The making of American morality

I was thinking today as I drove along Arizona Road, from Phoenix to Sacaton, about American morality. My son-in-law, Chris, started me thinking about this, when he said that Americans have forgotten how to be capitalists. By this he meant that we have forgotten that capitalism means providing service, along with a sale, and that if an economic system, be it capitalist or other, is to endure (meaning that business continues to come back because the consumer is satisfied) it doesn't mean caveat emptor. Service clearly is a value and thinking about values got me started thinking about morals.

While our stories today are largely written by young, randy males in Hollywood for young, randy males across the country (and world), and our moral system is in a quandary, it struck me that stories, at one time, were an important foundation of moral systems. It was in stories that we heard about the consequences of actions and had depicted for us the importance of certain actions, which may be tough to do, but are important in the long run. The stories that I think have helped shape our nation include the stories of our presidents, Lincoln returning the money, Washington confessing to cutting down the cherry tree and suffering in battle for his countrymen/women. The stories of racial inequity, Bury my heart at wounded knee and Uncle Tom's Cabin, had a fundamental effect on encouraging racial tolerance.

But, we have dismissed the importance of stories as we have dismissed the importance of so many nurturing behaviors. Darwinian literary theorists, may their tribe not continue to increase, argue that the intellectual construct is what is important about stories. While stories, or at least artsy literary narrative (which bores me to no end right now, as so much of it is so self-indulgent) may build synapses, it seems so clear to me that what is important about stories is the effect they have on behavior. The effect is seen in observable patterns of behavior, in predictability.