Religion and Philosophy

Ethics Quote of the Week: Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Angry Man

The other day I chanced to meet
An angry man upon the street —
A man of wrath, a man of war,
A man who truculently bore
Over his shoulder, like a lance,
A banner labeled “Tolerance.”

And when I asked him why he strode
Thus scowling down the human road,
Scowling, he answered, “I am he
Who champions total liberty —
Intolerance being, ma’am, a state
No tolerant man can tolerate.

“When I meet rogues,” he cried, “who choose
To cherish oppositional views,
Lady, like this, and in this manner,
I lay about me with my banner
Till they cry mercy, ma’am.” His blows
Rained proudly on prospective foes.

Fearful, I turned and left him there
Still muttering, as he thrashed the air,
“Let the Intolerant beware!”

— Poet Phyllis McGinley, quoted in the comment thread on the Volokh Conspiracy’s post about the Supreme Court decision this week in Glowicki vs. Howell Public School District. Continue reading →

“Rubbish” and Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments
That's me!

That’s me!

Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett has a brilliant and original mind. One of the seven tools he advocates (in his most recent book) for those of us who want to think more clearly and make better use of our time caused me to reflect on one of the most persistent criticism I receive about Ethics Alarms. one of America’s foremost thinkers. Here are the seven, with a sample of Dennett’s comments about them:

1. USE YOUR MISTAKES

“Try to acquire the weird practice of savoring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you and go on to the next big opportunity. But that is not enough: you should actively seek out opportunities just so you can then recover from them.”

2. RESPECT YOUR OPPONENT

“Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent? If there are obvious contradictions in the opponent’s case, then you should point them out, forcefully. If there are somewhat hidden contradictions, you should carefully expose them to view – and then dump on them. But the search for hidden contradictions often crosses the line into nitpicking, sea-lawyering and outright parody. The thrill of the chase and the conviction that your opponent has to be harboring a confusion somewhere encourages uncharitable interpretation, which gives you an easy target to attack….” Continue reading →

“How To Make An Unethical Apology” by Rev. David Brassfield, Apology Innovator

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
What Rev. Brassfield regards as "Christ-like"

What Rev. Brassfield regards as “Christ-like”

Apologies are fascinating, because they are so seldom honest, benign, sincere, and genuinely contrite. Rev. David Brassfield just submitted one that might serve as a classic in the category of backhanded, insincere, bilious apologies, and a useful template for high-placed jerks in search of inspiration.

Before revealing the good Reverend’s masterpiece, some background is in order. In the  wake of the deadly tornado that devastated the area around Oklahoma City,  Brassfield printed and distributed an attack on local atheist groups to parishioners  attending his Newalla Church of Christ, alleging that they proved their deficits in morality, character and community support by failing to join with various church groups in relief efforts.

He wrote in part,

“….They claim believers in God are blind and only they see the truth. But, in fact, they only see themselves. Helping others is beneath them. Ironically, they greatly resemble a religious group of Jesus’ day: the Jewish leaders, who talked a good game but did nothing. We should dread the day if those who reject God and the church Jesus built become a majority in this land. …If the “proof is in the pudding,” then those anti-God groups have left a bad taste in the world’s mouth. Thanks be to God that because of the love and sacrifice of his son, believers in God have felt compelled to come from all places to give of themselves freely.”

As Emily Litella would say, “Never mind!” The pastor was dead, dead wrong. Local atheist groups had organized, pitched in, and done their part to assist in relief efforts. A humble apology was called for. This is what Reverend produced. As usual, bolded and bracketed asides are me: Continue reading →

Supreme Court Justice Powell’s Ethical Dilemmas

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments
Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell

Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell

The New York Times, anticipating next year’s Supreme Court consideration of the gay marriage problem, tells a fascinating story about the late Justice Lewis Powell, who was the swing vote in the 1986 case of  Bowers v. Hardwick, which was overturned in 2003, upholding a Georgia law outlawing sodomy.

During the consideration of the case, Powell told his colleagues that he had never met a homosexual, though in reality he had more than one gay law clerk during his tenure, and according to at least one of the former clerks, knew it.  (Powell even quizzed one of them about the mechanics of gay sex.) The reason he told his fellow Justices an untruth, the theory goes, is that he knew there was a stigma in the legal profession and in Washington connected to being gay, and he wanted to protect his law clerks.

Yet Powell, after flip-flopping on Bowers, finally came down on the side of a state’s right to make homosexual sex a crime. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments

“If we want older kids to not think guns are cool, we need to start early.”

—-Charles Hill, Principal of the Strobridge Elementary School in Hayward, California, advocating his school’s toy gun buy-back program.

Cool!

Cool!

I would also nominate this as the most chilling quote of the week, the month, and perhaps the year. It is an admission that this principal, and this school—and, like cockroaches, there is never just one rogue school—are interested not in education and the conveyance of knowledge, but indoctrination, compelling children how to think and what to believe, regardless of the desires of their parents and the values of the nation. Continue reading →

Bad Valedictorian Ethics In Pickens County

/ Jack Marshall / 143 Comments

People have to learn to stop applauding unethical conduct.

Hijacking in progress.

Hijacking in progress.

Roy Costner IV, honored with the opportunity to give the valedictory speech to fellow graduates of Liberty High School in Pickens County, South Carolina, decided to defy the School District’s decision to exclude prayers at graduation ceremonies.  He began his prepared and approved  graduation speech, then tore it up dramatically and segued into the Lord’s Prayer, to the apparent delight of many in attendance.

Wrong.

Roy accepted the invitation to give the speech under known conditions. He submitted text, supposedly in good faith. The school trusted him to meet his commitments. Instead, he hijacked the graduation ceremony for his own religious agenda. Continue reading →

Oh, Shut Up, Kate: Let’s End The Obligatory “God Bless America” Rendition

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

kate_smith-sings_god_bless_america

My father hated “God Bless America.” He particularly hated jumbo 40’s singer Kate Smith’s rendition of it, which he believed exploited patriotism and combined it with sentimentality and schmaltz to get ratings and sell records. Smith had an unadorned clarion belt that particularly suited Irving Berlin’s blunt melody, and for 30 years she used the song as her signature, as much as Judy Garland used “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Whenever Smith appeared on a TV variety show like The Hollywood Palace, he would order me to change the channel (yes, I was the family remote) for fear that he would have to hear her sing that song.

I assumed that was the reason why I have felt queasy about Major League Baseball’s 7th inning stretch ritual, installed in 2001, of having a recording of Kate or a live singer ring out the Irving Berlin standard at every major league baseball game since the Twin Towers fell.  In today’s Washington Post, however, a Methodist minister—my father was also a Methodist, as much as he was anything—explained why he refuses to stand for the song. He nailed it.

James Marsh writes, Continue reading →

The Julie Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

The combination of Memorial Day reflections on my late father’s character and a letter to relentlessly ethical advice columnist Carolyn Hax leads me to expound on what we will henceforth call the “Julie Principle.”

Hax’s non-religious correspondent wanted to know what she should do about a good but annoyingly Evangelical friend, who would not cease inviting her to attend church, despite knowing that such an activity held no appeal whatsoever. Hax’s answer, which you can read here, touched on many approaches to the problem. To my dad, the answer was simple. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent”

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

eeyore1

In many ways, I love this post. I love it because it is passionate and serious, and from the heart, and because I am certain that it reflects what many Americans, especially those of a certain age, feel with frustration and a little fear and anger.  I also agree with much of what it concerns, the lack of respect for accumulated wisdom in many aspects of the culture, and the rush to discard old standards not because they have failed us, but just because they are old. The comment comes from a regular commentator, Eeyoure (not his real name, you’ll be relieved to learn, and yes, we both know how to spell the A.A. Milne character he honors) who is educated, decent, smart and articulate.

But regarding his lament’s  applicability to the controversy at issue, gay marriage, he is absolutely, utterly, tragically wrong. The conventional wisdom is that we should just try to ignore Americans who feel similarly to Eeyoure, because demographics are relentlessly removing them from the scene. As the politically active public becomes younger, the support for equal rights for gays, trangendered and bi-sexual citizens will grow into an overwhelming majority.  I think that’s a lazy and obnoxious way to win an argument, even when you are right. Smart but misguided people, like Eeyoure in this matter, should be able to evolve, learn, and realize when what they once thought was right, isn’t.  Realizing that one aspect of entrenched belief was, upon knowledge and reflection, wrong does not mean the whole foundation of civilized society has to crumble—this is the classic, irrational, self-defeating fallacy of conservatism. Change in the presence of enlightenment and experience is the essence of ethics, which constantly evolves. We should be able to explain what is wrong with this post so that even the poster agrees.

Here is Eeyoure’s Comment of the Day, on the post (and comment thread t0) Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent: Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: David Blankenhorn, Former Same-Sex Marriage Opponent

/ Jack Marshall / 104 Comments

Same sex

In a well-reasoned and sharply written op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, former gay marriage opponent David Blankenship writes eloquently and persuasively about why he has reversed his position. He writes in part:

“In the end, I didn’t change my mind on gay marriage because I stopped believing in the importance of intact biological families. Nor was it because of new studies or additional facts. (Gay marriage still strains biological family bonds, although research also points to the potential stability of gay marriage and family structures.) And I didn’t change my mind because I got tired of being criticized. I changed my opposition to gay marriage because of personal relationships. In my case, it began with the writer Jonathan Rauch, who I’d been publicly debating on the gay marriage issue. But at some point we stopped debating and started talking about our lives, including about my wife, Raina, and his husband, Michael. Did Jonathan’s marriage threaten the idea of marriage? Perhaps in theory. But in real life, was I able to see it? No. In fact, quite the opposite. It may sound trite, but for me the key was the gradual breakthrough of empathy. I found that as friendships develop, empathy becomes at least possible, no longer kept at bay by a wall of fixed belief. Put simply, becoming friends with gay people who were married or wanted to get married led me to realize that I couldn’t in good conscience continue to oppose it.”

Bingo.

_______________________

Pointer: Advice Goddess

Sources: LA Times