LIKE IT OR NOT, SOCIETY HAS RULES. ACCEPT IT.
It all starts with the idiotic claim that “I could do whatever the f*#% I want!” Any statement needing profanity to assert itself is almost surely banal. And frankly, those who say that are likely to be the most demanding of their partner, children, and everyone else.
Man was made to live in society. And hence one’s actions are logically constrained by certain boundaries concomitant to living in such society.
Those boundaries include duties: minimal mandatory acts necessary if one is a citizen, employer or employee, teacher or student, parent or child, or friend.
Then there are those that limit one’s actions by simple proximity to other people. Cocktail party sophisticates use the (what they think to be) clever line that “my right to swing my fist stops at your nose.” Which just means one can do what one’s wants as long as he does not harm another.
But that’s ridiculous: who determines where to swing, or what constitutes “stop” or hurt? If it were up merely to the actual parties involved, the result would be constant conflict.
Man is rational but flawed. And even if we weren’t, the gazillions of interlocking rights ensure that conflicts abound were it not for laws, norms, and customs that restrain and guide our behavior. Guide for what purpose? To achieve our society’s aspirations.
Every society has aspirations: common goals, customs, values, and morals. It wouldn’t be a society if it didn’t.
A society allowing everyone to do what he or she wants is not really one. Least of all because it will certainly be conquered by another that respects its own aspirations.
In our society, those goals, customs, values, and morals are expressed in the Constitution, specifically in the Preamble.
And it won’t work to say that there are certain acts at least, particularly in the bedroom, where one is free to do what one wants. Thus, “if it feels good, do it,” “as long as nobody else is hurt,” “it’s my body, my choice” — all ignore the sheer dint of human experience (and the long observation of philosophers, commentators, and social scientists) that the most private of indulgence begs further indulgence, this multiplicity of vice then converts what should be a very private act into something that eventually has public consequences.
Hence, if the said private acts consequentially lead to public damage, then logically the damage is greater if the one doing those acts are very public individuals.
Recently, a quite highly placed public officer got embroiled in a matter that involved a government facility, his wife, and his mistress. Without going into the merits of the matter (or, rather the utter lack of it), the official defended his having a mistress by saying that everyone does it. Such is unfortunate. First, it’s not true that everyone does it. Recent studies show that a huge number of Filipino men (64%) and women (98%) do
not engage in such behavior. What’s more, 96% of Filipinos
do not approve of extramarital relations, which indicate that even those who have indulged in affairs believe their actions incorrect.
If by “everyone” is meant the Congress or government, then that’s really more an indictment of our political class, the latter clearly no longer representative of the people they’re supposed to serve.
Also, to argue “everyone” is engaging in fallacies (i.e., unwarranted assumption, ad populum, appeal to common practice, and ad hominem), revealing the quality (or lack) of character and intellect of the one making it.
Supremely ironic is that the same week we’re lamenting our lamentable officials, progressives overseas were attacking United States Vice-President Mike Pence for personal prudent measures to prevent even a hint of marital wrongdoing.
Incidentally, considering that society is also a mechanism for allocating rewards and honors, the outrage shown against this national official and his mistress gratifyingly demonstrates that our society still honors the institution of marriage ( and, in this case, correctly respects the wife’s position over the mistress).
Finally, if anything, the past months just demonstrate the need for virtuous officials bound by an objective moral standard ( whether it be by religion, philosophy, or natural law).
There will always be the “hypocrisy” labeling, predictably leveled at anyone with a modicum of decency. But only a person with objective moral standards can be vulnerable to such charges. And any decent human being will naturally (even repeatedly) fall short of such standards. That is not hypocrisy. That is being human.
Instead, it’s that man or woman without objective moral standards that is to be avoided. Those whose beliefs, values, and morals are unanchored on anything independent of their will, thus becoming merely whatever they feel at any given moment. That is no standard at all.
Such a person, if specially a public official, would demand of others everything and anything, and it will always ultimately be about him, his moods, and his wants.
No amount of good works will erase that fact.