Who is Moral?

I asked google to define what a moral person is. Google said that a moral person is someone who 'conforms to a standard of which is right and good. This implies conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right or wrong.'

The psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg uses four stages to explain the development of morality. These stages work on the understanding that as a person goes through cognitive development, their morality develops to. If abiding by this theory, we should believe that people start off with a very limited perspective on morality; using our role models to determine from a young age, right from wrong. As we develop, we should therefore seek to determine our own code of morality, partially based on societal values, and eventually depart from societies conventions or 'accepted notions' as google called it, and make moral decisions based on our own understanding and perception of right and wrong.

When understanding Kohlberg's theory, I struggled to believe that this quantification of an abstract concept could truly be used as a tool for which we define the development of said moral compass. Yet, when grappling with this idea, I saw my issue was not the abstract concept, but rather the way the definition of a 'moral' person tends to over simplify the human condition.

According to Kohlberg, a person that chooses to return an item that they have purchased amongst other items but not paid for, is morally upstanding. This person, theoretically, has achieved stage 5 in moral development. But does this make them a 'moral person'?

I sincerely doubt it. To me, Kohlberg's theory seems to suggest that one morally upstanding act means that you are a morally upstanding person. But what about the person who returns the item to the store, yet is cheating on his wife? Or the person who hides behind his charitable public persona, but beats his children and abuses his wife? Kohlberg's theory didn't seem to have any answers to the real moral dilemmas that people are faced with. To me, the essence of a truly moral person is someone who acts in private exactly how they would in public - if they give charity publicly, they would do this privately as well. A person does not abuse his children in private but behave beautifully in public yet remain a morally upstanding part of society. The implication that one good act makes you a good person is narrow minded, and ignores the complexity of human nature in so many ways.

The age restrictions that Kohlberg seemed to impose on moral development was the second thing that frustrates me immensely. Kohlberg seemed to suggest that morality develops with age. This would imply that children and young adults are incapable of making complex moral decisions. And that would be wrong.

When faced with a decision that would change everything, what would you do? Being someone in this predicament, having to make a decision that would change everything was the hardest thing I had to do. Before making my choice, I consulted a few adults, who were about as much help as one of those 'motivational posters' that aim to cheer someone up but in reality do nothing. Adults were sympathetic with the difficulty of my choice, but could offer nothing themselves, mostly admitting they had no idea what the right thing to do would be. So all alone, at seventeen, I had to come to a decision myself about the right, or 'moral' thing to do.

Admittedly, I might be haunted by this decision a year later, but ultimately, when weighing up two extremely difficult realities, I chose the one that was most moral, according to my own definition. So, no whilst my moral development according to Kohlberg should have prevented me from making a moral decision, I was able to anyway.

So in an attempt to answer my own question, who is moral?
I had to ask myself what is moral? A question that I don't think Google, or Kohlberg have answered particularly well. One good deed does not make you a good person, just as one bad deed doesn't make you a bad person. Being moral is about acting out of principle with good intentions, in order to do something that you understand to be correct, no matter the circumstance.

The truth, when I really thought about it, is that moral is not a mutually exclusive character trait. Morality is a sliding scale that we use to measure the intentions of our behaviour. It is a empty word, with shallow meanings, that society uses in order to fit actions into boxes.

So if I really ask myself who is moral? The only real answer I could come up with that didn't make me uncomfortable, is to say that moral is the person that acts with good intentions and deeds both publicly and privately. Moral is the person that gives charity publicly, and treats their family with respect and the way they deserve to be treated. Moral is the person without double standards or contradicting ideas. But moral isn't really a person at all, its a persona that we choose to take upon ourselves, a continually evolving entity that isn't bound by age, rather by experience.

-LF, LR and MG xx

Why School is Soul Destroying

I have a lot to hold against school at the moment. I completely understand that it's so important and I'm eternally grateful that I have been given high quality education, however I believe that the school system in the United Kingdom (and most likely elsewhere) are doing something wrong.

On the 13th August, Years 12 and 13 received their grades which either determine a place at university or will shape the predicted grades for universities to see. Obviously there are other options, which I will touch upon later.

To me, it seems as if examiners are purposely failing students. If a student was one or two marks off the higher grade, it felt like they revelled in the student's unhappiness and refused to be slightly more generous. If the exam is entirely subjective, such as English (and in my case, Drama) it appeared as if the examiners remained biased to their own views and gave a lower grade than students deserved.

Whilst I find that incredibly annoying, there is something that is bigger than this that I'd like to focus on. School is ruining the fun of education. I have two personal examples to justify this point...

I have two wonderful psychology teachers who manage somehow to keep my class motivated, educated and their love for the subject shines through them and radiates onto us. One of these teachers appears to stay true to the value 'learning for learning's sake' - studying a subject purely for the love of it. In lessons, she frequently shares genuinely interesting facts, to which she is met with blank facial expressions and the same question is posed:

"Will we need this for the exam?"

Do you see how damaging this is? When you think about it, we're supposed to study the subjects that we love, when soon the love will be replaced by the robotic routine of absorbing information and regurgitating it all over the exam paper. There's no time or brain capacity to learn for enjoyment, which is deeply saddening.

My second example follows the way that my practical AS Drama exam went. Our teacher had told us to 'use the inspiration' of a practitioner and apply it to a script of our choice. My friend discovered an unusual and intriguing script, which we performed to the style of 'Epic Theatre', as developed by Bertold Brecht. No-one else had done anything like that at school. We worked for hours during and after school every week, organised rehearsals out of school and worked solidly at school on this performance.  Both of our teachers helped us with this performance and constantly gave us praise for our work - we were sure that we would get top marks. It took over our lives. At social occasions, my friend and I would vent about how annoyed we were with the others the whole time and we would regularly rehearse our lines (and everyone else's, obviously). We were examined by the moderator, who was also being moderated, and one of our teachers.We performed our hearts out and were proud of it. This was the first time in ages, if not forever, where I felt self-confidence, both in the theatrical world and in real life. 

On the 13th August, we were greeted with a letter 'B' on the report card, rather than the A that we had hoped for. And I know that a B is a great grade, it was just heartbreaking because we expected too much. Our teacher later told us that the chief moderator decided that our performance wasn't "Brechtian" enough. 

Wow.

We were too creative.

Our performance didn't get a high enough grade because we were creative. In a creative subject.

To me, this is not okay. I am not talking about my grade anymore, I am speaking of the fact that students everywhere are having the creativity sucked out of them like a vacuum and then come university and adulthood, when we are allowed a little bit more wriggle room to be inventive, we can't. We have been trained to be machines with cloned brains, not allowed any freedom to be ourselves.

Right, I think I've had a long enough vent! I had been intending to make this post since that eventful day of the 13th August, but I couldn't write it for weeks and then, once I did, my internet was being very temperamental and I eventually forgot about this post. I need to get all of this out there though - not so that everyone can read my problems with school, but so that people can take this and be reminded to maintain their creative energy aside from school. This is why my friends and I created this blog, write poetry, songs and perform.

Thanks for reading,

-LF, LR and MG

xxx