The Morals of a High School Boy’s Diary

Source: asianwiki

I stumbled upon a drama, Meet Me After School (中学聖日記 Chugakusei Nikki) which is currently airing in Japan. The story is, in short, about a high school boy (15) and his female teacher (25) falling in love. Even before the first episode became available on the net, comments criticised the drama for being “low-key pedophilia”, “reverse pedo” etc. It’s neither of these, but the important thing here is not what the drama is and what it isn’t. It’s not even the famous moral-of-the-fable ‘do not judge something before you know it’. It’s morals in general.

Do I think that a teacher–student relationship is acceptable in general? No, I certainly don’t. Do I think that the teacher–student relationship depicted in the drama is somehow justified and is somehow acceptable? After watching the first four episodes (episode 5 is not out yet), I think I do, yes. Does accepting the romance in the drama change my general view on the question? No, certainly not. But how should all of these make sense?

The key point here is circumstances. We have, on the one hand, basic, and, on the other hand, very general ethical principles and judgments. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet. Live by these, we believe, and you will have a life that is not wrong in the moral sense. Or is it so?

Whenever facing a moral dilemma, we always want to know more about the circumstances before we decide. A few years ago I asked everyone I knew a question: ‘If you were given a choice to decide who should live, you or another person, what would you choose?’ In almost every case, they asked back: ‘Who is the other person?’ The tricky part is that you do not know – it can be anyone: your father, your child, an alcoholic and drug-addict living in the streets, a genius doctor saving thousands of lives, Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un. Anyone. And it’s either you or him. There is no third option. What if you chose the other person and it turns out that he is a serial killer – you die and he will live, killing innocent people? But what if you chose yourself, sacrificing an innocent child who could have been the next Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Einstein?

What I want to say is that when it comes to morals, you cannot disregard the circumstances. Kant, I think, was wrong in one thing: ethics is not categorical. There indeed are crimes that cannot be justified under any circumstances – rape, adultery, pedophilia are some of these. But there also are cases not so clear.

Is murdering a man wrong? Yes. Is murdering Adolf Hitler wrong? Some of us would say no. Some of us would say ‘He was not a human. He lost his human-ness.’ But he didn’t. What he, the Nazis and the Communists did are things humanity is capable of doing – just as facing certain death for hiding Jews is a thing humanity is capable of doing. And perhaps – perhaps some of us would say yes. Murdering Adolf Hitler is wrong.

We, humans are complex – and our ethics are similarly complex. What was a common practice and acceptable a couple of hundred years ago, is totally unacceptable today (e.g. slavery and torturing criminals). What you consider to be morally okay might be seen as wrong by your own brother – but neither of you know the ultimate truth. No man knows. However, the question still remains: how to live ethically? There never can be a perfect answer. What I believe is this: ‘Do what you feel is right. Listen to others when they tell you that according to them, what you’re doing is not right. Tell others when you think what they’re doing is not right. And no matter what you did, right or wrong, bear responsibility for it.’

Alla

PS: Thank you for the comments under other posts – they really made me happy! Unfortunately commenting is not working, but as soon as Google fixes it, I’ll respond to everyone.