Dialogue ~ 39

According to the dictionary Merriam Webster, ‘ethos’ is defined as “the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature or guiding beliefs of a person, group or institution.” Further, the dictionary informs that “ethos means custom or character in Greek. As originally used by Aristotle, it referred to a man’s character or personality, especially in its balance between passion and caution. Today ethos is used to refer to the practices or values that distinguish one person, organisation or society from others.” 

It is interesting that ethos was originally understood as referring to an individual’s character as arising out of a balance between passion and caution, whereas today it is understood more as a means of being able to distinguish between the practices or values of one individual (or institution or community) and another. Interpreting ethos as a diagnostic tool or means of categorisation ‘of the many’ might be useful in a materialistic world but it denies the vitality or underlying essence of what ethos is. 

Previously I wrote, “An ability to contemplate life and self are the foundation of any religious, spiritual or ontological quest to grow more deeply into one’s humanity. If my interpretation of justice is correct, in that ‘it embodies right conduct or principles and is a higher function of the intellect; as that which upholds and brings our thinking into coherence with our better nature’, then surely this ‘inner compass’ as it were, together with a natural inclination towards experiencing one’s truth will inevitably reveal life’s ‘goodness’?” 

If justice is embedded into what it means to be human and is indicative of a corrective process of the intellect, then it is not something that we can ‘grapple’ with or define as being any specific ‘thing’. In other words, it can’t be synonymous with a specific deed (or punishment other than as a consequence of a rule of law as we have collectively agreed for it to be); yes we can choose to punish a wrongdoer but what constitutes justice is as much out of our hands as is the specifics of how the essential nature of thought changes is.  

Let’s explore ethos or the ‘balance or tension between passion and caution’, which might be another way of referring to free will. 

Whilst one person might be cognizant of ‘being subject to subtle and dynamic forces which are beyond one’s immediate grasp or comprehension and which are working to shape one’s character to right thinking and conduct in the world’, another person is not going to believe or to interpret the world in this way. 

It might be such that a person believes that they can do whatever they wish to in the world and get away with it; their thinking is such as they are able to coerce or to exert influence over the custodians of whatever legal mechanism or justice system is in place; that they believe this to be so from their experience shows how justice in the manner in which it has been collectively agreed to is corrupt. 

What about the ‘free will’ or ‘free market’ of corporations? Many are doing massive amounts of harm in the world; they do so because of cultivating highly responsive and effective public relations and which are operating within a framework of eroding transparency and of not having mandatory due diligence measures being in place. 

There are victims of particular transgressions which do not believe as if justice has been served even when it allegedly has. As painful and troubling as some incidents are, individuals can become a prisoner in their own thoughts and experience of a transgression until such time as their own way of thinking of themselves and of the world shifts to allow for a more encompassing view. This view does not suggest an attitude of ‘why bother’ or to infer that ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’ but instead it allows for the premise that justice is at work in the world in ways which might not be apparent. 

Using force or punishment can send messages of a show of strength, deterrence and of making consequences visible but does it address why injustices are arising in the first place? 

Ethos has to encompass what makes a person ‘tick’, literally what lives and breathes through their very being in the world and it cannot fall into a statistical categorisation of one’s value. No amount of polling data as to what a person’s known values are or have ever been will be able to identify or to predict a person’s true nature, if only because what it means to be human includes an unknowable and emergent essence of one’s being. But, perhaps ethos has shifted in terms of its definition away from inherent characteristics towards what are preferred or demonstrable behaviours in the world, so as to imbue value to individuals and organisations which comply, as in ‘stakeholder theory’? 

How can we look at ethos as being a ‘balance between passion and caution’? Passion is not desire. Desire is to know what it is that one wants, whereas passion is more of an emotional driver which is akin to enthusiasm. Interestingly, the word enthusiasm comes from an ancient Greek word which meant ‘in God’ or ‘inspired by (a) God’s essence’. 

Is caution simply referring to hesitancy about not doing something in case one ‘gets caught’ by the prevailing powers that be and risks losing kudos is a virtue-driven world? Or could caution imply one’s own conscience as that which imbues a person with an understanding of what is right or wrong? Could it be the subtlety of hindsight, working so as to imbue one’s thinking with wisdom or to prevent one from rushing into action without considered thought? 

Consider for a moment, if I am ‘nudged into’ or given a ‘script’ of prescribed virtues and of actions I am to follow in any given circumstance, how will I forge my own path in the world, my own ethos? Will humanity be forced to comply with what some self-appointed authority and indeed algorithm governs as being proper process or correct in a much-trumpeted reset of values being rolled out as part of an increasingly digital and authoritarian world? Or will humanity rediscover its 'lightning bolt from Prometheus'?