I received an email from a friend about Baltasar Gracián's book on morals, *The Art of Worldly Wisdom*, which The Chivalry Guild highly praised on Substack. Gracián was a 17th-century Spanish Jesuit priest whose insights into moral behavior are impressive. The Guild compares Gracián's values with Robert Greene's books, which they say promote a manipulative and toxic morality. One is good, and the other is bad. Gracián and Greene are shown as opposites. I disagree that we should pick one over the other.
Following Jung's ideas, in moral decision-making, good and evil form a paradoxical whole. Each is a judgment. Human fallibility shows that we don't always judge correctly; we can fall victim to misjudgment. Still, we must make moral choices. Because people are often unaware of what is truly right, we turn to moral codes like Gracián's for certainty, as if the code knows what is good and what is evil. However, it's crucial to recognize the inherent uncertainty of these human codes, such as Gracián's and Greene's. This recognition empowers us to see moral choices as subjective and creative acts.
It's important to remember that we have the psychological freedom to act differently from what external rules consider morally correct. This freedom lets us make decisions based on our own sense of right and wrong.
Ultimately, making the right decisions depends on self-knowledge, not on following external rules and regulations. Without self-awareness, we live in a world of self-deception and illusion. With self-awareness, we can explore the unconscious, where our instincts originate. The unconscious is the source of the powerful forces that influence our moral choices. We must let the opposing forces of so-called good and evil consciously clash within us before a third option emerges. Jung compares this to a coin that is split and then carefully rejoined. Morally, the best course of action is this third option. The third way comes from a source beyond our reasoning and carries a sacred energy. This resolution not only settles the conflict between opposites but also promotes growth in self-awareness, guiding us to moral decisions that truly reflect our whole being.
The risk of choosing one thing over another is losing authenticity. The etymology of "authentic" refers to someone who acts on their own authority. Being authentic is what the soul desires. When we follow an external answer like Gracián's or Greene's, our souls see our egos as charlatans, impostors, with an assumed identity that is untrustworthy and inauthentic.
One-sidedness wounds the soul by pretending to be something we're not: claiming to be whole when we're only acting from a part. It can lead to feelings of self-righteousness, an inflated sense of moral superiority, and the belief that we are better than others. Pretending to be something we are not damages the soul.
One-sidedness also keeps us childlike, relying on external authorities to guide us through life, as if those authorities always know what's right for us at every moment.
The more challenging, life-affirming way to make moral decisions involves embracing opposites, managing the internal pressure that comes with consciously holding onto both what is perceived as good and evil, and allowing the unexpected third option to unfold—one that reflects our wholeness at that moment but may not suit someone else.