Moral Health

Unlike the bad, the Good will survive only if it is cultivated.  It may be true, as Aristotle claimed that we are neither morally good nor morally bad on account of human nature.  But then there is that other claim that he made, namely that it is so much easier to get thing wrongs than it is to get things right.  And one reason why it is so much easier to get things wrong than right is that doing what is right so very often requires persevering in the face of all sorts of desires to do otherwise.  So while it may true that we are neither good nor bad owing to genetics, there is a very real sense in which the momentum is often in favor of the Bad.

The momentum is favor of the bad on three accounts: The first is that there are so many ways to achieve the bad.  The second, which is related to the first, is that it rather easy to achieve the bad even while aiming for the good.  By contrast, it is very rare that anyone aims to do what is bad only to be stunned that she or he brought about that which is good.  And if that happens, it is easy enough to turn the good produced into something horrendously bad, whereas recovering from the bad is typically very difficult to do. (more…)

The classical idea of a miracle is, of course, an event that defies the laws of nature in some way.  So in the Old Testament the parting of the Red Sea or getting water from a completely solid rock are both paradigm examples of miracles.  It would be fair to say that it has been a very long time since anyone has recounted an event that defied the laws of nature.  In fact, I doubt if many people actually believe in miracles of the sort recounted in either the Old Testament or the New Testament.

However, I think that there is something to the idea of a miracle that we can hold on to even if we do not have an event that defies the laws of nature.  Let us define this much weaker notion of a miracle as follows.  It is an event (a) the occurrence of which has an enormously positive effect upon one’s life and (b) the occurrence of which is so improbable that one is not in any way warranted in believing that such a thing would happen.  When I think about the extraordinary success of Star Wars (the original trilogy whose first film appeared in the late 70s), I think of miracles of this sort.

The technological wizardry of the film was indeed fascinating.  But that cannot begin to explain the success of the film.  Nor can the plot, which is as simple as it gets: good versus bad, with a little romance lite thrown in for good measure.  That success of the original series has, I believe, just about everything to do with a hope that is shared by most of its viewers: the hope that if our lives could be sufficiently attuned to the Good (with all that this implies in terms of complete self-mastery), then we could produce miracles of the sort that I have just defined.  For the series of films suggested that when an individual is sufficiently attuned to the Good, then she or he gets to waltz with the improbable.  (more…)

The Ayatollah Ali Meshkini of iran holds the following view:

“Après la seconde Guerre mondiale, les juifs et les sionistes ont répandu la fausse rumeur qu’Hitler, l’Autriche et l’Allemagne avaient exterminé plus de six millions de juifs dans les fours crématoires”, a dit l’ayatollah Meshkini, qui dirige l’institution qui choisit et supervise le dirigeant suprême iranien.

“Afin d’apparaître comme des victimes et pour se procurer ainsi une situation qui leur convienne dans le monde, ils ont trompé le monde entier en lui faisant croire cela et ils ont été reconnus comme tels par les Nations unies”, a continué le religieux. Le Nouvel Observateur 17 Dec 2005

So in a word the story is this: After WWII, Jews and Zionists spread the false rumor that Hitter, Austria, and Germany had exterminated more than 6 million Jews in crematorium ovens (para. 1).  Then in order to appear as victims and place themselves in an advantageous situation, the Jews deceived the entire world in getting everyone to think that such an atrocity had happened.  Moreover, the Jews are recognized by the United Nations for their lying behavior.

One of the striking things about blind ideological commitments, no matter what the ideology might be, is that utterly implausibility is no barrier to embracing such commitments.

In my work on the difference between antisemitism and racism, I have observed that no one would ever attribute such a story to blacks.  It is not just that prevailing social attitudes world-wide does not have it that blacks are particularly intelligent, it is also the case that Christianity has never been used to demonize blacks.  And demons are by nature shifty people who can get folks to believe the utterly implausible.  After all, a being’s status as a demon isn’t worth much at all if the demon can only get people to believe what the facts warrant.

Unlike blacks, Christianity has indeed been used to demonize Jews.  So the irony here is that the Ayatollah rabid antisemitism draws some of energy from past Christian practices that demonized Jews.  But when folks are in the business of evil, details are never an issue.

As I have indicated, the utter implausibility of vicious ideologies intrigues me to no end.  I mean if indeed Jews were capable of doing half the things attributed to them, then Jews would indeed be individuals to be feared.  So much is obvious.

What particularly frightens me is that I fear that the West’s new-found concern to show tolerance and respect for Islam is being masterfully abused by Arabic Muslim extremists.

As we all know, if a white just looks like he might say something racist against a black, there people of every color willing and ready to—well, lynch him.  I could almost admire political correctness if its advocates were not so damn hypocritical.  Probably not.  But still, political correctness were to produce an outrage against the vicious antisemitism of the Ayatollah, then there would at least be something good that came out of it.

I am a very simple minded kind of guy.  If it is wrong for one group of individuals to demean and belittle others, then it is wrong for any other group to do so.  I think that it is just so much nonsense to say that blacks can say whatever they please about whites because blacks have been oppressed for so long.  Likewise, I think it just plain silly to hold that Arabic Muslims can say whatever they damn well please about Jews, because after all Muslim Arabs have been so oppressed by the West, which has been a little too in love with Jews.

Not so.  On my view: no one gets to wallow in morally despicable behavior.  To excuse a group in the name of its having been oppressed amounts to no more than misplaced compassion.

But it is worse than that.  When we excuse wrongdoing, then precisely what we do is create a vicious cycle.  For the people who are hurt are flesh and blood individuals who may in fact become bitter as a result of the tendency to excuse vile hostility towards them.  Thus, it is utterly misguided to think that we can bring inter-group hostility to an end while excusing people in the name of their having been oppressed.

So Iran is flexing its antisemitic muscle, while all sorts of brilliant people have a reason to discount it—people who think that an ounce of racism is utterly contagious.  Then we seem confused as to why antisemitism won’t quite go away.  Well, the answer is painfully simple: We allow it to stay alive by excusing it.

Oh right.  I almost forgot.  We do not have to worry about Ayatollah Ali Meshkini because he is an extremist.  This truth does little to assuage me; for I seem to remember that Hitler, too, was an extremist who claimed to be doing the service of the Lord.

For many, the case of Stanley Tookie Williams is about the wrong of the death penalty.  Quite succinctly, the argument is this: If any man deserves not to be put to death, it is one who has so turned his life around that he is writing books for children—books of such quality that he garnered a nomination for the Nobel Prize.

My own view is that the real issue raised by the case of Williams is not about the death penalty, but forgiveness.  In a word, the question is this: Under what conditions do we forgive a person for heinous criminal behavior?  And I must confess that it is not clear to me that many who claimed that Stanley Tookie Williams should not have been put to death have given this matter the thought that it deserves.  For suppose his death sentence had been commuted?  Would they have been happy?  Or would they have thought that he no longer deserves to be in prison?  If it is true that Williams was such a changed man, then surely many ought to have thought that he should have been set free.  And if not, then why not?

To hear many tell it, good deeds alone warrant forgiveness.  But that cannot be quite right.  If I should kill your child and go on to write books that inspire the world, I should very much hope that this feat on my part will not appease you.  For my writing books that inspire the world is absolutely compatible with not having an ounce of contrition over the wrong of killing your child that I committed with my very own hands.

As a self-respecting person, I would hope that you would not be moved to forgive me unless there has been profound contrition on my part for the wrong that I did and unless I came before you with moral shame asking you for forgiveness.  After all, wrongdoing is not the sort of thing that is to be understood in terms of a balance sheet: 1 death equals 6 good deeds of this or that kind; hence, I am owed forgiveness simply virtue of having performed those deeds.

And there is the rub.  I am at a loss as to how so many were able to pass glibly over this far from trivial matter.  How many among his supporter would have thought it just wonderful to forgive him had it been their child or sister or parent that Williams had killed, but had never shown an ounce of contrition over having committed this wrong?  Would their righteous indignation have been assuaged by the fact that he was now writing marvelous books for children?  I think not.

Arnold Schwarzenegger decided not to commute the sentence; and a key factor in his decision was just the fact that Mr. Stanley Tookie Williams never displayed any contrition for the wrong that he did.

Now, I have not confused the issue.  Although the concern was that Mr. Williams not be put to death this was tantamount to asking that he be forgiven precisely because there was no serious contention on any one’s part that Williams had been wronged in any way.  Indeed, not even the race card was played—a rarity in this society nowadays.  The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who is a master at playing the race card, did not do so in this instance.

What made Mr. Williams’s case enormously noteworthy is just the fact that he made an extraordinary turnabout in his life.  And for that he is to be commended.  This he ought to have done, however horrible his past life was.

But forgiveness is tantamount to a kind of moral erasure—not in the sense that one forgets the wrong done but in that it no longer counts against the person.  As such, forgiveness requires moral ownership of the wrong that one has done.  At Yom Kippur, no one is exempt from asking for forgiveness.  And he who thought that his good deeds exempted him might very well be the person who most needs to ask for forgiveness.  We own (in the sense of acknowledge) our imperfections.

There is a parallel with the Christian model.  It is in asking forgiveness that Jesus is said to forgive.  Significantly, one is not owed forgiveness merely on account of one’s good deeds.  As I understand the doctrine: A person who saves a thousand lives from drowning but who does not ask Christ for forgiveness remains a sinner.  Christianity, then, requires moral ownership of one’s sinful nature.

I have drawn attention to this point because it highlights the importance of having the appropriate moral posture with regard to one’s wrongdoing.  And it is that moral posture that was notoriously lacking on the part of Stanley Tookie Williams.

I have argued with great force, in “Forgiving the Unforgivable,” that even a Nazi could merit forgiveness provided that he has the right moral posture with regard to the wrongs that he has committed, which requires contrition and thus moral ownership of his heinous past.  Forgiving a Nazi who showed no contrition would be utterly despicable, however much good he went on to do.  And if a Nazi were to maintain that his good deeds since then entitled him to forgiveness, we surely find that utterly fulsome.  Needless to say, things hardly change if someone else makes such a claim on behalf of the Nazi.

Williams, of course, was no Nazi.  Still, we have enough of a parallel.

I hold that Schwarzenegger made the right decision.  To have commuted Williams’s death sentence for no other reason than his good deeds would have been to set a most unwelcome moral and legal precedent.

Forgiveness for heinous wrongdoing is a sacred gift that is given to the wrongdoer.  We cheapen both forgiveness and ourselves if we forgive in the absence of the appropriate moral posture on the part of the wrongdoer with regard to the wrongs that she or he has committed.

AIDS is a test of two human capacities at once, namely self-control and compassion.  My view is that, across the globe, we have failed miserably on both accounts.

On the one hand, the religious right, such as Jerry Falwell, have said utterly abominable things such as AIDS is a punishment from God.  On the other, the gay community has failed to act as responsibly as it should have acted.  Wild and reckless—and often anonymous—sex was deemed, by gays, as one of the defining features of the gay culture.

I have never fathomed how anyone knows whether a disaster is God’s punishment or a mere happenstance.  And I have never heard anyone draw that distinction with anything remotely resembling clarity.  And that, in and of itself, is a more than sufficient reason to be quite about what God’s business.  Then there was the absurd hysteria that had people all but thinking that one could catch the disease by standing in the presence of someone afflicted with it or, slightly less absurd, that one could catch the disease by touching anything that a person who had it had just touched.  (more…)