“The Ethicist,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, was oh so sensitive answering this query from a concerned parent:
….I have just found out that my [college age] son is a “model” on a pornographic streaming service. My initial reaction was shock, revulsion and shame. But the longer I think about it, the more I wonder, is there really anything immoral or otherwise wrong about what he is doing? He does it from the privacy of his home, alone, and seems to earn a substantial amount of money. If he likes what he does, is there any reason on my part to feel alarmed, ashamed, guilty or worried?
The NYU philosophy prof essentially says that nobody is being hurt by the son’s activities, so they cannot be called “wrong.” He then explains, as I cut through the verbiage…
“If we agree that your son’s camming isn’t wrong, what explains your initial sense ofrevulsion? Part of your response might arise from the familiar intrafamilial squeamishness about sexual disclosures. That response, then, may have been connected not with what he was doing but with you, as his parent, knowing about it….you can also have prudential concerns. How would his prospects be affected if word got out about his webcam gig?Livestreams can be recorded and uploaded. Even if you think that erotic livestreaming is neither wrong nor shameful, it’s natural, as a parent, to worry about how others might react…There’s nothing hypocritical about compartmentalizing a cam gig. Pretty much all cultures — and subcultures — have ideas about modesty, privacy and discretion, and so understandings about the contexts where erotic display or simply nudity is appropriate.”
The Julie Principle comes into play when an undesirable or annoying characteristic or behavior pattern in a person or organization appears to be hard-wired and part of their essence. In judging such a person or entity, it is useful to keep the lyrics of Julie’s song from “Show Boat” (“Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man O’ Mine,” lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein Jr., music by Jerome Kern) firmly in mind, when she sings…
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…I’ve gotta love that man til I dieCan’t help lovin’ that man of mine!
It comes into play when one is tempted to keep criticizing and calling attention to such individuals or organizations behaving in the same unethical way they always do when there is no chance, literally none, that they will, or will even want to, change their habits. Beneficiaries of the Julie Principle on Ethics Alarms in recent years have included Kamala Harris, who always babbles semi-incoherently, White House paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre, who is forever incompetent, New York Times anti-white bigot and Trump Derangement victim Charles M. Blow, and PETA, which is reliably ridiculous.
It is true that Donald Trump will always get the benefit of The Julie Principle here in one area: his characteristic oblique and stream of consciousness manner of communicating. However, as recent outbursts have vividly illustrated, he cannot be julied—yes, I just invented a verb—when he (relatively) clearly states his intentions, beliefs, or versions of reality. Attention must be paid.
A recent feature in the intermittently cretinous New York Magazine feature “The Intelligencer” by the thing’s demonstrably inept editor Margaret Hartman illustrates the problem. Here are what she ranked as “8 Awful Things Trump Said in Iowa.”
At one rally, Trump said, riffing on U.S. aircraft carrier technology, “Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” I can’t let that kind of ignorance go. That’s signature significance for someone who has inexcusable gaps in his basic knowledge, and who therefore cannot be trusted to make responsible and competent decisions. It also suggests the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Trump is ignorant and doesn’t know he’s ignorant, or he would not be broadcasting his ignorance in public.
In contrast, this quote: “First they say, ‘Sir, how do you do it? How do you wake up in the morning and put on your pants?’ And I say, ‘Well, I don’t think about it too much.’ I don’t want to think about it because if I think about it too much maybe I won’t want to do it, but I love it because we’re going to do something for this country that’s never been done before” is pure Trump Derangement fodder. He’s kidding around, but the dedicated “Get Trump!” bashers can’t resist treating such Trumpian flights of fancy as important. This is an example of why Trump critics are so biased that they can’t be trusted.
Hartman writes, “Trump claimed [the Civil War] — much like the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Hamas war — could have been avoided entirely if we had a master dealmaker like him in the White House back in 1861.” Trump has opined thus before. It is mandatory left-wing cant that to even suggest that the Civil War could have or should have been avoided is evidence of racism, so naturally Hartman pounced. Trump is certainly dead wrong that Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War without just letting the Confederate states leave the Union, but the position that more competent Presidents than Lincoln’s immediate predecessors Pierce and Buchanan (both in the finals of the Ethics Alarms “Worst President” competition) might have been able to come up with a compromise that eased slavery out without a disastrous war is held by a small group of historians. It’s not an “awful” thing to say.
#5 on Hartman’s list is so bizarre that it qualifies as another example of her own Trump Derangement. Read it yourself. Apparently it’s “awful” that Trump objected to a Ron DeSantis campaign ad. This is so dumb that I don’t need the Julie Principle to ignore it. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” works just fine.
Trump did nasty imitations of Biden, his speech issues and his confusion. Verdict:Pure Julie Principle. Hartman finds this disgusting and so do I, but that’s who this guy is, and anyone paying attention knows it. It’s not worth reporting or complaining about at this point.
Trump again mocked the late Senator John McCain’s physical disabilities while condemning his decisive vote that killed the attempted Obamacare repeal. That’s not Julie Principle stuff, that’s insanity. It broadcasts Trump’s flat, indeed declining, learning curve, and shows that a man who wants to be President is obsessed with grudges and revenge, which is scary. Trump’s attacks on McCain when the ex-prisoner of war was alive cost him support from many veterans. Mocking him now again is beneath what even I thought Trump was capable of. No Julie here.
“He glorified January 6 insurrectionists” writes Hartman.Anyone who calls the rioters “insurrectionists” forfeits the right to be taken seriously or trusted. Trump said they are being persecuted, which is true. He called the Biden-enabled stampede of illegals at the border an insurrection, which is sloppy hyperbole, but that’s typical Trump, and Julie Principle all the way.
The worst of Trump’s “awful things,” according to “The Intelligencer” was that when he touched on the recent school shooting in Iowa, he said,
“I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa.It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
That’s Trump, through and through. It’s not Julie Principle territory, though. It’s worth pondering. He is right, after all, in the sense that these tragedies cannot be allowed to get in the way of facing immediate long term problems. This is a competent military leader’s attitude, as well as a typical CEO’s. Our current reaction as a culture is to turn particularly horrible tragedies into opportunities to appeal to emotion and signal our virtue: Trump doesn’t do virtue-signalling, and I regard that as one of his strengths much of the time. On the other side of the matter, effective leaders have to know when to play mourner -in-chief. This instance show that Trump can’t perform that function: if he had to announce the Challenger disaster as President, he would have said, “This is a terrible tragedy, but we can’t let it slow down our space exploration,” instead of quoting “High Flight,” as Ronald Reagan did. This is useful intelligence regarding Trump. Verdict: No Julie Principle pass.
The final tally: only three of Hartman’s “eight awful things” are worthy of special attention, and escape the Julie Principle’s pass.
***
A diversion: In that video clip from the MGM “Showboat,” Ava Gardner as Julie is being dubbed by singer Annette Warner, who was not credited. This was back in the day when studios dubbed actors routinely if they weren’t primarily singers; today, the pendulum has swung completely, so the voices of non-singers like Russell Crowe (in “Les Miserables”) are inflicted on audiences. The dubbing of “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine” was particularly unfair, for Gardner could sing, and worked hard on the song. She didn’t know until she say the movie that Warner had taken over her vocals.
Warren, I discovered researching the story, was still performing as recently as 2017, and is apparently still with us at the age of 101. Ava Gardner, born in the same year, has been dead for 33 years.
Actress Gillian Anderson of “X Files” fame caused a stir at last night’s Golden Globe awards by wearing a dress decorated with meticulously embroidered vaginas. They were impossible to see on TV since they were the same color as the dress (thank goodness for that) but see? Look closely now…
Vaginas. Though she later said they were “peonies,” Anderson told several reporters that her dress was embroidered with vaginas. Why? “For so many reasons. It’s brand-appropriate,” Anderson explained cryptically.
What is this? A feminist statement, like the infamous “pussy hats”? A diabolical insult to the Golden Globes? If an obscene design can only be detected up close and with the aid of hints, does that make it less obscene? Would a male tux with almost invisible embroidered black penises in the fabric be considered appropriate formal wear? How about nearly invisible embroidery showing various graphic sex acts? What if the designs reveal to the sharp-of-eye acts of pederasty? What if Gillian dress had “Fuck you!” beautifully embroidered on it? Is a vulgar design at a public event not vulgar if nobody notices it? Has polite society vanished so completely that a stunt like this is considered acceptable? Social media apparently loved it.
“I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagan suggested it because we didn’t have the technology. We do have the technology now, and we’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from a hostile source. And I think it’s a great thing, and it’s going to all be made in the United States, and that’s something that I consider productive. You know, when I watch, uh, our guys operate those things, it’s unbelievable. Missile coming in, missile coming in. These geniuses sit down. Most of them are, you know, they’re from MIT. But they sit down, bing! bing! bing! bing! boom! ph-sheee! It’s gone, it’s amazing! I think we could use…do you like that? I mean, isn’t that better than giving other countries billions of dollars? Billions! We’re going to get billions of dollars out of the country and so they can build a dome, but we don’t have a dome ourselves! We’re going to have the greatest dome ever!”
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day goes like this…
Is it responsible to vote for someone who talks like this the power of the American Presidency?
…because, to be brutally frank, I’d have hesitated to vote for a student candidate for president of the 8th grade in junior high who gave a speech like that. Wouldn’t you? It bothers me that Trump would say all that, it bothers me that he thinks it’s going to win votes by saying it, it bothers me that he obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and it bothers me that he has such a low opinion of the American public.
In a recent essay, Victor David Hanson concisely summarizes why the Left’s angry narrative that Claudine Gay was forced out as Harvard’s president because of racial discrimination is untenable and self-damning. He wrote in part,
…In the respective press releases from both Gay and the Harvard Corporation, racial animus was cited as a reason for her removal. Gay did not even refer to her failure to stop antisemitism on her campus or her own record of blatant plagiarism. Yet playing the race card reflects poorly on both and for a variety of reasons. One, Gay’s meager publication record — a mere eleven articles without a single published book of her own — had somehow earned her a prior Harvard full professorship and presidency. Such a thin resume leading to academic stardom is unprecedented.
Two, the University of Pennsylvania forced the resignation of its president, Liz Magill. She sat next to Gay during that now-infamous congressional hearing in which they both claimed they were unable to discipline blatant antisemitism on their campuses. Instead, both pleaded “free speech” and “context” considerations.
Such excuses were blatantly amoral and untrue. In truth, ivy-league campuses routinely sanction, punish, or remove staff, faculty, or students deemed culpable for speech or behavior deemed hurtful to protected minorities — except apparently white males and Jews. Yet Magill was immediately forced to resign, and Gay was not. Also noteworthy was Magill’s far more impressive and extensive administrative experience, along with a more prestigious scholarship that was free of even a suggestion of plagiarism.
Academia’s immediate firing of a white woman while trying desperately to save the career of a less qualified and ethically challenged Black woman will be seen not as a case of racial bias but more likely of racial preference.
And yet one after another of the prominent pundits, journalists and commentators immediately worked hard to spread the “Gay was a victim of systemic racism” narrative. In so doing, they discredited themselves and the ideology that warps their judgment and ethics.
Presidential candidate Cornel West, a former Harvard professor, wrote, “How sad but predictable that the same figures and forces enabling the ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza – Ackman, Blum, Summers and others – push out the first Black woman president of Harvard! This racism against both Palestinians and Black people is undeniable and despicable! I have experienced similar attacks from the same forces in academia with too many of my colleagues remaining silent! When big money dictates university policy and raw power dictates foreign policy, the moral bankruptcy of American education and democracy looms large! But we shall remain strong in our fight for Truth Justice Love!”
Al Sharpton told his MSNBC audience that the Harvard president’s resignation is an “attack” on “every Black woman” in US.
Mara Gay, one of several NYT’s race-baiters, told MSNBC that”This is really an attack on academic freedom … This is an attack on diversity. This is an attack on multiculturalism, & … I don’t have to say that they’re racist, because you can hear and see the racism in the attacks”
Fernandes Anderson was instructed by both City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and the city’s law department to retake the oath, both verbally and in writing. The do-over was supposed to take place at 9 a.m. today, but though City Clerk Alex Geourntas arrived to swear in, she wasn’t there. The District 7 councilor’s staff told Geourntas at around 11 a.m., and again shortly before 1 p.m. that she was on her way, but Fernandes Anderson eventually called in at 3:15 p.m. to say she wouldn’t make it.
The worst part of writing a daily ethics commentary blog arrives when a juggernaut ethics train wreck starts causing carnage in all directions. Following the story is critical to the mission here, but doing it thoroughly makes Ethics Alarms less interesting, more predictable, and boring both for me and the readers. Examples of this phenomenon are, unfortunately, numerous. I’m sick of writing about Donald Trump’s miserable habits and rhetoric. I’m sick of writing about the Left dividing the nation, wrecking democracy, and crushing institutions to try to avoid having to defeat him fairly. I got thoroughly sick of writing about a dumb, corrupt, arrogant Democratic Representative who pulled a fire alarm like a 13-year-old to disrupt a House vote, and who should have been harshly punished for it…but was allowed to get away with an obvious lie. Etcetera: the mainstream media bias that so many progressives refuse to admit…the George Floyd Freakout…the DEI scam….the January 6 narrative….you can list them as easily as I can.
And I am really sick of writing about Harvard’s unethical culture, but having to watch and write about the Claudine Gay scandal is the worst yet. This story should have been quickly resolved, allowing Ethics Alarms to concentrate on more legitimately contentious matters. The facts aren’t in dispute, or shouldn’t be, embarrassing though they may be: [Added: I’ll get around to placing links to the corresponding EA posts, I hope, when I have time. You can also find them by searching for “Claudine Gay,” Harvard,” or by clicking on the “Claudine Gay” tag after the post.]
I was prepared to write a sympathetic and generous post in response to the resignation of Claudine Gay from the presidency of Harvard University. It must be a crushing blow for her, both personally and professionally. At this moment, I can’t think of a fair analogy from the past in any field: the closest I can come is Richard Nixon’s forced resignation from the American Presidency. She was celebrated as a great trailblazer as the first black and first black female president of the world’s most famous university only a few months ago. Her fall was rapid and ugly.
I an not sympathetic any more, however. Her Unethical Quote of the Month is her resignation letter, which you can read here. It is disgraceful. She never alludes to her failure to adequately address the anti-Semitic and pro-terrorism demonstrations on the Harvard campus. She never mentions her plagiarism in multiple scholarly papers, without which she probably could have survived the criticism arising from her inept testimony in Congress. What she says, in the midst of empty rhetoric about her aspirations and how much she cares about Harvard, is this:
“[I]t has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
Breaking! Minutes after I posted this, the Harvard Crimson announced that Harvard president Claudine Gay is resigning.
Harvard’s daily campus newspaper, the venerable Harvard Crimson, currently has two editorials and one student op-ed up regarding the President Claudine Gay scandal, aka The Harvard President Ethics Train Wreck, in which the new president, the first black and only the second woman ever to hold the post, faces duel crises of confidence regarding her leadership. The first is her stuttering and inadequate response to anti-Jewish demonstrations on campus, low-lighted by her evasive and cringe-worthy testimony before Congress. The second is the subsequent revelation that Gay engaged in plagiarism in multiple scholarly works to a degree that would get her school’s students sanctioned.
The NFL’s Carolina Panthers owner was videoed as he threw a drink at a fan or fans in the stands beneath his box near the end of his team’s latest loss, a 26-0 wipe-out to the Jacksonville Jaguars. There’s no audio in the video, which was posted on Instagram, so we don’t know (yet) what the provocation was, but it doesn’t matter. Dousing a fan with a drink will get usually get the drink-tosser escorted out of any stadium or arena—I’ve seen it, more than once. For an NFL owner to do it to a fan, well, this mandates a Costanza:
Ethics Alarms 