Moral Health

Diversity is proving to be utterly moronic.  It was not too long ago when the charge of racism went rather like this: White folks failed to recognize the full humanity of non-white folks.  That is, many white folks did not see a non-white life as being of equal value to a white life.  And what Martin Luther King marched for is a day when every group of every kind would recognize that all human beings are equally human regardless of their ethnic background.  Here are King’s actual words:

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

Well, what passes for Diversity is beginning to make an absolute mockery of the ideal of equality that King so eloquently expressed.  For equality has now morphed into what we may call proportional equality.  This is the view that the percentage of any ethnic group in a given area of public service should be equal to the percentage of the ethnic group in the population of municipality in question.  So if 20% of the population is black, then blacks should make up 20% of the police force, the fire department, and so on.  This line of thought is so moronic that it calls into question the very insanity of those who advocate it.

What would make anyone think that proportional equality has any rational basis?  What would make anyone think that this conception of equality has anything to do with equality?  Suppose for instance that Native Americans make up 29% percent off the population of Syracuse NY and that they have a tradition of pursuing careers in teaching and medicine.  Indeed, let us imagine that 89% of Native Americans who purse post-baccalaureate studies take up either of these two careers.  Only 11% have any interest in any form of public service.  What could possibly be wrong with that? 

Surely it is just ludicrous to suppose that we have true equality in Syracuse NY only if the percentage of Native Americans in public service areas in Syracuse NY equals 29%.

For the record, the idea of proportional equality is the argument that is being used in New Haven CT as a defense of the view that there should be more blacks as fire chiefs in the New Haven fire department. 

I can pretty much demonstrate that the very idea of proportional equality is none other than a pure political maneuver.  1. You will notice that nowadays people justify all sorts of behavior on the grounds that it is constitutive of their ethnic identity.  Thus, it is said that black people like this kind of food and enjoy such-and-such music as well as speak in certain ways (recall the fury regarding eubonics) owing to none other than their ethnic roots.  2. If sheer ethnicity is that determinate with respect to behavior, then surely proportional equality cannot be determinate of genuine equality.  3. Indeed, proportional equality and the demands of ethnic identity can be formally incompatible with one another.  If owing to ethnic identity Latinos are moved to pursue careers in education and medicine, for example, then insisting upon proportional equality is tantamount to insisting that Latinos go against the inclinations that are constitutive of their ethnic identity.  4. Which is it? Is our ethnic identity constitutive of who are?  Or, is it the case that indeed ethnicity is no more than skin deep, if that?  5. We cannot consistently have it both ways.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not think for a moment that if we reject the view our ethnic identity is constitutive of whom we are, then we are formally committed to proportional equality.  Nor do I think that if we reject proportional equality, then we must embrace the view that ethnic identity determines who we are. 

In my view, what is important is simply that individuals are flourishing.  And this they may do however it pleases them (insofar as they do not bring (unjust) harm to others.  Individuals may follow the traditions of their family or their ethnic group.  Or, they may align themselves with those who are not like them or they may go at it own their own.  And it is my deepest view that each and every individual in society should have the political and institutional freedom to do just that. 

We do not have equality at its best when and only when the percentage of an ethnic doing public service activity X in society is (roughly) identical to the percentage of that ethnic group in society.  Rather, we have equality at its best when each and every person is prepared to do right by others regardless of their ethnic identity or sex or sexual orientation, and so forth. 

Proportional equality is in effect inimical to equality just articulated; for it teaches people to be suspicious of others not on account of the wrongs that they do but simply owing to the color of their skin.  Thus, proportional equality is not just an intellectually bereft idea, it is also a morally vapid one, at best, and a tremendously unjust one, at worse. 

It is so obvious that proportional equality is an intellectually and morally bankrupt idea that it is truly painful to see it advanced by those who once rightly complained of past racial injustices in the United States.  Having veered towards justice with considerable success, America is on the verge of becoming an unjust society yet again.  This time, though, it will be minorities rather than whites who will be responsible for the moral chaos that will occur.  Increasingly, the charge of racism has become no basis than reality.  Increasingly, the charge of racism is simply about crying wolf and so is none other than a convenient way to promote self-interest not in the name of justice but at the expense of justice. 

If the Left were as intolerant of antisemitism as it is of racism there would be far less antisemitism in the world.  At the Durbin II Conference on Racism, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has made some of the most vile antisemitic remarks uttered since the days of the Third Reich.  And the outcry from the Left is next to non-existent.  Indeed, President Barack Obama has expressed nothing resembling outrage against vitriolic remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Jews.  I mention this about President Obama because he prides himself in having particularly astute moral sensibilities.  Indeed, the constant apologizing for America during his most recent European tour is thought to stem from his deep moral sensibilities.

It is an incontrovertible truth that what people say has a lot to do with what they know they can get away with saying.  Nowadays, for instance, I can barely get a white student to repeat the so-called N-word—that is, the word “nigger”—even when the context for doing so is perfectly legitimate, as in the case of reading the word “nigger” as it appears in a legal document.  Uttering this word has become so associated with being racist that white students refuse to utter it even in contexts where it is manifestly not racist to repeat the word.

If the vast majority of the nations of the earth made it unequivocally clear that they find antisemitism simply unacceptable, I am as confident as the night follows the day that President Ahmadinejad’s remarks at the Durbin II Conference would not have been so unapologetically antisemetic.  Given the way in which he denounced Jews and the State of Israel, one would have thought that he was condemning the war crime of rape. 

I recall with great admiration the near unified stance that the nation’s of the world took against the Apartheid of South Africa.  It is precisely that unified stance that brought Apartheid to its end.

Thus, it is reasonable enough to hold that were the nations of the world to take an equally unified stance against antisemitism, then speeches like Ahmadinejad’s would not occur at, of all places, a conference against racism. 

I am, of course, well aware that many delegates of the European Union walked out and that the President Nicolas Sarkozy, himself, denounced the speech.  I admire Sarkozy for this.  Still, what is true is that that the European Union is rather divided over what its stance should be to President Ahmadinejad.  And that, alas, is just the point.  Had the nation of the world been equally divided over Apartheid, it most certainly would have endured longer than it did.

Evil exploits ambiguity; and fact of the matter is that there is sufficient ambiguity over inappropriateness of antisemitism that at the very least a man likes Ahmadinejad supposes that it will not be too costly for him use vitriolic antisemitic remarks at a conference on the wrong of racism.

My experience has been that every time I write something in defense of Israel there is someone who will remind me that Israel is not perfect, and they will cite some wrong that Israel has committed.  Well, if I may be permitted to invoke the words a man who was born a Jew: “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

First of all, Israel does not have to be flawless in order for it to be true that antisemitic remarks are absolutely inappropriate.  Blacks around the world are hardly flawless.  Yet, no one thinks for a moment to suppose that the moral flaws of blacks suffice to excuse racism, let alone virulent racism. 

The deeper problem, though, is this.  In terms of values and social customs and ideals of equality, Israel is much more like the West than nearly all of the Arabic nations.  Feminism and homosexuality are striking examples of this point.  The ideology of feminism flourishes in Israel in a way that it is not possible for it to flourish in most, if not all, of the Arabic world; and with regard to homosexuality, the points holds all the more so.  To hear many on the Left defend homosexuality one would think that it is an ideal to which we should all aspire. 

So in view of the fact Israel is much more like the West—the European Union, Japan, Canada, and the United States—than the Arabic world, the question that obviously arises is this: How can it be that the Western nations have so much difficulty taking a strong and immutable stance against the antisemitism that flows from members of the Arabic world?  This is rather like a Jew preferring a Nazi for a friend or a Black preferring a KKK-person for a friend.  Needless to say, any such person or preference structure exhibits considerable moral schizophrenia. 

The Left’s tolerance of antisemitism from the Arabic world is worse than merely a form of horrendous cowardice.  The Left’s intolerance of antisemitism from the Arabic world reveals that in the end there remain deep, deep antisemitic sentiments on the part of the Left.  President

Lest there be any misunderstanding here, I do not think for a moment that a person is open to the charge of antisemitism if she or he does not agree with Israel.  Indeed, it does not occur to me think that one is antisemitic for criticizing Israel.  Thinking of this sort is just so much nonsense. 

Notice, though, that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has for all intents and purposes denied the reality of the Holocaust and neither women nor gays in Iran have the basic human respect that they should have.  Yet, the Left cannot seem to bring itself to denounce Ahmadinejad.  What would he have to do in order for that to happen? 

I know, I know: Ahmadinejad need only claim that Blacks are nothing but Niggers.  Folks on the Left would then trip over themselves denouncing him.  And when Ahmadinejad announces that all Blacks are Niggers, Jews should simply claim that they are Black!  Done. 

Who knows, perhaps even President Barack Obama, with his extraordinary moral sensibilities, might be moved to speak on behalf of Jews.  With the utterances of vile antisemitism, Obama’s posture seems to be: Let us try to understand where the “folks” who make these horrible antisemitic remarks are coming from.  Of course, President Obama would not tolerate vile racist remarks from the Arabic world. 

As for the idea that Jews are Black: I am really beginning to like it. 

There is the story of Susan Boyle and there is the story of Job.  For those familiar with the biblical text in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Job was recognized by God as a righteous person.  The beauty of the Job story is that God had confidence in Job; for when Satan declare to God that it was none other than Job’s wealth that motivated Job to serve God, we are told that God allowed Satan to put Job to the test, saying, in effect, do what you will but touch not his soul.  Through the extraordinary tests, including a body wracked with pain, Job never turned his back on God; and God indeed recognized Job as a righteous person.  It is worth mentioning at this point that Susan Boyle is characterized as a devout woman, a woman of great faith.  At their best, devout people are people with remarkable inner strength, to which physical appearances as such simply cannot do justice.

We would all like to believe that if there is a God, then He will never forsake us just so long as we remain righteous individuals.  Indeed, many who do not believe in God nonetheless hold that God cannot be holy if He should sake the righteous.  In a Psalm, King David claimed that he never seen the righteous forsaken.  

In a very straightforward sense, the appeal of Susan Boyle speaks to this very deep, deep religious ideal.  Her appeal expresses the hope articulated by King David that God does not forsake the righteous.  

Having sacrificed much of her life to care for her ailing mother, Susan Boyle did what was truly noble—even if not obligatory.  And righteousness is not about doing just enough to get by.  Rather, it is about affirming and confirming one’s unshakable commitment to the Good, notwithstanding the enormous adversity which one faces.  That, after all, is the story of Job.  

Equally relevant is that there would appear to be no sense of bitterness on Boyle’s part.  While she most certainly grasped that she could sing, it appears that she has no bitterness at all for putting her desires on hold in order to attend to her ailing mother who died in 2007.  

As I have said, while this was not obligatory, it was surely commendable.  And one important piece of evidence that we have that one has acted with purity of heart in making sacrifices on behalf of another is precisely that fact that one has no bitterness on account of having done so.  

Again, notice the parallel to the story of Job.  He never became bitter for the suffering that he endured.  

Putting these considerations together, what we get in Susan Boyle is a living symbol of what it means to live an unpretentious and unassuming life with self-contentment (but not complacency) and purity of heart.  

 Truth be told, then, a great many of us are not really happy with ourselves.  Susan Boyle was more content with her “ordinary” appearance than most of us are with all of our attempts to be glamorous or, in any case, attractive well-in place.  If Boyle were not so content, then she would have shown up in very different attire and with a make-over all ready in progress.  Yet, it would appear that not even a make-over will detract from that which attracts us to Boyle: moral simplicity and purity of heart.  

 Truth be told, then, a great many of us are not really happy with ourselves.  Susan Boyle was more content with her “ordinary” appearance than most of us are with all of our attempts to be glamorous or, in any case, attractive well-in place.  If Boyle were not so content, then she would have shown up in very different attire and with a make-over all ready in progress.  

And here the story of Job has a thunderous power to it.  Job was more content to be a righteous person than he was to be a wealthy person.  And quite simply the biblical lesson of Job is thus: One who is more content being righteous than being wealthy is one whom not even Satan himself can touch.  

Susan Boyle is a modern Job with all that this represents in terms of the ideal of living a morally good life, and so of having a life unsullied by the nonsense of modernity.  And perhaps evidence of this comes from a rather unsuspecting part of her moment on Britain’s Got Talent, namely Boyle’s exiting.

Some have insisted that it is she who got the last laugh.  But if you attend to the way in which she exited, what one unequivocally sees is a sense of gratitude, appreciation and goodwill—and not smugness on account of having surpassed the unwarranted expectations that the audience had at the outset.  She had won everyone’s heart.  And that meant more to her than the initial ridicule of which she had been the object.  Alas, this fact about her sets Susan Boyle apart from a great many of us, who will find away to hold a grudge although we have emerged ever so victorious.  

Some of us are theists; some of us are atheists.  In either case, if we have any semblance of decency about us we want it to be true that righteousness or, in any case, immutable moral decency of character is what prevails.  

This is the ideal—this is the hope—that Susan Boyle represents.  

If there is a God, then there is, indeed, something ever so affirming about the idea that God would have confidence in us.  Susan Boyle reminds us of that very profound truth.  

As of today (21 April), some 36 million people have watched her YouTube video.  This, surely, is as much about her character as it is about her singing.  When was the last time that was true?

When we truly know that we have a gift of excellence, it safe to say that even the gates of hell will have difficulty prevailing against us.  It was precisely this self-knowledge of her singing ability that Susan Boyle brought to the television show Britain’s Got Talent.  Whilst we were all stunned that she sang so beautifully, Susan Boyle never doubted for a moment that she could sing beautifully.  Indeed, her own words before walking upon the stage were “I am going to make that audience rock”.  listen here: sb-preinterview

What striking words from a frumpy-looking, ever so homely-looking woman.  But that is so only if one supposes that physical appearances have anything at all to do with self-knowledge.  And that, alas, is a very silly view.

Self-knowledge is the realization anchored in experience of what one’s attributes are.  Indeed, it is not possible to have self-knowledge in the absence of experience.  Thus, the knowledge that any of us can speak the language that we speak is not anchored in none other than the wealth of experience that we in fact speaking the language.  Given that wealth of experience in speaking the language that we speak, it would take something akin to akin to a lobotomy for any of us to doubt that we can speak that language. 

Susan Boyle has been singing since the age of 12.  Since she is not now 47-years old, it thus follows that she has been singing for 35 years.  It was with a striking sense of self-knowledge based upon a very clear record of accomplishment that she walked on the stage before audience and the judges of Britain’s Got Talent. 

What separates Susan Boyle from your typical contestant on either American Idol or Britian’s Got Talent is the following.  First of all, under the best of circumstances the typical contestant on one of those shows is a young person who is still in the business of honing her or his talent.  Secondly, the contestant is likely to have very little real talent but only a penchant for imitating someone who has already achieved success in the music industry.  And, ironically, that successful someone whom the contestant is imitating is apt to have much more style than substance.  The truth of the matter is that a most successful entertainer in the music industry need not have much singing talent at all. 

An extraordinarily talent singer will surely entertain us; whereas someone who mightily entertains us with song need not be an extraordinarily talent singer.   

This brings me back to Susan Boyle.  She is an extraordinarily talented singer who indeed truly entertained us in singing “I Dreamed a Dream”.  And precisely what she brought to the moment is the self-knowledge that she has an extraordinary talent for singing.  A careful study of her Britian’s Got Talent YouTube video (viewed by more than 36 million as of 21 April) reveals a person who was extraordinarily at-ease with herself singing.  She no more had doubts about the quality of her voice and its range than she had doubts about whether she was wearing a dress or not.  That, alas, is self-knowledge.

Most of us no doubt failed to see the depth of her self-knowledge because we mistakenly confuse self-knowledge with arrogance.  Susan Boyle is not an arrogant person.

The mark of the arrogant person is not simply that she or h may surpass others with respect to a given skill.  That, in fact, may very well be true.  Rather, the arrogant person delights in drawing attention to the fact that she or he surpasses others in the relevant way.  A remarkably talented person can be extremely unassuming.  To see the person, one would never guess that she or he is so talented in this or that area.  The person does not draw attention to it in any way at all.  Yet, when the person performs the skill in question one witnesses an excellence on display that is second to none.  What is more, one witnesses a breathtaking ease with which the person performs the excellence in question. 

A person who knows that she or he can perform a considerable excellence with breathtaking ease without ever drawing attention to it has, in that regard, a deep, deep sense of self-knowledge.  Susan Boyle walked on the stage with a very deep-, deep sense of self-knowledge regarding her ability to sing. 

People who are know that they are capable of an extraordinary excellence but who are not at all arrogant are rather like gods among us.  For it is typical of the talented to draw attention to themselves in some way or the other—to find a way to remind us of just how good they are.  They can barely yawn without drawing attention to just how wonderful they are.

These remarks help us to better understand why Susan Boyle has made such an incredible positive impact upon so many with her singing of “I Dreamed a Dream”.  The explanation is quite simple and has far less to do with her appearance than is typically supposed: She brought to the moment the kind of self-knowledge and humility that is truly angelic–like.  Her frumpy-looking appearance merely blinded us to the self-knowledge that she displayed from the very start.  In her own words: “I am going to make that audience rock.” 

No one can be effective if she or he is clueless with respect to her or his powers.  Not even angels are the exception to that truth. 

Disclaimer: Of course, we know that a great deal of staging goes on in with talent-reality shows, as Kyle Buchanan has so forcefully reminded us.  After all, there is always an interview involved.  So, it was already known that Susan Boyle could sing, just as it is already known that others cannot sing.  Accordingly, none of this takes away from the reality of actually singing well or poorly before the audience.  Applying to the situation George Orwell’s words from Animal Farm: All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others. 

Never before has there been a more striking incongruity between a person’s voice and the individual’s physical appearance than in the case of Susan Boyle.  Judging from her mere physical appearances, once does not expect anything remotely inspiring or transforming to come out of her mouth.  Not so much as a word.  Yet, when she sings, it is next to impossible not to suppose that one is hearing the voice of an angel.  To hear Susan Boyle sing “I Dream a Dream” is to have a transformative experience.  This was the surprise of Britain’s Got Talent.

From the very first note, she sings with an angelic beauty that leaves one in awe.  Indeed, it is very easy to entertain the thought that though her lips are moving, it is really another being who is doing the singing through her—as if she were but a mere vessel for a greater more transcending force.  It is no wonder that as of this moment her 7-minute YouTube video has been viewed by more than 19 million individuals (more than 36 million as of 21 April); and it is striking, as it is beautiful and humbling, that in the YouTube video, we see Boyle walking off the stage after she has finished singing, seemingly unaware of the absolutely extraordinary impact that she has had upon the audience.  For an edited 2.5 minute version that can be downloaded: View windows media player file here: Susan Boyle

Before she began singing, it is not implausible to say that Boyle approached the very nadir of what we might think of as someone who is owed no more than basic human respect.  Being a law abiding person she is deserving of basic human respect.  Many no doubt supposed, judging from her appearance, that there is nothing more meritorious about her.

This, alas, also tells us all something very disconcerting about ourselves.  In a world driven by images and sound-bites, we are rapidly losing the will to judge people by the content of their character.  Our focus, instead, is none other than the person’s physical appearances.  What is painfully true is that at the outset the audience had almost no interest whatsoever in hearing her sing; and there can be no doubt that all were prepared to take delight in her making a fool of herself.  What else could a frumpy-looking 47-year old woman do but make a fool out of herself.  So the very idea that Susan Boyle wanting to sing like Elaine Page was at best amusing to the audience and, at worse, a sign that Boyle was nothing more than an idiot.

Presumably the thought was that if God had wanted Susan Boyle to have a voice like Elaine Page, then God would have made her beautiful—or at least less far less frumpy looking.

Now, if Susan Boyle had been stunningly beautiful her voice would not have been any less amazing.  But we would have been far less surprised; and there is the rub.  This is because there is simply no connection whatsoever between the quality of a person’s voice and the individual’s physical beauty.  Indeed, what no one can reasonably think is that all the top female vocalists who are drop-dead gorgeous also have stunningly beautiful voices.  That is demonstrably false.

In fact, the difference between Susan Boyle and any number of the top female vocalists is that Boyle’s voice is indeed absolutely angelic.  Without any aids or special effects to prop up her voice, the quality of Boyle’s voice is absolutely mesmerizing, eliciting an emotional response that one rarely experiences in hearing a person sing.  Within a mere four seconds of Boyle’s singing, there was not a shadow of doubt on anyone’s part that her voice was none other than a human treasure. 

Here are the remarks of Amanda Holden, one of the judges from Britain’s Got Talent:

I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think that we were all being very cynical and I think that’s the biggest wakeup call ever. And I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to that (my italics).

I could not agree more.  And it is to Holden’s credit that she did not exempt herself. 

Susan Boyle stands as a defining moment and a resounding reminder to all of us that neither talent nor moral and special excellences have anything to do with physical beauty.  The issue is whether will we applaud her today and then tomorrow go back to our old ways of privileging physical beauty of above just about all else. 

The issue is whether we have become so morally vapid that we are no longer able to learn from and so to refashion ourselves by what on every account is a defining moment.  Thus, the question is this: Is it merely that we are caught up in the moment?  In other words, are we capable of becoming a better person on account of having experienced—nay, being a part of—so dramatic and defining moment? 

Susan Boyle stands as most poignant reminder that necessarily there is a certain duality to humanity.  We can all agree that there is much to be said for looking fit and excellent.  Just so, a person’s physique alone cannot reveal the depth of the individual’s real character—not the person’s hopes and dreams, nor the ideas that animate the person’s soul nor the wherewithal which the person has to persevere in the face of hard-times. 

These are the qualities of excellences that distinguish us from non-human animals.  Susan Boyle has been none other than a moral gift to all who have viewed her; for she stands as a most majestic reminder that human excellences at their best are neither defined nor reducible to exterior appearances.  This is the explanation for the profoundly visceral response that Susan Boyle has occasioned. 

And my hope is that Susan Boyle will also not forget the marvelous moral lesson that she has taught all of us.  Angles are not beautiful people.  Rather, they are gifts from God.

Disclaimer: Of course, we know that a great deal of staging goes on in with talent-reality shows, as Kyle Buchanan has so forcefully reminded us.  After all, there is always an interview involved.  So, it was already known that Susan Boyle could sing, just as it is already known that others cannot sing.  Accordingly, none of this takes away from the reality of actually singing well or poorly before the audience.  Applying to the situation George Orwell’s words from Animal Farm: All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others. 

What if all straight white males became gay? Well, then they would be able to short-circuit many criticisms by resorting to name-calling (and becoming gay is the easiest option).  Otherwise, straight white males must bow to just about any and all criticisms (with one exception mentioned below).  You see, name calling is what we do in the United States these days when someone has the temerity to disagree with us.  It is utterly relevant that someone should actually have good reasons for disagreeing with us.  For in a world without objective moral values, all it takes in order to be right is that we feel something deeply and strongly enough.  Let me illustrate these remarks with a few examples.

Suppose that a black person says that black people have no business marrying white people, and a white person asks the following sensible question: “What on earth does race have to do with love and marriage?”  Well, in order to silence the white person all the black person needs to do is call the white person a racist, at which point the only thing left for the white person to do is to lie prostrate on the floor.  Each ethnic group can make this move.  So if I a black man should criticize an Asian student, then what could be more obvious than that I am racist towards Asians.  As far as I can tell, the only way for me not to be racist towards Asians is to regard as wonderful and good all that Asians do.

Or suppose that a gay person says that being a gay parent has no bearing whatsoever on how a child develops and a straight person asks: “How do you know that?”  Once more, it suffices that the gay person calls the straight person a despicable homophobe for even asking the question.  Case closed.

Or, finally, imagine a man thinking that it would be a good thing for the mother to stay at home and nurse a newborn child thereby forging a most majestic bond between the mother and the child.  Needless to say, no feminist will be taken in by the rhapsodic language of a “majestic bond between mother and child”.  She will see right away the oppressive nature of things, it being utterly irrelevant that women have breasts which (when they give birth to a child typically) produce milk, whereas men do not have breasts that do such a thing.  We even have a term for the milk: breast milk.  Any man who might dare suggest that there is reason for a woman to stay at home and nurse the newborn is a shameless sexist—an utter moral scumbag.  After all, so the argument would go: no man would think to suggest that a man should stay home and nurse a child, so it is woefully inappropriate even to entertain the thought that a woman should do so.  The fact that only women can produce breast milk is seen as a morally irrelevant fact.  One of great mysteries of life is that “gay genes” can determine gay behavior, whereas the genes that differentiate between females and males have little to no bearing upon behavior ! ! !

Even though I am black I can still be a sexist and I can still be a racist against other non-white groups: Native Americans; Asians; Arabs; Latinos.  And so forth.  And I can still be homophobic.  In fact, homophobia is particularly strong among blacks.  So surely I am homophobic whether I realize it or not.

The point, in any event, is that straight white men are at the bottom of the social totem pole.  For it is said that they have oppressed everyone and, therefore, are morally wrong whenever they disagree with a woman or a black or a gay person.  So strategically all straight white men have to do is claim that they are gay and they would thereby gain some moral leverage.  They wouldn’t have to do anything: Claiming it would suffice.  They could even go on chasing women and simply claim that this is due to their having internalized the oppressiveness of heterosexuality.  So straight white men can be gay-at-heart if not gay-by-deed.  The mere claim yields the leverage.  

Of course, if straight white males could become a women or a minority person, they could obtain the same leverage.  As I trust one can readily see, this is slightly more difficult to accomplish.  

Now, as far as I can tell there is only one exception to this nonsense: Jews.  Vis-à-vis any other group that is sanctified as a victim, Jews are always wrong.  So if a Jew says charges a black or an Asian or a gay of having robbed her or him, the only appropriate response is: “Well, the person must have had a good reason for doing so.  Surely, it is because of all the wrong that your people, the Jews, must have done to the people of the group to which the robber belongs”.  Even straight white males seem to have some leverage against Jews.  

The Pope has lifted the ex-communication of a white priest who has denied the existence of gas chambers during the Holocaust and who has not recanted that denial.  It is next to inconceivable that the Pope would do the same in the case of a white priest who had denied the existence of American Slavery and never recanted that denial.  And, of course, we know that the President of Iran has questioned the existence of the Holocaust, and the nations of the earth have barely blinked.  Again, I cannot imagine a like reaction were the President of Iran to question the reality of American Slavery.  So in the end it does seem as if the moral status of Jews is even below that of white males.  Not easy to do, trust me.

Now, we can perhaps make some sense of this nonsense.  What we know to be true is that all sorts of horrendous things have been done in the name of reason.  Women have been and are circumcised in the name of reason.  The Nazis killed Jews in the name of reason.  Painfully and regrettably, there is no shortage of examples of this sort.  

The proper inference to make, in view of these horrors, is that (1) people were tremendously mistaken—and not that (2) the very idea of reason itself is a bankrupt notion.  This brings us to the irony of things.  For if we embrace (2)—that is, if we embrace the view that the very idea of reason itself is a bankrupt notion, then we effectively set the stage for yet another set of horrors to be committed.  For if we reject reason, then all that we are left with are strong feelings; and it is the reliance upon strong feelings that has given rise to the horrors that blight the history of humankind.  

What is more, we do not respect people simply by cowering to their feelings.  Indeed, if all we do is cower in order to avoid trouble, then what we have is not respect but simple intimidation.  And intimidation is now and shall always be the handmaiden of evil rather than justice.  

Of course, no morally decent person can deny that there are sexists and racists and homophobes.  Indeed, no morally decent person can deny that there are antisemites.  But when individuals who make charges of X-ism (sexism, racism, and homophobia) are more interested in silencing those who ask honest and searching questions than proffering an illuminating response or showing why the question misses the mark, it can be said that there is no substantive difference between such individuals and folks who were Nazis.  

“Shut your damn mouth you X-ist, you” is not an argument.  Neither the decibels with which this utterance is spoken nor the passage of time will make it so.  This utterance is, however, a form of intimidation.  And social progress that rests simply upon intimidation is not progress at all.  Rather, it is evil masquerading as good, as the case of Nazi Germany makes abundantly clear.

Talk about taking women seriously: Dr. Laura is absolutely masterful at doing so.  And there is no better illustration of this than the way in which Dr. Laura handled Friday’s telephone call regarding Natalie, an 18-old in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend: listen here MP3.  What is most impressive is just how attentively Dr. Laura had been listening from the very outset; for the conversation started out with the claim that the boyfriend was “merely” controlling and ended up with the admission on Natalie’s part that he had struck her.  But that admission on Natalie’s part would not have come about had it not been for Dr. Laura’s searching and incisive questioning.

Dr. Laura’s handling of Natalie’s call was one of the most remarkable displays of moral feminism that I have ever witnessed. 

Moral feminism, as I shall call it, is the view that women have a moral duty to take themselves seriously and fully appreciate their moral powers.  Moral feminism embraces femininity without denying moral equality; accordingly, moral feminism does not deny that there important differences between women and men.  Differences, however, do not entail subordination.  Dr. Laura embodies these values.

Returning to Natalie’s call, let me mention that Dr. Laura spent 10 minutes of her radio program talking to Natalie.  I mention this for two reasons.  One reason is the simple fact that 10 minutes is in fact a lot of time to spend with someone who calls in to a radio program.  The other reason is that when Dr. Laura senses that a person’s very soul is at stake she is willing to shift the programming in order to have additional time to reach out to that soul.  This, surely, is a case of having one’s priorities right.

And speaking of priorities: a moral feminist is not ideologically driven.  Dr. Laura’s discussion with Natalie was about one thing, namely the fact that Natalie should sufficiently value herself that does not up put up with physical abuse from a man.  It is very significant that Dr. Laura did not excoriate the character of men generally.  Not at all. 

We have an inexcusable wrong when a person uses the flaws of a single person’s character as an excuse to indict everyone of that person’s sex or ethnicity. 

For instance, Dr. Laura would never deny that there are whites who are racists.  Quite the contrary, she has handled such calls in the context of individuals dating or marrying a member of another race.  On the one hand, she has always insisted that character trumps ethnicity.  On the other, she has never held that all the members of a given group are morally bankrupt.  The very idea that all whites are racists makes absolutely no sense to Dr. Laura.  Surely she is right.  Likewise, the very idea that all men are moral scumbags makes no sense to Dr. Laura.

At the beginning of the call, Natalie was in denial.  She claimed that her boyfriend—the controlling male who also had hit her—is “a good person”. 

I very much appreciate the fact Dr. Laura asks her callers to give an example of what they mean by a given characterization.  For it is the examples that provide the insight.  What is more, Dr. Laura can serve as a moral echo to the person’s example.  It is so often the case that we do not fully appreciate an assessment that we hold until we say it out loud to another person.  This was clearly so in Natalie’s case.  Of course, Natalie knew that she had been hit by her boyfriend.  However, having to acknowledge that truth to Dr. Laura was transforming for Natalie.

Did the 10-minute conversation make it all better?  Of course not.  And Dr. Laura thought no such thing.  Quite the contrary, Dr. Laura encouraged Natalie to seek further help and she asked Natalie’s mother to see to it that this happens. 

It is rare that any of us have the opportunity to see a person through a difficulty from start to finish.  But if at any step along the way we can give hope to a person going through abuse, then that is already an extraordinary moral opportunity that we have. 

To give a person hope is not to give a person a reason to be angry; it is not to give a person a reason to be bitter.  Rather, to give a person hope is simply to give a person reason to at least to start transforming her or his life for the better. 

In the case at hand, Dr. Laura drew upon the incontrovertible truth that every woman should respect herself, a truth which does not require diminishing others.  That is moral feminism at its best.

Ting-Yi Oeie was a victim of evil self-righteousness.  Acts driven be evil self-righteousness stand as part of the reason why public education in the United States has by-and-large become a massive failure.  Precisely what students in public school know is that they can exploit any loop-hole to their advantage, no matter how ludicrous doing so turns out to be.  What happened to Mr. Oeie would be rather like someone prosecuting a person for having an unregistered gun in her possession, entirely ignoring the fact that the reason why the person has the gun in the first place is that she wrestled it from the hands of a criminal who was trying to murder someone with the gun. 

This essay concludes with three poignant observations regarding the damage that has been wrought here.

Now, every conceivable explanation of his behavior makes it unequivocally clear that what Mr. Oeie was trying to do is determine which female student had been a victim of sexting.  There was never any reason even to suspect, let alone wonder, whether Ting-Yi Oeie was interested in or involved in the trafficking of child pornography pictures. 

What the case of Oeie brings out, and what is most frightening about the United States, is that nowadays too much credibility is given to implausible scenarios that have no basis in the actual reality of the moment. 

The proof of this, ironically, is that the photo in question turned out not to be pornographic at all.  And this is what an examination of matters made abundantly clear.  In the end, it turns out that there was no nudity at all.  Why, then, was Mr. Ting-Yi Oeie investigating anything?  Because that is what he had been instructed to do by the principal. 

Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne agreed to dismiss the charges that Loudon Count Prosecutor James Plowman had brought against Oeie.  Alas, this victory comes a year and $150,000 later. 

Unfortunately, it may very well be a Pyrrhic victory on several accounts. 

1. To begin with, Mr. Oeie’s reputation has been sullied and there is the legitimate worry that it may have been sullied beyond repair.  This is because the very media that can be relentless in reporting sensational news is anything but committed to reporting important news that is not sensational, even when that news would repair a person’s reputation.  Then, too, a Google search of Mr. Oeie will first yield this story.  And in a world where people do not read carefully and thoroughly, and where careful thinking has become a lost art, Oeie cannot count on internet surfers to come away with decent picture of the man he is.

2. Could anyone blame Mr. Ting-Yi Oeie if in the future he simply kept his distance from such matters?  I think not.  He was motivated by the desire to do what is right and that motivational structure was trampled upon like so much dirt.  Few things make a person more disinclined to act on behalf of another than the reality that, contrary to all reasonable evidence, the person’s honorable motives are apt to be viewed in a most uncharitable light by either the individual who is being helped or those who witness the intended act of good will. 

To take a simple case, I myself have witness a number of situations in which men have refrained from helping a woman who was obviously very much in need of assistance, because no doubt they—the men—did not want to run the risk of being labeled sexist. 

3. The greatest loss, however, is to the children themselves.  Parents are forever crying about the importance of schools being a safe environment for children.  Well, that state of affairs cannot be achieved if school administrators and teachers are not invested with a measure of moral authority. 

Painfully, the experience of Mr. Oeie has been rather like a black hole in the bowels of hell, sucking out just about every ounce of moral authority that school administrators and teachers could have.  Although this outcome was perhaps not the intent of prosecuting Mr. Oeie, precisely this outcome is absolutely the most significant byproduct of prosecuting Oeie. 

One can only wonder: What were the motives of James Plowman, the Prosecutor?  I am afraid that it is simply not possible to attribute honorable motives to Mr. Plowman.  Not only was there an explanation from the outset for why Mr. Oeie had the picture, it is also the case that the picture was at most a borderline case of a pornographic picture of a child.  And it is this one and only picture that Oeie has and that is the motivation behind Plowman’s prosecuting Oeie.   

Most painfully, what we have here two incongruous victories.  On the one hand, we have one small but very important victory for an honorable person, namely Mr. Ting-Yi Oneie, who was committed to doing the right thing.  On the other hand, we have a major and most unfortunate victory for evil itself, because the moral authority of school administrators and teachers has been severely compromised.  This is the insidious lesson that nearly every child in school will take away from the moment.  Indeed, a great many children will take this insidious lesson from the moment precisely because their parents will teach it to them.  So it is thanks to the evil self-righteousness of James Plowman, the Prosecutor. 

One needs a very good explanation to excuse, let alone justify, the killing of four police offers.  One needs even a better explanation to make sense of the claim that a person who has killed four police offers is a hero.  Here is an explanation that would work: The person in question was protecting his family from police brutality.  At the risk of offending feminists, perhaps, precisely what we expect a man to do is protect his family.  It is an expectation that does not apply to women in the way that it applies to men.  And I would expect a real man, as Dr. Laura Schlessinger would say, to stand up even to law enforcement officials in order to protect his family from police brutality.

Whatever color or ethnicity that might apply to a man who killed officers of the law in order to protected his family against police brutality, he would be none other than a hero in my book 

The problem with calling Lovelle Mixon a hero is simply that the explanation for his killing 4 four police offers cannot in any way be construed as a form of moral excellence on his part.  In killing the four officers, Mixon was not thereby standing up for a deep and fundamental moral principle. 

Now, various discussions of the Lovelle Mixon event point to the racism that is commonly committed by police offers against black people.  Indeed, some say that the number of blacks killed by police officers is rather close to the number of police officers killed by blacks.  Let us concede for the sake of argument that this shows how careless police officers are when it comes to the lives of black people.  Again, it is for the sake of argument that I am making this concession. 

The problem, alas, is that even with this concession we do not have an explanation for how Mixon is a hero for killing four police officers—especially since it is not even remotely possible to interpret his behavior as a response to the injustices that police officers are said to have visited upon blacks.  Mixon was not acting on behalf of a deep and egregious wrong that had been committed against this black and then another black.  And so on. 

It becomes all the more implausible to suppose that Mixon is a hero when one actually considers his background.  This is a man who has been no stranger to legally inappropriate behavior.  Worse, there appears to be significant evidence that he raped a 12 year old child. 

So even if we concede for the sake of argument that police officers have routinely mistreated and killed blacks, this concession no more warrants calling Mixon a hero for killing four police officers than does the fact that a black can recite Martin Luther King’s “Free at Last” speech by heart warrants calling that black a genius.   

I am reminded of the way in which the NAACP handled matters in the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision which officially ended segregation in public schools.  What was true, of course, is that every black regardless of the person’s intellectual abilities and family was entitled to attend the public schools of her or his community.  But the NAACP did not just pick any black off the street as a test case for the decision.  Quite the contrary, the NAACP picked a highly talented black child from a very admirable family background to use as a test case.  This was done in order to prevent any unsavory sentiments about blacks from adversely affecting the decision.

Whatever our race or nationality or gender or sexual orientation or whatever might be: The simple truth of the matter is that we need to pick our heroes carefully.  A hero must be a model of the kind person we would want to be or we would want others to be.  Nay, a hero should be very much someone whom we would want our children to be like. 

What a hero should not be is merely someone who serves as a flashpoint for our anger and grievances.  And ethnic pride, as wonderful as it may be, does not justify calling a hero someone who is merely a flashpoint for anger.  Indeed, doing so is very, very self-defeating. 

Here is another way of pointing the point.  If a member of a community is indeed a hero, then there ought to be a very straightforward sense in which that community would be better off if there were more people like that person in the community.  There is no obvious respect in which the Oakland black community would be better off if more members of the community were like Lovelle Mixon. 

Most of us will barely inspire anyone.  But our heroes should.  Most of us will never occasion hope in the life of another.  But our heroes should.  Most of us will not give anyone a reason to change her or his life for the better.  But our heroes should.  Lovelle Mixon was not a hero.

I have not denied the claim of injustice of which the police in California are accused.  And Mixon’s death may be a most painful reminder of that reality.  Alas, the world is full of painful reminders, from the crash of an airplane in which all the passengers die to the damage and deaths that come about as a result of a category-5 hurricane.

The mere fact that a person’s death is a painful reminder of the social injustice that a people or a community endures does thereby make the person a hero for dying.  It is this simple truth that the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement has failed to grasp.  And the movement does black people the world over an enormous disservice by declaring Lovell Mixon a hero.  Let us try on for size the idea that Mixon is a hero: Nelson Mandela versus Lovell Mixon.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn versus Lovell Mixon.  Martin Luther King, Jr. versus Lovell Mixon.  Elie Wiesel versus Lovell Mixon. 

In comparison to each of the above named individuals, Mixon’s life is so lacking in moral excellence that it is ludicrous at best and borders on moral genocide at worse to call Mixon a hero. 

Was he Mixon a victim of racial injustice?  Did he have to live through an intolerable hell the likes of which I am cannot even begin to imagine?  I assume that both questions are to be answered affirmatively.  A hero, though, is not merely someone for whom these claims are true.  Rather, a hero is someone who with grace and majesty transcends this very reality.  The hero is not someone who is merely carried along by the current of the cesspool of her or his reality.  Rather, the hero rises above it.  Lovell Mixon is not a hero.  No amount of name calling or moral posturing will make it the case that he is. 

Can the defense of equality be taken too far?  Surely it can.  Imagine someone arguing that true ethnic equality in society is possible only if marriages are assigned, thus assuring that there is a proper balance, whatever that might mean.  Even if this line of thought were remotely plausible, not allowing people to marry according to their own preferences is an absolutely untenable idea. 

One could very well believe that homosexuality and heterosexuality are identical in all respects without thereby supposing that any and all institutions must embrace and impose that view of things.  The most obvious exception that enters the mind is religious institutions. 

Significantly, one can refuse to embrace homosexuality as identical to heterosexuality without demonizing it.  Thus, it is one thing for religious institutions not to put homosexuality on the same footing as heterosexuality.  It is quite another entirely for religious institutions to demonize homosexuality.  There can be no justification for demonizing homosexuality. 

Can we respect religious freedom and force religious institutions to put homosexuality on the exact same plane as heterosexuality?  Unequivocally, we cannot.

Can we respect religious freedom and insist the religious institutions not in any way demonize homosexuality?  Unequivocally, we can. 

Significantly, there are members of the American Philosophical Association (APA) who seem to be in favor of religious freedom while insisting that religiously-affiliated institutions put homosexuality on the exact same plane as heterosexuality.  Indeed, the site PetitionOnLine has a petition to that effect.  Either religiously-affiliated institutions put homosexuality on the same plane as heterosexuality or they are to be barred from using the resources of the American Philosophical Association.  Interestingly, the counter petition is to be found at IPetitions.

One naturally wonders why are individuals in the American Philosophical Association not pushing for that option rather than merely pushing to insure that religious institutions do not in any way whatsoever demonize homosexuality.  The answer, I suspect, has to do with the assumption that racial discrimination and discrimination against homosexuality are rather parallel.

Alas, there is a profound difference between the two, at least with regard to racial discrimination against blacks, which is often the model to which people appeal.  That discrimination was primarily animated by the view that blacks are intellectually inferior.  Lots of silly things were thought to follow from that view.  But the presupposition of intellectual inferiority is what grounded racism against blacks.  But it is clear that blacks in general were deemed not to have the intellectual wherewithal to pursue a commendable life-style, save that of being subordinate to a white.  Finally, it should be noted that it is an incontrovertible evolutionary fact, and not an assessment of life-styles, that no ethnic group is intellectually inferior to any other ethnic group. 

Discrimination against homosexuality has not been based upon the view that homosexuals are intellectual inferior.  Rather, it is based upon the view that a given life-style is unacceptable.  The characterization of unacceptability has changed over the years; and, of course, the claim unacceptability no longer exists for some.  Yet, even for those who advocate the complete acceptance of homosexuality it is not at all clear what they mean, as with the APA’s insistence that there should be no bias according to gender identification. 

What exactly makes it plausible to claim that one feels like a woman/man trapped in a man/woman’s body, the case of having both sets of genitals aside?  If an individual with (for example) no Asian ancestry at all, repeatedly claimed to be an Asian person trapped in a black person’s body, most people would insist that this is just absurd.  To my knowledge, I have never seen a good argument that explains why the first claim should be accepted, whereas the second claim should not be.

I understand that homosexuality and gender-identification are not exactly the same.  Yet, they both raise the issue of life-style in ways that are in fact related.  Or so it is if one assumes, for instance, that in some cases a person who feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body will want to have sex with a man.  There is something extremely heavy-handed about insisting that this sort of identification-claim should be accepted by a religiously-affiliated institution when it is not even clear what justifies the basis for it other than a mere assertion.

Is it not more compatible with the ideal of religious freedom for the American Philosophical Association (A) to insure that religiously-affiliated institutions, which are a member of the APA and make use of its resources, are very clear about their policy regarding heterosexuality and homosexuality and (B) to insure that said institutions do not in any way subscribe to and endorse a morally obnoxious conception of homosexuality.  If pursing these two aims does not constitute a more preferable approach, then what exactly does religious freedom mean for the American Philosophical Association? 

Setting the issue of sexual orientation aside for a moment, there is an interesting formal point that is worth mentioning here.  It is very nearly conceptually incoherent to hold that all life-styles are on the same social and moral plane.  No one really thinks that a life-style of doing nothing more than smoking pot all day, 365 days a year, is preferable to mastering the arts in some way.  Likewise, I am rather confident that no one thinks that being a high-paid prostitute (male or female) is preferable to being a brilliant scientist. 

A related point is that rejecting a given life-style does not entail that those who pursue that life-style are inferior human beings.  By contrast, the insistence that group A is intellectually inferior to group B entails inferiority across a number of domains with respect to group A.  As I have argued in “Moral Equality and Natural Inferiority,” it is conceptually difficult to have intellectual inferiority for a race without moral inferiority for that race as well. 

Now, philosopher are notorious for all sorts of distinctions—distinctions that the average person on the street barely even fathom.  Yet, in rushing to assimilate discrimination against homosexuality to discrimination against race (for example, blacks), philosophers have ignored a number of important distinctions.  If nothing else, this is unfair to religiously-affiliated institutions. 

The very nature of the charge of black inferiority entails that blacks are lesser human beings.  It is possible to hold that the life-style of heterosexuality is preferable to the life-style of homosexuality without thinking for a moment that, vis-à-vis heterosexuals, homosexuals are lesser human beings.  

Just as we should not create differences where there are none, it is also the case that we should not ignore important differences that exist.  

I have offered an account of matters which makes it clear that there is some moral space which the American Philosophical Association would do well to respect if, indeed, it is serious about its respect for religious freedom. 

In the academy, there is an awful lot of hostility towards religion nowadays.  The sad part is that this cauldron of hostility has resulted in the same sort of dismissive attitudes and moral blindness to distinctions that we find characteristic of those who are deeply biased in morally obnoxious ways.  Why being hostile to religion has almost become a requirement for acceptance.