The question becomes:  Can one individual have their own morality?  The short answer is no.  Only a narcissist can have “their own static morality” and that becomes a diagnosis rather than a morality.  Ultimately morality is a social word and loses its meaning the moment an individual declares him or herself law unto themselves thus beyond the context of society. Yes today’s dictionaries do allow for a personal morality, but what that does not address is the very necessary understanding that a ‘personal morality” is a process connected to a society and not a self-referenced noun. Once the content of a ‘personal morality’ becomes a static noun, and particularly when that static noun is paired with the overwhelming power of an army and a navy, you have what is referred to as ‘megalomania ‘. You can look that term up if you want, but the phrase “delusions of grandeur” will likely show up in your research.  Megalomania is in the process of becoming an adjective for American foreign policy if we don’t respond quickly to our current state of affairs.

Our current president has admitted he operates out of his gut or in some interviews, ‘his own morality’. The law, domestic or international, is apparently secondary and subject to his ‘overriding wisdom’.  The trap of operating out of a set of frozen rules in oneself and calling it wisdom for everyone else in the fluid world is a sure recipe for failure and violence.  Those rigid, simplistic, self endorsed individual rules do not rise the standard of a morality.  They are megalomania without the restraint of humane intelligence.

Modest Proposal for Good

The basic premise of a democracy is the law is a public process. The public law is the sole source of legal authority for the governed. The stable authority of the law is mounted on a public morality of democratic virtues.  Iran is currently coming apart in a bloodbath because a few people believe their way is the only way. Dictatorship is the ultimate privatization of religious and civil authority.  Because of this, the cynical idea that everything is corrupt in DC is one of the most dangerous tropes going down in America right now.  The tools of the Constitution are still there to be used and using those tools would not only be good, but our salvation.  The idea that our democracy is a garage sale for the very wealthy, again, must not stop ‘the people’ from creating the basis for an American reformation. We must use the only power a democracy has in a crisis; truth, integrity and power. We are in trouble, but the megalomania of a few people and the transient power of a few new billionaires cannot bring this country down.  Resist the despair of dark days. That will be good.