Conscience I

Our conscience sets some of the boundaries of our thinking and actions. It tells us when we are in danger of going out of bounds, or shouts out when we are out of bounds. Our conscience is that thing inside of us that makes us hurt when we violate our accepted–personally accepted--inner standard of thought or conduct. It threatens to hurt us if we near the margins of our standard. John Stuart Mill called it a feeling in our mind, a pain more or less severe, that arises when we violate what we believe to be our duty. A well-developed conscience is such a strong deterrent as to make almost impossible to violate it. It seems to me that the conscience is similar to, if not the same as, the “Adult” of Transactional Analysis and the “Super Ego” of Freudian thought, the voice that sets certain limits for us and threatens us with pain if we ignore those limits. For a lot of us, society–family, community, or society at large–functions as our conscience. We have learned that if we go off limits from the accepted standards of society, we suffer. Society has many kinds of sanctions to keep us within bounds, so we accept those standards because life is much more comfortable if we do. Most people seem to believe that we are all born with a conscience that tells us right from wrong. Some think the conscience is innate just as sight and haring are inborn standard equipment that humans are issued by nature. Others believe that God has placed the conscience within us. While it may be true that we are born with the awareness that there is such a thing as the distinction between right and wrong, we cannot depend on conscience to tell us what to do in particular situations and circumstances. It is not wise to advise everyone to “Let your conscience be your guide.” It depends on whom we are talking to. It is unwise because a little observation of humans in action demonstrates that the conscience is not inborn. Rather, it is acquired. Ordinarily it is acquired by the process of socialization. We take on and accept the standards that society imposes on us. We are unaware of most of this imposition. As with all socialization, it just seems perfectly natural to unquestioningly accept these standards, whatever they might be. The capacity to develop a conscience may be innate just as the capacity to speak is innate, but language does not come naturally. We acquire the language of our native community, and do the same with the conscience. However, we can learn other languages. In situations where we move and make our lifetime home within the culture of another language group, it is possible that a second language will displace our native language. Even within a given language, we can change our grammar, vocabulary, dialect or accent. The point is that the conscience is plastic; it is malleable; it can be molded, formed, reshaped.