Enarr — Roleplayer Guild

Museum of Art, Gotham City

Resting on my hands and knees, I began to sample different aspects of the crime scene. My samples included both a small section of the carpeting, and a short segment of the 'memory-fiber'. When I pocketed those, Bruce concluded his own analysis and announced that further investigation of his particular lead could only be found at home base.

As useful as a partial print would be, a more personal touch might be useful from the 'perp'. So, I placed myself directly in the area where the illusion of the woman had been, and I looked for a spot that could have presented her image completely uninterrupted. Considering her walk, there were only a few angles that could display that image. So, placing myself in 'her' footsteps, I strolled through the museum, looking upward the entire time. I ran through this several times before I used a flashlight.

"Batman," I whisper-shouted. "I've found it." With a mere four minutes remaining before the guard should've cycled back to our location, I spotted the projector, mounted upon the ceiling. "I see it!"

Let me begin by saying that in here I am disclosing the inner workings of a personal philosophy of mine that I've decided to call Pixelism. I believe that a lot of people will merely skim this, misinterpret it's genuine meaning, and attack the validity of this ideal. I request that you don't do that. I aim to share the mechanisms of my scarred psyche, and I would not expect most people to adopt the belief.

Many people believe that in the world we all share that there is a so-called moral grey area in which the morality of an action or associated consequences become ambiguous. This is because matters become so complicated that the nature of a certain action is unclear to the person asking. I attribute the majority of this issue to a general failure of people in general to remain objective when asking questions that they anticipate may be disturbing when answered. Many people simply choose to say that moral grey areas simply can't be decided and are open to interpretation. I disagree.

I advise that you take a look to the background surrounding the text you are currently reading. As of the time I've written this musing it should generally be considered a dark shade of grey. As I understand the word to mean, grey is an intermediate between black and white. Wait though! How can that be? Is it black? Or is it white? Well friends, I tell you that the answer isn't an or, the answer is that grey consists of black and white. It may seem obvious, but such a distinction is crucial to the foundation of my belief that no moral grey area exists, nor has it ever.

Now you may be thinking that it's easy to say that with colors and measurable qualities like literal pixels where you can define the exact ratio of black and white using a precise stream of binary 1s and 0s. And you may object because it is quite a different beast to quantify morality. But I disagree on one condition: You must have a concrete set of values in order to judge whether or not an action can be deemed righteous according to them. I'm going to test this belief by utilizing what is called a thought experiment.

Virtues & Maxims

Causing harm is Wrong

Life should be Preserved

Happiness is Precious

Now let's continue to find a morally obvious situation in order to act as a controlled test.

Obvious Situation:
A boy and his parents are exiting a movie theatre.

Decidedly the aforementioned situation is what we will call a morally white situation. The characters (The boy & his parents) have done nothing that contradicts the established virtues and maxims. Because no one has done anything morally black (contradicting the maxims) we will deem the situation as white as well. So let's continue.

Only Slightly Less Obvious
A boy and his parents are exiting a movie theatre. Suddenly, emerging from the shadows, a mugger approaches them and, pulling a gun, requests that the mother surrender her valuables.

Now, it is obvious that the boy & his parents have done nothing wrong, they are still white. But the mugger has committed a wrong by causing emotional and financial harm by threatening the family and committing armed robbery, meaning whether he physically assaults them of not, he has caused them to experience harm. So, for now at least, we will call him and his actions black. As a whole, the situation is obviously tainted from it's previously innocent state, and as a whole could be classified as grey because there were both actions that contradicted and sustained harmony with the maxims.

Classically 'Grey' Scenario:
A boy and his parents are exiting a movie theatre. Suddenly, emerging from the shadows, a mugger approaches them and, pulling a gun, requests that the mother surrender her valuables. The father steps forth and assaults the mugger, defending his wife and son.

The Son & Mother are still white. The Mugger is still black. But now the father has committed a righteous action by defending the lives of his family, but also an action against the maxims by causing the mugger harm. In effect, he has also harmed his family psychologically by exposing them to such violence. That, under such careful scrutiny, would classically/mathematically be considered a grey action, because it is an intermediate of black and white actions... or is it? It is not an intermediate, it is a combination, meaning he has created varying degrees of black and white, though at no point are his individual actions subject to scrutiny. It is merely when you take a step back and treat it as a singular action instead of a series of separate decisive actions that you can't accurately define if he was black or white.

Classically 'Grey' Scenario:
A boy and his parents are exiting a movie theatre. Suddenly, emerging from the shadows, a mugger approaches them and, pulling a gun, requests that the mother surrender her valuables, which had been stolen from their original owners before being sold multiple times, so that he may be able to sell them once more to provide sufficient money to pay his family's rent. The father steps forth and assaults the mugger, defending his wife and son. The mugger shoots the father and mother, steals the jewels, and, days later, sells them, and creates a healthy environment for his own family. However, the now orphaned boy grows up and, in an effort to prevent other children from suffering his same fate, grows into an adult who intimidates, assaults, and violates the legally granted rights of criminals and resists arrest from the police.

Obviously, we're talking about The Batman right? He's a good guy, right? Is he? Really? As a whole the situation just became morally ambiguous. The father had been black & white. The mother had possessed long stolen goods, debatably contributing to the loss of another person's happiness. The mugger had taken a life and happiness, though he'd sheltered that of his own family. And the boy committed many rights and wrongs, namely causing great harm, in order to preserve life & happiness of others. Clearly, this would classically be considered morally grey. But it can't be judged that way. Doing so fails to convey what actually had happened and is almost inconsequential in the end. But looking at the pieces of the proverbial puzzle clearly indicate what was right and what was wrong. Therefore, not only is the color grey an optical illusion, there is no such thing as a grey area, merely a black and white area but there is also no need for, or benefit to having a moral grey area. That is why I've called this philosophy Pixelism, because in order to see what all truly exists and has specific qualities, you must judge every detail individually, objectively, and without bias.

Comments are welcomed, as are opposing viewpoints. I feel that if I cannot stand by my beliefs in the face of opposition, they are not worthy of continued existance.

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