Day seven of Covid.

 I think I'm feeling a bit better - not perfect, but a bit better. Hey, that's a lot better than how I have felt. Among other things, Covid has dug a big hole in my practice schedule.

I'll try to get some practice going again today. Softly, softly catchy monkey.

When one is too sick to do much, one has a lot of time to think. I read this statement somewhere, I can't remember where or who said it.

"How do you know what is right unless you have a standard and where does that standard come from? God of course."

I know the boys* have been chatting a bit about morals, so maybe it was one of them.

Many, many years ago our early ancestors came to a similar conclusion as they stared in wonderment at the sun.

I mean, there was no way these guys could instantly accumulate knowledge of planets and stars - hey, give them a bit of time!

In 2022 we have a lot more information available to us and don't need to jump to such conclusions. You any of us to say, "It was God!" is really just silly. So, let's remove the last three words from our statement that we are considering.

"How do you know what is right unless you have a standard and where does that standard come from?"

Humans have invented scales for many different things - temperature, speed, weight and time - to name a few. The standard we adopt for morals is to answer the question, "What is best for everyone?" Here is a list of things that most of us will have no trouble agreeing are good guidelines:

• Physically hurting other people or animals is not good. Though poor old flies and rats do get a bad rap on this one.
• Killing other people is almost never a good thing.
• Taking things that belong to someone else is something we need to avoid.
• Being kind to others is a damn good thing to practise. 

Okay, the list goes on and nothing is set rigidly in concrete, but a sensible consensus can usually be reached. Gun ownership 'rights' in the USA and their need to control women's bodies are two obvious exceptions. 

Okay, there are huge problems in the world right now and it is easy to see countless examples of this simple logic not working. Unfortunately there are a lot of stupid people out there. Somehow we have to get people away from false worship of instinct and into using their intuitive** brains with confidence - shutting out the comfortable nonsense many cling to and really learning to think for themselves. 

That's it from me for today.

Ciao tutti.

It's okay to comment if you'd like to. In general there is nothing wrong with commenting, so go for it. 

* Peter and Robert

** I'm not sure if that is the best word in this context