory and its arsenal – prepare to destroy the world to save it – Washington teamed with Moscow to create a stillrampant monster.

So what does the author think Washington should have done at the time when the USSR took over several countries? (The concept of “satellite states” is just a euphemism) Waited for Moscow to start launching missiles? You cannot preach morality to your enemy hoping he’ll somehow understand, and that peace will prevail. Politics is not the place for morals. Mahatma Gandhi’s name comes to mind: he didn’t want an army. And one of his noble requests was to disband the Indian National Congress after India attained independence. In fact, the classic treatise on politics, the Arthashastra mentions every dirty trick, subterfuge, and skullduggery that you can think of, which a king should practice to safeguard his kingdom. Morality is good in times of peace, to ensure that a society is healthy, so to speak. That it has no place in politics is my conviction.

By assigning “morality” to the private sphere, Americans also eviscerated the true meaning of education. The phrase “family values” is code for this evisceration, as if the family alone is the realm in which young people are explicitly enabled to reflect on the moral meaning of choices.

Would the author care to explain the “true meaning of education” instead of pontificating about its loss? True, the family alone is not the realm which provides food to reflect on the choice-consequence pair. However, it is undeniable that it is only in the family that our first lessons are learnt, that it is the family alone that forgives repeatedly, and that it is the last place of refuge for the proverbial black sheep. No family–in its right mind–would ask people to steal, lie, … (insert your favourite vice here). To that extent, morality is safe in “family values.” As to other realms, each individual is unique: how some of these (outside) “realms” influence the individual is not something even large scale brainwashing in morality classes can predict let alone restrict. And then, there’s this extraordinary generalization here:

But drawing a bright line between morality and the rest of life has become the American way. Thus hospitals and corporations have “ethicists” – specialists who, alone of officials, are held to a high standard of moral reasoning. Ethicists, of course, are not decision makers. WorldCom and Enron are the result.

Greedy people have existed at all times: WorldCom and Enron are just the latest instances. Does this guy mean to say if ethicists were also decision makers, greed would automatically be obliterated?

The separation of church and state in business means the separation of choice from consequence.

So, this means the church and/or the state should have a say running business? I definitely endorse laws regulating corporate behaviour, but not the variety that was imposed in India during Nehru and Indira’s regime. Worse, should the church have a say in running business? Why does he forget that when an “immoral” choice is made by corporations, they are penalized? Why does he talk about Enron and WorldCom’s shady record but fails to mention where they landed up? Notice the author uses “church” and “state” implying that morality is the business of either/or both these agencies. You’d be tempted to think that this guy is some species of the Left, but wait. To understand where the author really comes from, the following line is sufficient:

Walling off the “sacred” from the “secular” has removed the faith from its rigorous partnership with reason, which is why, for example, so many mistakenly assume a contradiction between Genesis and Darwin. Otherwise well-educated religious people remain theologically illiterate, which is the ground of intolerance.

The very reason for separating the church from the state lies here: because “faith” is not partners with reason. The author seems to call for a reversal. I’m not an expert either on Genesis or Darwin, so I’ll let better-informed readers educate me whether there’s any truth in this. I know a lot of work has been done in this area, which I’ve unfortunately not kept track of. The meaning of “theology” is: The learned profession acquired by specialized courses in religion (usually taught at a college or seminary). People we generally identify and honour as proponents of reason and freedom have a history of being theologically educated; these people later refuted all claims to truth/morality/existence/God made in their theology text books.

Some random parting thoughts.

The root of the author’s angst against today’s immoral society lies in what he perceives as lack of (religious) faith. He’s neither the first nor will be the last to bemoan as such. Only, he has done so indirectly. So he blames the most convenient/glaring agent: secularism. Secularism is a negative concept. It neither supports nor condemns any religion, and in the same vein, allows people to choose (and follow) their own religion. And for this reason, it bothered with morality–or should I say, regulating morality?–little. I see the greatest value of secularism as guaranteeing maximum freedom to the individual. But the concept of secularism as we (or in my limited understanding) know it is not enough: a separate entry on this later.

Moreover, morality is not something static, unchanging, or eternal. It changes with time, and the conception of morality vastly differs between societies.

The ground of intolerance is not a lack of study of theology but a refusal to accept that others can be different.