Morals are Demons that People Actually Believe In

Too much has been written about “morality.” It almost pains me to add to the deluge of drivel this topic has inundated the world with, but pains aside, here goes. If you are human and reading this¹, you’ve probably been advised and instructed for your entire short life to be a “good moral person.” It hardly matters whether you’re a fundamentalist religious freak or a fundamentalist atheist freak; you’ve been told, trained, advised, and chastised to be a “good moral person.”

Of course, what’s good to one is evil to another. To a warthog fleeing a lion, the lion is evil. To the lion chasing the warthog, the warthog is lunch. Where exactly is the “morality?” We’re not supposed to ask such questions because when we do, “morality,” whatever the hell it is, vanishes like Beelzebub after taking a dump in Pandemonium’s gold-encrusted shitter. Many philosophers and other alleged wise men (I’m not going down the gender-fluid rabbit hole here) have wasted way too much of their short lives pondering “morality.” They’ve concluded that “morality” is at best a social construct. It’s something that humans seem to think exists. It’s akin to a limited liability corporation without the legal paperwork. All social constructs have one thing in common: no society, no construct.

If humans disappear, electrons will be just fine. They existed long before us and will exist long after us. Sadly, or gladly, this is not true of morals. They vanish with us. They vanish so completely, so utterly, so absolutely, that even the most astute of precision instruments won’t pick up any lingering traces. Morals are imaginary. They’re like vampires, ghosts, gods, and demons. They can only be found in our deluded minds and nowhere else, but unlike vampires, ghosts, gods, and demons—entities that even fundamentalist religious freaks no longer take seriously—morals are still reified, and people get very upset when their lack of physical existence is pointed out.

How people get upset has always amused me. Many screech that, “Without morals, the world would be a horrible place.”

“Are you sure?”

We’ve always believed in morals, and the world has always been a horrible place. Perhaps there’s a connection. Maybe if we didn’t infuse our limited intellects with demonic delusions, like morals, and attended to what’s verifiably real, like electrons, then maybe we could fix some of the horribleness that stalks us from womb to tomb.