Recently, the Prime Minister of Turkey denounced France for a bill approved by the French senate that makes it a crime to deny the Armenian Genocide, calling it a slide to "fascism" in Europe and a "blow to free speech". This is coming from the leader of a country where its own Nobel Prize laureate author Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted simply for referring to "killings" of Armenians and Kurds in an interview—and he didn't even use the word "genocide". He was hounded by the media, received death threats, and now spends most of his time away from his beloved Istanbul, preferring to live in New York. Another well-known Turkish writer, Elif Shafak, was also prosecuted for referring to the Armenian genocide in her book "The Bastard of Istanbul". They were both heckled, spat at and jeered by crowds as they entered the courthouse in Istanbul. These are just the most prominent and well-known of dozens of other cases brought against writers charged with "insulting Turkishness" because they simply expressed their opinion (or a character in a novel expressed the opinion—same thing, right?) that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 was genocide. And yet the Prime Minister of Turkey—the leader of a country in which it is, to all intents and purposes, a prosecutable offense to refer to what happened to the Armenians as "genocide"—can say that the bill passed by the French senate is a slide to "fascism" and a travesty of democracy and freedom of speech. Not only can the Turkish PM say this unashamedly, the entire mainstream news media, and most probably an overwhelming majority of the Turkish people, can accept this with no sense of hypocrisy, shame or double standards. No newspaper will dare criticize it. No one will dare challenge it, but not even in a cynical way. People will sincerely agree with it and not see the inherent ethical flaw of their position.
How can this happen? What went wrong here? Why is there no ethical and moral perspective by which to judge right and wrong according to universally applicable standards? Instead of universality, we find that our ethical standards are solipsistic; they delve not on right and wrong committed in general, or to "people", but instead revolve around right or wrong committed to "me" or "us". That means that when we are subjected to wrong, this is known to be wrong, because it affects us, but when we subject others to the same wrongs, we fail to see any wrong there, because that wrong doesn't affect "us", "me", "we". It affects "them" and is therefore, from the solipsistic ethical viewpoint, irrelevant.
This may be due to a variety of factors, chief among which is perhaps no formal and thorough education of ethics in school, and a system based on indoctrination and instruction rather than education. Another is a predilection toward a "might makes right" kind of attitude. Just as we admire and follow strong men of history, political parties today still revolve around the strong man, not to mention the kinds of violent thugs who are canonized on Turkish TV series and films.
Religion also has a major part to play, in that we mostly follow a religious ideology that is based on an unquestioning devotion to one almighty God, a kind of faith that can easily lead down that slippery road where massacring children or blowing up innocent people can be made to sound righteous if committed in the name of that almighty power figure which graciously bestows good and justice upon us and which we should be humbly grateful for, avoiding wrong by fear of eternal torment in Hell and choosing right in return for the blissful reward of an eternity in Paradise. It's not hard to see that a mindset that can accept that kind of foundation to morality, ethics and justice can expect the same kind of approach toward and from a powerful political leader as well.
In short, we seem to have a cultural propensity to see the question of right and wrong not as independent and universal ethical standards above any and all, to be adhered to by all, but as standards graciously bestowed on us from above by authority figures, who are themselves exempt from those same ethical standards, and who bestow them to us in return for unquestioning devotion and loyalty, but who can just as easily take them away, or deny them completely to those not from their fold. Good and righteousness is bound tightly with devotion to the power source from which it emanates. Whether it's your leader, your state, your father, your God, your prophet, your founder, your teacher, your imam, whatever, this mentality holds fast. To stray is to fall out of the sphere of good and right, and to become unworthy of it as a result. There is no independent frame of ethical reference outside of the sphere of the good-giving power to which you must show unquestioning loyalty—even (and especially) at the cost of hypocrisy.
Here's another example of this kind of solipsistic ethics, again relating to the Armenian Genocide issue (although there are many other examples):
When we've been accused of genocide by a foreign government or parliament, our media and leaders like to accuse the accusing nation of genocide back. Sweden, France, the U.S. and other countries are all found by Turkey to be guilty of genocide if Turks feel they are accused of being guilty of genocide by that country's legislative committee, or one or both houses of the legislature, or indeed the government itself. Now, besides it being obviously childish and reactionary, this approach is also a prime example of solipsistic ethical standards. Why? Because what is at issue for us isn't the topic of whether genocide was committed against a people which deserves recognition or compensation or healing, etc... which is also always what the issue is about in those parliaments that discuss recognition of the Armenian genocide. What is at issue for us is that we are accused of genocide. So we accuse them of genocide back! In other words, we are not concerned about whether we have committed wrong, we are only concerned with the wrong that is being committed against us by this recognition (to us "accusation"), and therefore we accuse them of the same -- even though these countries often already openly accept, discuss and have condemned whatever wrongs have been committed in the past by their own forebears because they are wrongs in themselves that deserve condemnation, regardless of whether it was their own countrymen who committed them or not.
But when it comes to our country, you'll find an overwhelming consensus that we are victims of French suppression of freedom of speech, when our own country is just as—indeed far more so—horrific a violator of human rights standards and freedom of speech (e.g. Turkey ranks 154th in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index, France ranks 38). And yet, even if our government didn't actively and mercilessly try to suppress and silence opposition and criticism (which it does), the sad truth is that the majority of our news media (and public) would still see things the same way, according to this kind of solipsistic ethical viewpoint. In other words, ethical solipsism seems to be ingrained in our culture.
So what to do? Maybe we can't change the predominant mindset over night, but those who have the capacity (everyone has the capacity, perhaps propensity is a better word) must practice ethical autonomy in the face of an increasingly totalitarian, dictatorial and solipsistic ruling elite; in the face of an increasingly less critical, cowed, silent and self-censoring media; in the face of an increasingly marginalized opposition; in the face of fewer and fewer outlets for free speech and critique; in the face of a growing intolerance of opposing viewpoints from an increasingly nationalistic and religious conservative discourse in politics, society and the media.
But what does ethical autonomy mean exactly? It could mean this:
- It means applying your own ethical standards to the world around you, and shunning the ones that are being forced upon you for the purpose of making you condone the perpetuation of crimes on the part of megalomaniacal and psychopathic institutions that have been corrupted in their pursuit of power through profit or riches or blood or domination.
- It means questioning any and all absolutes and eschewing any world view that uses black-and-white dichotomized expressions to justify the perpetuation of crimes committed against others (e.g. martyr/terrorist).
- It means dropping mainstream media and seeking information from alternative sources, sources that have relatively very limited or no ideological or power interests to promote, cover-up, propagandize or sell.
- It means seeing right for right, good for good, wrong for wrong, by no other standards but your own, from no other but your gut.
- It means applying an ethical magnifying glass to everything. It means sniffing out the turns of phrase and corruptions of language by which lies are sold, it means dragging them out of the equation, and it means not only seeing, but also uncovering and extracting the inherent hypocrisies of all absolutist totalitarian viewpoints.
- Most importantly, it means being a human being first and foremost. It means loyalty to humanity before loyalty to nationality.
