Part 6. Heroic Responsibility

The following is a sixth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.

The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.

A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).

The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.

Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.

I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.

The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.

RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.