The Power of Passion
Do we or do we not possess free will? The recent actions of the governor of South Carolina, Governor Sanford, have got be the best example in recent memory in support of the latter, that we do not have free will. Here is a man; a man of great prominence in society; a man who supposedly possessed free will; a man who woke up one morning to cast reason to the wind with reckless abandoned. He abandoned his wife, his kids and the governorship of South Carolina. And to make matters worse, he lied to his staff about his whereabouts, in order to hide his extra martial affair.
Is he responsible for these choices? If free will has anything to say about it, he is responsible. Like a savior, free will sets, us morally above all of earthly creation but a little lower than the angels. When it comes to the existence of free will, “We walk not by sight but by faith.” We are the blind self appointed ministers of free will, the self appointed judges and jurist of whether a man, this man, Governor Sanford should be held responsible for his choices and actions. An in this case, it is our condemnation that the Governor has received.
However, is our judgment just? Did he exercise free will? Is he truly responsible for his actions? Alternatively, could it be said that, he is just another victim of a grotesque myth of the mind that we call free will? A myth that says his will, at times, is not subject to cause and effect that he can act without being acted upon. Is it this that makes him responsible? Could this be why most of us find actions like those of Governor Sanford’s reprehensible?
Perhaps it’s not that at all. Maybe our moral contempt is not directed as much towards the actions of, Governor Sanford, but for what they reveal about us. At times, each of us has made a choice or taken an action and lived to regret it. Scratching our head as we looked back over the incident, we asked ourselves, what were we thinking? What were we seeking in our question but the motive, the reason for our action, the cause? Don’t we all, from time to time, get asked or ask ourselves what made (caused) us to say or think this or that; To do this or that? Of course we have.
What causes us to take an action or better said react in some way to an entity, event or circumstance is not always the self evident. At other times, it is blatantly apparent. Nevertheless, known or unknown to us some entity, event, or circumstance has acted upon us from within or without impacting our senses, that in turn influences the composition of our brain. Our brains in turn react and fill our mind with a host of thoughts and emotions.
Alzheimer’s disease, the slow continuous deterioration of the brain with its corresponding degenerative effect upon the thoughts of its victims demonstrates that the mental operations of man, his thoughts, are not super ordinate but subordinate to that of his body brain), they are not self caused.
“Never a thought has come or gone without the use of a brain.”
Anywhere a man thinks himself to have made a choice about something, he needs only to ask himself one question. What was the last thing to pass through his mind prior to making that choice or taking that action? Man does not reason to his choices, he feels them. They are the automated emotional reactions of his brain. Only afterwards, looking backwards, does he grapple with the cast aside ruins of his reason and the ineptitude of his free will to counter his passions.
And it was the similar with the cheating heart of Governor Sanford. Despite the Governor’s reasoned conviction to his religious moral code, it was no match for the call of Mother Nature upon his soul. The irresistible sensuality of an Argentinean angel, her touch, her smile, her voice, her smell, the curve of her hips, her lips, impacted his senses in such a way that the dike of his reason (his religious moral code) broke and gave way to the rushing waters of passion. The Passion of nature filled his heart with emotion–he had to feel; it filled his mind with thoughts–he had to think. It filled his life with actions– he had to take. With reckless abandon, he threw caution to the wind and rushed to her bedside.
He did not know at the time, and he may not know it now, but he did not choose to forsake the covenant of his marital bed. It was stripped from him by his jeans (genes). Like a man in a car that is sliding on black ice, the intent of his will and those of his actions were powerless against the causal dictates of Mother Nature. Mother Nature blinded him with passion causing him to forsake all that seemed to matter in his life (his marriage, his kids, his political office).
It must surely be a mistake to think that free will and responsibility could trump the absolute rule of Mother Nature’s causal determinacy (universal cause and effect). On the surface, it may appear that the Governor acted with the winds of free will at his back. However, might it have been that nature acted first sending an Argentinean angel into such a prominent life to remind us all of that which her prophet Sir Francis Bacon first admonished us?
“Nature to be commanded must first be obeyed.”
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