On moral certitude contra moral clarity

Since the Oct. 7th pogrom, we have seen many things. We have seen many people cry out in pain against another genocidal attack against Jews. We have seen clarion calls affirming that yes, we will never do this again. We have seen commitments to not allow this millennia-old blood libel to again be resurrected.

But, sadly, that's not all we've seen.

We've seen the usual suspects, so sure in their morality, excuse the putative genocidaires because they are of the "oppressed", and, indeed, cast those who were attacked with violence and rape as the actual causes of their own death. 

I have been running this in my mind for months. This has been a piece long in the gestation. Its genesis lays in the lazy taking of sides I have witnessed.

Both sides talk about "morality". And the ones who get the most press and the most attention are those who are sure of their morality in standing against the right of a Jewish state to defend itself against an eliminationist death cult. This death cult is seen as being more authentic because it falls into what they perceive as "indigenous" and "oppressed". The rapes and murders and hostage taking have been either forgotten, or dismissed as just desserts for decades of "settler colonial racism".

Again, as with so much, I must qualify: I'm against the settlements, and there will only be peace when Jews and Arabs live side-by-side in their own states in peace. That hasn't changed in my thinking. What has changed is the idea that this will be an easy path. It won't be, for what I will delineate in this piece.

What do I mean by "moral certitude", and how is that different from "moral clarity"?

At the outbreak of the Gaza War, I was in a social media space with a handful of people. How I came to be in that space is unimportant. But there I was.

Even before Oct. 7th, I was uncomfortable with that space. Its members eschewed complexity and ambiguity for firm, clear beliefs. At one point I expressed why I supported a Jewish state, based on my past and my beliefs. One of the member thanked me for my candor, and then went on to say that regardless they knew Israeli Jews were racist. At that point I knew I was not long for that space. After the pogrom, the "whataboutism" escalated, and I made my departure. Why? Because I could not be part of their precious moral certitude.

What do I mean by "moral certitude"?

What I mean is this: people who operate under moral certitude are sure that their positions are those of the angels. They have no doubts. They have not thought out these positions with any rigor; it's what makes them feel good. They know they're right. They know that anyone opposed to them is in the camp of the oppressors. They brook no opposition or differing data. Any extraneous data they either ignore or twist to support their position. Moral certitude is the position that "I'm right because I know I'm right and I know my cause is just, and if you don't agree you're of the unelect." It is self-sustaining, and a closed loop. Any new information which arises which contradicts their world view is to be dismissed as the snares of Satan. They have come by their certitude not from experience, but from rote.They know this is "good", and if you stand against it you are anathema. Moral certitude is all-encompassing, and broaches no rebuke.

Moral certainty is its opposite.

I'm not morally certain about anything save a few things. Murder is bad. Lying is bad. But apart from that, the moral universe is fluid. Moral clarity operates on a case-by-case basis. It operates in ambiguity. It knows that nothing is black and white. It knows that what seems clear today might be muddy tomorrow. But it navigates that interstitial space. It acknowledges that situations change, and what was clear yesterday is not clear today. And because it does, it allows for a changing of position. It allows for the change and evolution of morality. Because to be trapped in one rigid, monomaniacal position robs morality of any meaning.

What my moral clarity avers is that, for example, in the case of Israel the settlements are a barrier to a permanent peace. But it also avers that the settlements are never, at any point, any excuse or justification for what Hamas did on October 7th. And this same moral clarity also stresses that Gaza has been in the straits it is because of Hamas. Israeli settlements were removed in 2005. Israel left a fully-functioning infrastructure in the Strip. That infrastructure was destroyed by Hamas so that it could carry out its genocidal attacks against Jews. If the more obstreperous members of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition were to get their way and expel Palestinians and reform settlements, that data would once more change my moral clarity. But that moral clarity would never devolve into a desire for destruction. It would always redound to a desire for a political solution which preserves all of the hopes of that region's people.

Those who truck in moral certitude—from leftists and rightists to religious bigots—want a simple world of right and wrong, where they, of course, are in the right. In my moral clarity, I think I'm in the right, but I know that what's "right" might change based on circumstances. Take the case of Aung San Suu Kyi. Someone operating under moral certitude holds her as a paragon of democracy and freedom. But I know that when she was in power she defended the Burmese military's oppression of the Rohingya Muslims. She went to the International Court of Justice to do just that. When she did that, moral clarity dictated that as a bridge too far. And yet her subsequent imprisonment by the military isn't justified.

The ultimate quality of those with moral certitude is that they think morality is unchanging and set in stone. They will point to the Bible and its support of slavery in some sections as being the final word on the subject. They account nothing for evolution, for a changing world. For them the world needs to be as static as their beliefs, and if it isn't then the world needs to be denied. This is how a culture dies, unable to inject new life and thoughts into it. This is why though I no longer practice, I will always call myself a Vatican II Catholic; in that moment, a sclerotic, two-thousand year old institution recognized that the world had changed, and it had to change with it or perish. It replaced, haltingly, moral certitude with moral clarity. And those of its members who preferred that certitude have been fighting it ever since.

Do not be like the hypocrites who claim that they know the face of God. Be like those to whom God speaks in the quiet of the night, and speaks truths they are not ready to hear, but follow anyway. Choose clarity over certitude.

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