Costumes don't make the pirate.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PARTING THOUGHTS - Support groups - Viewpoint essay

IN THE PAST YEAR, Veggie Tales (if you listen to Christian radio or have small children, you've got a passing acquaintance with talking cucumbers and zany zucchini) released the film, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." Initially, the protagonists believed that, by dressing and talking like pirates, they were being pirates. They had numerous adventures and close calls in the process of learning that actions, not costumes, describe who and what we are. Too bad it is not fashionable for grownups to go to Veggie Tales movies for their own--and their kids'--enlightenment.

There is an ancient way of thinking: wear the feathers or fur of some dead predator, eat an enemy's heart, do a dance, and thereby acquire the powers of that predator or enemy. Many people enjoy watching documentaries on television and simultaneously being fascinated and reassured of their own sophistication by viewing aboriginal people in their traditional behaviors. After all, we never would smear paint on our bodies and jump around in unison, assuming it will trigger supernatural intervention on demand.

In much of the world, religions based on fear and magic have given way to faith based on reverence and reason. The awe-inspiring, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone," became the foundation for "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." In all that these two assertions represent, it is doing right things--not just how one thinks or feels--that is intrinsic to the relationship with God and with others. The devolution to assertions such as "the end justifies the means" and "good intentions are the same as an end," required several centuries and a great many very articulate, and very bleak, intellectuals. Elevating the human above the divine did not seem adequate to cheer up the people who were eager to pronounce God dead and mankind free of supernatural fetters. The festering negativity of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, and other thinkers of the late 19th century led to early 20th-century pragmatism: do whatever it takes to reach an objective, which was, in turn, subsumed into progressive politics.

The outcome of these philosophical wanderings includes the bizarre current situation, wherein a great many individuals imagine that thinking the right thoughts and wearing the correct color shirt, pin, or bracelet is the same as doing something useful. The average American is not featured in National Geographic...