"One should make morals judgements for oneself"
About this Quote
To say one should make moral judgements for oneself is a defense of personal conscience over borrowed certainty. It asks for active engagement rather than submission to the prevailing party line, whether that line comes from institutions, pundits, or the heat of the crowd. Moral life, on this view, is not a script handed down but a practice of perception, deliberation, and responsibility.
Kathryn Bigelow has built a career staging situations where easy answers collapse under pressure. The Hurt Locker drops viewers into the adrenaline-fueled routines of a bomb disposal unit and refuses to tidy up the contradictions of courage, addiction, and duty. Zero Dark Thirty reconstructs the hunt for bin Laden with a clinical eye that ignited fierce debate over its depiction of coercive interrogations. Bigelow argued that portrayal is not endorsement and that audiences are capable of drawing conclusions without being spoon-fed. The line about making moral judgements for oneself distills that artistic ethos: present reality as it is experienced and trust viewers to reckon with it.
That trust is not carte blanche for moral relativism. Making judgements for oneself raises the bar, not lowers it. It demands attention to evidence, a willingness to sit with discomfort, and the humility to revise conclusions when confronted with new facts or perspectives. It resists the seduction of secondhand virtue, where retweets substitute for reflection and labels stand in for arguments. It also acknowledges the limits of authority in domains where facts and values tangle, where competing harms and goods coexist.
There is a civic dimension here as well. Democracies depend on citizens who can evaluate complex trade-offs, not just absorb a party catechism. Bigelow’s immersive filmmaking becomes a kind of moral gymnasium, exercising judgment under stress. To make moral judgements for oneself is to accept both agency and accountability: to look closely, think rigorously, feel empathetically, and own the consequences of what one decides.
Kathryn Bigelow has built a career staging situations where easy answers collapse under pressure. The Hurt Locker drops viewers into the adrenaline-fueled routines of a bomb disposal unit and refuses to tidy up the contradictions of courage, addiction, and duty. Zero Dark Thirty reconstructs the hunt for bin Laden with a clinical eye that ignited fierce debate over its depiction of coercive interrogations. Bigelow argued that portrayal is not endorsement and that audiences are capable of drawing conclusions without being spoon-fed. The line about making moral judgements for oneself distills that artistic ethos: present reality as it is experienced and trust viewers to reckon with it.
That trust is not carte blanche for moral relativism. Making judgements for oneself raises the bar, not lowers it. It demands attention to evidence, a willingness to sit with discomfort, and the humility to revise conclusions when confronted with new facts or perspectives. It resists the seduction of secondhand virtue, where retweets substitute for reflection and labels stand in for arguments. It also acknowledges the limits of authority in domains where facts and values tangle, where competing harms and goods coexist.
There is a civic dimension here as well. Democracies depend on citizens who can evaluate complex trade-offs, not just absorb a party catechism. Bigelow’s immersive filmmaking becomes a kind of moral gymnasium, exercising judgment under stress. To make moral judgements for oneself is to accept both agency and accountability: to look closely, think rigorously, feel empathetically, and own the consequences of what one decides.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|
More Quotes by Kathryn
Add to List
