Of Mutts and Men...Examining Canine Morality (in the Context of General Conference)

"Muggs was always sorry, Mother said, when he bit someone, 

but we could never understand how she figured this out. 

He didn't act sorry."

--James Thurber

I'm a sucker for Wes Anderson's movies, and one of my favorites is Moonrise Kingdom. It tickled every part of my fancy, but one of my favorite scenes in Moonrise Kingdom is the scene after the dog has unfortunately been shot and killed with an arrow, and Suzy and Sam stand looking soberly at his body.

Suzy asks, "Was he a good dog?"

Without missing a beat Sam answers, "Who's to say?"

One of the best movie lines in recent memory, in my opinion. Perfectly delivered (see it here [PG-13]).

Who IS to say what constitutes a good dog? For one thing, as humans we can't have the first inkling about the overall dog code of ethics. Dog morality. Would dogs define a "good dog" in the same way that we might? What are the qualities dogs respect and admire in other dogs? I may be wrong, but based on their partiality to rolling around on dead stuff, I have a hunch dogs may admire different things than we do.

That being said, I think our dog Cooper (a chocolate Lab) is a pretty darn good dog. He's nice, he's relatively obedient most of the time (for a dog) and he strives to please. 

Well...unless food is involved. Food trumps obedience in Cooper's world. When it comes right down to it, his desire to please his mouth is definitely a bit stronger than his desire to please his master. Good news, really, because that makes food a great motivational/training tool for him. But it also reminds me that, when it comes to obedience, Cooper's motives may not always be entirely pure. 

Come to think of it, he also developed exactly none of his "good dog" behaviors on his own. In addition to food rewards, there was plenty of e-collar involvement in his training. Plus a whole lot of other kinds of correction (if you have ever tried to civilize a Lab puppy, you'll understand what I mean -- I always say I would raise 4 additional children rather than face that task again). 

So as I think about it, I'm not sure Cooper really possesses a lot of intrinsic moral development. If any. 

He's a dog.

And I'm a person. I haven't the least idea what it's like to be Cooper.

Several people have asked me what lines bothered me from the Saturday morning session of General Conference (see previous post). And upon further review, I've decided it wasn't so much specific lines as it was the overall tone in some talks. The way the message felt to me. The message I perceived as being behind the words. Is that fair? I'm not sure, but a talk is inherently a two part invention, in which the listener is responsible for one of the parts. So the message I heard (whether intended or not) does carry some validity. 

And the talk that brought to my mind Sam and Suzy and the dog was Elder Holland's talk, The Cost -- and Blessings -- of Discipleship.

If you remember, Elder Holland talked about what I characterize as "sword-Jesus" rather than "peace-Jesus". Admittedly, I have always struggled with wrapping my head around the dichotomy there -- it's hard to have it both ways, after all -- but we can talk about that another time. 

Anyway, I was struggling and juggling along, a bit uncomfortable with that entire idea as usual, and then this line came: 

"Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once.)" 

And right there, it was as if I suddenly felt something drop. I turned to my husband and said, "That feels too closely related to 'love the sinner, but hate the sin.'" 

Which is a line I...for lack of a better word...hate.

I won't write about that specifically -- a lot of people have written about it quite well of late (I think my favorite is this one) but on doing about two seconds of research, I was happy to discover that the offending line is nowhere in the scriptures. It actually comes from the writings of Gandhi, who was riffing off something St. Augustine said ca. 420-something. 

But a lot of Christians have jumped on that line; it gets thrown around a good bit these days. And it's what immediately came to my mind when President Holland said what he did. 

I've examined his statement over and over, and I can't tell exactly what he means, because it seems to me that while he says there is a crucial difference, he never explains what that difference is. His parenthetical statements point merely to the fact that while Christ could forgive sin, he could not condone it. Yes, of course.

So the difference he is referencing as crucial must be between forgiving and condoning?

Or is it between the commandment to do one, and the warning against the other? (Because those are two different things, and commandment wins.) I'm not sure. 

But either way, the real point, as I see it, is this:

He is Jesus Christ.

And I'm a person.

And that makes it problematic when it comes to the idea of forgiving and/or/vs. condoning sins. Or hating sins but loving sinners. Because as a person, I am only responsible for addressing exactly one person's sins: mine. 

I'm sorry, but I can't say a whole lot about your sins. I'm pretty sure that I'm not really supposed to even be thinking about them.When Christ saw people condemning the sins of others, he basically told them to take a good look in the mirror and then once they had the mirror-person's sins completely mastered, they could start looking around for other people to fix.

You may be thinking, sure, okay -- but what about our children? It gets a little more complicated there, because of course we have a responsibility as their parents to teach them what Elder Holland calls the "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots". But they are still responsible to govern themselves. And the bottom line is they're going to anyway.

So I don't feel that, by failing to point out or even notice the ways in which you are not living up to my accepted moral code, I'm condoning your sin. 

We can agree to disagree on that point if you feel differently. I'm used to that.

But what we can't disagree about is that I have no context for understanding your sins at all. Not even an inkling. I don't know what it's like to be you. Christ does, but then that's what I would describe as the most crucial difference in the whole scenario. 

As a person, the commandment to me is to love, and then love some more. Forgive, and then do it again. Everyone, every time. 

We can demonstrate our beliefs and by our fruits they will know us, and maybe want to produce similar fruits in their own lives. Or maybe not. But it's pretty much impossible to actively, or actually, love people while simultaneously passing the kind of judgment that would prompt us to explain why we're doing it right and they're doing it all wrong. 

No matter what it is. Whether we deem it to be a capital "S" sin or hardly a sin at all. Because there are as many levels of moral development as there are people, and even the best, most obedient looking ones sometimes have their motivations a little out-of-whack.

"Who's to say?" is just a reminder that when people do get judged eventually, they're going to get judged in a unique context. Theirs.

"...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) 

And isn't that lucky for all of us. And our dogs.

-S.
(As for Elder Holland, he's still a favorite. For one thing, he earned a whole world of points with last year's talk on mental illness, which we're going to discuss here soon. I think he and I just got off on the wrong foot this time around. So yeah, it happens. But on we go.)