Post for a Sponsor

From Sponsor #1: Mike, a close friend and sponsor posed this question in response to an earlier post. Mike is an eternally inquisitive and thoughtful person, and so I am particularly pleased to write this post.

'But when it comes to opinions in general, how does morality play out? Saying "slavery is morally wrong and should be abolished" is a given today but in 1860 in America that was a radical statement. Is it possible for something to be moral in one culture or time but not others, then how is morality not arbitrary?'

I came across this line from Kafka recently: '...the man stands once and for all outside our people, outside our humanity, constantly starved, nothing belongs to him but the moment, the ever-continuing unbearable moment without even a sliver of a moment of recovery to follow it, he forever has only one thing: his pains... he has only the ground required by his two feet, only the purchase covered by his two hands, thus even less than trapeze artists in a vaudeville show, who at least have a safety net suspended beneath them.' ('The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1923')

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The enumerated rights, such as access to an education and freedom from arbitrary arrest, speak to certain beliefs and moral standings which continue to stand strong against the sands of time. Then there are other rights which are contentious still, such as the right of consent on the part of both parties when entering into a marriage contract. How different cultures and states have in the past dealt with the distribution or outright rejection of these sorts of rights does offer the impression that while 'morality' itself is not arbitrary, its varying expressions and presence may be. Such a history is one reason why there were two treaties ratified in 1966 which speak to the basic rights allegedly espoused by contemporary humanity, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Is it right that there is still a caste system in place in India? Is it right that secular Jews find such disdain among their Haredi counterparts?