Moral Health

I am conservative because I put responsibility first. The wherewithal to be morally responsible is what distinguishes human beings from animals. I am radical because I hold that facts come before ideology. And there are indeed facts. I have already mentioned one such fact, namely that only human beings possess the wherewithal to be morally responsible.

As for the word “nigga”, it is my way of playing with hip-hop culture. If indeed it is all right to use the word “nigga”—and of course, never “nigger”—as an affirmation of blackness, then there is no reason whatsoever why only blacks in hip-hop culture should get to employ this mode of affirmation. A conservative nigga sounds just about right—one who will not take nonsense from anyone, whatever their ethnicity or the hue of their skin might be.
A further indication of my radical outlook is that I despise those who wallow in having been a victim of wrongdoing. Straightaway, some will take this to mean that I trivialize such wrongs as racism or sexism. Not at all. Quite the contrary, I am much clearer than most about the wrong of racist or sexist behavior.

However, just as I admire, and am inspired by, the physically handicap who press forward notwithstanding their significant physical disabilities, and so who do not wallow in self-pity, it is manifestly clear to me that wallowing in victimhood is a vice and not an ineluctable consequence of having been a victim.
Part of what it is to take oneself seriously is not to spend more time lamenting the fact that one was a victim than one does in make a better life for oneself given the options available to one.

This brings out another respect in which I am both radical and conservative. If I am down and out, then there is no greater sign that another takes me seriously than that the person enables me to once again do for myself—and not that the person makes doing for me her or his raison d’être. Paternalism is not my idea of equality.

Facts are important to me. And it is a simple reality that the facts can be mighty disruptive to the framework of thought that we would like to embrace. To hear some people tell it, only whites have been racist against blacks. Alas, the facts do not support this at all. One can find deep, deep racism against blacks among, for example, Arabs and Asians. And guess what? One find considerable racism among blacks against others.

It is also a fact that the wrong of slavery—including black slavery—was not an American invention. Arabs enslaved blacks and blacks enslaved blacks.

The fact that Arabs enslaved blacks and blacks enslaved blacks does not at all trivialize American Slavery. However, this fact does bring out that slavery admits of a more complex configuration than the black-white binary configuration that is commonly supposed.

If you cut off one of Jack-the-Q’s arm and I cut off the other one, neither one of us can excuse our wrongdoing by pointing to what the other did. We both committed an egregious wrong.
Another fact is that there are lots and lots of poor whites in both the United States and the world. On the one hand, this fact does not make racism any less wrong; on the other hand, this fact makes it unequivocally clear that victims of racism are not the only people who are suffering and struggling to make ends meet.

Let me return to responsibility. Because responsibility is one of the very centerpieces of our humanity, I hold that compassion rightly has its limits. The proper object of compassion would be people who suffered misfortunes notwithstanding the fact that they have acted responsibly. If a person spends all of her or his money on bubble-gum or cigarettes, then that individual acts most irresponsibly and is not deserving of compassion if she or he should be in need of shoes (for example).

Indeed, if I should spend all of my money flying back-and-forth to Europe and I do not have enough money to put a roof over my hand, then I am not deserving of compassion. Absolutely not.
At the very minimum, being responsible requires two things: a measure of self-discipline and a measure of foresight. Rich people can be responsible; rich people can be irresponsible. Poor people can be responsible; poor people can be irresponsible. And so on.

Most importantly, being a victim of injustice is one thing. Acting irresponsibly is quite another. Being a victim of injustice is not an excuse for acting irresponsibly. If I push you in into a puddle of mud and you can get yourself out of the mud, then the responsible thing for you to do is get yourself out of the mud. It is irrelevant that I wrongly pushed you into the mud. And guess what? While you might be owed some compassion owing to the fact that I pushed you into the mud, you are owed considerably less compassion if all you do is wallow in the mud and complain about my having pushed you in it. You ought to get out of the mud notwithstanding the fact I wronged you by pushing you into the mud.

Quite simply, wallowing in self-pity is woefully incompatible with acting responsibly. What is more, one of the most horrendous mistakes ever made in social thought is the view that wallowing in self-pity somehow constitutes taking ever more seriously the wrong that was done to one.

I have never met Frederick Douglass. His writings, though, make it clear that he did not wallow in self-pity although he was a victim of American Slavery. However, I have met Elie Wiesel. And guess what: Although a victim of the Holocaust, Mr. Wiesel does not wallow in self-pity.

Well, is not the implication here obvious? Surely most of us have nothing resembling an excuse for self-pity. I do not whether Conservatives typically make this inference. I do not know whether Liberals typically make this inference. In either case, I do not at all care. For the fact is that we do not have self-pity in the lives of either of these two extraordinary men, notwithstanding the horror of their lives. That should trump ideology, whatever one’s ideology might be.

Returning to the title of this blog-entry: I am radical because I have dared to take seriously the moral posture of the lives of these two great men. I am conservative because in taking seriously their lives, I see that I am capable of exercising considerable responsibility notwithstanding the ups-and-downs of my life; and I choose to live accordingly. And if the point of using the word “nigga” was to be transformative in some way by undermining the racist connotations of the word “nigger”, then the life that I live is an embodiment of the transformation intended, the reality things to the contrary notwithstanding.

Here is an example of compassion. I take the money that I was planning on spending for a marvelous and much anticipated vacation in Cape Town (South Africa) and give it to the family members who have just lost their home due to a tornado.  Compassion is not merely about responding to someone who is suffering.  For if it were, then any would-be-robber or would-be-murderer would be entitled to compassion if something went wrong with the person’s life in the attempt to commit the wrong in question.

Only as a joke—and a poor one at that—would it make sense to talk about having compassion for an individual who broke her or his leg in trying to murder someone.  In general, having compassion for an evil person very nearly stands as an oxymoron—something akin to adding water to chicken in order to make the chicken’s skin less permeable.

Against the backdrop of the preceding remarks, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenney MacAskill’s decision to release Abdel Basset al-Megrahi out of compassion, owing to al-Megrahi having cancer, stands as an utterly misguided decision.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi’s merely having cancer does not in and of itself constitute a reason to show him the act of mercy that consists in releasing him from prison.  It is easy enough to see this.  For suppose that al-Megrahi holds that his killing the 270 people in the Pam Am flight 103 stands as one of the most heroic things that he has ever done.  What is more, let us also imagine that he maintains that he would do it again if given the chance, even though his body is riddled with cancer.

Let me mention that there is a very poignant question about morality and the fantastic that I shall raise at the very end of this blog-entry.

Now, Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision might have made some sense had al-Megrahi shown considerable contrition and engaged in behavior that served to redeem morally others in prison.  However, what we do not seem to have is any kind of moral turn-about on al-Megrahi’s part.  Certainly, the Justice Secretary certainly did not cite any such turn-about in explaining his decision.

Instead, the Justice Secretary provided an intellectually and morally bankrupt rationale, namely that al-Megrahi has a terminal illness.  I find myself fumigating every time I consider analogous situations.  Jack-the-Q, who raped and murdered 40, is now dying from cancer.  So we should show mercy upon him and release him from prison.  And there is Opidiopo who sexually molested and murdered more than 60 boys.  He, too, is now dying from cancer.  So, of course, he should be shown mercy and released from prison.

One needs to be something akin to a moral monster to think that either Jack-the-Q or Opidopo deserves mercy merely because they both have terminal cancer.  To state the obvious, barring a miraculous conversion that has the blessings of one of the great prophets (pick you religion; pick you prophet) people like Jack-the-Q and Opidopo ought to rot in prison.

A very grave wrong need not be premeditated.  In a fit of rage people have committed considerable harm, including murder.  Yet there are egregious wrongs that can only be premeditated.  Rape is a very premeditated evil.  Child sexual is a very premeditated evil.  And guess what?  Blowing a plane out of the sky is also a very premeditated evil.

Indeed, blowing a plane out of the sky is something that one plans for months on end.  And if that were not enough, there is the utterly crass indifference to the extraordinary suffering that one is causing others.

When a person is so terribly inured to the enormous suffering that he has caused others, it takes much more than the truth that the wrongdoer has been afflicted with terminal illness in order to justify releasing the person from prison—in order to make sense of the claim that owing to terminal illness the person is owed mercy.

While these sorts of matters are not about a moral calculus as such, there is the immutable fact that al-Megrahi inflicted an enduring pain upon the families who lost their loved-ones.  For instance, there are the parents who lost their children; and there are the children who lost their parents.  Al-Megrahi inflicted a pain upon these surviving family members that will be with them for the rest of their lives.  It is simply not conceivable that Justice Secretary MacAskill could have reasoned that the life-long pain of these individuals pain in comparison to the pain of al-Megrahi having terminal cancer.

This is why I have entitled this blog-entry “Evil Compassion”.  The only way to make sense of Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision is to draw the conclusion that he, himself, is a callous and evil person.  Either that, or the life of one or more of his family members was being threatened.  Or, he is intellectually bereft.  Or, finally, there is the issue of whether there was politics or big-business behind the decision.

For some, of course, there is the question of whether al-Megrahi committed the horrendous deed.  Justice Secretary MacAskill, however, did not have that concern.  We know that he had deemed to al-Megrahi to be fully culpable.

This brings me to the question of morality and the fantastic.  As we endeavor to make sense of Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision, I fear that we cannot rule out the following type of case: The Justice Secretary had very good reason to believe that unless al-Megrahi was set free, a measure of terrorism would be unleashed upon the West that was unlike anything the West has ever known.  Would MacAskill’s decision to release al-Megrahi, then, be morally justified?

This is a purely speculative question on my part.  I have absolutely no information that entitles me to hold such a view.  Yet, we live in an era when it is no longer possible to rule out such a scenario, given the level of technology available across the globe.  If perchance this was the issue which Justice Secretary MacAskill faced and with which he wrestled, might he be considered a courageous person, although so very, very, very many in the West should think that he made a decision that entirely morally indefensible?  Notice that if it can be said that the Justice Secretary did the right thing, it turns out that precisely what Scottish Justice Secretary MacAskill cannot say is why he made that decision.

Free Speech without responsibility is none other than moral chaos.  Worse, it is a form of hell on earth.  The right to express unpopular opinions and to criticize others ever so forcefully is one of the great gifts of democracy.  So it is, however, only if this takes place against the backdrop of responsibility.  Thus, there is a very straightforward sense in which I have more respect for the white KKK person who calls me “nigger” to my face than for the black who calls me “brother” to my face but who systematically and viciously sullies my character behind my back.

I may not like where I stand with a person.  Just so, there is ever so much to be said for knowing where I stand with a person.  Public criticisms of another that hide behind the cloak of anonymity constitute none than a perversion of the idea of free speech.  Accordingly, it is a great victory for free speech that Judge Joan Madden ruled in favor of Liskula Cohen.  Judge Madden ruled that Ms. Cohen is entitled to know the identity of the blogger of “Shanks in NYC”.

The judge correctly grasped that the issue was not whether the author of “Shanks in NYC” is entitled to her opinion.  Indeed, the author of the blog most certainly is so entitled.  The problem was simply that if one is going to criticize another routinely and publicly, then the person whom one is criticizing is entitled to know who one is.  The fact that one’s remarks are merely personal views is entirely irrelevant.  Why?  Not simply because mere personal views can be mistaken and entirely uninformed.  Rather, it is because merely personal views can be—and often are—taken quite seriously by others.  Thus, mere personal views can have enormous influence.

Nothing, then, precludes mere personal rantings on a blog from having enormous influence.  This simple truth is the basis for Judge Madden’s ruling in favor of Cohen.  Her ruling is perfectly consistent with free speech if one bears in mind that free speech at its best is necessarily linked responsibility.  And responsibility carries in its wake accountability.

At the very minimum, accountability requires that we have made a good faith effort to get the facts right.  This does not mean that we cannot get things.  We all make mistakes.  We all misunderstand from time to time what we see or hear.  In one of my classes, I regularly have music that accompanies my lectures.  Having played a clip from a song by Barry White, I remarked later in lecture “So, is my voice not Barry White enough for you?”  Alas, there was some static in the microphone and what many people heard is “So, is my voice not white enough for you?”

Fortunately, I was able to clear up that confusion.  But that would not have been possible had a student not asked, why did you say “So, is my voice not white enough for you?”  A misunderstanding was eliminated.  Among other things, free speech should contribute to that end.

When the Founding Authors introduced the idea of freedom of speech, they never so much as even imagined a world in which people could routinely express their views anonymously in a public forum.  Quite the contrary, the world as they saw it was one in which it took incredible ingenuity to express one’s views anonymously in a public forum.  The absence of anonymity readily carries in its wake responsibility and accountability.  This is why in times past people endeavored to base their most biased views in biology or the truths of religion.  This was an endeavor to be, at once, both responsible and accountable.

Responsibility and accountability are the handmaidens of free speech.

This brings me to one of the most fundamental issues with which I shall be wrestling in my forthcoming book The Fragmented Self: Technology and the Loss of Humanity (Cambridge University Press).

In the past, the environment and the state of technological development imposed serious constraints upon what people could get away with doing.  Accordingly, there were natural constraints of self-discipline.

A defining feature of the present, thanks to the extraordinary developments in technology is that the natural constraints of self-discipline are disappearing.  In so many areas of life, self-discipline is an option in a way that it was not at all an option just a few years back.  We can easily express our views anonymously.  Judge Madden’s ruling has not precluded that at all.  Although the owner of the blog “Shanks in NYC” apparently used a real email address based upon her actual name, the truth of the matter is that anyone can sign up for an email account using a made-up-name.

What is more, while the author of “Shanks in NYC” regularly maligned a specific individual, it is obviously possible to do much harm without ever mentioning a given name.  Judge Madden’s ruling does not at all undermine general hostile and anonymous venting against groups.  Her ruling does not preclude derisive and venomous venting against groups—venting that is anonymous all the same.  Blacks against whites.  Whites against Blacks.  Non-Jews against Jews.  Jews against non-Jews.  Non-Arabs against Arabs.  Arabs against non-Arabs.  And so on.

If in the name of freedom of speech, we should lack the self-discipline to refrain from engaging in anonymous viciousness, then democracy as we know it shall cease to exist.  Either the universal affirmation of our equality shall cease to exist or the freedom of speech that makes democracy such a mellifluous ideal of excellence shall cease to exist.  In either case, our humanity shall be diminished.

How has technology affected the quality of friendships? By all accounts, friendship is one of the most wonderful things in life that a person can experience.  As Aristotle magnificently observed, good friends delight in one another’s company.  Among good friends, spending time together is rather like a form of spiritual nourishment.  The conversations, the reactions to one another and to what goes on around them, the pauses, and so forth: When two people are good friends, all of these things makes spending time together ever so rewarding.

Against this backdrop, we can ask—indeed we should ask—whether technology is having a positive impact upon friendship.

Now, it is manifestly obvious that technology has done wonders for friends staying in contact with one another.  We can send emails across the globe.  We can send instant text-messages via our cell phone or Twitter.  The cost of telephone communication continues to drop making it more and more and more affordable for individuals to have telephone conversations with one another although they are great distances between them.  Indeed, one can use Skype or Google Voice and pay little if anything for a telephone conversation.

Then, of course, there are social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace.  And there are yet other sites devoted exclusively to hosting our pictures.

The foregoing considerations, then, would suggest that technology is indeed a marvelous friend of friendship—that our friendships are richer and better and deeper thanks to technology.

So let me share with you a story.  Among the graduate students with whom I have worked over the years.  There are two with whom I became very close.  One of them served as a teaching assistant for me in my Introduction to Political Theory course.  One of my most vivid memories of him is the particular attentiveness he displayed to an argument that I was presenting to the course that was being taught in the Maxwell Auditorium.

Now, to be sure, he could have written me an email in which he wrote “Great lecture, today”.  But he did not do that.  More importantly, though, if he had written me such an email, the email message would not have been a substitute for my experiencing his riveting demeanor of attentiveness on that day.

The moral of the story is this: All the technological communication in the world is no substitute for two individuals being in one another’s presence and witnessing one another’s reactions.  My telling you that I am truly happy that you got the award is not—and cannot be—a substitute for your witness my eyes light up and for your beholding my absolutely irrepressible joy over the announcement.  So it is no matter how many exclamation points or smiley-faces I add in the email or SMS message.

Two people can send the exact same message of congratulations, with the same number of exclamation points and all.  But Mary’s tears of joy and John’s tears of joy will not be identical to one another, although they are standing side-by-side, even arm-in-arm.

Telephone conversations, of course, are not at all the same as photos or text-messages.  Just so, the best conversations are between individuals who have a rich history.  The laughter or the unexpected pause the unexpected poignancy, and so forth, all make up a rich conversation between friends.  No exchange of text-messages or photos can come even close to equaling the richness of such a conversation.

As I was getting off the plane in Paris, I called my friend Laurent.  Here is a condensed version of the conversation:

Me: How is your father?
L: He is in the hospital.
Me: I will have to go and see him.
L: Be careful, my father no longer likes blacks.
Me: No problem.  I am no longer black.

Laurent and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.  That simple exchange of a couple of second—an exchange which sat upon a veritable mountain of friendship—was also a most profound affirmation of our friendship.  That exchange via SMS would not have had the same impact.  For it was the give-and-take of the conversation with no spaces in between that made that conversation the majestic moment of friendship affirmation that it was.

This brings me back to the question that I posed at the outset: Is technology having a positive impact upon the quality of friendship?

With regard to friendship, there is nothing in this word that can substitute for individuals spending time together.  Accordingly, when two people have a sufficiently rich history of spending time together, then technology is indeed a friend of friendship.  For their history of time spent together will necessarily and rightly serve as the prism through which they understand one another in the present.  The past history of salubrious interaction will be the bridge of trust into the future.

With individuals without a rich history of spending time together, I fear that technology is not at all a friend of friendship.  Rather, it serves only to maintain an illusion of closeness.  Two people do not have the real experience of friendship in Aristotle’s sense of the idea merely because they text one another 20 times a day.  After all, we know that people text one another while in the midst of doing all sorts of sundry things.  Indeed, people may prefer texting precisely because it is less time consuming.  And if that is the case, then what does this say about the quality of the friendship in the first-place?

If between any two people, their texting one another is the larger part of the basis of their knowing one another, then what we have is a friendship that is shorn of those spontaneous personal moments that necessarily confirm and affirm the trust and goodwill and affection between them.  As I noted above, anyone can put a bunch of exclamation marks and smiley-faces after a sentence.  I do not have to think much of a person in order to that.  It suffices that I know that this is the sort of thing that one does.

In the midst of a very tense conversation that took place at a family meal, I looked at the patriarch of the house and blurted out: “Je t’aime”.  The argument has become irrelevant.  The words “I love you” shall never become irrelevant.  That moment was unforgettable moment of friendship.

Alas, friendship at its best is about shared moments to which no smiley-face or exclamation point could ever do justice.  Insofar as we are losing sight of this truth owing to technology, then a most disturbing reality is that technology is chipping away at our humanity.

In The Fragmented Self: Technology and the Loss of Humanity (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), I shall develop these sorts of arguments more fully.

The smile is absolutely amazing.  It is one of simplest of quite gestures on the part of human beings.  Yet, it is a gesture that is full of meaning.  It is profoundly interesting that, from the outset, we distinguish between a genuine smile and a forced smile.  And this tells us something that is so very amazing, namely that the typical person can distinguish between a genuine smile and a forced smile, although the difference between the two has to be remarkably miniscule.  After all, we are talking about the difference between two types of smiles—and not the differences between two forms of behavior that are already quite distinct—say the difference between a wink and a smile or between a wink and a frown. 

What is also most fascinating is that the character of smiles are pretty much the same across also sorts of physical differences and forms of social acculturation.  A happily smiling Chinese person and a happily smiling African are both easily recognizable as smiling, notwithstanding the quite visible physical differences between the two individuals. 

Finally, in this regard is the fact that there is no obvious correlation between smiling and appearing more attractive as a result of smiling.  While a smile no doubt renders some individuals more physically appealing, this is simply not always the case.  So what we have here is the interesting case where a smile can be a tremendous sign of social warmth although the person who is exhibiting that warmth by way of a smile is not thereby more attractive-looking.  In fact, a person may very well be less attractive-looking.

The smile, then, is a most sublime piece of human behavior.  The genuine smile is recognizable across all human variations as none other than a sign of social warmth.  A wonderful affirming smile can make for a lasting memory. 

Needless to say, a most relevant fact is that the smile is so instinctive that it takes extraordinary will-power not to smile when the joyful interaction that one is having with a person naturally occasions the smile.  In this regard, notice that between a smile and a state of fear it is next to impossible to mistake one for the other.  No one ever says “I was so afraid that I could not help but smile”.  Likewise, no one ever says “I was so happy about what happened that I was trembling with fear”. 

Notice how significant the observation of the preceding paragraph turns out to be.  There is simply no mistaking fear for contentment or the other way around.  From the standpoint of social interaction this truth plummets the depths of profundity.  Two strangers can have a most agreeable moment of interaction (at the checkout counter, for example) precisely because each witnessed a smile on the part of one another at every step along the way.  The interaction would have been impossible if each had to say at regular intervening moments “I am o.k. with this”. 

Besides, the utterance of such words, while not insignificant, could never take the place of a smile, precisely because a smile seems to be so instinctive whereas words are generally an expression of volition.  A person may choose to speak or not to speak.  We do not—at least not in the very same way—typically choose to smile in the context of a very socially warm moment.  At the end of a very pleasant moment, I might very well choose to say “It was really a pleasure talking to you”.  By contrast, what surely did not happen is that I thought to myself “Oh this is a happy moment.  So let me smile.  And then I proceeded to smile”. 

I think of the smile as none other than God’s gift to humanity.  Between two perfect strangers who are not likely ever to see one another again a pleasant exchange filled with mutual smiles can be none other than a most beautiful ray of sunshine to our very soul.  It is a fact of life that so many things, be they good or bad, happen unexpectedly.  Accordingly, it is not possible to prepare for them.  And just as a negative moment can be unraveling, a positive moment can, as I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, so very uplifting.

Walking along Boulevard St. Germain, the bus that passed the corner let out an enormously loud explosion-like sound.  I jumped as if I were trying to make a basketball shot.  So did the three guys coming towards me.  We all came back down laughing most heartily with one another and at one another.  We all had realized that everything was fine, and that an explosion had not just occurred.  That event happened about 2-years ago.  Yet, I remember in a very appreciative way the wonderful moment of laughter as if it happened yesterday.

I suggest that for anyone who lives well, her or his life will be replete with wonderful moments of laughter rather like the story I described in the preceding paragraph.  One may think of laughter rather like a form of social lubricant.  Although lubricant is no substitute for the machine itself, lubricant enables the parts of the machine to function with far less wear and unnecessary friction. 

Laughter is God’s natural lubricant for the soul in the world of endless social interaction.  In turn, the smile is the inescapable sign that moment is perceived by the other to be a pleasant one.  We do not need words.  Indeed, there may not be time for words.  We just need to see that the other is smiling.  A person may very well look less physically attractive while smiling.  Yet, that person’s very smile may, at the moment in question, be a veritable furnace of social warmth. 

The smile is hardly proof that God exists.  Accordingly, the title of this blog-entry no doubt offends some.  However, the sublime truth that the smile is a universal thing that it makes such a positive difference is what inspired the title. 

To say that we just evolved that way is, I believe, to miss the majesty of the moment.  For why would we have evolved that way?  How does one tell the evolutionary story that the smile has survival value?  One can see straightaway how both walking upright and language have survival value.  But the mere smile? 

The smile is a very simple piece of behavior that is universal and which often makes all the difference in the world in the way in which human interaction unfolds and for which no words, no matter how eloquent, can ever substitute?  Yet, at first blush, it looks for all the world as if human beings could get along perfectly well without, of all things, the wherewithal to smile.  Notice, though, that we human beings would have to be very different creatures indeed if all that we lacked turned out to be none other than the physical wherewithal to smile.  If that does not make the smile majestic, then I cannot begin to fathom what does.

When Barack Obama was running for President of the United States, there were those who maintained that anyone who is white who did not vote for Obama is, on that account alone, none other than a racist.  This was a morally sick view.  Unfortunately, there are those who still maintain some version of that morally sick view.  They hold that to be white and disagree with Obama is thereby to be racist.  What I should like to draw attention to is the simple truth that President Obama has never truly distanced himself from that view. 

I hold that insofar as Obama refuses to distance himself from the view that a white is racist if she or he disagrees with him, then he serves as none other than a lightning rod for the Second American Civil War. 

I am not here arguing for or against his views.  I am not taking a stand on his policies.  For whatever his policies might be, the moral and social backdrop against which they are put forward is utterly explosive if that backdrop sits upon the mindset that whites who disagree with Obama are, on that account alone, racist. 

Lest I should be egregiously misunderstood: I am not claiming that a civil war would be justified.  Unfortunately, all sorts of things happen that are not justified.  No murder is ever justified.  Yet, murders are a common part of the American landscape. 

Further, let me concede for the sake of argument that with white presidents, minorities have never had an ample voice.  Needless to say, the corrective to that defect is not to ignore whites entirely.  A just presidency is not one where one group is automatically granted more of a voice than others.  Rather, it is one where all have an equal voice.

Once more, let me avoid a misunderstanding: I do not hold the silly view that racism has ceased to exist.  What I do hold is that there are numerous respects in which things have significantly changed for the better.  Racism does not have the standing it once had in American society.  One can think that without thinking for a moment that the country is perfect. 

Now, I hold that when very intelligent people fail to be responsive to the obvious that is an extremely significant fact.  Thus, we cannot have it both ways.  We cannot insist that Obama is extraordinarily intelligent and then also insist that it never once crossed his mind that whites are accused of being racist merely on account of not agreeing with him.  Nor, again, can we insist that Obama is extraordinarily intelligent and then also insist there is no way for him to address the matter in a subtle but firm manner and—dare I say it—charming manner.  The simple truth of the matter is that he could do so if he wanted to do so.  And the fact that he has not done so tells us something quite disconcerting about him.  If nothing else it tells us that he falls considerably short of being a man of integrity. 

Now, of course, people will be quick to point that a lack of integrity hardly applies uniquely to Obama.  That is true enough.  So what, though?  One hardly excuses rape by pointing out that Mr. Opidopo is not the only person who has committed rape or that he is not the only person to have committed rape against Ms. Susie Q.  Just as the wrong of rape does not diminish as the number of rapists or rapes increases, the lack of integrity does not become more excusable as the number of people who lack integrity increases.

Mr. Barack Obama has taken the office of the Presidency of the United States at a time when both the reflective powers and the level of self-discipline of the ordinary citizen seem to be in rapidly accelerating downward spiral.  In the name of racial promotion, people have attributed essences to racial groups in a way that would make Adolf Hitler proud.  Yet, this seems to bother very few individuals.  In fact, it does not appear to bother Barack Obama himself; for he supported affirmative action for the New Haven fire department given that the problem, so far as he knew, was none other than that no black had scored high enough to be promoted.  Obama had no reason to believe that the test was biased in anyway; and none of the minorities who had taken the test suggested such a thing. 

I have watched the commonsense of my students deteriorate to the point that I am left speechless with regard to some of the conclusions that students draw.  My favorite example for the moment is the following.  While discussing pornography in class, I went on to indicate to the class that I am a staunch supporter of free speech although I am not a strong supporter of pornography as such.  I then asked the class, “Why do you think I so strongly support free speech?”  The first student upon whom I called responded as follows: “Because your people have suffered!”  Obviously, the backdrop against which I was claiming to be for free speech was irrelevant to the student.  All that mattered was that I, a black male, claimed to be for free speech; hence, the racial suffering of black people explain my staunch support of free speech.  I shall go to my grave without understanding how the person managed that line of thought. 

But I ask you what is the difference between that student’s way of thinking and the millions who voted for Obama because he stood for change, though barely a person could say what change he stood for?  The answer, most poignantly, is essentially none. 

Give me a world in which people no longer think in a reasonable matter and a President of the United States who seems more than a little too willing to play the race card rather than the justice card, then what one has is ever so fertile soil for considerable political unrest.  And history shows that considerable political unrest makes for very fertile soil for civil war. 

A final comment is this.  Let me concede that Obama and wife, Michelle, have experienced racism in their lives.  What seems entirely out of the question is that either of them have experienced anything that comes remotely close to what I shall derailing racism.  I, too, have experienced racism in my life.  And it strikes me as too obvious for words that I have not experienced any form of racism that has derailed me.  I mention this because if either of them harbors any deep bitterness owing to their experiences with racism, then we have a serious problem.  For one thing this tells us something most disconcerting about their psyche; for another, and more importantly, bitter people invariably have a way of being their own undoing and destroying others along the way.  This consideration supports the point of the preceding paragraph.

Again, notice that I have not trivialized the inappropriate racial experiences of Michelle and Barack Obama.  I do not trivialize mine, either.  Just so, I hold that, for example, the three times that I have been called “nigger” in my life pale in comparison to anyone who has been raped who has lost a limb owing to injustice.  The issue here is not whether there have been lives which have been destroyed by racism.  The point, rather, is that it is simply not possible for me to make that claim.  And if it is utterly implausible for me to make that claim, then it is even more implausible for Michelle and Barack Obama to do so.  And to this fact, one must surely add that they have manifestly done much better than most Americans of whatever color.  So it could be said even before Mr. Obama attained the oval office.  Bitterness on their part, then, bespeaks not righteous anger but vindictiveness.

Trina Thompson deserves something akin to the Darwin award for her lawsuit against Monroe College.  It really is not possible that she has it all together mentally.  The first sign of this is her thought that a mere 2.7 grade point average along with her perfect attendance record makes her an extremely attractive candidate for a position in her field.  Far from making her a most attractive candidate, her profile readily raises questions about her intellectual ability. 

“How,” one ever so naturally asks “does one have a perfect attendance record and end up with only a 2.7 grade point average unless one is rather intellectually bereft or irresponsible?”  Either alternative readily makes her a less attractive candidate. 

There was a time when a 2.7 grade point average was at least viewed as minimally decent.  Nothing to brag about, but nothing to be utterly ashamed about, either.  With grade inflation, however, those days are gone.  With a grade point average of 2.7, what follows is that one earned an awful lot of C-grades and very few grades higher than a B.  Ms. Thompson’s thinking that her record makes her a particularly attractive candidate is rather like someone who has $10,000 in the bank thinking that she or he is rich.  To be sure, that is a nice sum of money to have in the bank.  Just so, a mere $10,000 leaves one a very, very, very long ways from being rich. 

Now, let me be respectful and forceful at the same time.  For Ms. Thompson to think that a 2.7 grade point average from Monroe College makes her particularly competitive is for her to be stunningly naïve.  Monroe College is no Harvard University or Johns Hopkins University or Emory University or UNC-Chapel Hill or University of Virginia.  A person with a 2.7 could say with some sense of credibility though although she or he has only a 2.7 grade point average, there is nonetheless the reality that she or he attended a top-ranked school.  Other things equal, a person who graduated from any of the aforementioned schools with a 2.7 is in a much more competitive position than Ms. Thompson is, although vis-à-vis students from these schools with a grade point average, it still turns out that 2.7 is not a particularly stellar performance.  So it is even if the student went to Harvard University. 

The considerations of the preceding paragraph suggest that Ms. Thompson is a much more mediocre student than she is willing to acknowledge.  And in today’s fierce job market that is a real problem indeed. 

Thompson is reported as claiming that any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her credentials.  By her own line of reasoning, she should barely need help with finding a job.  It should suffice that she presents herself to employers and enough would trip over themselves to hire her. 

What is more, Ms. Thompson seems not to understand why the schools placement office favors students with a 4.0 grade point average.  Needless to say, it takes a very long and unobvious story to explain why a placement office would not favor students with a 4.0 grade point average over those with a 2.7 grade point average. 

Finally, we know that Ms. Trina Thompson did not hire an attorney, but filed a “poor person order,” which exempts her from filing fees associated with the lawsuit.  What is certainly more likely is that no lawyer would dream of taking her case.  Frivolous lawsuits have come to be one of the defining features of the United States legal system.  So a case has to be pretty damn implausible before there is not a lawyer around who would touch it.  Trina Thompson may very have provided us with an example of just such a case.  Try imaging the opening statement of the lawyer taking the Thompson case:

“Your Honor, Monroe College has wronged my client by placing a far greater weight upon academic excellence than is warranted.  It is true that she only has a 2.7 grade point average.  However, I must point that others with a higher grade point average, including a 4.0, do not have her perfect attendance record”.

There is no way to say any of the above and not look like an absolutely fool.  And the more impressive the lawyer’s credentials, the more incongruous the lawyer’s utterance of the above remarks turn out to be. 

That is the reason why Ms. Thompson was not able to find a lawyer to file her case.  This is one of those marvelous instances of a genuine practical reductio ad absurdum.  Only a lawyer too dumb to win her case would dare take it; and any lawyer smart enough to win it would look like an absolute fool taking the case. 

This brings us to some form of cosmic justice: Ms. Trina Thompson needs to be the person representing herself.  It would be a waste of anyone else’s time and intellectual horsepower to do so.  This would be a waste of Ms. Thompson’s time, too.  But one cannot waste what one does not have; and when it comes to intellectual horsepower, it is certainly plausible to suppose that she is woefully lacking in that domain.

Countless are the differences between Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama.  Hitler was the paradigm of evil.  Nothing of the sort holds for Obama.  Alas, there are also some striking similarities between the two.  These similarities do not make Obama evil.  However, the similarities may shed light on why his support is eroding so precipitously.  In the words of the distinguished newspaper Le Monde, there a kind of “chute libre”—a free fall, if you will—that is occurring in the support for Obama.  How is that possible?

If it is obvious that President Barack Obama is one of the most gifted speakers of just about any generation, what is far less clear is that he is actually attentive to what others say and think.  And that is a comparison between Hitler and Obama. 

No one can doubt that Hitler was gifted orator.  I am moved when I watch him speak; and I have not a clue what he said.  People fainted at rallies at which Obama spoke.  Yet, I doubt if anyone can point to anything that he said that would warrant anyone’s fainting.  Hitler captivated people a time when people needed a sense of hope.  Do I need to note the comparison with Obama?  People were so busy blaming George Bush for anything and everything that anyone who could sound like a viable alternative to Bush already had an enormous advantage.  And if, in addition to sounding like a viable alternative to Bush, a person could speak with a certain je ne sais quoi: well, then that person might as well be dubbed a prophet. 

In desperate times, a very articulate and eloquent speaker who offers a contrasting alternative is readily seen as a godsend.  Not so much because of what he actually said, but because of what the speaker in fact represents in terms of a hopeful alternative. 

Obama was the anti-Bush; and as such, it mattered less what substantive things he actually said than that he maintained his stance as the anti-Bush.  And as the anti-Bush, Mr. Barack Obama was truly brilliant. 

One very poignant drawback to Obama’s power of charisma is that far too few people actually reflected upon what Obama indeed stood for other than—day I say it: change.  Otherwise smart and thoughtful people wanted Obama as President of the United States because he stood for change.  Almost none of the very same people had a clue as to what change amounted to other than that it was an anti-Bush stance. 

Now, just as Hitler was not very good at taking advice from others or paying serious attention to what others said, it would appear that the same holds for President Obama.  Hitler was more than a little besotted with himself.  The same holds for Obama. 

In one very obvious sense, the Henry Louis Gates fiasco is most inconsequential.  In another equally obvious sense, it is most revealing about Mr. Obama.  From the very outset, President Obama should never have gotten involved in the matter.  There was no major moral or social issue at stake.  Neither the life nor the career of Gates was hanging in the balance. 

Yet, Obama moved most impetuously; and it is that fact that is most revealing.  What does it reveal?  It reveals that Obama is so taken with his ability to impress people that he does not see himself as answerable to people.  And that was the case with Hitler.  Arguably, in fact, the reason why Hitler lost the war is that he did not see himself answerable to others. 

Unfortunately, there is another way of putting the point: Hitler hardly took other people seriously.  It is far from clear to that Obama takes other people seriously.  There is all the difference in the world between masterfully maneuvering amidst a crowd and taking other people seriously.  With regarding to maneuvering in a crowd, Barack Obama stands as a master.  With regard to taking other people seriously, I do not see the evidence of that Obama is disposed to do so. 

There is a program-segment called Arrested Intelligence.   What makes that segment so disturbing is that ordinary people often prove to be clueless about some of the most basic things.  In one segment people were asked “When Bush gives his State of the Union address, what union will he be talking about?”  To this question, painfully many people responded: “I don’t know”. 

The truth that most people are clueless about basic things is one that Obama grasped better than many would suppose and which he used to his advantage.  And if that is right, then the people themselves constitute a fundamental part of the explanation for Obama’s irresponsible success, as I shall say.  Not only that, this may suggest that Obama is indeed just like any other politician, namely more concerned with winning office than doing right by the people while in office. 

Another clue in this regard was Obama’s decision to leave Pastor Wright’s church.  That decision had nothing at all to do with a deep personal conviction about right and wrong and everything to do with political expediency.  Yet, we as a nation refused to make Obama accountable in this regard; and that is precisely what he counted on.  What could possibly have been more revealing about Obama than that he attended that church for 20-years?  That was no mistake; and it revealed a hostility that made him unfit to be president—a hostility that he had notwithstanding the fact that every reasonable account he had done and was doing better than the vast majority of the American population.  Bitterness and hostility notwithstanding one’s success are never good signs.  By the way, Hitler was also a bitter man.

Change!  That is what Barack Obama stood for.  That is what Hitler stood for.  Indeed, it is surprising how common it is nowadays for people to explain themselves by references to a simple bit of terminology, even though the terminology admits of countless interpretations many of which are morally fulsome.  For instance, all sorts of people are for diversity nowadays.  These very same people seem to ignore the truth that talk of diversity is compatible with attributing essences to people; and history shows that attributing essences to people invariably leads to gross injustices. 

This history lesson, then, is this: One should never be so disenchanted with a given state of affairs that the only thing one is interested in is change.  For then one may get what one asked for, namely change, but not wanted one actually wanted, namely something better. 

A final question, which is worse: Having a president to stupid to lead, as many will say was true of Bush, or having an intellectually gifted president who is full of himself and quite given to both deception and self-deception? 

Some will take the above remarks to mean that I preferred Bush to Obama.  My remarks do not entail that.  All that the above remarks entail is that it is anything but obvious that Obama is in the end a better choice than the idiot that so many supposed Bush to be. 

People were much more interested in not being called racist than in holding Obama accountable.  And they were far too interested in holding Bush accounting for everything than holding themselves accountable for anything. 

History shows that irresponsibility and fear have never contributed to choosing well.

Strikingly, many people who claim to have been a victim of injustice owing to the group to which they belong seem to think that it is quite all right to commit wrongs against individuals belonging to the group in question.  For example, some women seem to think it is all right to commit wrongs against men because after all, so the argument goes, men have been sexist down through the ages.  Likewise, some blacks think that it is all right to wrong whites because after all, so the argument goes, whites have been racist down through the ages.  

I dub this mindset: mean-spirited equality.  And as the appellation suggests, I regard this line of thinking entirely unacceptable. 

What is particularly disturbing about mean-spirited equality is that those who commit such behavior tend readily excuse themselves for their own irresponsible behavior—even when their own irresponsible behavior is very much the explanation for the undesirable situation in which they find themselves. 

An example of this comes from none other than Craigslist.  Three women got together and out of revenge glued a man’s penis to his stomach.  One of the women who did this, namely Therese Zeimann, undoubtedly felt used and betrayed by the man.  But which part of “she-acted-like-a-fool-in-the-first-place” does she not get?

She met the man on Craigslist and gave him $3000 for two months so that he could have use of a hotel room.  The issue is not whether the man was taking advantage of her.  Of course, he was.  However, Zeimann stands as a poster-child for the person who puts herself or himself in the position to be taken advantage of by another.  Suppose I lend $2000.00 to a perfect stranger who refuses to pay me back.  I might very well be angry at the stranger for not paying me back.  Alas, I have every reason to be much, much angrier with myself for having lent the money to the stranger in the first place. 

It also turns out that the man’s wife participated in the “ritual” of gluing his penis to his stomach.  She was understandably angry over his years of infidelity.  Alas, she stayed with him although she was fully aware of his infidelity. 

Needless to say, if four men were betrayed in a like manner by a woman, the four men gluing her vagina together would not be an option.  The moral outrage would be off the charts—and rightly so.

I have seen blacks exhibit a hostility to a piece of infelicitous behavior on the part of a white that is all of proportion to the reality of the moment.  This is justified in the name of being angry over past instances of racism. 

A simple and profound truth is that racism is a very complicated matter and it requires the right sort of psychological configuration.  If I am white and you are black, and I did not get out of your way as you are carrying your child because I in pain over the fact that my wife was just murdered, then my behavior is not racist no matter how much it may look as if I am being indifferent to your situation. 

What is particularly significant here is that by and large it is easy enough to see that at the very least that the behavior in question readily enough admits of an explanation other than racism.  So the rush to make the charge of racism is none other than mean-spirited. 

After all, it is not as if every interaction between two blacks is an entirely harmonious matter.  Quite the contrary, blacks sometimes get short with one another; sometimes they fail to get out of one another’s way; sometimes they misunderstand one another; sometimes one is terribly jealous of the other.  And so on—although, of course, the explanation for this has nothing at all to do with racism.  There is no reason at all to think that this cannot also hold between a black and a white person. 

Not all of my students are especially fond of me.  Indeed, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority are not.  Yet, whatever else is true, racism is not the explanation for this fact.

Racism is such a serious charge that the cavalier use of the term radically cheapens it.  Yet, far too many blacks have become quite cavalier in their use of the term racism.  This is none other than mean-spirited equality. 

This in effect was my objection to the way in which Chancellor Nancy Cantor handled the Hill-TV affair.  She did more to encourage mean-spiritedness on the part of blacks than to shed light on the structure of racism.  Were the 20 or so students silly and open to criticism in their attempt to emulate the irreverence of Saturday Night Life?  Most probably!  Did the silliness of the 20 stem from some deep-seated racism?  Did their silliness reflect some deep-seated racism across the entire campus?  In both cases, the answer is absolutely not. 

At most, mean-spirited equality occasions fear.  It does not—indeed, it cannot—occasion respect.  If this is right, then mean-spirited equality is doing society considerable harm.  While there are always some among every crowd who are saintly-like in their behavior no matter how horrible things are, most of us become bitter when we regularly the target of mean-spirited equality. 

Over the long the run, the price of mean-spirited equality is none other than equality itself.