Rites of War is on Paper!

  Elana Connelly. Right now, I’m blaming her for the dreams. More on that later.

  I looked her up the other day. She was the one who had the writing credits for the afore mentioned Text flick. It turns out that she wrote some other books about a frame of mind called Evolutionary Ethics. The idea that she is trying to get out there is that ‘amorality is moral’ verses ‘amorality is a complement to normative ethics’.

  I have no idea what that means. Lots of amoral stuff, apparently.

  Being a good little author, I looked a lot of stuff up and read until my eyes burned and my brain hurt. I took notes. Here is the simplified version of my take on the whole shebang:

  First of all, what does ‘moral’ really mean? I mean, really? There are easy ones, like don’t kill and don’t steal. Then there are grey ones, like listening to a Christian far-right gal talking about gay marriage and a wiccan far-left guy taking about big business.

  With that in mind, I decided to lock into the black-and-white argument. First came the side of ‘amorality is moral’ it sticks to the idea that morals are relative to the situation at hand. You’ve got laws that define that killing and stealing is wrong. But those laws don’t count for the cop who shoots a perp, a soldier who opens up on the enemy, or the home owner defending themselves against a hopped up attacker with an axe. What about finding a $20 on the street? Is that stealing if you pocket it? It isn’t your money. What if you are broke and starving and there sits a hamburger that some dude left on the table to go use the can? What if you are unemployed and going to go home to starving kids; and someone left groceries in the back of their shiny, new pickup?

  This got me thinking about some of the characters that could show up in my book.

  Then comes the side of the argument where ‘amorality is a complement’ in that it is a cause-effect, a consequence, a relationship compass, it sensibly defines contexts of ethical meanings, and is part of family roles. You drink at an office party with your boss, you drive home, you kill a kid on a bike. But you have kids of your own that you are working hard to support. You’ve made sacrifices for those kids of yours. However; the world sees you as ‘that drunk that killed that kid with his car’.

  For me, the argument seems to boil down to one of self-control. Where you draw the line is what defines morality. The guy who drank with his boss could have done a watered-down drink or a few baby sips verses gulping it. Did that guy need to be drinking with his boss in the first place? What kind of place is that guy working for, anyway? Maybe that guy should have found another job.

  See? Self control with a dash of… foresight? Common sense? Flight verses fight? I suppose it boils down to how you are wired.

  Anyway, in Dame Connelly’s work sits all kinds of interesting plot devices and messed up characters to work with. A seed for them, anyway. The question is; where will they end up once I am done with them?

   That brings me to my FIRST dream-based writing; a little ditty that I call Rites of War. After putting the thing down on paper, I’m considering changing the title. I’m also thinking about making this book into an anthology of short stories based on the town I’m dreaming about. Each dream is the same, but different. I’ll be able to better explain once I have a few more written up.

   Hopefully…