Moral Health

The question, of course, is: Can Barack Obama succeed.  The answer, alas, is very simple, namely that he can succeed if people are prepared to put special interests aside for the sake of the country.  If, instead, each special interest group sees Obama as a ticket to have their special interests met, then the answer is very, very, very clear: Obama will fail and he will fail mightily.  Alas, Barack Obama is not a magician.  Instead, he is only a person.  So it is even if he is the first non-white to be elected to the office of President of the United States.

Can Obama succeed?  Of course, he can if the people of the United States should take seriously a simple idea that is to be found in the Pledge of Allegiance: “We are one nation”.  Of course, the entire sentence reads: “We are one nation under God”.  For many people, the very idea of God amounts to just so much nonsense.  Be that as it may, nothing will change the fact that the people of the United States need to take seriously the simple reality that the United States is one nation.

The members of every special interest group should come to the political table with something significant that they are willing to sacrifice for the good of the country, given that others are doing the exact same thing.  If the United States goes under, then everyone loses and everyone loses in a most significant way.  (more…)

For Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the world is simple notwithstanding all of its complexity.  And this proved to be strikingly and majestically so in Dr. Laura’s response to a recent caller.  A white woman by the name of Tracy called and expressed concern over the fact that she was experiencing racist sentiments towards blacks in general on account of the fact that she had been recently raped by a black man.  For many this would have been a horrendous moral quandary owing to two competing ideologies: the ideology of feminism and the ideology of black suffering owing to racism.

Not so for Dr. Laura, however.  She offered a brilliant analysis of the situation; and that analysis would not have been possible but for the fact that Dr. Laura places values above race and ideology.

Now, let me say at the outset that, Dr. Laura unequivocally holds that rape is wrong.  But she also thinks that the term “rape” has become something of a term of art, in that women have claimed to have been raped when the coercion or threat that is characteristic of rape is strikingly absent.

What is equally true of Dr. Laura is that she is unequivocally opposed to racism.  The question for her is always whether a person is morally decent or not, as opposed to whether the individual is black or not.  And she applies this line of reasoning even to her the relationship of her own son: Better that he should interact with a black of enormous moral character, be it for marriage or friendship, than with a white who is a moral scoundrel.

Now, back to Tracy’s call.  Tracy had gotten drunk and had asked this black guy to drive her home and then she invited the guy into her apartment.  While they were sitting on the couch watching television, she was so drunk that she was going in and out of consciousness.  When she woke up her skirt had been pulled up and her “panties were all twisted and everything”.

Dr. Laura’s most poignant observation here is that regardless of skin color this is a notoriously ambiguous situation for the typical guy.  It is a simple reality that (straight) guys think about having sex with women; and when a woman invites a man into her apartment one of the thoughts that will invariably cross his mind, regardless of his skin color, is whether or not the occasion will be an opportunity for sex.

What we must remember is that in the typical case people engage in sex without there being an explicit statement on the part of each individual that this is what they are now going to do:

Woman: Listen, Joe Stud, I shall now proceed to engage you sexually

Man: Thank you, Hot Susie, I like that I idea and will respond in kind

Normally, sex is the result of a series of non-verbal physical interactions.  For the prevailing view is that sex at its best is the expression of mutual compassion—and not a formalized agreement.  Every male on this planet grasps that the right touch from a woman signals the opportunity for a sexual encounter.  And every woman knows this.

Now, Dr. Laura does not think for a moment that the male, who happens to black, is entirely free of any moral blame.  Rather, her question, and this gets to the heart of the matter, is whether or not Tracy also shoulders some moral blame for what in fact transpired.

After all, by Tracy’s in own account, the man did not lay a hand upon her in driving her home.  Then, there is the fact that it was she who invited him into her apartment.  That is, he did not insist upon going into her apartment with her.  Nor does Tracy claim to have fought him off or to have asked him to stop.  What she claims is that she woke up only to discover that he had had sex with her.  I shall return to this point below.

There is the further fact that Tracy has a boyfriend.  So what the hell was she doing inviting this man in her apartment when they would be together alone.  This was inappropriate behavior on her part, whether the guy in question is black or white; short or tall; handsome or ugly.

Without a doubt, the man should have refused the invitation out of respect for the relationship that Tracy claimed that she is in.  Just so, it is no less true that Tracy should never have invited the man into her apartment in the first place.  This point alone gets us to Dr. Laura’s observation that Tracy might share some of the moral responsibility for what happened.

After all, if we are to give Tracy credit for choosing the right man to drive her home without laying a hand upon her, then we are faced with the reality that she could not have been oblivious to the significance of inviting him into her apartment, given she is in a serious relationship with her boyfriend.  We cannot have it both ways.

In a world where intoxication is the backdrop against which so much sex takes place, the issue of moral responsibility is a most treacherous one.  It is this truth that is at the heart of Dr. Laura’s observation that Tracy bears some responsibility for what happened to her.  We cannot have it both ways: We cannot insist that women are entitled to get drunk in order that they may have sex without inhibitions, and then insist that whatever transpires is entirely the man’s fault if it turns out that the woman looks back with regret upon what happened.

Moreover, what must be added to the above consideration is that being intoxicated invariably seems to serve as an excuse, nowadays on the part of both women and men, for not remembering this or that or the other.  As I noted above, Tracy does not claim to have fought the man off or to have asked him to stop.  Rather, her claim is that she woke up only to discover that her skirt had been pulled up and that her panties were in disarray.  The point here is that she claims not even to remember the sex at all.  That is a very strong claim given that we are only talking about being intoxicated and not being a victim of a date-rape drug such as Rohypnol.

At any rate, Dr. Laura’s brilliant analysis is that Tracy’s so-called feelings of racism towards blacks in general, owing to this untoward experience with a black male friend, reflect none other than the fact that Tracy does not want to accept any moral responsibility for her irresponsible behavior towards both herself and her relationship with her boyfriend.  It is not that the black male in question bears no culpability at all, as no doubt some would insist.  Rather, it is that both are culpable, but in different ways.  In both cases, it is about personal moral responsibility and not ideology.

From the standpoint of moral responsibility, the following is true: Some invitations should not be extended.  And even if they are extended, they should not be accepted.

History reveals that good people can be made to do immoral things.  The Stanley Milgram experiment and the Philip Zimbardo experiment have both confirmed this.  None of the people in these experiments were evil people who had as their aim to harm others.  In both of these cases, otherwise good people inflicted harm upon innocent individuals.  Today’s blog entry is apt to offend a great many people.  This is because I shall use the Fraternity system on college campuses to illustrate yet again just how easy it is for good people to do bad things.

The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments helped us to see that the psychological constitution it takes to be a Nazi is much more a part of the fabric of the ordinary citizen than most of would ever like to believe.

Well, evidence of this comes from what might be an unsuspecting quarter.  As it happens, one of the social institutions that exist on many campuses in the United States is the fraternity system.  And one of the defining features of many fraternities—a major initiation rite, in fact, which goes by the name pledging—involves the humiliation of members-to-be.  So in most cases to pledge a fraternity is effectively to commit oneself to being a part of the humiliation of others in the future; and to be a part of a fraternity is to accept with equanimity the humiliation of others.

I assume without argument that humiliating an innocent person is immoral.  I further assume without argument that taking delight in the humiliation of another human being constitutes a significant moral character defect.  Third, I also assume without argument that even if a person wanted to be humiliated, it would be wrong of others to humiliate her or him.

It has been argued, and perhaps with some plausibility, that humiliation can give rise to strength of character; and presumably the boot-training that is involved in the armed forces constitutes an illustration of that very point.  Ideally, any rate, boot-training prepares people to deal with the reality of war.

There is no evidence at all that the humiliation that is a part of the pledging that takes place in fraternities can claim to have a noble end.  Quite the contrary, every bit of evidence suggests that humiliating future members is an end in and of itself.  And it is this truth that is so very frightening and which disturbs me so very much.

To join a fraternity is, among other things, to swear to inviolable secrecy about the acts of humiliation fostered upon the pledging individuals who voluntarily submit themselves to the ritual.  I assume that the humiliation is thought to be excusable precisely because it is inflicted only upon those who volunteer for it.  But this line of reasoning is manifestly fallacious.  If you volunteer to be spit upon or to be excreted upon, I still do what is quite wrong in spitting or excreting upon you.  In lot and lots of instances, be a volunteer for the thing done to one does not change the moral status of the act from wrong to right, or to at least an act that is not wrong.

Of course, I am not at all suggesting that pledging nowadays involves being split upon or having excrement placed upon one.  Alas, there are countless forms of humiliation that do not involve doing either of those.  If make me lick your boots, you humiliate me.

Now, let me point out at this juncture that the Nazis who humiliated and killed Jews also took vows of secrecy in committing themselves to that end.  Fraternities are not committed to killing anyone; and they are not committed to humiliating anyone to the extent to which the Nazis humiliated Jews.  But here is the poignant part: It still turns out that Nazis and fraternities are on the same continuum when it comes to swearing themselves to secrecy in the endeavor to humiliate people and having a commitment to doing both.  That one group of people humiliated was entirely involuntary, namely the Jews, and that one group is entirely voluntary, namely the pledges, does not alter one iota the substance of the point.  And if that were not enough, there is this most disconcerting parallel: The Nazis were masterful at justifying their humiliation (and then the death) of Jews; fraternities are masterful at justifying their behavior of humiliating pledges.

We would not, for one moment, allow the members of one ethnic group to treat the members of another ethnic group in the humiliating way that fraternity members treat pledges.  That would be called some form of racism.  Or, in any case, it would be way too close to the appearance of racism.  Can anyone actually believe that the wrong of humiliating another person really disappears when race as such is unequivocally not an issue?  I should hope not.

By the way, fraternities of every race and ethnic group seem to submit their pledges to humiliation.  This, alas, may tell us something about the dark side of humanity.  Human beings are way too comfortable than they should be with humiliating others.  Human beings do not find humiliating others instinctively disgusting.  Quite the contrary, doing so often occasions a perverse delight.

Any fraternity person who reads this will no doubt tell me that I do not understand; and I am sure that there are respects in which I do not, since I have never been in a fraternity.  Again, a fraternity person may insist that my remarks reflect in a built in bias.  But the point, surely, cannot be that a criticism thereby constitutes a bias.  There are many things that go on in fraternities that do not suit my tastes, but which I would not think of criticizing as morally inappropriate behavior.  If I were merely being hostile towards fraternities, I would have conflated the very important distinction between behavior that is unwholesome and behavior that is morally bankrupt.  Not exercising or spending too much money on clothes is unwholesome.  However, neither is morally bankrupt.

I have focused upon a very specific kind of behavior, namely that of taking delight in engaging in acts of humiliation.  That criticism can be rebutted in only two ways: (i) It is shown that what appears to be humiliation is not that at all.  (ii) It is shown that the humiliation turns out to serve a higher moral end.

As for (ii): If time and time again, we saw a significant excellence in society that only members of fraternities exhibited, thanks to the experience of humiliation, then would accord no small amount of justification to the pledging practice of humiliation in which fraternities engage.  Alas, there is no evidence at all that this is the case.  Indeed, the fraternity system would not even seem to be a major factor in career success.

So what it is the proper moral stance to take towards those who have institutionalized and shrouded in secrecy the gratuitous of humiliation of others?  What is the proper moral stance to take towards those who submit themselves to such humiliation?  Every decent person whom I know would have had considerable moral outrage towards any Nazi that she or he would have encountered.  If this is right, then a significant level of moral outrage is appropriate towards the members of any institution, where one of the defining practices of that institution is the gratuitous humiliation of others.

If this truth does not apply to fraternities, then one needs an argument to show that, contrary to what one might first suppose, there is no moral parallel at all to the gratuitous humiliation engaged in by fraternities of pledges and the gratuitous humiliation engaged in by Nazis of the Jews.  I have already noted that pledges volunteer for the humiliation, whereas Jews did not volunteer to be humiliated.  Alas, this difference does not eliminate the moral parallel between the gratuitous humiliation which the Nazis did and gratuitous humiliation that fraternities do.

A final comment: I have not supposed that every member of a fraternity is or becomes a moral scum-bag.  What is true, however, every member of a fraternity which imposes humiliation upon its pledges exhibits a high degree of moral numbness to the wrong of humiliating others.  And that numbness is not unlike the moral numbness that the Nazis exhibiting in their humiliation Jews.  The moral numbness of Nazis was sustained by their solidarity.  The moral numbness of fraternity brothers is sustained by their solidarity.

The reflections for this blog-entry were occasion by my reflections upon the idea of doubling advanced by Peter Lifton’s in his book, Nazis Doctors, during my teaching of American Slavery and the Holocaust (listed in chronological order) that I taught in the Spring of 2008 at Syracuse University.

In this era of silliness, what was once sheer commonsense now stands as an epiphany.  It was not so long go ago that it was deemed to be manifestly obvious that respect between people and groups and cultures has to a two-way street.  It would have been deemed plain ludicrous for the members of any group to suppose that they are entitled to respect from all others, but they do not owe anyone respect.  Yet, that is essentially what tolerating many minorities groups has come to mean.

Well, it seems that the Dutch or the people of Holland have had an epiphany.  They hold the following radical view: If the Dutch are to be respectful of Muslims, then Muslims must be respectful of the Dutch.  Indeed, it is the Left in Holland that has had this extraordinary insight.  The interesting question is this: What took the Left in Holland so long to reach what is surely an obvious truth?

The question is particularly poignant for the Left, be they in Holland or elsewhere, since it is the Left that tends to insist that there are no objective values; and that it is simply matter of mutual consensus as to what is right and wrong.  For if there are no objective values, then it can make no sense at all that it is the values of minorities—Muslims, for instance—that are valorized by the Left time and time again while the values of others are systematically trampled upon.

As a purely logical point, the absence of objective values does not favor those who happen to be on the outside trying to get in.

There is a thin, but ever so important line, between self-deprecation and self-criticism; and it seems to me that one way to characterize the Left is that they invariably cross over to self-deprecation whilst engaging in self-criticism.  If the problem with the Right is that they do not submit their views to sufficient self-criticism, well it may very well be said that the Left more than compensate for the lack on the part of the Right.

Or to put the point more forcefully: If the Right suffers from bloated self-love, then the Left suffers from fulsome self-loathing.

The lesson from Holland is a very simple one, namely that in the name of respecting Muslims, the Left was effectively trampling upon the rights of others.  This happen as a result of the flippant use of the expressions “I am offended” or “I find that offensive”.

In terms of lifestyle, the Dutch are known for not finding much that is offensive.  One can smoke grass there, parts of Holland are known for their areas of public prostitution, gays can be married there, and so on.  And guess what: Religious Muslims find all of the foregoing offensive.

But wait!  It is not also true that observant Christians and Jews also oppose the above mentioned behaviors?  Why, of course, it is.  And this gets us right the heart of the point.

Most significantly, the Left never gave any thought to the reality the observant Christians and Jews found the above-mentioned behavior morally bankrupt.  Observant Christians and Jews just had to learn to get on with life in spite of these things.  But the concerns of Muslims, alas, became a crusade on the part of the Left to protect practicing Muslims from the offensive life of the Dutch.  And there is the rub.

In a secular society, what is the argument for privileging one group’s concerns that something is offensive over another group’s concerns?  And the answer quite simply is that there is none.

What is more, to privilege consistently one group’s concerns about what is or is not offensive over those of another group is effectively to unravel the basic moorings of society by undermining the ideal of mutual respect for all.  Indeed, to respect only Muslim concerns and to ignore the concerns of non-Muslim is to engage in none other than a form of ideological slavery with non-Muslims being held as hostage.

To their credit, it is this sublime truth that has, at last, been grasped by the Left in Holland.  The Left in Holland has come to the profound insight that tolerance does indeed have its limits.  In a secular society, what everyone has to live with, interestingly enough, is some aspects of society which he or she finds offensive (though no direct physical harm is involved).  Muslims do not get to have society arranged just for them.  Indeed, a society so arranged is no longer a secular one.  Nor is the American hybrid of secularism and Puritanism.  It is none other than a form of fascism in the name of Islam.

The insight of the Left in Holland is that they were protecting Muslims to the very death of the society which they the Left love.  The Left in Holland discovered that protecting Muslims to the exclusion of others was not making the Dutch society more open, as no doubt the Left thought it would.  Rather, it was rendering the Dutch society more closed.  And there in lies the limits of tolerance for the Left in Holland.

Alas, this turns out to be an instance of genuine moral progress, which follows from the basic precept of mutual moral respect.

More so than any other ideology, the liberalism of the Left has lost sight of the fundamental truth that having been a victim does not excuse a person from respecting others.  One of the worst mistakes that the Left has made lies in supposing that victimhood status somehow constitutes a genuine moral excuse for failing to show respect for others.

Indeed, with the exception of the wrongdoer who caused the harm, it is not even clear that being a victim necessarily makes it more difficult to show respect.  After all, many people are victims of wrongs committed against them by members of their own culture.  Yet, no one thinks it follows from this that it is thereby impossible for the victim to respect other members of her or his culture who did not commit the wrong.

Quite simply, there is no surer way to undermine the very fabric of democratic society than to sanction the view that being a victim constitutes a genuine excuse for failing to show respect for others.

It would appear that the Left in Holland has learnt this ever so valuable lesson.  If mutual respect is not the foundation for tolerance, then tolerance is not worth the breath that it takes to utter the word.  One can only hope that Holland’s change in this regard will have a positive influence in the United States.