Ethics Dunces

The NYT Tries To Create Sympathy For An Unsympathetic Jerk And Paints a Fresh Target On His Back

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Is this New York Times piece deliberately making the situation it is reporting on worse, or is the writer (Brendan Kuty) just as clueless as his subject?

Baseball’s Spring Training is rapidly approaching, and so are media stories reminding us that it’s on the way. Today The Athletic, the sports publication that the New York Times owns and operates instead of its own sport page, ran a follow-up to the memorable (in a bad way) incident above that I wrote about here right after it occurred, during the World Series Two asshole Yankee fans (but I repeat myself—see? I’m getting ready for the season too!) nearly ripped Dodger outfielder Mookie Betts’ hand off trying to pry a foul pop out of his glove.

Interference was called, the Yankee batter (Gleyber Torres) was called out, and the two idiots were ejected from the game. For some reason it took Major League Baseball months to decide to ban the two from all ballparks for life, but that was ultimately the decision.

But The Athletic decided that it was time to try to make us feel sorry for Austin Capobianco, the jerk on the left in that photo whose name I had mercifully forgotten. We are told that he received a lot of mean phone calls, hate mail and mean messages on social media. Well, that’s what happens when you behave outrageously on national television and nearly hurt someone. An anonymous hater sent a box of poop to his home. Ew! and unethical, but there are a lot of crazy people out there (just look at yesterday’s protest against Elon Musk).

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Cognitive Dissonance Scale Lesson For Senate Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I have mentioned here frequently that one of two things I learned in college that have been most useful in my life and career is Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Scale. The concept illustrated by the scale is also one of the most useful tools for ethical analysis, often essential to answering the question, “What’s going on here?” the entry point to many perplexing situations. Check the tag: it just took me 15 minutes to scroll though the posts that got it. I was surprised to find that I didn’t use the tag until 2014, when the scale helped me conclude that the Tea Party, then in ascendancy, was “doomed by a powerful phenomenon it obviously doesn’t understand: Cognitive Dissonance.” Heard much about the Tea Party lately? See, I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says… I wrote then,

As psychologist Leon Festinger showed a half a century ago, we form our likes, dislikes, opinions and beliefs to a great extent based on our subconscious reactions to who and what they are connected with and associated to. This is, to a considerable extent, why leaders and celebrities are such powerful influences on society. It explains why we tend to adopt the values of our parents, and it largely explains many marketing and advertising techniques that manipulate our desires and preferences. Simply put, if someone we admire adopts a position or endorses a product, person or idea, he or she will naturally raise it in our estimation. If however, that position, product, person or idea is already extremely low in our esteem, even though his endorsement might raise it, even substantially, his own status will suffer, and fall. He will slide down the admiration scale, even if that which he endorses rises. If what the individual endorses is sufficiently deplored, it might even wipe out his positive standing entirely.

The implications of this phenomenon are many and varied, and sometimes complex. If a popular and admired politician espouses a policy, many will assume the policy is wise simply because he supports it. If an unpopular fool then argues passionately for the same policy, Festinger’s theory tells us, it might..

1. Raise the fool’s popularity, if the policy is sufficiently popular.

2. Lower support for the policy, if he is sufficiently reviled, and even

3. Lower the popularity of the admired politician, who will suffer for being associated with an idea that had been embraced by a despised dolt.

This subconscious shifting, said Festinger, goes on constantly, effecting everything from what movies we like to the clothes we wear to how we vote.

Here, for the heaven-knows-how-many-th time, is the scale in simplified form…

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A Nelson For Disney and “Snow White”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“The Nelson,” the Ethics Alarms designation for very special episodes of swell-earned schadenfreude, was introduced in 2023 in a post about…Disney’s live-action reboot of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the 1937 animated film that began building the Disney entertainment empire. Thus it is nicely symmetrical for Nelson to give his trademark “Ha ha!” to the trailer of this slow-motion disaster, which has set what is believed to be a YouTube record with, as of yesterday, 40,383 “likes” and 1,012,299 “dislikes.” The film is hitting theaters in March. Ethics Alarms warned Disney about what was bound to happen if and when this botched project ever got out of the cutting room. I wrote in part,

The ethics value defied here is competence, and what we are seeing is the classic sunk costs fallacy in its classic form. The Vietnam War was the most painful example of this breach of life competence and common sense, which holds that devoting a lot of time and/or resources to a failed project argues for devoting more of the same, lest those “sunk costs” go to waste. In reality however, what is being missed is that fact that whether or not one has invested a great deal in a lost cause, its status as a project that has proven itself unworthy of investment is unaltered. Doing what Disney is doing with the “Snow White” project is called “throwing good money after bad.” It is bad business—incompetent, wasteful, and irresponsible.

First, Disney woke fanatics thought it made sense to cast a Snow White-of-Color, which makes no sense since the story makes such a big deal about how “fair” the heroine is. Then, because a single au courant little person actor complained about the dwarfs in the classic fairy tail, Disney eliminated them in favor of these dorks…

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Again: How Does One Ethically Respond When One’s Friends Are Slipping Into The Throes Of Madness?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Nah, the Trump Deranged aren’t losing their frickin’ minds…

That’s the most recent cartoon from Ann Telnaes, that witty, subtle, objective and non-partisan political cartoonist who quit the Washington Post who didn’t think her juvenile submission was worth publishing. So now she’s operates from her substack, issuing brilliant art like that. Incredibly, one of my oldest and most accomplished friends posted that crap—it’s the equivilent of a schoolboy drawing of the unpopular kid with blacked out teeth and horns—with approval on his Facebook page, where his decision was roundly praised as he revealed that he subscribed to her visual hate-fests. This is the equivalent of someone announcing that he has decided to subscribe to the “Turd of the Week” service. Another equally rational, intelligent Facebook friend until he went bonkers posted a long, irrelevant quote from the Nuremberg trials about the nature of fascism, and everyone metaphorically nodded and applauded as if it has anything to do with current events.

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Ethics Notes on the Reagan National Airport Collision Aftermath

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I live less than 15 minutes from Reagan National Airport, so last night’s deadly collision between an American Airlines commuter jet and an Army helicopter from Fort Belvoir was just about the only news available on satellite or network after 9 pm. yesterday. Why, after all this time, is this still the practice in news reporting? All four local networks, plus the PBS outlet, and CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, reported exactly the same lack of developments for the rest of the evening. This used to puzzle me when there was a major news story when I was a kid. The practice makes no sense, wastes money, and leads to not-so-bright people, which is to say most talking heads and reporters on the scene, to resort to saying silly things to fill dead air. What is this, virtue-signaling? To show they care? Why don’t all of broadcast news sources have an advance, rotating agreement for one of them to cover these things after the others put up a screen that states, “We at [station or network] care about X, and you will find complete coverage at [the designated pool broadcast location]. We will let you know about any substantive developments”?

Literally nothing happened last night after the crash itself and the rescue teams arrived. Reagan quickly announced that it was suspending flights at least until morning. Meanwhile, we were hearing dumb statements. A couple of far away videos of the accident showed a tiny light, the aircraft, being met by another tiny light, the copter, followed by brief flash and a hint of something falling into the Potomac. These videos would have had to be explained if one saw them out of context, yet one of the newscasters introducing one felt required to issue a trigger warning: “We must warn you, these images are extremely disturbing.” No, they weren’t. Anyone who is extremely disturbed by little flashes of light needs to be in a home for the bewildered.

At around 11 pm, someone on CNN felt the need to ask some guest in the airline industry who had nothing substantive to say, “What would you tell anyone watching who fears for her life and those of her loved ones in future flights as a result of this tragedy?” The guest blathered something innocuous, but should have said, “I would recommend that anyone who reacts like that brush up on their understanding of statistics and critical thinking. This event has literally no significance as far as calculating the safety of air travel.” The exchange reminded me of the argument I had just had with my occasionally woke-addled sister, who said that she was fearful of going to a movie theater because of the risks posed by legal semi-automatic rifles being legal. (She isn’t really, but was desperate for an anti-Second Amendment argument.) Even asking a question like that makes the vulnerable, the hysterical and the stupid (Hey, wasn’t that the title of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western?) dumber still. It’s irresponsible and incompetent.

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Abuse of Celebrity: Selena Dumb Gomez’s Virtue-Signaling

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

The video of former Disney star Selena Gomez weeping over the deportations of illegal immigrants who should be deported is a brilliant reminder that Hollywood makes you stupid. Gomez posted it on her Instagram which has 424 million followers and I want to kill myself.

Gomez is difficult to understand amid all the sobbing and histrionics, but here’s the text: “I just want to say I am so sorry… all my people are getting attacked [by Trump’s deportations]. The children. I’m so sorry, I wish I could do something, but I can’t, I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise.”

To state the obvious, being subject to law enforcement isn’t being “attacked.” It is breathtakingly obnoxious for Gomez to call illegal immigrants “her people”—she’s an American citizen, and we are her people. Of course she plays the always popular “Think of the children!” card. And the hubris necessary for a B-list celebrity—she was okay in “The Dead Don’t Die”— to apologize for something she has no power over whatsoever, and to promise to “try everything” to stop it when there is nothing she can do is especially staggering.

“Entertainment Tonight” isn’t much better, saying in that clip that the deportation policy mostly “targets Latinos.” No, you hacks, it entirely targets illegal immigrants.

You can say this weepy virtue-signaling is harmless, but the fact that an ignorant woman like Gomez has over 400 million followers means that a political, cultural and ethics dunce can influence a dangerous number of people, making them stupid, fearful, and bad citizens. It has always been thus that our most talented artists (not that Selena is one of those) usually lack intellectual and critical thinking abilities on par with their performing abilities. They also tend to be emotionally frozen somewhere between the 6th and 11th grade. There are exceptions, of course, but social media has given these Dunning-Kruger victims a way to spread their juvenile politics and poor civics literacy far and wide, usually infecting the young most of all, and most damaging of all.

Maybe I’ll make a video of myself weeping over this…

Ethics Dunce (Again): Snopes (Again), And A Related Mystery

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Snopes, the once-trendy and amusing “Urban Myths” website that morphed quite a while ago into an almost comical Democratic party shill, may have hit peak Poe’s Law status (that’s PPL for short, like in the Barbra Streisand song) this time. I last moved these hacks out of my Julie Principle corner in June after somebody made the executive decision that the Axis site needed more ammunition when someone accused their political factchecks of partisan hackery. That month Snopes decided to point out that “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People” after ignoring this Big Lie used repeatedly by Democrats for seven long years.

Snopes needn’t have bothered if it was going to stoop to new depths of outrageous bias as it did in a post last week. Climbing on the disgraceful bandwagon of the Trump Deranged who called Elon Musk’s awkward arm gesture as he signified that his “heart went out” to his fans a “Nazi salute,” it gave us “No, These Politicians Did Not Make the Same Gesture as Elon Musk.” A short summary of its intended message: “Apologists for Trump acolyte Musk who found photos of Democrats who also appeared to make a Nazi Salute in photos taken out of context are passing along misinformation, because the Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris) are not Nazis, but Elon Musk, because he supports Donald Trump, might be.”

The post could be a Babylon Bee satire on Snopes (which has “factchecked” some of its satire). In truth, Musk’s gesture was exactly like the non-Nazi salutes of the Democrats Snopes always rushes to defend, because he also wasn’t giving a Nazi salute, as any non-Musk-hating, non-Trump Deranged, rational human being with a semi-functioning brain should be able to figure out all by themselves.

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Pundit Malpractice, Part I: David Brooks, Making The Public More Ignorant About History Than They Already Are

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What excuse does David Brooks have for publishing manifestly false Presidential history as part of the usual New York Times anti-Trump propaganda? None that I can see. He styles himself as a thoughtful public intellectual. He majored in history at Columbia. Okay, he is Canadian but he lives here and is presented by the New York Times as an authority.

I have to presume that if he writes a column with flat-out false information about U.S. political history, he is misleading the public intentionally or, just as unethically, he didn’t check his facts. Of course the New York Times editors don’t hold him to being factual, responsible or ethical. They let Charles M. Blow, Michelle Goldberg and their other biased hacks get away with worse most days. But I expect them to lie. I expect Brooks to be wrong, but at least to get his facts right.

Nope.

In the obnoxiously headlined “How Trump Will Fail,” Brooks tells us that “Trump has gone all 19th century on us. He seems to find in this period everything he likes: tariffs, Manifest Destiny, seizing land from weaker nations, mercantilism, railroads, manufacturing and populism.” At least he hasn’t embraced the version of America pushed by the Biden Administration: open borders, government censorship, racial discrimination, political prosecutions, puppet Presidencies and government cover-up journalism. The main thrust of Brooks’ analysis is that “populism” doesn’t work and has never worked in the U.S.. Brooks’ sneer at the American values of individualism, personal responsibility, exploration, confidence, exceptionalism and capitalism is palpable.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Leadership vs. Bureaucracy

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Here is an example of what is being discussed, from January 15:

A poll that I saw this morning (and that had mysteriously vanished when I looked for it just now) found that 43% of Los Angeles citizens would consider looking to the Republican Party for future leadership. That was considered significant in a city with only 18% of its residents identifying themselves as Republicans. I thought the amazing finding in the poll was that 48% still say they would only vote for more Democrats.

Post 2024 Election Freakout Update, Fashion Ethics Division: How Hateful Are The Trump-Haters? THIS Hateful…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Believe it or not, the social media Trump Hate mob was offended by that photo and others of Ivanka Trump wearing the dress at President Trump’s Inaugural Ball. Why, you well may ask, especially if you are of sound mind and under the age of 80? This is why…

Yes, Ivanka had the audacity to wear a recreation of one of the dresses Audrey Hepburn wore in “Sabrina,” a 1954 film with William Holden (above) and Humphrey Bogart. That film is so old that it had a remake, and the actor who played Bogart’s part is in his 80s, Harrison Ford. My late wife Grace loved Audrey Hepburn, and though I re-watched that film with her just about a year ago, I wouldn’t have picked up on the dress homage. But nothing is too petty and bonkers to attack a Trump over.

“She [Audrey] is the complete opposite of Ivanka’s silver spoon life,” read the comment of one lunatic. Typical ignoramus: Hepburn was raised in a wealthy family among the Dutch aristocracy; her mother was a baroness, her father a wealthy oil executive. But facts don’t matter to these nutcases.

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