On Morality

People are essentially good.

Not naïvely good or sentimental. Not blind to horror. I have seen too much of that on Mesopotamian streets and in trauma bays, where enough blood to matter sticky dries on flat surfaces. I know what human beings are capable of doing to one another. But I also know what they are capable of enduring for one another.

Most people, most of the time, want to do right. They want to protect their children. They want to be thought of as decent. They want to love and be loved. The exceptions: the predators, the sadists, the corrupt, are real. Some are morally malformed by choice, some by wiring. Some cannot think morally in any coherent sense, they lack the interior architecture necessary to recognize another person as sacred. Solipsism is exceptional though, in the human condition. The rule is that human beings are built with a moral compass, however warped by fear or tribalism it may become.

And beneath that compass is what I believe to be the capital-T Truth: human life is sacred.

Not metaphorically sacred. Not strategically sacred. Actually sacred.

If that is true, and I believe it is, then morality reduces to a single, difficult question: Do my actions reflect recognition of that sacredness?

Everything else is commentary.

The way we speak to the powerless. The way we treat our enemies. The way we allocate resources. The way we exercise authority. All of it reveals whether we actually believe human life carries inherent worth or whether we believe worth is conferred by utility and allegiance.

Strength matters. It always has.

We are born weak, utterly dependent. We will die weak, whether through disease, age, or, for those of us for whom it is sudden, we will likely still look for help in those final moments. In between those two bookends lies a variable stretch of years in which we are strong. We have agency. We have physical capacity. We have voice. We can influence outcomes.

Those years are mnay things, and morally, most importantly, they are a stewardship.

During that window, we are custodians of the moral character of our communities and our nation. And we would do well to remember where we came from and where we are going. We were once the ones who needed protection. We will be again. The infant and the dying patient are not abstractions; they are mirrors.

But there are those who view power differently.

Some reject the sacredness of life by choice. They understand strength, but only as leverage. They see weakness as opportunity. They experience other human beings not as moral equals but as instruments. Others, psychopaths in the clinical sense, may lack the capacity altogether. I believe Donald Trump to be thus, utterly incapable of empathy. Whether through choice or handicap, the result of both defects is the same: power divorced from morality.

And that is evil.

Evil is not theatrical. It is not always spectacular. Often it is simply strength applied without regard to the sacredness of the person in front of you.

Which is why, when we are capable of strength, we are obligated to use it rightly.

At a simple level, this means training our bodies so that they can do hard things. It means cultivating the capacity to stand between danger and the vulnerable. It means not outsourcing protection to abstractions. It means that if there is a bump in the night, you get up. If there is injustice in your presence, you speak. If there is a person being diminished, you intervene.

But it also means using our voice. Moral courage is strength. Social courage is strength. Refusing to laugh at cruelty is strength. Refusing to normalize dehumanization is strength.

There is no morality in being weak: not because the weak are morally deficient, but because morality requires choice. If you have no agency, you have no moral burden. An infant is not moral or immoral. A dying patient is not moral or immoral. They simply are. But when you have capacity, when you can act, speak, intervene, and you choose not to, that is abdication.

Power unused in defense of the sacred becomes complicity.

This is my central objection to Donald Trump.

It is not about tax brackets or immigration policy or rhetorical style. It is about the moral use of strength. He understands power instinctively. He recognizes dominance hierarchies. He knows how to bend attention, command loyalty, and to weaponize grievance. But he uses strength for personal gain. He sees the weak as marks. He sees vulnerability as exploitable. He does not see himself in them.

Yet morality demands that we do, and real power lies in carrying the baton well while it is in our hands. Our power is the power of Lincoln, King, Mandela, and Zelensky. Ours is the power taught in parable and in sermon.

It is stronger.

If human life is sacred, then the struggling immigrant, the grieving parent, the political opponent, the journalist, the disabled child, the aging veteran, each carries the same weight as the strongman at the podium. Strength, moral strength, exists to shield them. Strength wrongly ordered exists to harvest them.

We are all, eventually, the weak.

Time is undefeated. Injury comes. Illness comes. Age comes. The body that once lifted and fought and protected will one day require protection. The voice that once commanded a room will one day whisper. It is only a matter of time until we are the ones dependent on the moral choices of others.

That knowledge should humble us.

It should remind us that strength is temporary, but the consequences of how we wield it are not. The measure of a life is not how much power it accumulated but how faithfully it recognized the sacredness of others while it had the chance.

Now, I have strength.

I have a voice. I have credentials. I have had experiences, some of which few people share. I have a body that still responds when I ask it to do hard things. That window will close. But it is open now.

And because it is open, I am obligated.

Obligated not merely to avoid wrongdoing, but to actively exercise power in defense of what is sacred. Obligated to stand up to injustice when I see it. Obligated to train my body and discipline my mind so that when a moment demands strength, physical or moral, I can answer.

To do otherwise would be to pretend that my strength belongs to me alone.

It does not.

It is on loan. So is yours.