When Mr. Knightly steps up to Emma and says, "That was poorly done; shame on you," Mr. Knightly is stepping out of the door of his ethical architecture and offering Emma a big bowl of correction and admonition. It's a gift to Emma that he hopes will allow her to see more clearly good and evil. It is the charity of "keeping one another on the road towards good." Can you imagine a line like that written today?
Not only does a great portion of the world seem to have lost the ideals of correction and admonition, we seem also to have dispensed with ethical architecture altogether. We build a little pyre of sticks when someone does something horrendous to us or to someone we know, or even to society, and then we burn those sticks pretending the ashes are not ours.
Charles Krauthhammer is one of the exceptions to the modern world. Every time the President moves, Charles builds an ethical structure not unlike a Gothic Cathedral. He has the wisdom and knowledge that allow him to fully understand flaws and errors and the character to name it. In response, his critics busily build a series of little pyres and burn them down in secret, but they don't dare step up to Charles's door for a big bowl of correction and admonition.
But this wonderful development of character does not start from whim. I had an editor once who said, "Never admit you're wrong." Whoa. I thought at the time, "If I'm never wrong, then I'm never right." If it's about never being able to admit to wrong, then I can't be a fully developed adult, because a fully developed adult admits to their wrongs.
The problem with being able to admit to wrong, and publicly, when the world all around is failing to ever admit to wrong, puts the admitting adult into a perpetual position of being the bad guy. Admit once, and you are always suspect to those who have never made a mistake. It's almost laughable, but at the same time, it's not funny, because this is the example we are giving to our children. Those who are willing and able to admit errors are deemed weak and hateful.
Children watch parents for examples of behavior. If parents never admit to their mistakes, children will learn they can't make a mistake either. How often have we cried because we did something awful and then blamed it on everything and anything but ourselves. We love to make excuses, smooth over the incident with silence, and lash out at anyone offering correction and admonition.
And worse, try to be a Mr. Knightly in today's world, and not only will you be ostracized, you will be spit on by anyone listening. If you said to someone, "That was poorly done; shame on you," most retorts would attack you. "Weeeellll, you did this or that or you're not perfect; I've seen you..." This kind of retort burns the pyre of the architecture of ethics.
Building an ethical architecture means exploring wisdom, gathering wisdom's tools and being able to understand the lessons wisdom teaches. But one can't explore wisdom without knowledge because you would have no path to wisdom. You can't hope to approach wisdom without trying to understand what is good and what is not as two clearly defined paths. Also, understanding that gray areas pertain to that which is not important like material goods is a part of wisdom. Black and white areas apply to what is important like the intangibles of character, attributes of good habits like reliability, strength of purpose, determination, and the hatred of those things that pull man down.
In teaching children, building an ethical architecture begins with being able to winnow good from lesser behaviors. It is hard for someone unfamiliar with the two paths of good and not so good to direct the innocent. When there is no ethical architecture, or the idea of ethical architecture is thrown out the window, the situation reverts back to primitive man - out in a field without protection and without the shelter of thousands of years of ethical structures and lessons. There is no platform for instruction. There is no shelter of answers, no reason, no personal cost.
On the other hand, it is easy for the fully developed builder to stop lesser behaviors and teach because the adult knows that lesser behaviors will lead down the path away from knowledge and therefore wisdom. Simply not allowing impulsive, selfish, lazy and naughty behaviors EVER in the classroom will create a respect that by a well formed adult's very presence will stop. When the goal is to show the child that good is good and lesser is lesser, the lesson is taught and the hope is that the child will begin to gather tools and supplies for his own ethical architecture so that he can escape the primitive field and live in a well ordered house.
The next step in teaching ethical architecture is in choosing. One chooses all day long. We choose our behavior with ourselves, our friends, with our employers and employees, with our families and with the strangers we meet. The goal here is in the habit of good choices so that we can store up more tools and more supplies. When the choice amounts to "what do I get from this behavior," the architecture becomes flat line. The answer is nothing. The ethics of building stop. A diversion from self to others is the goal of instructing children. Think outside yourself, is the lesson to be taught by a wise and knowledgeable teacher.
"Judge, and you shall be judged." With the ethical architect, that statement is not frightening. The ability to judge for oneself, because of the work of gaining knowledge and wisdom, what is good and what is not is simply not a frightening ideal. For the enlightened, the very idea of not being able to judge that which is good and that which is not is more frightening. For the developed not being allowed, by non builders and field dwellers, to call out in a loud and clear voice, what is good and what is not is even more frightening. To be trapped by a family or group of any kind from being able to offer correction and admonition is the modern prison of serfdom.
Judging behaviors is more difficult because there is something called intent. We are not always sure of someone's intent, and even with children, the behavior can be poor, but the intent was not, and ferreting out just exactly what the child meant is not always easy. Again knowledge plays a great part here. Knowing a child well and being able to climb inside his youthful and delightful ethical architecture is part of the teaching job, but along with this one needs to be able to communicate well and have a desire to let go of self and become the nameless faceless advocate of the child. This too is part of wisdom.
Ethical architecture is the crown of the adult. The acquisition of tools and supplies - namely wisdom and knowledge, understanding, prudence, patience, humility, courage, and charity are the attributes of the developed man. Without these things, we might as well just go live in the open.
Just some pondering for a winter's day.
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