173. No morality, only law

A couple weeks ago I attended a faculty workshop led by Mark Taylor, an entertaining speaker who had a lot to say about the experiences and expectations of people born in the 1980s, a cohort he calls (with the requisite cutesiness) Generation NeXt.  He pointed out, for example, that today's high schoolers are the first generation of Americans who can go shopping while sitting in class, thanks to cell phone web connections.

One of the features of post-modern society he mentioned is that laws assume the place of morality.  Or, as my notes read: "No morality, only laws."  Sound too pat?  Here's the Interior Department's Inspector General earlier this month:  "Short of a crime, anything goes at the highest level of the Department of Interior." 

A New York Times editorial about the scandal spelled it out: "The office of government ethics eventually ruled that [the Interior Department's Steven] Griles had not violated any laws."  Even the Times' professionally indignant editorial page writers didn't notice anything odd about something called an ethics office giving a pass to conduct so long as it was not actually illegal.

Then today we learn that Republican leaders of the House have known for the better part of a year that Republican Congressman Mark Foley engaged in what might be called IM-sex with an adolescent page but took no action.  The GOP honchos excused themselves this way: 

Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Speaker
Dennis Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow GOP lawmaker had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Hastert's office said aides referred the matter to the proper authorities last fall but they were only told the messages were "over-friendly."

Now that Foley has resigned, Hastert declared with righteous indignation that his "resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system."  So Hastert excuses his reluctance to protect teenagers working in the Capitol by saying he was informed it's not a crime for a middle-aged authority figure to ask them about masturbation techniques.  But then he shows his enthusiasm for protecting the pages by encouraging someone to prosecute the non-crime.

The criminal law is the absolute lowest standard of socially-acceptable conduct.  Drop below this standard and you can't be a full member of our society any more.  You can't vote, or carry firearms, or run for many offices.  You might have to live for years in a hideous little room surrounded by people even more dangerous than you.  Or, if you're lucky, maybe you'll get to stay home with an ankle bracelet, allowed out of the house only on Sunday mornings to go to church.  Check in with your probation officer weekly, or even daily.  Oh, and pee into the cup, if you please.

To equate ethics with the criminal law is the same as saying we have no ethics at all.  It means anything goes so long as it's not (1) specifically prohibited and (2) so serious we won't even let you live freely among us any more.