parents

Congratulations To Hank Steuver For An Ethically Offensive Sitcom Review….No Small Feat!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments
"They won't consider aborting their child? That's ridiculous!"

“They won’t consider aborting their child? That’s ridiculous!”

It’s rare to find an ethically offensive TV review, and doubtlessly difficult to write one, but the Washington Post’s Hank Steuver is obviously equal to the task. Wow. My review of his review of the new NBC sitcom, “Welcome to the Family”:

“Yechhh. How Do people end up thinking like this?”

Here is the relevant section of his review:

“My nominee for quickest and most punitive cancellation goes to this facile dramedy about two 40-something couples who must learn to get along because their teenage children — a boy who is a Stanford-bound valedictorian and a girl who is an unfortunate iteration of the clueless blonde stereotype — are suddenly expecting a baby and have decided to keep it. Or perhaps they’re being forced to keep it, because they live in some parallel America in which Roe v. Wade has been fully reversed, thus reducing at least one obvious solution to the dilemma. (Which would, of course, cut the premise off right there; I understand that the point of the show is the pregnancy.) The truth is, these kids do live in a parallel America, the imaginary land of network television, which hasn’t found a way to talk frankly about abortion in the half-hour comedy format since, I don’t know, “Maude”? I’m not at all opposed to the personal choices made by the characters in “Welcome to the Family,” I just wish they’d had the choice to make. The foregone conclusion in the pilot is galling, especially in the scene where the teenagers’ combative fathers are seen chasing after the girl, believing she’s about to get on a rollercoaster.The metaphor is quite blunt: Save the fetus at all costs! (And forget Stanford!)” Continue reading →

Your Introduction To “Private Re-Homing”

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
Puppy, child, what's the difference? The point is make it someone else's problem, right?

Puppy, child, what’s the difference? The point is t0 make it someone else’s problem, right?

Every time you see a national newscast take up valuable time telling us about Miley Cyrus, the Kardashians, Chelsea Clinton or the White House waterdogs, think about Inga, or Quita, victims of the increasingly common practice of underground adoption known as “private re-homing,” in which adopted children are traded around like dogs or kittens, and abused dogs and kittens at that.

I don’t have a lot of commentary about this horrible practice. My life was a little bit happier before it was brought to my attention. In the history of Ethics Alarms, perhaps the most upsetting story I have had to write about was the horrific conduct of Torry Hansen, a Tennessee mother who adopted a Russian child and then, finding that she couldn’t cope with his problems, put him, alone, on a plane bound for Russia with a note pinned to his jacket. I wrote that post with tears in my eyes; it upsets me to write about it now. Yet something very like what Hansen did to her son is being done via the internet, frequently and with little interference from the government or anyone else. I wish I didn’t know about this—no, that’s not quite right. I wish this wasn’t a feature of our society, so I wouldn’t have to know about it, much less write about it. Continue reading →

This Is The Way It’s Done, Ethics Warriors….Well, ALMOST

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Quit being distracting, Triana...

“Quit being so distracting, Triana…”

Deborah Brown Community School in Tulsa, Oklahoma forbids its students from wearing their hair in dreadlocks, afros “and other faddish styles.” Terrence Parker, a barber, challenged the rule by sending his 7-year-old daughter Tiana to class there wearing her hair in dreadlocks. She was told that she could not attend school with her hair in a (stupid and ignorant) rule-violating style. Tiana is now attending another school, while the story, reported on the web in various sources, is holding the school up to well-earned ridicule for a dress code that if not racist in intent, is racist in impact. Eventually, I would think, the school will be shamed into seeing the error of its ways, which is enforcing an inappropriately narrowly-viewed, culturally-biased interpretation of what constitutes a “presentable” hairstyle as opposed to one that might “distract from the respectful and serious atmosphere [the school] strives for.”

This is the way unethical rules get changed. Parker confronted the rule by violating it, and accepted the penalty while publicizing the unjust rule to the greater community, which is making its disapproval known. Continue reading →

No, It’s Actually Allison Benedikt Who’s A Bad Person

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Hang in there--the schools will be better in a few generations...

Hang in there–the schools will be better in a few generations…

There may be some persuasive arguments to be made for sending your child to a public school system you don’t trust. The obvious one is that you have no choice, which is true for many Americans. There are also some good reasons to write a “manifesto” called “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person,” the best of which is to cause people to focus on the problem of the failing and unacceptable public school system, and what should be done about it. However, Allison Benedikt, who actually wrote an article with this title and presumably this intent, failed so miserably at making a coherent and persuasive argument of any kind that her provocative title amounts to an unethical assertion itself: if you are going to make a blanket indictment of the character of millions of people, you had better be able to produce an ethical argument or two, or at least demonstrate that you comprehend a little bit about ethics. Allison doesn’t. Based on this piece, I not only wouldn’t trust her (oh, by the way, Allison, the core objective of ethical conduct in your profession—any profession, actually—is trust) to provide advice about how to educate my child, I wouldn’t trust her to walk my dog. Continue reading →

Twerk Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

[The following is blurry, but perhaps that is for the best. It is the only full version of the performance at issue currently available on YouTube, and it may not be there for long. Watch at your own risk.]

To listen to the horrified reaction to Miley Cyrus’s relatively obscene performance at the nationally televised MTV Music Video awards (not so long ago, Miley was that cute tween Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel) , one would think that rock and pop stars intentionally crossing the established lines of symbolic pubic sexual decorum was unprecedented. The furious and shocked condemnations seemed to emanate from some parallel culture, like the alternate universe that implicitly exists on CBS’s updated Sherlock Holmes drama “Elementary” (Sherlock is a precariously recovering alcoholic and drug addict; Dr. Watson is a former Charlie’s Angel) where nobody ever heard of “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Basil Rathbone or the dancing men cipher, because Arthur Conan Doyle never invented the character. ( The British updated Sherlock, uncreatively titled “Sherlock,” is so far superior to “Elementary” —which isn’t bad–that  it’s unsettling.) Have Isadora Duncan, Josephine Baker, Sally Rand, Elvis, the Stones, Jim Morrison,, Madonna and Christina Aguilera been erased from the past by some music-hating cyborg from a dystrophy future where everyone sings like Matt Munro?

Gross simulated sexual display on television prime time has unethical elements, to be sure. It’s uncivil, to begin with, intentionally placing socially objectionable content before a lot of viewers who don’t want to see it. That’s a breach of respect, but a minor one in this context. Janet Jackson flashed a breast during the Superbowl half-time show, after all: the argument that this was a family event that shouldn’t have been unexpectedly transformed into a peep show was grounded in fact. This week, however, I heard earnest mothers protesting that their delicate pre-teens were watching the MTV awards and had the innocence cruelly seared out of them by the unexpected and horrifying sight of Miley twerking ( simulating sex while dancing—a brand new addition to the Oxford dictionary) on Robin Thicke, dressed as Beetlejuice. Those mothers, not to be excessively cruel myself, are idiots.

What did they expect to see? This is a live show populated by competing shameless self-promoting narcissists who know that the performer who says or does the most outrageous thing will win the publicity game, and be a topic of debate for days or even weeks. Miley won, that’s all. If a child saw something age-inappropriate, the parents can only blame themselves.  This was roughly the equivalent of letting your kid watch “The Walking Dead” and complaining to AMC that the show’s violence is excessive for children. Ethics breach #1 is by any parent who allowed a child to watch this show while wanting to protect the child’s exposure to sexually provocative material. Irresponsible, incompetent, and stupid. Continue reading →

A Lifetime Ethics Train Wreck: The Ongoing Tragedy Of Patterson and Georgia Inman

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Inman twins

I was sent this horrifying story under the heading of “Ethics Train Wreck,” and a better description of it there could not be. It is the tale of the twin teenaged heirs to the massive Doris Duke fortune,Patrick and Georgia Inman, their miserable upbringing and the continuing instability of their lives, soon to be dominated by lawsuits and litigation. The twins have been alternately spoiled, neglected, and abused, and are desperately seeking some direction in their lives before their mega-trust funds kick in—if they can survive that long. Moreover, their existence is almost sure to get worse before it gets better, if it ever does.

Consider, for example, this ominous passage, late in the piece, referring to the plans of their inept mother, Daisha:

The kids need to figure out what comes next for them – how they can start creating a life for themselves, and connect with others. Daisha has devised what she thinks is a terrific idea for an appropriate new set of playmates: She’s working on getting the twins together with Michael Jackson’s kids, with whom she thinks they’d have tons in common. “Wouldn’t that be historic? The Jacksons and the Dukes, two of the most famous names, together?” Daisha asks. Continue reading →

Ethically Disturbing News Item Of The Week

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
"Screw Bobby...grab the carry-ons!"

“Screw Bobby…grab the carry-ons!”

Apparently an unusual number of the passengers on board the plane that crashed yesterday grabbed their luggage on the way to safety, and at least one passenger grabbed his luggage before he thought to grab his child.

I don’t even want to think about the significance of this, but it can’t be good.

The story, in Forbes, is here.

Keeping Terrible Secrets

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

shhhhSomeday I should have an ethics quiz asking which advice columnist is more unethical, Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist,” or Emily Yoffe, Slate’s “Dear Prudence.” That horrible exercise is for another day, however. Right now, I am only considering Emily’s latest botch, in which she urged a mother with a guilty conscience to take her terrible secret to her grave.

The secret in question is that the woman asking Emily’s counsel conspired to get pregnant via her gullible, not-ready-to commit boyfriend, who thought she was using birth control. Now it’s 13 years later. She and the double-crossed father are  happily married to other people, in different states, though he “is involved” in his daughter’s life, whom he accepted as his own. Mom never told him what she had done, and he believes that his daughter was an accident, leading him to stay with the family for the child’s first three years.  “Prudence’s” questioner concludes,

“…I had decided that I would go to my grave never telling anyone what I had done. Recently, a friend became pregnant after a one-night stand. Everyone assumes that was an accident, but she confided in me that she had been seeking out sex with the purpose of getting pregnant. I was so relieved to meet someone else who planned an “accidental” pregnancy that it made me wonder if I should open up about my secret. But I’m afraid if I told Ben it might change the way he interacted with Holly. My questions are: Am I some kind of monster for getting pregnant on the sly? And should I come clean, and if so, who should know?”

What? The reply to this should take about 20 seconds of thought to answer:

  • You’re relieved that one of your friends is a lying, betraying fraud? Don’t turn your back on her; I’m warning you.
  • Of course you should tell “Ben,” since he’s the one whose life was turned upside down by your selfish perfidy and deception.
  • “It might change the way he interacted with Holly,” eh? You mean “he might not send quite so much money to you to take care of Holly,” don’t you? Too bad. This is your doing, your lie, and your fault. “I don’t like the potential consequences of telling the truth” is not a justification to keep lying.
  • Yes, indeed you are some kind of monster. What you did was despicable, cowardly, cruel and wrong. Ben might be a prince about it (“Ah, that’s all water under the bridge now! The important thing is that we have our beautiful little girl, and nothing else matters!”), or he might call his lawyer. That’s his choice, and he has an absolute right to have the facts to make it his choice.

Emily, however, reasons otherwise. Don’t tell him, she counsels…

  • “Your act doesn’t make you a monster…” Yes, it really does. Didn’t we establish this in “An Officer and a Gentleman”?
  • “…nor do I think there’s any benefit to enlightening everyone now.”  That’s Ben’s call. The Golden Rule says that he’d want to know that he was tricked, and has been living a lie for over a decade. I sure would. I like to know just how trustworthy the people I associate with really are.
  • “Both you and Ben rose to the occasion and neither of you would express regret that you’re parents to Holly.” Consequentialism! So what? What if she were a rebellious, hateful, crack-addicted thief? The fact that thing turned out all right doesn’t justify the lie or keeping it hidden now.
  • “…At this late date, however, your coming clean would only cast a shadow over your character.” A character that richly deserves such a shadow.
  • “You are deeply remorseful for what sounds like a singular act of substantial deceit.”  What difference does it make that it’s a single act? A single act is enough. And this wasn’t “deceit.” This was a lie.
  • “There’s nothing to be gained by telling your husband and making him uneasy about your essential honesty.” I’d say one’s husband has the right to know the character of who he’s married to. 
  • “You and your friend are also hardly the only women to deliberately get pregnant without letting the man in on your plan, as objectionable as that behavior is.” Oh, that’s terrific, Emily. The old “you’re not the first” rationalization, a particularly dumb variation on “everybody does it.” The conduct is horribly wrong, and the first person to do it is no worse than the 2,342nd.

Gee, I wonder what Chuck would say.

________________________________________

Facts: Slate

Comment of the Day: “The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair: Upon Further Review…”

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments
And if Kaitlyn Hunt looked like this, would we be having this discussion?

And if Kaitlyn Hunt looked like this, would we be having this discussion?

John Garrison’s incisive Comment of the Day decisively adds Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents to the Kaitlyn Hunt Ethics Train Wreck, which has already enlisted them, the vigilante group Anonymous (itself a self-perpetuating ethics train wreck), the lazy news media, which apparently misreported the essential facts of the case, and the social media as passengers since my first post on the debacle.

Here are his comments on the follow-up post, The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair: Upon Further Review:

“There are a number of things that concern me about this case. First, I do agree that the law is very harsh in Florida. But we never seem to get the actual story from Kaitlyn’s parents. At first, they said that they were 17 when they started dating, and that the parents vindictively waited until Kaitlyn turned 18. That story seems to have changed around the time the police report was released stating that actual ages of the girls. At that time, the family claimed that the police not redacting the address was retaliation against them going to the media, even though it is not remotely unusual for the police not to redact the address of the accused.

http://www.examiner.com/article/kaitlyn-hunt-arrest-record-released-free-kate-family-disgusted-with-sheriff Continue reading →

The Stigmatized Science Fair Project: School Indoctrination, Power Abuse and Passive Parents

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

indoctrinationFrom Lenore Skanzy’s useful and fascinating blog Free Range Kids comes a report from a mother whose Middle Schooler’s science fair project was summarily disqualified after he devoted months of work on it because it involved Airsoft guns, the realistic-looking gun replicas that shoot plastic pellets—toys, though expensive ones, much favored by pre-teen and teen-aged boys. The Airsoft was not physically featured in the project display; apparently the boy was punished for having the bad taste to use anything that looked and behaved like a gun in any activity related to school. According to the mother, his experiment, involving the spin on propelled objects, received a high enough score to send him and his experiment to the regionals, had he not been slapped down for daring to use a toy gun at his own home.

What is going on here? What is going on is a concerted, widespread nation-wide, ideologically-motivated and unethical effort by teachers, administrators and school districts to create a pervasive anti-gun, anti-gun ownership, anti-Second Amendment and pro-gun confiscation culture in the schools, ensuring, through cultural reinforcement, that future generations emerge from public education thoroughly phobic about guns no matter what their purpose. This abuse of power, a particularly stupid, sinister and ignorant abuse of power, is being encouraged by elected officials and the news media, and it is the tip of a very ugly iceberg.

This isn’t about guns, though they are the target this time. It is about school personnel and schools using their influence to implant ideology and political policy views in children, which is neither their job nor the appropriate role of public education. Continue reading →