Conservative writer Megan Fox was left sputtering with indignation after learning that a Missouri councilwoman, Kelli Dunaway (D…of course), took her oath of office with her right hand on a Dr. Seuss book. “Just because we’ve done things the way we’ve always done them is no reason to keep doing them that way,” she told ABC News.
Good point! Let’s try taking the oath using a hunk of cheese next time!
The particular children’s classic Dunaway chose for this solemn ritual was “Oh the Places You’ll Go” which, ironically, we recently defended here from the accusation that it was racist.
“One can only hope that choosing to make a mockery out of the serious pledge to protect and defend the Constitution will be the catalyst to take her to a new place in the next election–the private sector…Meanwhile, real satirists over at the “Babylon Bee” are suffering trying to come up with something weirder than this to report. No wonder Snopes can’t quit accusing the Bee of trying to sound like real news. The real news is insane.”
Is it?
Your Ethics Alarms Labor Day Ethics Quiz is…
Is it unethical–disrespectful, irresponsible, dishonest— to take an oath of office on a children’s book?
I think I’ll wait for some responses before I give my answer…but I have one.
Ethics Alarms 
I would say it’s just stupid.
The book doesn’t matter but using a kids book gives the impression of mockery. I would say unethical.
Unethical and grandstanding. Also disrespectful of the office and just plain silly.
The solution is obvious. Unless I’m mistaken, many courts of law administer oaths to be truthful without the symbolism of a book – be it Bible, Torah or Quran. Those inclined to perjure themselves probably weren’t kept from doing so by the presence of a book, so I have a hard time believing the absence of one made a difference in the other direction.
The same premise can – I would argue, should – be used to swear in government officials. One less thing for people to whine about.
Lots of my fellow Christians would complain about that being another example of “taking God out of the country” which is silly, since God isn’t going to be duped by politicians putting their hands on Bibles before jetting of to Pedophile Island or whatever. It’s a meaningless gesture to most of them.
I wonder how many Christians really pay attention to the fact that swearing on the bible or even saying ‘so help me god’ is arguably an unchristian thing to do. It’s been a long time, but https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-christians-swear-on-the-bible seems to present the argument pretty well.
I’d say it’s “whimsical,” or “adorable.” And fully intended to be — note the two kids being used as props. By the way, “whimsical” and “adorable” are two of my least favorite adjectives insofar as they are overused to the point of abuse. If we had an Academie Anglaise we could properly police this sort of thing. Should we let interior designers dominate our language? But I digress. To answer the question, being whimsical or adorable in such a setting is unethical, among many other things.
Unethical. The notion of swearing on a bible derives entirely from the assertion that our legal code transcends the whims of human passion and is anchored on timeless truths. Those timeless truths, for most of modern Western Civ have been, whether moderns like it or not, on an inherited ethical code based on Christian values…hence the aptness of the Bible.
Yet the notion stands…our value sets and legal codes MUST be seen as transcending the current and trendy emotions that grip people. So whatever a person swears on, it should reflect that assertion.
A Dr Seuss book, regardless of any poetic depth it may contain, doesn’t communicate permanence and transcendence.
Michael
I was going to say the book upon which one swears is irrelevant until I read your take. I felt that making a solemn oath should be all that is needed. You made a great point that the book represents something that transcends human beings. That statement made me rethink the entire book issue. Thus, only those tomes that rise to the level of a socially and historically important document should be used. All else would be a mockery of the actual promises being made.
So, one could swear on Atlas Shrugged? 🙂
I think the chances of the councilwoman swearing on *Atlas Shrugged* given her party affiliation are zero. Awful book, but a decent movie.
The only reason the movie is better is because it had one thing Rand did not have: an editor with a sharp pair of scissors and the will to use them.
Agreed. Michael’s point is spot on. The Bible or similar tome reflects the generational values of a society. While Dr. Seuss is wonderful work, using anyone of his books for a solemn oath merely shows silliness, cynicism, and infantile reasoning.
jvb
It is unethical because it detracts from the seriousness of the taking of the oath. If you don’t want to swear on a holy book, fine, do it without one, but an official’s swearing-in is not a suitable occasion for mockery,
Is it unethical – disrespectful, irresponsible, dishonest — to take an oath of office on a children’s book?
It shows a unique combination of estupideces which is sadly more and more common among citizens who race to the bottom of the intelligence-barrel trying to outdo each other.
Primarily, it turns the idea behind the giving of an oath into absurdity. To swear an oath on a children’s book is the same as swearing no oath at all. And the meaning that underpins this nonsense is that oaths are meaningless.
At one time to take an oath meant that one put one’s immortal soul on the line. In an old Swedish story a pregnant girl takes the father of the unborn to court in order that he assume responsibility. At a point he is asked to take an oath that he is not the father. The girls stops him and the proceeding and does not wish to go further because she had placed him in a position of endangering his immortal soul by lying. And that ‘oath’ could only have been made to God and the creator.
In a largely absurd and most certainly in a perverted, twisted culture of America today (and diseases given life here begin to spread elsewhere through America’s cultural hegemony), it is symptomatic of having significantly gone off the rails.
Is it ‘unethical’? First one has to establish that ethics in the absence of moral understructure are not really ‘ethics’ as classically defined. They are rules and perhaps ‘laws’ and also possibly ‘conventions’: like the way your mother folded a table napkin in contrast to the way you do it.
In the context of an absurd present it is not unethical. It fits right in with a generally twisted and sickened culture. To ask if it is ‘ethical’ or not is an absurd question, about an absurd action.
Disrespectful? To whom? To what? An oath is a juramento to a metaphysical principle or to a metaphysical entity. There was never a time — till recently — that this was not understood. Except now. Therefore, how would the absurd action of non-swearing of a non-oath on a not-important children’s book offend anyone at all? The action itself is mired in the absurdity that it established. As its own medium it is its own message.
It is just a game at that point.
Now, should thinking people be concerned that things have come to this point? That many no longer have the mental, philosophical or spiritual equipment to be able to understand and appreciate what an oath is? That all oaths have been rendered absurd and invalid when as a culture the metaphysical element standing behind them is not considered *real*?
A non-absurd conversation might begin from this point . . . and would take into consideration many different factors that have led to this present configuration of circumstances!
Dumb, and showing she thinks nothing of the office. There is no requirement to use a holy book of any kind when you are sworn into office, in fact atheistic officeholders will sometimes use the Constitution instead. You can use no book at all, and you are also allowed to use an affirmation rather than an oath if you have religious scruples against swearing an oath. But a Dr. Seuss kids’ book? Are you kidding me?
Of course it’s unethical. Swearing on a book is meant to be an extended method of accountability. You swear upon something that you hold sacred and in doing so show the public that you are serious in your oath. If youre not christian it need not be a bible – muslims can use the koran and jews can use the torah. If youre not religious it need not even be a holy book – swearing upon the constitution could suffice. Swearing on a children’s book is both a needless attack on the tradition of swearing on the bible (and indirectly an attack on the christian values that undergird this great nation*) and the denial of an opportunity to show the public your seriousness and commitment to your oaths. It’s embarrassing how little this public servant understands about public trust and faith in traditions.
*I say that as a non-christian. The good that christianity has done for the world at large and America in particular is as undeniable as the evil it’s done – even then it’s clear that the good outweighs the bad and that the core christian values are better than most (arguably all) religions at promoting the kind of large scale and serious self reflection and accountability that allows a people to move step by agonizing generational step out of ignorance and evil into enlightenment. For that, christianity deserves our society’s respect even as I say that it’s not the way forward anymore. I’d still probably swear on the bible and call it fair.
Back in the early years of the 20th century, in Europe, there spontaneously arose a powerful pagan revival movement that must be understood as counter-Christian and anti-Christian. CG Jung, though he is now seen as a Wise Old Man and is venerated in a similar way to Nelson Mandela (who should not be seen as a venerable figure necessarily), paved the psychic way to the cultural embodiment of what I suppose must be termed neo-Nietzscheanism. Nietzsche certainly spelled it out in acute detail. I never realized how profoundly influenced by Nietzsche was CG Jung until recently.
To make a looonnnggg story short Jung et al brought out a kind of new god: Abraxas. I mean of course a new god-concept.
Abraxas is the god of everything in the sense of ‘what is’. And what is is a mixture of light and dark, of creation and destruction, of good and evil essentially. The idea is not complex and, for those who have read Nietzsche, and also Jung, not unintelligible at all. We have both god and devil in us and we are, profoundly, implicated and as I often say ‘complicit’ in both good and evil. We live within structures that this strange god of light and dark has created. Even a superficial appreciation of Nietzsche shows a man who went right to the core of the problematic issues of our actual life and our actual understanding of ourselves.
The more that we realize our situation — the more that it dawns on us — the more we are forced to see that life is a Unity and not a duality — and that therefore a dual god cannot be *the god of all things* nor of the All. For that reason the Christian god has been reduced to a ‘demiurge’: an imperfect representation. The implication in Jungian Nietzscheanism was that a radically new way of understanding God was coming on the scene. Indeed it was . . . and has.
Again, to make a long story short, the ideas of Jung were deeply transmitted into American culture right around the time of the first WW. The people who imbibed these notions were the upper intellectual crust of society and through them they were disseminated. A radically different way to understand ‘being’ in life and in this world has, I say this honestly and without exaggeration, come into the world. It infuses us all, profoundly. It has without a doubt penetrated American culture extremely profoundly.
Red Pill Ethics wrote:
Tricky! You are really pretty tricky! 🙂 What I mean is that you are making a rather grand statement about this ‘enlightenment’ that you refer to as if it is a given, but it definitely is not. We are not in a lightening cycle but rather a darkening cycle.
That is the entire problem: we have lost the ground that enables us to define ‘enlightenment’ and so what we offer are contrived and cobbled-together phantasies about what this ‘enlightenment’ is or should be. And you also say something that is rather stunningly unfounded: that the generation following the present one represents an improvement on the last one! and that there is in any sense of the word ‘agonizing generational steps’ that are made. That is a sentimental injection of hopefulness. It is not grounded in fact nor in truth.
What new metaphysics bring this ‘enlightenment’ into existence? There is none, and no such thing (as yet).
I know that this idea veers into territory that makes many here unCoMfOrtAbLe, but I suggest that if there is a ‘god’ of America today it is in some notable senses an Abraxan god. In no sense could it be said to worship nor recognize the Christian God defined through traditional Catholicism for example.
The god of American culture is a Nietzschen god, or rather gods in a resurgent pagan pantheon. There. You heard it first on EA!
Sorry. These seem like random, even disconnected thoughts. They aren’t really, if one has as one’s goal understanding *what is going on in our present*. I am beginning to resent that you-plural put all the weight on me. But so-be-it. I accept!
An article that I found that explores Jung’s interest and relationship with Nietzschen concepts of God. It was complex and evolving: https://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/e-zine-issue-3-fall-2012/jungs-reception-of-friedrich-nietzsche-a-roadmap-for-the-uninitiated-by-dr-ritske-rensma/
Interesting. I read it. Thank you.
Unethical. The Missouri Democrat councilwoman’s use of a children’s book while being administered her oath of office is simply a deliberate mockery – of her new office, of the tradition of gravitas in the act of initially taking responsibility for such an office, and of the reasonable expectations of all others that she would take such an office with an unwaivering sense of responsibility to serve more than just herself. As a result, I could not trust her so much as to notarize a document for me. Otherwise, I find a lot to agree with in what Arthur in Maine and Alizia said.
It is not unethical… It is Evidence.
* Evidence that she cannot be trusted to carry out her duties responsibly, since she refuses to see her oath as sacred and significant.
* Evidence that her values are centered around her own whims, rather than the values of the public.
* Evidence that she sees narcissistic, attention-grabbing displays as acceptable behavior and deliberately flouts tradition and decorum.
* Evidence that she should be watched closely and thrown out of office as soon as she shows other such behavior.
That woman’s decision did the public a favor by demonstrating the deep flaws in her personality before they led to real problems. Her associates should thank her sometime before they escort her out of her office as an ex-councilwoman.
I think I fall out more towards James than anyone else.
If, like some people above suggested, being sworn in to office is a religious ceremony, that it is supposed to “transcend” humanity, or otherwise represent gaps in the law that only God can fill, then it is a relic of a bygone era, violates the separation of church and state, and needs to be done away with. Which is true of anything in government you can’t make a secular argument for: Do we have laws against murder because “Thou Shall Not” or do we have laws against murder because it interferes with “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit”, and it happens to line up with “Thou shall Not”?
I’ve always seen oaths of office as a promise, and the laying of hands on things has always hit me as strange. Is a lie a worse lie when it’s placed on a Bible? Do you go to double-hell? What if you don’t believe in that God? What’s the secular equivalent? A code of laws? Do you go to double-law-hell?
No, I think that perhaps it says something more about the person making the oath than the oath itself. You’re supposed to swear on something meaningful, perhaps to show earnestness, perhaps to signal a community you belong to, that might hold you accountable past what the law can do. What does your book say about you? “I’m a Christian” for the bible, “I’m a Muslim” for the Quran, “I like punishing myself with Godawfully dry literature, and I’m a Libertarian” for Atlas Shrugged, and “I’m a fucking idiot” for a Doctor Suess book.
unethical grandstanding, I agree that the oath does not have to be the bible, but it should be something that symbolizes to her (and is plausible to her constituents and the public at large) that she intends to be accountable to a higher standard and some permanent things are worth pledging her sacred honor to. Before the digital age, books were the symbol for lasting wisdom, so oaths were pledging allegiance to that trope. Oath are vows, dedication, and commitment to another or truth and justice in a hostile world.
While children’s books often hold timeless truths, most inhabit simplified worlds that rarely include important duties and responsibilities as oaths cover. Oaths have no common impetus with a green-grey sourpuss at Christmas. Oh the places you go is truly disjoint from the intent of any oath as it is encouraging self development and exploration, self over fellow travelers. This may be the worst possible Seuss book. It’s a symbolic bait and switch, first as a comic children’s book showing she doesn’t take oaths seriously, and second for choosing one about doing your own thing.
If someone was dedicated to the ethical and cultural intent of the Bible, the Quan, or even The Grand Sophy or Atlas Shrugged, I can respect that. But they must be able to explain and defend why that book is important to them and how it guides them a kinder and more virtuous person. With the kids posing (somewhere the image got flipped left to right) this showed multiple things that should not be in an oath-taking ceremony: 1) signaling to her kids to use their favorite book was more important than signalling to her constituents her seriousness in doing her job. 2) progressive signaling that she’s so hostile to traditional values she would not even pretend to value a book that a majority respect and 3) signaling to the court officers that she sees taking the oath to serve all her constituents- not just her tribe, is not even as important as a playdate.
I don’t even think she really respects the kids, this is to make her appear a good person instead of just skipping the grandstanding and being one. Cute like this is for personal oaths, this was a fail at a public oath.
There is a Law & Order episode where one of the detectives backs a suspect into a corner — he tells him that if he can swear on a bible he was innocent, the detective will believe him. Well, of course he wasn’t able to do so but it illustrates the historic significance of swearing on a holy book. The thought is that God is watching you when you get His attention by using His book.
Our constitution requires that you take an oath by swearing or affirming — you are taking an oath and you do it on the basis of something that has solemn meaning to you.
Dr. Seuss? No, unethical. The fact that this was a legendary author doesn’t make it a sacred text.
Or if it does — well, that is signature significance for someone swearing to serve the public.
Disrespectful If she did’t see this behavior different, in any meaningful way, from swearing on a piece of used toilet tissue, or wearing a clown suit and rubber nose to the ceremony, then she’s an imbecile (or perhaps just a Kardashian groupie, if that’s any different).
Amoral Rather than unethical, it seems to indicate that she has nothing in her life that she can identify as worthy of acting as a metaphorical bond for the words falling out of her mouth. if that’s the case, maybe she would be unethical to swear on something that might falsely give the impression to others that she actually has standards.
Oh, and forgot to add, obviously White Nationalist for using that particular Seuss book.
The book someone places their hand on during an oath is irrelevant, it’s the words if the oath that’s important.
It’s too bad that so many don’t give a damn about the words if their oath the moment they are done reciting it.
A “man’s” word and a handshake is an oath and it requires absolutely no book and I take it just as seriously.
I think this is mostly true.
but in the instant case, it’s unethical because it’s pure grandstanding, attempting to make a statement rather than making a serious promise to fulfill the duties of the office.
“Swearing on a Bible” came over from England and was a U.S. tradition since before the founding. The founding generation, generally, considered the Constitution and laws of the United States to be based on natural law and objective Truth established by God. They also were NOT vague about which God or which holy book their political philosophy was based on. (It should be noted that taking an oath is technically prohibited by Jesus, who taught that a person’s ordinary speech should be honest enough, and that “swearing on X” was pointless. I think one president (Pierce?) used “affirm” instead of “swear” at his inauguration for this reason.)
Although they were tolerant and protective of the rights of religious minorities to practice their own faiths (or none at all) with freedom, there was no realistic concern that Christianity would cease to be the common cultural foundation any time soon. Now, we’re there, and it’s time to manage the decline. The logical thing would be to require officials to either swear/affirm on the Bible or on the Constitution, since the entire point is to ensure fealty to American principles of justice. The Constitution proceeds from the Bible, so either would suffice. (It makes NO sense for an American official to swear on a Quran, for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that according to the principles of the Quran, an oath made to uphold the American Constitution would be of no effect anyway, but I think getting the general populace to understand all of that would be an impossible chore at this point, so it’s a lost cause and pointless.)
The principle that “inalienable rights” belong to the people naturally, and that government does not grant them and should not infringe upon them, is senseless without faith in a purposeful Creator. Animals do not believe in one another’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, or property. Neither does the evolutionary process care about these things. The only reason we have a Constitution that protects human rights is because humans believe in rights, and the reason humans believe in rights is because they assumed a Creator who distinguishes between right and wrong. At the present we are in a bizarre suspended state in which we teach and affirm that rights, values, ethics, and truth are not real things, while at the same time living as though they ARE real things, and continuing to live under institutions that were set up under the old values.
Eventually the bill is going to come due on this. A population that does not believe in a Creator who endows them with rights is going to instinctively consider “rights” to be something granted by the State. The intermediate generations- the “let’s keep acting like objectivists even though we don’t believe it” crowd- are not going to hold the line. The idea that you can have natural, invisible “rights” not granted by the government is going to be considered a fringe, hillbilly ideology for backwards religious types.
This conversation is going to happen millions of times:
“Why can’t I kill someone who’s a stupid waste of space?”
“Because it’s illegal and you’ll get in trouble.”
“What if I don’t care about that?”
“Well, it’s wrong to kill people.”
“Says who, God? You’ve been actively teaching me that God isn’t real since first grade.”
“Um, no, not God then…it’s a social consensus.”
“That’s a logical fallacy. Argumentum ad populum.”
“Umm….look, here’s a big pile of Prozac.”
Repeat indefinitely until every average high school kid’s journal reads like a mass shooter manifesto.
In the meantime…I say make everyone swear on the Constitution or their preferred holy book. If trolls are going to try to undermine religion and make a big stink about trying to swear on Dr. Seuss or Satanic Bibles or whatever, well, that’s why we can’t have nice things anymore. We’ll just have to go to Constitutions only. There’s nothing solemnizing about putting your hand on any random book.
You’ve certainly gotten to the essence of The Problem here:
Well now… there’s a COTD if I’ve ever seen one…
Great comment! Kudos!
The only way this is justified is if the woman standing in front of Ms. Dunaway administering the oath was a Star-Bellied Sneetch.
–Dwayne
Well, there wasn’t much disagreement on THAT quiz, was there? I’m glad it wasn’t a poll.
An oath has legal consequences, and swearing on a holy book is meant to signify that the oath-taker regards breaching the oath as a virtual sin, something wrong and shameful, demonstrating an absence of integrity and values. Hence we have people swearing on their mother’s grave, or on the lives of their children. But you have to feel strongly about something and believe it is sacred—or at least surprisingly important–for taking an oath on it to be meaningful and to enhance the oath. Moreover, as a public official, the thing one places one’s hand on should also be something the public, and the community, regards as important and symbolic of serious intent and core values. Maybe the latter is more important than its significance to the oath-taker. I’m inclined to believe it is.
Thus, no matter how you look at it, using a Dr. Seuss book for this symbolic act is dim-bulb grandstanding, and deserving of contempt.It shows ignorance of the ritual of oath-taking, and disrespect for the community and its values, no matter how much she personally reveres the book involved. The Constitution or the Declaration are appropriate stand-ins for religious texts for the faithless. Using any other books—The Cat in the Hat, Lonesome Dove, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Treasure Island, as Humble says, sends the message, “I’m a fucking idiot.” Oath or not, this should not be reassuring to the community.
What about the Principia Discordia? The Book of Mormon? The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
It is at least possible that the principles espoused in the Dr Seuss book are important to not just the incoming Councellor, but the local community at large.
Looking at the St. Louis County election results I see she won with 59% of the vote in an election in which less than 10% of eligible voters bothered to turn out.