From Conditioning to Conscience

From Conditioning to Conscience: As the lodge educational officer, I am responsible for delivering a 3-5-minute presentation. In the preceding presentation, you may find words of encouragement to seek light: "Ask one to be one."

A Master Mason’s Work

Brethren,

When a man is raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, something changes.

He is no longer merely instructed — he is charged. The question before him is no longer what shaped me, but what I will now do with myself.

 

Tonight, I want to reflect on that question through three lenses:

·       a modern scientific one, an ancient philosophical one, and finally the Masonic way, which, for me personally, is where those two finally came together.

In the twentieth century, psychologist B. F. Skinner argued that human behavior is largely shaped by environment and reinforcement. In his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner claimed that behavior — even moral behavior — is learned, conditioned, and maintained by social consequences. From Skinner’s view, prejudice and similar moral failures are not hidden stains buried in a man’s soul, but patterns of behavior, reinforced over time by history, culture, tribe, fear, and power. Skinner forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth that every honest man eventually learns:

·       None of us arrive unconditioned.

·       We are shaped — often deeply — by forces long before we ever knock at the door of the Lodge.

But Skinner stops there.

He explains how a man is shaped, but not how a man must govern himself once he becomes aware of it.

For that, we turn much further back — to Socrates. Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Where Skinner looks outward to the environment, Socrates looks inward to the soul.

 

Socrates believed moral failure is part of being human. His warning was not against error, but against unquestioned certainty — especially the certainty that one is already righteous.

Socrates would agree with Skinner on this much: Human beings are shaped by forces larger than themselves.

But Socrates adds the moral turn: Once a man becomes aware of his fallibility, he is responsible for examining it.

 

Here is where I want to speak personally, Brethren.

For a long time, I could see truth in Skinner’s explanation of behavior, and I could see wisdom in Socrates’ call to self-examination. But I could not reconcile the two —until I became a Freemason.

It was only through the work of the Lodge, through reflection on the symbols and the charges, that I understood this:

·       Skinner explains the conditioning,

·       Socrates demands self-knowledge,

·       But Freemasonry requires self-mastery.

Freemasonry gave me a place where understanding how I was shaped did not excuse my conduct, and examining myself did not become an exercise in self-righteousness. It became work.

As Master Masons, we are charged to circumscribe our passions and keep them within due bounds. That charge assumes something essential:

·       that passions exist,

·       that imperfections exist,

·       that the rough ashlar still bears the marks of its shaping.

Freemasonry does not deny this. It demands that we labor upon it. The tools of Master Masons are not instruments of accusation — they are instruments of correction.

·       The common gavel teaches us to divest our hearts and consciences of superfluities — including pride, moral vanity, and the illusion of purity.

·       The level reminds us that no man stands above another by nature

·       The plumb reminds us to walk uprightly in our own conduct, not merely criticize the conduct of others.

·       And the trowel teaches us to spread brotherly love — not excuses, not condemnation, but unity grounded in virtue.

The lesson of the Master Mason is not that a man begins perfect. It is that once raised, a man is no longer permitted to live unexamined. A Mason who denies his fallibility has abandoned the work. A Mason who recognizes it — and quietly labors to correct it — walks in the Light.

In a world obsessed with labeling, condemning, and declaring moral victory, Freemasonry asks for something far harder:

·       That a man rule himself before judging others.

·       Skinner taught me why I was shaped.

·       Socrates taught me why I must examine myself.

 

Freemasonry taught me what to do next.

·       To take up the tools.

·       To govern my passions.

·       To improve my ashlar.

·       And for that, Brethren, I am truly thankful.

That is the work of a Master Mason.