The crime of human weakness: how freewill opts for vanity and desires joy-how did we come to folly adored?

In 1762, according to the twentieth Scottish Minister and theological author A.M Renwick (1888-1965), the Parliament of France declared the doctrines of the Jesuits “tended to sever all the bonds of civil society by the authorization of falsehood, perjury, the most culpable impurity, and in a word, each passion and each crime of human weakness”.

Human weakness may be considered as the undesired inclination of the flesh toward that which we no is not in the long-term interest of the individual or society. When we do because we feel even though reason tells us it is wrong. We have reduced humanity to the feelings of biology and the pressure of hormones; choosing our animal-like inclinations over our human glory. We are fast losing our humanity because we have become a people of feeling rather than a creation of reason. But we can wake up.

When a society seems to legitimise falsehood, perjury and all moral impurity by alluding to the weakness of our humanity, we head on a highway of destruction. Moreso, if debauchery becomes socially acceptable because it brings economic gains and affluence then we are trading our human essence. We have fallen thus low: many of our youth have become mad because of drugs and we are polishing the situation as “mental illness”. “Depression” has become an acceptable mental illness “everybody” is supposed to have in one way or the other. And big pharmaceuticals are cashing in with medication that is not wholly curative but hooks the victim to endless doses towards least recoverability. We can change this emerging norm by implementing a social plan of persevering reasoning and action that on one hand despises and displaces the sophism and casuistry of debased leadership at all levels and a pragmatic endeavour of gracious morality in our churches, schools and families.

Home training is on a serious low because parents don’t have time; they need to “work hard to make enough money so the children can be “taken care of”. So, in the absence of proper training, the little one grows into the hormonal surge of multiple feelings that pressure the teenage freewill to make wanton choices. Feeling is a good servant but a bad master. Our teenagers need assistance to navigate this corner of curiosity and experimentation. The assistance should come from multiple sources including a well-designed government programme from the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP). This Ministry has great potential and is not doing badly at the moment. The Minister has opportunity to reinforce social morality as a key anchor to national economic and social development. In collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism Culture and Creative Arts (MoTCCA) civil society can be mobilised to massively assist our young ones out of commercial sex, prostitution and drugs. Of course much is being done at the moment. What we need is not a containment of the situation because the current situation seems downhill headed. We need a well orchestrated “social revolution” of moral renewal.

Additionally, the value of social work must be quantified in economic terms so that the loses to the state as a result of the breakdown of social morality can be well understood. With a good diagnosis we can overcome any feeling of helplessness and put on proper thinking caps and get all hands on deck. Solution is not too far away. We must just be in the right bearing and direction.

So, while we engage in endless debates of whether a popular music, or film artist is a worthy role model for the son or daughter of a religious leader or the taxi driver or the scholarly parliamentarian; and whether it is worth drawing huge crowds of our young ones through a night of frenzy only to come back home (where there is a home to come back to) and continue to face the unemployment that is significantly a function of inadequate knowledge and skills for available good-paying jobs.

The new year is barely a month old; the energy of renewal can still be harnessed for an endeavour of moral renaissance for our dear country, continent and generation.

By Emmanuel Kwame Mensah of Cross-Cutting Excellence