Moral Health

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defending the right of one’s daughter to be mean and nasty to another is very, very tricky business.  It is pretty much tantamount to winning the battle but losing the war.  Evan Cohen recently defended his daughter’s right to be mean.  The daughter had posted on YouTube a video that berated an 8th grade classmate at a Beverly Hills school, calling the female student such horrific names as “spoiled”, “brat”, and “slut”.  The school gave Evan Cohen’s daughter a two-day suspension; and he, a lawyer, came to her rescue.  What a dad!

Of course, Cohen is absolutely right.  The 1st Amendment gives his daughter the right to say and post nasty things about others, including fellow classmates—or so it is just so long as we do not have a case of slander.

Yet, I contend that in defending his daughter, Evan Cohen made a tragic error.  The victory is very much a Pyrrhic one.  This is because the constitutional lesson that he forged for his daughter is most certainly overshadowed by the very unfortunate moral lesson that he has taught his daughter, namely that it is all right to use the law in order to protect mean behavior.

Evan Cohen’s daughter’s daughter is in the 8th grade, which makes her roughly 14 years of age.  There were two lessons that he had the opportunity to teach his 14-year old daughter: One is that posting on YouTube harsh negative comments about a member of one’s class is very much a morally indecent thing to do.  The other is that the 1st Amendment gives one the right to say that most malicious things about another, even if they are untrue.  Which lesson would have been the more valuable lesson to teach his daughter?  Surely, it is the first one.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that fatherly love would counsel teaching the daughter the first lesson.  For in the immortal words of King Solomon: “Unto everything there is a season”.  The father has privileged a legal victory over a moral one; and, under the circumstances, this was very much a mistake.

The more important lesson that the Evan Cohen should have taught his daughter is that there are some things that we should not do even if we are fully entitled to do them.  It is very easy to think of examples of this sort.  If I should insist that a struggling mother re-pay me that $100 she borrowed from me, even though it is clear that she has acted responsibly in every conceivable way, I am surely a moral bastard.  The fact that I am entirely entitled to the money is utterly irrelevant.

There is no doubt that Evan Cohen is right about the legal rights of his daughter.  But he could have taught her that precious lesson without pursuing the legal victory that he obtained on her behalf; for in obtaining that victory, he overshadowed the moral significance of acting decently even when one is fully entitled to act otherwise.

Again, if a student has just lost both of his parents in a tragic accident and he submits a plagiarized essay, surely I am none other than a callous man if I should insist that he be academically dismissed, as university regulations might require for such behavior.  There are probably not many times when leniency should be shown to someone who has plagiarized an essay.  Yet, I assume without hesitation that a student who has just lost both parents is precisely such a case.

Alas, what Evan Cohen has taught his daughter is how to be an incredibly spoiled brat.  And that is what has to be the case.

The case of Evan Cohen is an absolutely poignant case of having a warped perspective of what counts as parental love.  Parental love at its best does not just give a child every advantage.  Quite the contrary, giving the child advantages is tempered by building the child’s character.  The idea is to give one’s child every advantage but to do so only in the right way.

Evan Cohen gave his daughter a tremendous advantage, but he did not do so in the right way.  Indeed, unless there were extraordinary conversations between them, she did not learn the values of decency and respect and self-control.  Nor, again, did she learn to think about how her actions might negatively impact upon others.

Let me put the point another way.  I pity the college professor who has Evan Cohen’s daughter as a student.  While Evan Cohen has taught his daughter a quite powerful lesson about one of the rights she has, he has left her quite unschooled about how to exercise that right.  And at the age 14, and under the circumstances, the latter lesson is a far more valuable one.

It would be a different matter entirely if Evan Cohen’s daughter was being deprived of some fundamental good or, in any case, was being made to endure an enormous setback.  Again, the two-day suspension by the Beverly Hills school hardly seems cruel and unusual punishment for what she did.

I understand very well the point being made by those who defend the 1st Amendment.  In fact, I stand as a staunch supporter of it.  Alas, we should not confuse 1st Amendment rights and the deep political lessons thereunto appertaining with the moral lessons of life that 14-year old children should take from their parents.  To conflate the two is to make a very grave mistake.  Indeed, conflating the two constitutes a remarkable display of foolery.  Evan Cohen should be ashamed of himself.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada made the utterly absurd claim that not voting for the Health Care Bill is tantamount to the acts of racism that were constitutive of American Slavery.  The very suggestion is so outlandish that this remark by Reid ought to have been treated either as an absurd joke or an indication that Reid is mentally deranged.  This would be analogous to the equally ludicrous claim that anyone who is opposed to affirmative action is likewise engaged in the racism that is constitutive of American Slavery.

Here is one straightforward and ever so simple reason why Senator’s Reid’s remarks are simply ludicrous.  If the Health Care Bill is not passed, there are lots and lots and lots people other than blacks people who will be affected by this.  American Slavery, by contrast, was ideologically tied to the enslavement of blacks.  It did not occur to well-off whites that perhaps it might be in their interest to enslave poor whites as well.  And the poorest of whites typically took themselves to be better than any black.

So from the standpoint of comparative analysis, the Health Care Bill and American Slavery are about as analogous as riding a bicycle and travelling a transatlantic jet are.  These two modes of transportation are so different that it is not even clear how anyone could think that engaging in one is anywhere near tantamount to engaging in the other.

A second difference is that whereas there is a very straightforward sense in which American Slavery was wrong and the very intent of slavery was to subjugate human beings, like claims cannot be made regarding those who oppose the kind of universal health care envisaged by the proposed Health Care Bill.  For instance, it can be rightly said that American Slavery exploited individuals.  And, alas, it turns out that one reason why one might oppose the Health Care Bill is that it, too, might exploit individuals.

After all, one very significant problem with the Health Care Bill is that it is rather costly; and while it is very convenient to talk about the government footing the Bill, we seem to conveniently forget that there is no economically independent and viable thing called the government.  Government programs are funded through taxpayers.  Accordingly, we can rightly ask to what extent should taxpayers be burdened on behalf of supporting the needs of others.

Notice the lack of parallel here.  It is unequivocally true that no human being should be enslaved.  It is anything but obvious to what extent taxpayers should be burdened on behalf of supporting the needs of others.  And decent people can disagree without at all being indifferent to the concerns of others.  Indeed, decent wealthy people can disagree with one another and decent poor people can disagree with one another.  And so on.

Regarding the Health Care Bill in particular, it is also the case that tremendously self-respecting blacks can disagree with another.  This simple truth makes Reid’s claim, which is woefully disrespectful of reasonable disagreement, extremely disrespectful of blacks in particular.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am not of the opinion that only blacks can speak to matters pertaining to slavery.  That is a silly view.  Equally silly, though, is the view that voting against a bill is racist in the way that American Slavery was racist when it is manifestly clear that a fully self-respecting black could—as a matter of self-respect even—vote against the bill.

When we have missed the way in which a policy is morally objectionable because it is sexist or racist (against some group or the other), it is extremely important this is pointed out; and it is rather irrelevant who points out.

Just so, it is truly malicious and, therefore, most inappropriate to draw a comparison to an evil practice when in point of fact there is none.  Consider, for instance, someone claiming that if a man gives a woman a grade of “F” in his class on feminism that is tantamount to raping her.  Even if he wrongly gives the woman the grade of “F” that is still a very, very long ways from raping her.  I have made this point because even if there are indeed compelling reasons for voting in favor of the Health Care Bill, these compelling reasons need not have anything to do with avoiding the racism; and they certainly need not having to do with racism that is on the level that was constitutive of the racism of American Slavery.

As I have intimated, I do not that there is any racism at all in being opposed to the Health Care Bill.  But even if I conceded for the sake of argument that there is, the racism at play would not come anywhere close to being akin to the racism of American Slavery.  And it most disturbing that Reid proved himself to be too intellectually bereft to grasp this very, very, very simple truth.

There is what I call the issue of rhetorical plausibility.  And one of the things that I find most disturbing these days is that the bounds of rhetorical plausibility seem to have fallen by the wayside.  Consequently, more harm than good is done.  We make the charge of wrongdoing meaningfulness if we make every wrongdoing akin to rape or the Holocaust or American Slavery.  If all that a member of the KKK or a neo-Nazi group does is steal my $1 pencil, we certainly have a wrong.  But what we do not have a wrong that is comparable to a lynching or to American Slavery or to the Holocaust.

Quite simply, Senator Harry Reid trivialized American Slavery.  And what is truly troubling is the simple truth far too many blacks in America are too besotted with the idea of using the charge of racism for self-advancement to see this most despicable reality.

Talent and moral character have no formal connection at all.  The most talented of individuals can be morally horrendous individuals.  By contrast, those who are quite bereft of talent can be quite morally upright.  And it is this truth, more than any other that the Tiger Woods scandal makes unequivocally clear.  His talent as a golfer is beyond question.  Likewise, Hitler’s talent as an orator was beyond question.  This raises a very interesting question, namely following.  Should we honor people for their talent if they are known to have an unquestionably ignoble character?

Interestingly, there are two ways in which we honor people for their talent.  On the one hand, there is what I call the “formal scores” criterion.  By the “formal scores” criterion anyone who scores a certain amount of points or breaks the record for scoring is honored by, for instance, being inductive into the “Hall of Fame” or whatever.  So we could all agree that Opidopo is a schmuck bet yet is the greatest homerun batter or that Jamilla is likewise a schmuck but the greatest female long distance runner ever.

With the “formal score” criteria, character is formally irrelevant.  No one is a better or worse.  Jamilla has not broken the record for female long distance running any less just because she is a moral scumbag.  Likewise for Opidopo with breaking the batting record.

The Guinness Book of Records is probably the ultimate keeper of successes that satisfy none other than the “formal scores” criterion.  It is all about whoever ate the most or stood the longest or whatever.

The contrast with the “formal scores” criterion is the “substantive contribution” criterion.  It is possible for the “formal scores” criterion and the “substantive contribution” criterion to overlap.  For example, suppose that a most successful runner had been a Polio victim; and through hard work and dent of will she or he overcame that illness and set a new record for running.  Setting the new record is, of course, quite impressive.  No less impressive, however, is overcoming the ravages of Polio.

The Congressional Gold Medal falls in the “substantive contribution” category.  And recently Representative Joe Baca has decided to abandon his efforts to have this honor bestowed upon Tiger Woods.  Some have expressed their objection to Baca’s change of mind on the grounds that the personal mess that Woods has gotten himself into does not change one iota the fact that he remains one of the best golfers in the world—if not, in fact, the best.

Alas, the objection is without merit.  The Congressional Gold Medal is not an honor based upon satisfying a formal criterion.  It is not even an honor for golfing.  It is quintessentially an honor that is tied to the fact the recipient has made an indisputable substantive contribution.  Wikipedia has a list of individuals whom have been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.  Needless to say, it is quite an impressive list.  The baseball player Jackie Robinson is among the recipients of the honor.  Significantly, the reason why Robinson was bestowed the honor points to why Representative Joe Baca is right in no longer pursing the goal of having the honor bestowed upon Woods.

The honor was bestowed upon Robinson because, as a black, he persevered in baseball when blacks were not accepted in the sports.  That is to say, a most crucial factor is that Robinson had displayed a most admirable strength of character.  The success of Tiger Woods in golf is not tied to an analogous strength of character.  Billy Graham and Father Theodore Hesburgh are also among the honorees.  Needless to say, Woods has no chance whatsoever of being in the same moral league as these last two individuals.

Interestingly, the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer is among the honorees of the Congressional Gold Medal.  There is every indication, however, that he was a man of decent moral character, as there are no scandals associated with his name.  Palmer is also a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.  As of yet, I do not see Woods is listed as one of its members.  Just so, I can make perfectly good sense of Woods being inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame tomorrow.  For as they say, Woods has not committed any crime; and I assume that the World Golf Hall of Fame is not limited to saints.

The Congressional Gold Medal, however, is another matter entirely.  For that medal is surely tied to a striking excellence in character.  And to endure in the face of considerable adversity is surely an example of a striking excellence in character.

Woods’ talents as a golfer are entirely beyond dispute.  Painfully, what is also entirely beyond dispute is that he has a most ignoble aspect to this character.  This indisputable latter truth roundly disqualifies him for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The distinction between the “formal scores” and the “substantive contribution” is of the utmost importance.  There is a perfectly good sense in which both types of honors have their place in the world, which is no doubt why the Guinness Book of Records exists.  It suffices to point out, though, that it is not to the Guinness Book of Records that we turn for inspiration and exemplars of excellence.

So, when we turn to the list of Congressional Medal Honorees, it should be an extremely rare instance when all that we can see about a given honoree is that she or he has scored more than any other person playing a particular sport.  And that instance should be a mistake.  In the case of Tiger Woods, there can be no rational at all for making even that mistake.

So if there is any good to come out of the Tiger Woods fiasco it is the simple lesson that in honoring a person the distinction between “formal scores” and “substantive contribution” is an extremely important one.

Stereotypes are none other than a statistical generalization; and a statistical generalization may be warranted or it may be unwarranted.  The following is a statistical generalization that is very much warranted: Most American-born and raised individuals are not bilingual.  Whenever an American-born person shows up in a non-English speaking country, it is assumed that the person does not speak the language of that country.  The stereotype, then, of American-born individuals is that they only speak English.  And guess what: It is true.  The stereotype is true although there are in fact American-born individuals who are bilingual.

So it is just plain nonsense to insist that a stereotype is false simply in virtue of being a stereotype.

Of course, a statistical generalization can be downright false.  Here is one: It is false that particularly frumpy and/or very plain looking people cannot sing.  Needless to say, Susan Boyle and Paul Potts give the lie to that claim.  There is in fact no correlation between singing talent and physical appearances.  What is true, to be sure, is that the music industry does much to beautify its stars—so much so, in fact, that it seems plausible to suppose that some people would not enjoy the success they enjoy in the music industry were it not for their physical attractiveness.

So the automatic assumption that homely people cannot sing is a negative stereotype.  Moreover, unlike the stereotype about American-born individuals not being bilingual, the stereotype that homely people are particularly lacking in singing talent is entirely without warrant.

A negative stereotype can be very much warranted.  A negative stereotype can be entirely unwarranted.

One thing is for certain, though, is that statistical generalizations are here to say.  This is because making such generalizations is a defining feature of being rational.  Suppose for example, that the University of Western Canada has a student body population of 1200 students; and we determine that 60 out of 70 U of WC students quite randomly chosen sing classical music, it becomes pretty reasonable to suppose that singing classical music.  It would certainly be reasonable to suspect that the next U of WC student whom one encounters will also sing classical music.  Indeed, it would be nonsense to insist that it is as likely that the next student whom one encounters does not sing classical music as it is that she or he does sing classical music.

There can be no objection to making warranted statistical generalizations.  The problem is twofold: One problem is that of reacting foolishly when the generalization does not apply.  The other is failing to see the limits of a generalization.

Here is a simple example of the first.  It is overwhelmingly the case that men who braid their hair take themselves to be black or to have black ancestry.  So it is regardless of how light-skin the person is.  Yet, there is nothing that prevents a white male from adopting precisely that hairstyle.  Perhaps he is dating a black woman and wants to impress her.  If, given his head full of braids, we assume that the male is black and he informs us that in fact he is a white male who decided to try out the style, then my view is that we should simply accept the white male at his word and leave the matter at that.  There is no need for any form of hyperbolic reaction.

We could tell an analogous kind of story with a woman who always dresses in male attire.  From my experience, this is a very, very good indication that the woman is a lesbian.  Certainly, the woman could not be offended if anyone thought that.  She need not be a lesbian, however; and if she walks in one day with a man on her arm who she announces is her husband and the father of their 3-children, then precisely what I should do is accept this reality and move on with.  A hyperbolic reaction is out of order.

It is a simple truth that a warranted generalization with regard to a given population is not thereby a universal law.  And it is a sign of maturity on our part to be responsive to this reality.

Let me now turn to the point of seeing the limitations of statistical generalization; and I shall do so in somewhat controversial way.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that it is reasonable for 60-something white women to fear having their purse snatched by black male youth who run away with it.  Well, even if we grant this fear is reasonable, what does not thereby follow is that it is also reasonable for 60-something white women to fear that a 50-something and older black males will snatch their purse and run away with it.  Why?  Because running is not something that men who are 50-something and older do very well, be they black or white or whatever.

In other words, even a warranted fear about black male youth does not thereby extend to all blacks, especially when the fear is based upon the other having a capacity that obviously diminishes sharply with age.

We can offer an analogous case from the other direction.  I do not know many 70-something white women who love rap music.  I do not know any, in fact.  Surely, it is a warranted stereotype that 70-something white women do not like rap music.  In fact, it is a warranted stereotype that 70-something women of any ethnic configuration do not like rap music.  Alas, the assumption of white plays into the stereotype ever so well.  So, if I offered to make a music CD for such an individual and she remarked “Be sure to include a few rap song or two on the CD”, the appropriate response is: “With pleasure”—and not “Oh my God, I can’t believe you like rap music!”

The example of a making a music CD for a 70-something person, be the individual male or female, is a very nice way to end this blog-entry.  In the absence of any clear indication to the contrary, surely the warranted generalization is that rap music is not what I should put on the CD.  This assumption is not at all defeated by the rare exception.

It is a quite warranted stereotype of the 70-something person that her or his taste in music does not include rap music.  Interestingly enough, though, when the 20-something of the present become the 70-something of the future, a very different stereotype may be in place for the 70-something.  It is more than a little amusing to imagine 70-something folks in nursing homes with their head bobbing to rap music.  But that reality may very well be what the present serves up.

When Galileo claimed on behalf of Copernicus that the Earth went around the Sun rather than the other way around, it is perhaps understandable that people greeted that claim with more than a little incredulity.  After all, if the Earth goes around the Sun why exactly were things not bouncing about and why were people not feeling any movement?  Indeed, why were people not feeling so much as even a breeze?  These questions made sense because neither a theory of kinematics nor a theory of gravity was yet in place.  After all, Isaac Newton had not yet been born

By now, most people have heard that there is a very good chance that assertion that global warming is taken place may very well tied to evidence that was rigged.  A brief Google search under the rubric “climategate” will turn up numerous articles regarding the matter.

What is so very sad, of course, is that the claim of global warning should be tied to rigged evidence in science.  Few things can be more disconcerting than the politicizing of science.  This is why I have drawn attention to why Galileo’s claim heliocentric claim was understandably greeted with more than a little skepticism.  It is not simply that the heliocentric view debunked the Earth from being at the center of the solar system.  The more fundamental problem is that making sense of how that actually worked was, at the time, easier said than done.  To be sure, none of this justified the treatment that he received.  Yet, making sense of his claim was, as I have just mentioned, far easier said than done.

But why rig the evidence to in order to yield the conclusion that the Earth soon to be in the grip of global warming?  What could possibly have been the motivation for doing that?  And why was the claim so unreflectively and uncritically embraced by so very many?  I cannot remember when so many have been so persuaded of the truth of a view on the basis of so very little evidence.

I mean why global warming in the linear fashion that people intended it rather than a cycle in the temperatures of the globe?

Now, we can all agree that waste is a bad thing.  It is for that very reason that I have always regarded the Hummer as a most ridiculous vehicle to own.  Leaving aside violence, few things have struck me as more incongruous than someone driving a Hummer in a major metropolitan area.  Even the point of all is to be ostentatious with regard to one’s wealth, it has always seemed to me that there are much better ways to do so.  Frankly, having a chauffeur is much more impressive than driving a Hummer.

However, Al Gore came out with his book to illustrate that global warming was occurring, namely his book An Inconvenient Truth, and it was rather like the scene in the movie The Blues Brothers, where a light from heaven shines: people would talk about climate change with something akin to a religious fervor.  That, indeed, is just the right way of putting the point.  Why?  Because evidence has seemed to be entirely irrelevant to individuals fervently embracing the view of global warming.  Not only that, it was completely irrelevant that the lifestyle of global warming’s most distinguished advocate, namely Al Gore himself, was quite out of step with taking global warming seriously.

There is, of course, a sense in which that is the way things should be if indeed we are talking about an actual truth.  If a person fails to heed or abide by the very truth that she or he announces, then so much the worse for that individual.

The National Center for Policy Analysis has made a very good case against global warming—certainly one that is not obviously addressed by the considerations advanced in favor of global warning.  However, this incongruity seems not to have mattered to the advocates of global warning.

Again, one asks: Why?  What intrigues me is just how much the commitment to global warming has had all the feel of a religious conviction minus the belief in God.  People believed in the idea, talked about the idea, and sanctified the idea.  On the one hand, there are the facts of science; on the other, there is nature—this higher power, if you will—giving human beings an opportunity to make a difference.  Might I say “to redeem themselves”?  For if I ask myself who seems to believe in global warming most fervently, I am inclined to say that the answer is those who reject the idea of God.

Notice the transcendent character of the idea of global warning.  If the idea holds, then idea holds regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion.  The idea unifies across every conceivable difference accept, of course, in the case of those who reject the idea.  And unlike evolutionary theory, global warming has a “moral imperative” that individuals are truly free to follow—and to do so by exercising faith.  Although heat was countenanced as proof par excellence of the occurrence of global warming, the advocates of global warming are not deterred by the absence of heat or even the presence of extreme cold.  For the reality of these things are said merely to speak to the complexity of global warming.

In the words of one person “Global warming means that there will be extremes”.  But if that is the case, I asked: “What is all the fuss about, since won’t the extremes pretty much cancel one another out?”  I was told that I did not understand.  And, alas, the person got that exactly right: I do not understand.

And if the charge of rigging the evidence holds, then there will be a very good reason I have not understood, namely that in the first place the idea was lacking in credibility.