Moral Health

Zero Tolerance is increasingly turning out to mean zero common sense.  The way some schools now implement the idea of zero tolerance it is tantamount to believing that a person is actually sick when the individual utters “I am sick of this mess”.  For the moment, no one responds to the utterance “I am sick of this mess” by exclaiming “Oh my goodness, let me call a doctor”.  So we know that commonsense still has some purchase upon reality.

Alas, when it comes to the assessment of things in schools it is manifestly clear that common sense has taken a leave of absence.

Case 1: A fourth grader is sent to the principal’s office and nearly suspended for having a 2-inch toy gun in his possession.  Like anyone, I hold that there is much to be said for students not having objects that can be easily mistaken for a weapon.  But that precept surely rules out the worry that a 2-inch toy gun is indeed a real gun.

I know extremely little about guns.  But it is inconceivable to me that I would mistake a 2-inch gun for an actual gun.  So one has to ask: What the hell was the teacher thinking in sending the fourth greater to the principal’s office?  Likewise, one asks: What on earth was the principal thinking?

Case 2: A 12-year old girl is hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling on her desk.  “What did she doodle on the desk?,” you ask.  The answer: her name.  Not profanity or some racial slur.  Not a nasty and vicious comment about some classmate.  None of these things.  No, she doodled her name.

Like any reasonable person, I concur with the judgment that students should not doodle on desks.  But taking the student out of the school in handcuffs for doodling?  That response is so ludicrous that there is nothing that can proffered as an explanation that would make sense of such a drastic measure.

Once upon a time, the idea was that adults were models for maturity of judgment and measured behavior—especially teachers.  The very idea was that children growing up learnt how to behave not simply by what they were told to do but also by the kind of behavior that they witnessed on the part of adults.  Adults were the standard-bearer of reasonable behavior.  And certainly there was the idea that teachers were.

Clearly things have changed.  And this change does not bode well for the future of our society.

With the case of either the boy or the girl, I am hardly suggesting that a reprimand of some sort was not in order.  But clearly the reprimand should be proportional to the offense.  If a handcuffing a child is seen as the appropriate response to the child’s doodling her name, then what on earth would be appropriate if the child doodled some vicious remark about a classmate?  Handcuffs and a noose?  Or merely handcuffs and ankle-cuffs?

Similarly if a teacher and principle reacts to a 2-inch toy gun as if it were a real gun, then it becomes rather difficult to imagine what would be the appropriate reaction in the face of what is in fact an actual gun.

The question that most obviously presents itself is the following: How is it possible that the idea of zero-tolerance came to be construed in such an inane and absurd manner?  The answer, I believe, has to do with the quite mistaken that such behavior is required by fairness and complete fairness precludes any exercise of discretion.  This, in turn, is no doubt thought to have the advantage of precluding any discrepancies in treatment owing to cross-cultural differences.

Alas, the problem is that such blanket uniformity turns out to be a form of injustice in and of itself has been moribund and there can be no justice when justice is shorn of reasonableness.

Suppose we have a student from France whose command of English is still crude.  So the student from France tries to express friendly feelings and says to a student “I kiss you,” which is the literal translation of “je t’embrasse,” a very common expression between good friends in France, be they female-male, female-female, or male-male.  Now a policy of zero-tolerance with respect to expressions of intimacy would entail that the student from France trying to express himself in English should be punished, which of course is absurd.

My example is born of a real experience when a good male from France was visiting the United States and we got together.  As we were parting ways, he said to me “I kiss you”.  I knew immediately that he was not making a sexual advance, but that he was offering a literal interpretation of a very warm expression in French commonly used between good friends.  In reacting to my friend’s utterance I used what goes by the name of commonsense.

It is the very use of commonsense that zero-tolerance precludes and therein lies the fundamental problem with zero-tolerance.  Let us allow that the policy that no one should have any sort of gun on school premises applies to all guns whether they are real or not.  This move obviously precludes the possibility of someone bringing toy gun to school that could easily enough be mistaken for a real gun by just about anyone.  Well, once one allows this point, then surely what follows is that it is silly to treat a 2-inch toy gun as if it might be mistaken for a real gun.  So it is even if the student is informed that he is not allowed to have that gun on school premises.

Doodling on a desk counts as defacing school property.  Still, precisely what we know is that children do precisely that sort of thing when they get bored.  To ignore the very character of what it is like to be a child is, in fact, to act contrary to common sense.

In a word, then, children are growing up experiencing their teachers, who are adults, acting in ways that are manifestly contrary to common sense.  This is a social configuration that is entirely inimical to the proper development of children.

We wonder why our children are dysfunction.  Alas, part of the explanation may very well be consequence of the implementation of the absurd policy of zero-tolerance.  For that policy is none other than a way of teaching, by way of adult modeling, that common sense does not matter.

Which is worse? Being called a racial epithet (pick the one that most suits your ethnicity) or being betrayed by a dear friend, amongst whom I shall one’s spouse.  Contrary to what the norms of political correctness hold, I maintain that in the typical case being betrayed by a dear friend is much more morally traumatic than being called a racial epithet by a known-bigot.  A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that this is so.

When is the last time you can remember being the object of racial slur by a dear friend?  If you are like me, there have been no such instances.  And that, of course, is just the point.  Racial slurs invariably come from those who we are already know have deep racial biases (towards whites or blacks or Asians or Arabs or whatever).

Here is a simple way to put the point.  Suppose that you know that Sampson has rather strong KKK or Black Panther sympathies.  Well, would you be surprised if in the fit tremendous anger Sampson called you a kike (the KKK person) or racist (that Black Panther person) if you are Jew in one case or a white in the other?  Surely not!  And to get worked up over the fact that Sampson did would be rather like getting worked up over the fact that a propeller plane does not move through the air like a jet does.  No one in her or his right mind can expect a propeller plane to do that.

Well, to know that Sampson has strong KKK or Black Panther sympathies is to know that he has unreasonable and indefensible racial attitudes.  Thus, the more appropriate surprise should be that it took the person so long to utter a racial slur—and not that the individual eventually did so.

If someone presents herself or himself as bigoted, it is rather foolish to have expectations of that person with regard to racial attitudes that apply only to someone who is not bigoted.

The betrayal of dear friend is an entirely different matter entirely.  For one thing, a dear friend has presented herself or himself as someone who cares rather deeply about one’s well-being-even one’s flourishing.  A dear friend has presented herself or himself in ways that would give one every reason to believe that one can let one’s guard down.  One can talk about personal finances or one can share a very deep personal pain or quite revealing hopes or quite revealing moments of despair.  And so on.

For another thing, there is no such thing as revealing deeply personal information by accident.  Revealing personal information is not at all the analogue to the spontaneous utterance of “ouch” when unexpectedly experiencing great pain.  The utterance of “ouch” is a reaction.  Revealing personal information cannot be construed as a reaction.  This is something that one does intentionally and that one can only do intentionally.

Suppose that Smith tells me that he was sexually abused by his father.  I am simply unable to fathom how it could remotely plausible for me to have reason to tell someone else about Smith.  So it is even I am providing comfort to another person—say, Jones‑‑who has suffered the same misfortune.  For whether Jones knows Smith or not, my offering comfort and support to Jones does not require telling Jones about Smith.

Suppose, now, that the circumstances of Jones and Smith are parallel and Smith has indeed flourished in spite of the abuse.  Could this possibly excuse my telling Jones about Smith, because I want Jones to know that he, too, can overcome this?  I think not.  Certainly not without Smith’s permission.

What is more, there is no way to construe my telling Jones about Smith’s child sexual abuse as anything other than a deliberate and fully intentional betrayal of Smith’s trust.  There is no spontaneous “ouch” counterpart to telling Jones about Smith.

These considerations bring us to why violating a deep trust is so very much worse than a racial epithet from someone known to be a bigot.

By definition, a bigot has given us reason to believe and expect that he will have untoward views about us. He certainly has given us no reason whatsoever to believe that truth and facts trump unwarranted racial attitudes.

By contrast, a dear friend has given us every reason to believe that the information that we share with him is sacred and that this sacredness is secured by the rich bond of affection that the person has for us.  Needless to say, we do not expect a bigot (a KKK or Black Panther) person to have a bond of affection for us if we are of the right ethnic group (say, black in the first case or white in the second case).

Now, it is impossible to have a bond of affection for someone and do anything that comes remotely close to harming that person intentionally.  Indeed, there is a very natural inclination to the contrary.  Accordingly, revealing something utterly personal can only be construed as a form of intentional harm—intentional psychological harm, to be sure, but intentional harm nonetheless.  For speaking is definitive of what counts as intentional behavior.  What is more, it is an intentional harm which reveals that, contrary to one’s comportment around the person, one does not deeply care about the person.  Thus, the harm is tied to a deception that one has perpetrated with respect to the person.  And therein lies what is surely a most poignant difference between the bigot and the betrayal of a dear friend.

The bigot is bad.  But we know in the first place not to put our trust in a bigot.  A friend who betrays us, by contrast, has exploited the vulnerabilities that are part and parcel of being the object of another’s affection.  The appearance of good has been the platform for the so-called friend doing harm to us.  This scars us in a way that a racial epithet from a known bigot cannot possibly scar us.

Mort Zuckerman offers a spot-on analysis of Barack Obama, who has fallen so low from such extraordinary heights.  See Zuckerman’s brilliant assessment at The Daily Beast.  Zuckerman’s remarks are particularly poignant because he is among those who had such high hopes for Obama.  10 months ago, it seemed that the only thing right-wingers or Republicans could do was try to find fault with Obama or reveal themselves to be unwilling to accept the reality that winds of change had blown across America.

Yet, a year after one of the most extraordinary elections ever, Barack Obama seems to be a remarkably weak man—an individual utterly lacking in presidential timbre.  The issue, obviously, is not his intellectual ability.  He obviously surpasses many in that regard.  And not even his enemies can deny that he is manifestly more intellectually capable than his predecessor, George Bush.  This proves to be a quite riveting point; for it shows that sheer intellectual wherewithal does not suffice to make one a great president.

The most telling observation made by Zuckerman is that for all Obama’s talk about change, the simple reality is that the Obama administration has proven to be the billboard for business-as-usual.  Only someone in utter denial—delusional, even—can fail to see the depth of corruption that has occurred under the Barack Obama administration.

The question that so forcefully presents itself is the following: How can it be that the very person who campaigned for change, and who captured the hearts of many by ever so articulately offering the hope of change, can have such corruption in his very own administration?  This would be rather like me claiming that I do not tolerating cell phone use in the classroom, all the while ignoring the fact that someone is texting right before my very eyes.

It is simply not possible that Obama cannot see the extraordinary corruption that has occurred under his administration.  So, the fact that he has been indifferent to it for all practical purposes is most revealing about him.

Perhaps the most damaging criticism of Barack Obama is that, in the end, he is manifestly not a man of integrity.  This follows quite simply from the fact that he saw what he saw in terms of corruption in his own party and he did nothing at all about it.  Indeed, he did not so much as even pretend to be concerned about all the corruption going on around him.  Winning is all that mattered to him—not winning in the right way.

One might very well intone that this criticism holds of politicians in general.  Alas, it is Obama who so very effectively raised the mantle of change—so much so that the one-time presumed presidential nominee, Hilary Clinton, found herself quite overshadowed by him.  She represented the same-old-same-old.  Obama represented change.

This brings me to the second aspect of Obama’s character that is to his detriment, namely that he is so besotted with his own orator skills that he fails to appreciate when he is missing the mark with others.  That is, he is so convinced of his own thought that he does not know how to take seriously the reality that others are a very long ways from being convinced by him. A rather different way of putting the point might be that he does not know how to take criticism seriously.

Oddly enough, this may have something to do with his success as a black—but not in the way that one might suppose.  I do not doubt for a moment his intellectual abilities; and people, including his mentors, are rightly impressed.  But for a black of his intellectual ability, there is the danger of whites being so excited about having a black who is truly talented that they refrain from subjecting his views to the same level of criticism to which they would subject the views of an equally talented white individual.

There is a form of white liberalism in universities that does blacks a disservice by not fully engaging blacks at the critical level.  Some of this is may be owing to a fear of being seen as racist.  Some of this may be equally owing to taking such tremendous delight in the success of a talented black that the whites do not concern themselves offering the full range of criticisms that a person might normally encounter.

A striking example Obama not being nearly as reflective as he should is the way in which he handled the Henry Louis Gates matter.  One could easily enough agree with Obama that racism is hardly dead in the United States without thinking for a moment that the Gates scenario was a very vivid example of the persistence of racism.  The Gates case was fraught with difficulties that at the very least made it clear that racism was not the most salient factor, if a factor at all.  So it could not serve as an illustration of the very thing that Obama claim moved him, namely that racism is hardly dead in America.  Commonsense delivered this conclusion.  Or so it does if, that is, one is sufficiently self-reflective.

People thought that George Bush was a bumbling idiot.  The irony of ironies is that Obama is proving himself not to be much better than Bush in that regard.  Bush, so it would seem, lacks the raw intellectual talent.  Obama, by contrast, is not bringing his considerable intellectual powers to bear by being fully reflective and self-critical.  This makes Obama his own worst enemy.

Obama reminds me of expression that is from an era gone-by: “Too smart for one’s own good”.  Not in my life-time have I seen a man take the office of President of the United States with as much hope on the part of the citizens of America as Barack Obama did.  Likewise, never have I seen a person more oblivious to the very hope that he had inculcated.  And it takes a very morally vapid person to be indifferent to the very deep, deep hope on the part of that she or he has inculcated.  If Obama is not such a person, I see no evidence that he is not.

As Zuckerman notes, it is possible for Obama to wrestle victory from what appears to be the jaws of defeat.  And I hope that such a thing happens.  If I am right, though, that will happen only if Obama takes himself seriously enough to engage in reflective self-criticism and to act accordingly.  He cannot commit another Henry Louis Gates snafu.  Nor can he ignore egregious behavior among members of his own party that is contrary to the very ideals that he espoused and with which he so mobilized the public.  Painfully, it is not at all clear that Obama is strong enough to be that kind of person, his enormous intellectual ability to the contrary notwithstanding.  That is a shame.

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For the record: Unlike Zuckerman, I did not vote for Barack Obama.  In fact, I did not vote for any presidential candidate.



It is one of the great ironies of life that being the victim of egregious injustice is not a gateway or stepping stone to being a champion of justice.  Indeed, one of the most compelling and inspiring examples in modern history of people putting themselves on the line in order to save others from the hands of evil concerns a group of people who are not known for their suffering, namely the people of Le Chambon.

Known for standing up to the might of Hitler’s army in order to save the lives of thousands of Jews, the people of Le Chambon were ordinary folks with a strong religious faith.  That is the distinguishing feature of the people of Le Chambon—not some egregious set of injustices that all or most its denizens had endured.

By contrast, when we look around the world at those who have endured egregious injustices, what we do not find is anything resembling a groundswell of commitment to doing what is just.  The proof of this point is the very world in which we live.  On the one hand, just everyone claims to be a victim of some injustice or the other.  On the other hand, the very prevalence of injustice makes it manifestly clear that precious few victims of injustice are much concerned with eradicating injustice.  For if most victims of injustice privileged justice, then the world already approximate some of paradise.

Certainly, what one does not find are countless cases where victims of injustice have gone out of their way to help other victims of justice.  So it is whether we are talking about the black hood or neighborhoods of poor white trash.

Of course, there are stellar examples of people who have been victims of injustice and who went on to put themselves on the line to help others.  But those stellar examples are very few and far between.  For example, if all blacks were as committed to the realization of justice as Martin Luther King, Jr. was: well, the hood would have another name—the foothills of justice, say.  Other neighborhoods would be synonymous with EMC: enriched moral recycling.

The explanation for this paradox of suffering is no doubt extremely complicated.  But surely part of the explanation is that victims of injustice seem to be far more inclined to wallow in self-pity than to see the good that they can do.  And as the people of Le Chambon remind us: the difference that makes all the difference is not money, but will.

These reflections in turn underwrite a very profound Aristotelian insight to be found in Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics, namely that good begets good and evil begets evil.  The exceptions, alas, prove the rule.  One profoundly important moral of these reflections is the very poignant truth that nothing is more conducive to a just society and world than raising just children.  For history shows that it is those with just moorings—as opposed to those who know injustice first-hand—who are more likely to make the greater sacrifice for a more just world.

Can people be insane?  Absolutely.  But we surely have reason to be weary of insanity as an excuse for antisemitic acts.  Yet, France’s court—la Cour d’Appel—ruled on 5 January 2010 that, by reason of insanity, a young Muslim by the name of Adel Amastaibou is not guilty of murdering a French Jew by the name of Sebastien Selam.  Amastabaibou claimed the following: “I am content that he is dead, the Jew bastard, the dirty whore Jew, the dirty Jew . . . . I killed Sebastien as Allah wanted”.  Needless to say, the Court’s ruling is about as implausible as it would be to claim that all Muslims are children of Satan.

Hate is not a form of insanity.  The expression of hate is not a form of insanity.  And if there is anything that France’s Cour d’Appel should know, it is the two truths that I have just articulated.  The Court’s ruling is stupefying in light of (a) the two truths just articulated and (b) Adel Amastaibou’s behavior.  If mere hatred and its expression entailed insanity, then it would follow that the horrendous antisemitism of Nazi Germany is excusable by reason of insanity.  No one thinks that.  Not even France’s Cour d’Appel.

If Amastaibou were indeed insane, there would signs of it independent of his killing of Sabastien Salem.  And there are no such signs at all.  Amastaibou’s desire to kill Salem did not in any way interfere with Amastaibou’s daily activities or judgments about himself and others.  Indeed, there was not anything remotely self-destructive about his behavior.  So for instance there was no undue paranoia or suspicion of others on Amastaibou’s part.  Why, Amastaibou was not even under the delusion that Salem or some other “dirty Jew” wanted to kill him (Amastaibou).

Now, what is particularly disturbing about the Court’s ruling are the implications that it has for other horrendous forms of behavior.  If a so-called uncontrollable desire is all it takes to excuse a person from murder, then such a desire should also excuse child sexual abuse and a man’s rape of a woman.  After all, individuals who commit such acts are typically driven by very intense sexual desire.

Of course, it is just so much nonsense to say that such desires are uncontrollable.  Child sexual abusers never even attempt to abuse a child sexually right in plain sight of every one.  These abusers always exercise enough restraint to lure the child out of public view.  Likewise for those who commit rape.

I cannot imagine that the France’s Cour d’Appel would excuse child sexual abuse or rape in the absence of incontrovertible evidence of insanity.  This is why the Court’s excusing of Amastaibou’s behavior is so disconcerting and so utterly inexcusable and so very incomprehensible.  One can only wonder “What was the Court thinking?”

Equally disconcerting is the absence of public outcry.  In fact, France’s premiere newspaper, Le Monde, does not even report the ruling of the Cour d’Appel’s regarding Amastaibou.  A full search of the newspaper does not turn up a single entry; and this is with regard to a decision made by France’s highest court that was made 11 days ago—a decision that has enormous implications.  In fact, I came to learn of the Court’s decision by way of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the United States.  This would be rather like learning in France about a very important decision that had been rendered in the United States—say the Supreme Court’s decision against the death penalty in the case of child rape.

This brings me, finally, to the issue of antisemitism in France.  I hold a very simple view, namely that people generally do what they believe that they can get away with doing.  In the Old South, whites sometimes lynched blacks—in fact, even blacks sometimes lynched blacks (see p. 4 of my essay “Atrocities” in the Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience)—because, among other things, they knew that they could get away with doing so.  There would have been no lynching by anyone had everyone very good reason to believe that such behavior would be roundly reported to the local authorities and that there would be widespread protests against such behavior.

France has a very large Muslim population (about 10% of France’s 60 million people), and while no all Muslims dislike Jews, there most certainly is significant antisemitic sentiment among the Muslims in France.  The brutal murder in 2006 of young Jew by the name of Ilan Halimi stands as a most poignant reminder of that reality.  Halimi was murdered by Youssouf Fofona, a Muslim.

It is not paranoia at all to notice the following pattern.  A Muslim hates Jews and decides that killing this or that Jew would please Allah.  This was essentially the line of thought on the part of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Muslim who was apprehended during the Northwest flight to the United States on 25 December 2009.

Political correctness would have us—and no doubt the French—say that it is just as likely that a Jew or a Christian or a Buddhist might commit a senseless act of murder in the name of his or her religious beliefs as it is that a Muslim would.  The only problem with this politically correct point of view is that has no basis whatsoever in reality.  The issue is not whether all Muslims are would-be-terrorists.  Of course not.  That is a silly view.  I have taught a number of Muslim students; and it no more occurs to me to think that they are would-be-terrorists than it does to think that airplanes are submarines.

Just so, the reality is that with quite high frequency terrorists turn out to be Muslim.

The decision rendered by France’s Cour d’Appel reveals something that is most troubling, namely that whether we are in the air (travelling by airplane) or on the ground, we are all increasingly becoming hostages to terrorism—terrorism committed not just by anyone, but terrorism committed by Muslims in the name of Allah.  Once this simple truth is borne in mind, then it is so very easy to understand the decision by France’s Cour d’Appel that to claim that it is by reason of mental illness the Muslim Amastaibou is not guilty of murdering the Jew Selam.  Only someone who believes in the tooth fairy could think that decision by France’s Cour d’Appel had anything to do with Amastaibou’s lack of mental health.

Haiti versus the Tsunami of 2004.  Of course, there is no competition here.  We have two horrendous acts of nature that have ravaged the lives of so many human beings.  Yet, there is important difference between the Tsunami of 2004 and the earthquake in Haiti of 2010, namely that, increasingly, people think that corruption is so great that it is perhaps a mistake to send money to those who are desperately in need of help.  Why?  Because the thought on the part of many nowadays is that so much of the money will never reach the people who so very much in need of assistance.

In reading a discussion board of French people regarding whether or not individuals could be counted upon to offer any monetary assistance to the people of Haiti, I was struck by the number of people who said “No,” simply because they believe that so very much of the money would fail to reach the Haitian people.  And they cite as evidence the Tsunami of 2004.  Way too much of the money that people gave—and so very many people gave—failed to reach the victims of the Tsunami.

This extremely poignant truth bears considering.  For the observation here is not about Muslim being terrorists or Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being defiant, or North Korea making some insane move.  No, the observation decisively points a finger at the level of corruption that prevails throughout the world—a level of corruption so great that it prevents those desperately in need owing to a catastrophe from receiving the help that others have sacrificed so that in need could have some measure of sustenance.

What is more, the charge is not that the Left is corrupt, but not the Right.  Or that the Right is corrupt but not the Left.  A very general point is being made, namely that corruption prevails across the board, from politicians to associations whose very purpose, supposedly, is that helping those in need.

It is one thing to look the other way when an intoxicated individual asks for food.  It is quite another to refrain from helping those who clearly have been struck by a major natural disaster.

When associations and governments cannot be counted to help people struck by a natural disaster, then it is very, very clear that we have crisis in the world.  For there cannot be a more well-defined moment for people to set aside their differences and greed than in a situation when people have been struck by a major natural disaster.

So the depth of corruption in the face of tragedy tells us something most disturbing about the moral fiber of so many people in the world.

The question that we might naturally ask is: How did this happen?  The answer to that question might come from a Millard Fillmore cartoon that I received from a Mr. Plesser.  The cartoon as an elderly lady making the following remark:

I am finally starting to understand global interdependence.  When young Muslim men try to blow up airplanes . . . . I get stripped search.

In general, we have become so interested in appeasing those who might call us bigoted that we defy common sense in doing so.  Give me a society in which common sense flounders—and flounders mightily—and I will give you a society in which greed and corruption will manifest themselves in the face of the most horrific natural disasters.

It will be remembered that in the aftermath of Katrina looting was common.  Imagine how utterly and completely ineffective the Civil Rights marches would have been had looting been commonplace during that era.  Huge crowds of people came together and marched through streets; and yet not a store was looted.

A defining feature of common sense consists in being able to speak forthrightly—not to be confused with speaking maliciously.  Thus, common sense entailed being able to make criticisms: moral criticisms in some instances; intellectual criticisms in other instances.  Modernity has become increasingly reluctant to make either moral or intellectual criticisms—at least moral or intellectual criticisms that have any credibility.

Common sense was the back bone of a moral climate.  There were moral expectations that people had of one another and people were allowed to be public about those expectations.  There were moral criticisms that people rightly made of one another; accordingly, people understand the importance of making amends.  An example that illustrates both points at once would be the old value of a young man giving his place to an elderly woman.  People expected a young man to do so; and a young man who did not so behave could in fact be criticized.  Not nowadays, of course.

Needless to say, the absence of a moral climate constitutes the very fertile soil in which greed and corruption may take hold.

The Tsunami of 2004 stands as a watershed event.  We saw the greed and corruption there; and that affirmed what so many of already knew but did not want to believe, namely that nothing is off limits any more.  We now believe it.

Alas, the point of this essay is simple that greed that we saw in the midst of horrific natural disaster that was the Tsunami of 2004 had its genesis in a world that has lost common sense and so is therefore without a moral climate to speak of.  Six years later, in 2010, it is no longer possible to doubt this very simple truth.

Perhaps in this blog-entry I am merely capturing a reality that is personal: For both the Tsunami of 2004 and Katrina, I was immediately moved to give.  While I shall no doubt give in this instance as well, I am profoundly struck by the reality that the occurrence of horrible natural disaster in Haiti does not have the same emotional tug for me.  Nor do I sense it in those around me.

Showing a measure of respect for those who commit evil strikes me as a wonderful idea in principle but a horrendous idea in practice.  The real question, alas, is it possible for us to respond to evil behavior on the part of a group in precisely the way that the evil members deserve to be treated without becoming evil in turn?

Of course, in a basically just society an evil person here and there is easy enough to handle.  But a society full of individual people is a different matter entirely.

I am guided here by an insight from Plato’s Republic.  Punishment is as it should be only if a person will indeed be morally healed.  Increasingly, it seems to me that it is a mistake to think that punishment is worthwhile in and of itself.

If one supposes that the world would be a better place without evil people, then what exactly is gained by keeping such individuals in prison?  Of course, there is the issue of being mistaken.  And that is a reason to be extremely careful.  Interestingly, most of the mistakes seem to be tied to judgments based upon circumstantial evidence.  With lot and lots—indeed, the vast majority of cases—the judgment of wrongdoing is tied to concrete and irrefutable evidence.

When we have concrete and irrefutable evidence that a person has committed a horrendous crime, what is the point of keeping the person alive?  Why, as the European Union, is doing so a more humane thing to do?  Indeed, in what sense is keeping the person alive more humane?

The frequently made claim is that taking the life of an evil person who has destroyed the life of one more persons makes those who take that person’s life just as evil as that person is.  I have never understood that argument.  Indeed, precisely what the argument does is trivialize the very thing that is of the utmost importance to understanding human being, namely motivation.

Two people can perform the exact same act, but with very, very different motivations behind their doing so.  We all know that.  Indeed, the very thing that we want to know in many cases is not what a person did but why the person did what she or he did.

We cannot hold that motivations make all the difference in the world and at the very same time insist, but without argument, that the putting a murderer to death makes one as evil as the murderer.  I do not see what makes keeping a murderer alive a particularly humane thing to do.  Quite the contrary, it might reveal a lack of courage and moral fiber on the part of those who insist upon doing so.  After all, who says that doing the right thing is always easy?

If, for instance, my dearest male friend of 20 years should rape a woman, then surely I need to put some distance between me and him, notwithstanding all the wonderful things that we have shared.  Or so it is until that person merits forgiveness.  Yet, there is nothing at all easy about distancing oneself from a dear friend of 20 years.  Nothing at all.

What we know is that generally prisons do not rehabilitate.  Indeed, we know that prisons are often extremely fertile ground for wrongdoing.  This simple truth casts further doubt upon the claim that keeping an egregious wrongdoer alive but in prison is the more humane thing to do.  Would someone please tell me what exactly is so humane about putting a person in a context where she or he will either be a victim of evil or perhaps will have to become even more evil in order to avoid becoming a victim of evil?

As I noted earlier, a most common objection to the death penalty is that the wrong person may be put to death.  But if prison is as horrific as it seems to be, I fail to see how incarcerating the wrong person for 20 years, say, is somehow considerably less harmful if prisons are as horrific a place as people claim that they are.  This is to privilege being alive above the horrific reality of the experience itself, as if merely being alive militates against the horror that one endured.  A man who was routinely raped in prison for 20 years might surely think otherwise.

John Stuart Mill pleaded for capital punishment on precisely the grounds that it is the more humane thing to do.  So far I have yet to hear a very good argument against him.

Decent people seem rather indifferent to the horrors that prisoners endure.  Is keeping people alive such a significant psychological threshold that being more accepting of the death penalty—and so accepting of the death penalty for a greater range of criminal behavior—would render society more morally numb?  Indeed, more morally numb than we have already become?  Alas, if this question admits of an affirmative answer, that is anything but obvious.

The moral of the story may very well be none other than that displays of humanity should have limits.  And that may require moral courage and self-discipline than most of have.

One absurdity of political correctness is that profiling is inherently wrong, because it is a form of racism.  The truth of matter is that profiling is the only way to combat certain forms of evil.  And this point is very relevant to the issue of terrorism and the fight against it.  At the outset, we might usefully distinguish between richly informed profiling and dumb-witted profiling.  Dumb-witted profiling simply takes a very prominent physical feature and assumes that all people with that prominent physical feature have a certain undesirable character trait.  With dumb-witted profiling Jews and whites and blacks and Asians and Arabs and so forth have all been a victim of profiling.

Dumb-witted profiling has it that all Jews are only interested in amassing money and that all whites are racist and that all blacks are intellectually bereft and so on.  Dumb-witted profiling is just that: dumb.

But profiling need not be dumb-witted at all.  Profiling can be richly informed.  If, on the one hand, all that you know is that the rapist had blue eyes, then it is just stupid to suppose that the rapist is just as likely to be black as he is white.  So it is, even though there are blacks with blue eyes.  If, on the other, you know that the rapist lures his way into the homes of women by singing funky American-style gospel music, it is equally silly to think that the rapist is just as likely to be white as black.  So it is, even though there are whites who can majestically produce that quality of voice that is characteristic of funky American-style gospel music.

Suppose that we know that a murder was committed in the hood.  Well, that simple fact is obviously rather relevant to constructing a richly informed profile of the murderer.  Assuming (for the sake of argument) that the hood is essentially a black neighborhood, the probability that a white committed the murder is relatively low.  Yet, it is also true that it will not be equally probable that all blacks committed the murder.  Some blacks no more know their way around the hood than does a cow know its way around the earth.  It is very unlikely that most black professors, for example, would reasonably fit the profile.

In Syracuse (NY), for instance, many Muslim Arabs operate run-down grocery stores in the hood.  Just so, they would not make the profile either.  For they tend to be rather noticeably out of place except for being in the stores that they run.

A richly informed profile of the murder would yield a black who frequents the hood.  Can the profile be mistaken?  Of course it can.  Alas, this does not mean that profiles are out of order.  If, for instance, the only profile available of a yet-to-be found murderer in Syracuse (NY) is that of an American born male who speaks French: well, I fit the profile.  And it would be absolutely reasonable for people to insist that I give an account of my whereabouts at the time of the murder.

So here we are fighting terrorism.  And while it is manifestly false that all Muslims are terrorists, it is nonetheless manifestly true that the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims.  Now, you will notice that I did not say that the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Arabs who are Muslims.  It seems that the Nigerian would-be-terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is Muslim but not Arabic.

So when it comes to air travel, for example, it is just silly to suppose that we should be equally suspicious of every Tom, Dick, and Harry or Sally, Mary, and Jane who seeks to board a plane.  That is a ridiculous waste of resources.

In the name of political correct, the United States refuses to do, in an analogous way, what the Israeli airline El Al does.  Muslim Arabs constitute the suspect class for EL AL.  Accordingly, Muslim Arabs who fly EL AL are given special screening and search examinations.  It suffices to point out that, notwithstanding all the tension in the Middle East and hostility towards Israel, EL AL has one extraordinary track record when it comes to planes not being blown out of the sky.

By contrast, in American airports, I have watched little old ladies being patted-down; and I must confess that this strikes me as absurd beyond measure.  Or so it is until the day comes when little old ladies are targetet for “gifts” to be given to someone at the other end—“gifts” that turn out to be none other than explosives.

Al-Qaeda is training young men to commit acts of suicide terrorism against airline companies of the United States.  These young men are not Jewish or Christian.  They are Muslim.  This is a richly informed profile—and not an expression of hostility towards Muslims.

In order to make the point, here is a very different profile: the people who tend to blow up abortion clinics, tend to be very conservative Christians who are white—not Muslims; not Jews.  I have nothing against white males.  Yet, the profile just articulated holds.

So I hold an extremely simple view.  Anyone who has contact with Al-Qaeda should be automatically subjected to questioning.  I mean no one is going to contact them to find out their postal address or the number meals that need to be sent or to gain clarity regarding the nature of evil.

It is true that anyone could contact Al-Qaeda.  But the actually probability that just anyone will is ever so low.  And while it is possible that Al-Qaeda would be just as happy to have Christians and Jews blow American planes out of the sky, it seems ever so unlikely that either Christians or Jews will be showing up for training.

It is not owing to racism that one readily thinks Muslim, when thinking about terrorism.  Quite the contrary, it is owing to basic and thoughtful reasoning that one thinks of “terrorism” and “Muslim”.  I will change my mind when Jews and Christians start showing up for Al-Qaeda terrorist training programs.

A complete disregard for the truth has become commonplace.  The surprise, perhaps, is that the Freedom from Religion Foundation turns out to be an organization that has blatantly disregarded the truth.  Lest there be any understanding, I have no objection at all to such a foundation although I am a very committed theist.  It is often the case that there is much that can be learnt from those with whom we disagree, provided that both sides are forthright and refrain from sheer polemics.

In Illinois, the Freedom from Religion Foundation put up a protest sign that read as follows:

At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail.  There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.  There is only our natural world.  Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Well, the first thought that comes to mind here is that religion at its best most certainly is not a form of superstition in the way that believing in ghosts is or believing that rabbit a foot brings good luck is.  Nor, again, is religion myth in the way that, for instances, the Grimm’s Fairy Tales are.

In the end, it may be possible to show that religion at its best amounts to no more than superstition or myth.  However, no one has yet shown that.  No one—not even Richard Dawkins himself.  Instead, what we have here is none other than a lot of high-handed declarations to the effect that religion amounts to no more than these things.  Alas, high-handed declarations, no matter how much passion is behind them, do not amount to a good argument.

Of course, the Freedom from Religion Foundation can rightly point out that lots and lots and lots of stupid things have been said and done in the name of religion.  Well, that fact will not distinguish religion from just about anything else, including science.

For example, in the name of science it has been claimed by that there is no morally relevant difference between chimpanzees or gorillas and human beings.  This is an absurd claim given the simple reality that it is human beings who are said to have obligations to these animals whereas these animals are not even thought capable of having any obligations to human beings.  Alas, this stark difference has been no barrier at all to individuals making the claim that chimpanzees, gorillas, and human beings are all equally persons.  Individuals who have made this outlandish claim include such respected thinkers as Jane Goodall, Francine Patterson & Wendy Gordon, Roger S. Fouts & Deborah H. Fouts, and Peter Singer.

Let us see: Between (a) the belief in an Almighty God and (b) the belief that the chimpanzees, gorillas, and human beings are all equally persons (although humans have moral obligations to these animals, whereas these animals are incapable of moral obligations to human beings): Exactly which belief is more ludicrous?  Indeed, which is really worse: “stupid people” believing in God or distinguished scholars believe that chimpanzees, gorillas, and human beings are all equally persons?

Yet, the Freedom from Religion Foundation suggestions that any theist is none other than a babbling idiot, as if it is theists and only theists who have a monopoly on saying absolutely indefensible things.  Not so, however, as we have just seen.

Now, the following is a statement made by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, regarding the history of Western civilization:

In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery.

The idea here, of course, is that free thinkers are non-religious people; hence, we are to conclude that it was non-religious people who played a major role in racial equality.

Alas, the folks at the Freedom from Religious Foundation are so committed to their anti-religion ideology that they would much rather deny the role of religion in achieving something so social significant as racial equality rather than acknowledge the indispensable role that religion played in achieving that end.  The religious group called the Quakers was at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.  But the people at the Freedom from Religious Foundation would rather re-write history than give these religious folks their due.

For me, there is no more telling sign that ideology rules the day than that people would rather deny the truth or re-write history than give credit where credit is due for the good that another has done.  My view of matters is very simple: If of his own accord a neo-Nazi member steps out of his ideological role to save a Jew’s life, then at the very least the Jew in question should be willing to say that much about the neo-Nazi.  No hostility towards neo-Nazis, however justified such hostility is in general, would justify not acknowledging the good behavior of the neo-Nazi.

It is in fact unconscionable that the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) would dare suggest that only non-religious people have made a significant contribution to social equality.  Let me see, how many hungry people have the FFRF fed?  How many hungry people has the Salvation Army fed?  And what exactly does one call making sacrifices to help others stay alive but a marvelous affirmation of their equal humanity.

I have no interest whatsoever in maintaining that only religious individuals contribute to social equality.  Rather, what I am objecting to is the patently false view that only non-religious individuals contribute to social equality.

Finally, there is this hypocrisy.  In a USA Today article published in 2007 entitled “Some Say Schools Giving Muslim Students Special Treatment,” the issue is raised of Muslim students at the University of Michigan at Dearborn—a taxpayer funded institution—being given prayer rooms and ritual foot baths.

One might very well ask: Why exactly has the Freedom from Religion Foundation not made a fuss about that sort of thing?  I mean surely that thought cannot possibly be that Christianity is a much more silly and indefensible and incoherent religion than is Islam.  And while we can certainly point to the ways in which Christianity has been used to justify the enslavement of blacks, a quick Google search will turn up countless documents concerning the role of Islam in the enslavement of blacks in Africa, as with the essay entitled “An African Asks Some Disturbing Questions of Islam”.

I understand that Christianity is dominant in the United States.  Still, what an impact the Freedom of from Religion Foundation (FFRF) would make if it went after Muslims who also crossed the line between separation of Church and State that the foundation holds so dear.  That would immediately make FFRF far less hypocritical, which would at least be a step in the right direction.

Presently, the Freedom from Religion Foundation would seem to be no more than an incoherent and indefensible ideological movement whose target is none other than Christianity.  In the short amount of time that it is has taken me to write this blog-entry, I a theist, have shown myself to be far more free thinking than the folks at the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  Fancy that.

Imagine me being accused of slandering Evan Cohen! Alas, a reader of my previous blog-entry about Cohen, “Evan Cohen: The Foolery of Defending his Daughter,” has suggested that perhaps I did just that.  In fact, the reader wrote three separate entries.  Well, let us see.  Did I slander Mr. Cohen?

I did not accuse Cohen of having a morally bankrupt character.  There is not even the suggestion on my part that he has a despicable moral character.  In fact, I did not even accuse him of having caused others great harm.  What I did claim, however , is that he taught his daughter the wrong lesson by defending her 1st Amendment right to be utterly mean-spirited in her treatment of an 8th grade classmate rather focusing upon the fact that the daughter was so very mean-spirited.

To slander a person is to make false charges against someone with malicious intent.  I think that Cohen taught his daughter the wrong lesson.  All sorts of people might disagree with me.  However, I have most certainly not made a false charge with malicious intent.  Whether Cohen should have defended his daughter’s right to be mean-spirited because free speech—even nasty free speech—is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment is surely a matter that can be debated.  If it can be open to debate whether an act of killing was self-defense or murder, then surely we can debate whether Cohen made the right choice on behalf of his daughter.

I am the sort of individual who strongly embraces the idea of free speech put forth by John Stuart Mill.  Thus, I think that even a KKK member should be allowed to speak on university campuses, provided that she or he is willing to entertain questions.

I actually agree with Cohen that his daughter’s saying nasty things about her classmate in a YouTube video is protected speech.  The point, alas, is that one should not always insist upon doing what one has a right to do.  For instance, to show mercy is not to insist upon doing what one has a right to do.  And if anything is true, it is true that there are cases where a person should be shown mercy.

My critic did not like my example of the student who has just lost his parents and who, under pressure, to finish the semester plagiarizes the essay which he submits.  Needless to say, I do not think that losing both parents excuses everything.  It does not excuse killing another, for instance.  Still, it is difficult to imagine any young person who has lost both parents not being more than a little distraught and lacking in perspective about many matters.  If it were only under such circumstances that a stellar student cheated, I think that I could see my way to showing that student some mercy, which is not to be confused with not holding the student accountable at all.  Showing mercy is not the same thing as entirely not holding a person accountable.

At any rate, my critic’s reaction to my silly example above rather nicely speaks to the point about Evan Cohen that I set out to make.  If my critic thinks that one should treat the student who has just lost his parents and plagiarizes exactly like any other student who plagiarizes, then the question that rather nicely presents itself is how should a parent react to a daughter who has posted a most vicious video on YouTube about a classmate?

Now, as my critic rightly notes, I was not there.  In particular, I was not privy to any of the conversations regarding the matter.  So for all I know, Mr. Cohen gave his daughter a rather chastening set of remarks regarding the inexcusable moral indecency of posting that nasty video about her classmate and then he went on to make the 1st Amendment argument on her behalf that he successfully made in court.

If this is what Mr. Evan Cohen did, then kudos to Mr. Cohen.  After all, I never had any qualms regarding his stance regarding free speech.  My only concern has been the lesson that he would have been teaching his daughter if all that he did was defend her 1st Amendment right to say and do what she did.  If that is all that he did, then he most certainly did not teach his daughter the right moral lesson.  Why?  Because part of what makes the 1st Amendment right of free speech so sacred, if you will, is that the vast majority of individuals know when and when not to exercise that right.  If we all said whatever mean-spirited thing we felt like saying, free speech thus exercised by so many would make life untenable in such a society.  In other words, free speech without a sense of responsibility on the part of most of the citizens of society renders society none other than a version of living-hell itself.

And given the choice between defending a child’s right to be mean-spirited and cultivating a deep sense of responsibility in a child, I take it to be obvious that the latter option wins hands-down.

Of course, the young girl’s father—Mr. Cohen—will insist the he was not defending his daughter’s right to be mean-spirited.  Rather, he was protecting her 1st Amendment rights and thus undergirding her citizenship.  For a 14-year old, however, it seems so very unlikely that the child will hear affirmation of citizenship over the affirmation of the right to be mean-spirited.  And this was the substantive point of my previous blog-entry concerning Mr. Cohen teaching his daughter the wrong moral lesson.

Have I slandered Mr. Evan Cohen?  I think not.