In the privacy of our conscience?

It's a familiar expression, "the privacy of conscience". Sometimes we even speak of this "privacy" as a right.

Before Holy Week, I left off the discussion of conscience with a discussion of Greek and Jewish notions of conscience. That seems a lifetime ago now and I was tempted to just give up on Linda Hogan. I'd lost direction on that project.

But then yesterday I was rereading the first chapter of book 2 of Sense and Sensibility and something hit me. I wouldn't say I know exactly what it's about right now and I might never know but there was something typically brilliant in the way Austen showed Elinor's moral reasoning play out.



Elinor reaches a decision to keep her concerns and feelings private. That's highly unusual way for us to treat moral decisions. Nowadays, privacy is more likely to mean something like others have no right to criticize me for decisions for my moral decisions. Which is to say, it is a right to have somethings remain private even if others find out about them.

If that sounds contradictory it is because it is. But we do think such things. How dare you judge me for having ... a drink, an affair, an abortion. On the other hand, you are perfectly free to judge me for having an SUV, a cigarette, a slanket. Apparently, not all private decisions are private. What do we mean here?

Heroes of conscience
Hogan herself shows this contradiction when she invokes A Man for all Seasons. When we watch a play like that, we are aware of there being a hero. We know that (in the play at least) Thomas More will be vindicated. He makes a decision in te privacy of his own conscience and he tries to keep it private as long as he can. But the world pushes in on him until he has no choice but to act in a way that will ensure his death. And we are inspired by this.

It's funny because poor More died a very lonely death with everyone against him and no one on his side. Public execution is intended to shame its victims. In drama it's this terribly profound moment where someone "stands up for the truth".  And then they die for the truth, alone, abandoned by their friends. Like Jesus.

In real life, the execution of More and the Crucifixion of Jesus were horrible dramas. They were moments wherein the authorities kill someone in a way that is meant to make it clear to all the living that it is not worth your while to stand for what the views these people stood for. And we sometimes imagine ourselves like in this sort of situation ... like Walter Mitty.

For Linda Hogan, conscience isn't a matter of privacy at all. She is mostly interested in conscience as a justification for publicly disagreeing with the Catholic church.  It is telling then, that when she talks about the nobility of conscience she invokes cases where someone's beliefs put them at odds with authorities leading to martyrdom or imprisonment.

Paradigms
But is this conscience? We nowadays use the expression "prisoners of conscience" to describe such situations but is this a very good way to grasp what conscience is? I don't think it is. To me, this is like using nuclear war as our paradigm case of human conflict. As if there were lessons from nuclear war that could apply to two children who disagree about which bedtime story they want to hear.

And we always imagine it in retrospect don't we? We imagine the moment when the person who has taken the stand for truth is vindicated. But what if you died alone and unvindicated? Well, we don't like to think about that.

What we like to think about are the cases where we now know better. It's amazing how many of these cases are fictional, the kid who cried out the emperor has no clothes for example. It's the biggest liberal wet dream imaginable; to be the person who condemns those who persecute Dreyfus and to later be vindicated when everyone else is suddenly forced to see the truth of your conscience.

To do that, it really helps to have the scriptwriter on your side. In real life, Zola suffered for his stand. Not nearly as much as More and Jesus did though. And there is the danger. This idea of prisoner of conscience lends itself all too readily to fantasy.

As I say, I don't know where to go with this right now. I only know that there are characters who go the other way. Elinor Dashwood believes in a different sort of privacy of conscience. For her it is a place where she can manœuver freely. A place where she can retreat to and not have to face the opinions and judgments of others. Don Draper too.

Both these characters show a kind of nobility of conscience that is very different from what Hogan praises.