After watching the Presidential Debate, with the candidates in all their scripted and done-up glory, I was confronted with the inconsequential purposes our society basis itself on. We elect career politicians who make huge money as borderline to legal as possible to our most prestigious position. Even though they make seemingly sincere pleas of, "vote for me, I will fight for you," under moral guises, it is pretty obvious that if President wasn't such a lucrative position‹in money, fortune and fame‹these men wouldn't be virtuously fighting for our rights.

Though this might sound pessimistic, I have to wonder whether or not the concept of a virtuous life hasn't been totally extinguished. External goods drive our Consumer Culture (and we can't deny that that is exactly what ours is). Business controls our morality, as our entertainment and education systems prove. TV and Movies focus on sex and senseless killing because they know those kind of movies will sell. We are a culture attracted to moral laxity (consider "Jerry Springer"), and money making ventures. Even our colleges are now run on a business model so that we can have lots and lots of money.

Why should we even try to live a moral life? If we do, we could be just shooting ourselves out of success and fame‹those things that our parents always hoped we had. Beyond that, how are we going to define the moral life? The church hasn't proven itself to be the ultimate moral guide. Christ and God mean nothing to me, without belief, what gives them justification to set the standard of morality? A tradition of excellence? I think that can easily be disproved when confronted with the Church's inaction during WWII, then the Crusades, and even the Old Testament. Those tales of horror are the huge discrepancies, but I can site many smaller instances where the Church has failed me, individually.

There has to be some kind of intrinsic good in virtuous living (whatever that is) because many have lived that life and felt fulfilled. Yet, a sense of fulfillment can't possibly be the end of our lives‹satisfaction is easily disrupted and is contingent on dissatisfaction. But in the larger society, the way we live our lives doesn't seem to cause much concern unless somehow it effects somebody else's money.