Moral Irritation

It starts like a pebble caught in your shoe. You can feel it, rubbing against your heel, but the pain is not so bad that you cannot walk. It’s just a little uncomfortable. Or it might be like a pair of pants with a rough seam that rubs against your leg as you walk. It’s just a minor irritation. But if you do not remove the irritant, one of two things will happen. Either your body will slowly develop a callus at the place of irritation, growing thicker skin to the point where the irritant is no longer felt, not because the pebble is gone, but because you have lost a certain level of sensitivity. Or, in the case of the rough seam, it will slowly but surely rub your skin raw. That spot will become extremely painful and take a long time to heal.

Of course, when dealing with an actual physical irritation, the problem is usually easily remedied and of the two scenarios, ending up with a callus is much preferred. When the irritation is caused by a morally complicated or ambiguous situation, and the part of you that is irritated is your soul, the solution can seem more difficult than simply taking off your shoe, and the formation of a callus is the worse scenario (judging by Jesus’ harsh words against the hard-hearted Pharisees). The method for removing the irritant might be easy enough to find, perhaps, but could cost you dearly in some way: your time, money, a friendship, or respect. When is the price of a moral irritation acceptable, and when is it too dear?

Perhaps I should define moral irritation more clearly. I am trying to keep it somewhat vague on purpose, because I think that thoughtful, moral people with similar belief systems can identify very different things as causing them moral irritation. But most of my moral irritants have this in common: they arise from a situation in which I am not the person initiating the wrong or evil act, but my actions in that situation either implicitly condone the wrong/evil actions, or at least fail to condemn them. And this failure to act or failure to act as I feel I should, leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

I’ve had a number of moral irritants over the years. Some I have dealt with appropriately, even though it cost me in some way. Others I am still hesitating over, selfishly unwilling to pay the price. Sometimes I think I make the moral decision simply to end the irritation, and not because I want to do the “right thing”.

The moral irritation that prompted this post doesn’t really have a clear resolution. It involves a situation at work, which I won’t go into in this public space, except to note that my employer is doing nothing illegal—this is really just a personal moral thing. No action on my part can change matters, and even if I had the power to change things, I’m not sure that those changes would eliminate the irritation—it might be equivalent to putting the pebble in my other shoe.

So I’m stuck, living with this irritant rubbing against one small corner of my soul. How much does it even matter? It’s certainly not the only irritant, and by no means the biggest. But I hate feeling like I have chosen money and security over personal integrity.

Maybe this little pebble will be one more thing to spur me on towards finishing my degree and leaving this job.