The Golden Rule

More Zombie Ethics: George Lucas, Re-Animator

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

It seems that cinema innovator and mega-mogul George Lucas is using a large chunk of his “Star Wars” merchandising lucre to purchase the rights to screen images of dead movie stars. His plan is to give his tech-magicians at LucasArt the opportunity to perfect the process of re-animating and manipulating them to appear in new roles in new films. Imagine Humphrey Bogart in “Pirates of the Caribbean 5”! Imagine Marilyn Monroe joining the girls in “Sex and the City 2”!  Imagine Cary Grant in a buddy picture with Adam Sandler! Or Jar Jar Binks.

Undoubtedly there are many movie fans who would enjoy having digitally resurrected Hollywood legends appearing side-by-side current idols, and there is probably a lot of money to be made by giving them what they want. Turning deceased stars into computer-generated images and making them do and say anything the programmers choose, with the pace, volume and inflection the directors desire, would represent a significant technological advance. Another obvious benefit is that Lucas’s method is preferable to just digging up the carcasses of the acting greats, hanging them on wires, and using machinery to parade them through movie sets like marionettes.

But not much. Continue reading →

Ethics and Freeing the Unjustly Convicted: A Utilitarian Controversy in Illinois

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess and his student reporters have been carrying out a heroic and aggressive project aimed at rescuing innocent residents of Illinois’s death row. It was Protess’s Medill Innocence Project that played a major role in influencing former Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s decision to halt all executions. Now, however, the Innocence Project’s methods are now under attack by its own university and Cook County prosecutors, who say the students crossed legal and ethical lines while investigating a decades-old murder.

Prosecutors claim that some of Protess’s students used surreptitious taping in an investigation, secretly recording a suspect in violation of Illinois law. Continue reading →

Ethics Call To Arms: Fight the “Fuck You!” Culture

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.”

This was the very first edict in the list of civility rules memorized by George Washington as a child, rules that shaped his character and significantly influenced not only his life and career but the fate of America. Like most of Washington’s 11o rules, the first has universal and timeless validity, pointing all of us and our culture toward a society based on mutual respect, caring, empathy, and fairness.

Recently, however, there has been a powerful cultural movement away from George’s rules and the culture of civility that they represent. Rudeness has always been with us, of course, and public decorum has been in steady decline since the Beatniks of the Fifties, to the point where it is unremarkable to see church-goers in flip-flops and airplane passengers in tank-tops. Something else is going on, however. Like the colored dots of paint in a George Seurat painting, isolated incidents and clues have begun to converge into a picture, and it is not one of a pleasant day in the park. I believe we are seeing a dangerous shift away from civility as a cultural value, which means that we are seeing a cultural rejection of ethics. The past two weeks have presented damning evidence that this true. Continue reading →

Palin, Ifill, Contempt and Respect: A Cautionary Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

One reason why it is both right and prudent to treat others respectfully is that we seldom can know the true measure of an individual’s abilities and character. All human beings are complex, and all deserve an almost limitless benefit of the doubt before it is wise to dismiss them as unworthy of decent, respectful treatment. When we assume that someone whom we really don’t know very well is stupid, or evil, or not worth paying attention to, we not only treat them badly, we also put ourselves in peril, both of violating the Golden Rule, and also of looking foolish. Mockery, the child of contempt, is especially dangerous. When we mock others, we assume a superiority that may prove to be illusory.

Have I fallen victim to this ethical error? You betcha.

Which brings us to Sarah Palin. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Jack Conway Defenders

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Democrat Jack Conway has been anointed by fair commentators of the Left, Right and center as the hands down winner of , as the New Republic called it, the “Most Despicable Political Ad of the Year.” The attack on opponent Rand Paul, which he continued in the debate between the candidates for the open Senate seat in Kentucky, consisted of questioning the propriety of Paul’s religious beliefs, making an issue out of a college prank, and characterizing the prank in question as a crime,  though the anonymous “victim” has acknowledged that she knew it was intended in jest and did not feel threatened. As Jason Zengerle noted, “…no candidate over the age of, say, 30, should be held politically accountable for anything he or she did in college—short of gross academic misconduct or committing a felony…and more importantly, a politician’s religious faith should simply be off-limits. If it’s disgusting when conservatives question Barack Obama’s Christianity, then it’s disgusting when Jack Conway questions Rand Paul’s.”  This, from the same journalist who originally reported the tale of Paul’s various rebellions against the Christian pressures at Baylor when he was a student there, including the faux worship of “Aqua Buddha.” Continue reading →

Karen Owen’s “Fuck List” and the Rutgers Sex Video Suicide: Not So Different

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Karen Owen is a recent graduate of Duke. Either they don’t comprehend the nature of the internet at Duke, or are graduating more than their share of cruel, thoughtless, reckless dolts, because Owen decided it would be a hoot to make a faux “senior thesis” Powerpoint presentation documenting her sexual activity with thirteen Duke athletes, none of whom gave consent to be named in her “study”. She classily dubbed it her “fuck list,” but it was unofficially titled “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.”  (“Horizontal academics…get it?) Then she e-mailed the file to three “friends,” and, as you’ve probably guessed, one  or more of them sent it around to their friends, who eventually made it viral. Soon two websites decided to maximize the harm to all concerned, as websites are prone to do…especially websites called “Deadspin.” Continue reading →

Let Us Not Forget Itawamba County, Miss.

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I am haunted second thoughts about awarding Obion County the title of Unethical Community of the Year.

For one thing, it is only October, and there is a lot of time for another unethical community or more to reveal its lack of decency to the nation and the world (and then to have Keith Olbermann declare that it represents the ideal for Tea Partiers). Still, I am having a hard time imagining anything worse for an American community than directing its fire department to let a human being’s home burn down, whether or not the homeowner has three dogs and a cat (as Mr. Cranick did, and I emphasize did), because that human being didn’t pay a $75 fee.

The real reason I am having doubts, however, is the horrible tale that came to light this past spring.  Continue reading →

What Do You Do With Climate Change Skeptics? Blow Them Up!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Ok, all you people out there who thought a waitress squeezing dishwater into the drinks of customers who didn’t root for her football team in the Direct TV ad was harmless…do you want to take responsibility for a trend?

As you can see over on YouTube, a climate change advocacy group called 10:10 is pressing its case with a video showing a teacher explaining to her pre-teen students the 10:10 formula, in which everyone cuts their carbon emission by 10%, “thus keeping the planet safe for everyone, eventually.” Most of the class volunteers various ways they and their parents can meet the 10% goal, but a couple of students refuse—vicious, dumb, Right wing global warming “deniers,” apparently. So the teacher pushes a button and blows them to bits, with flesh and blood splattering everywhere.  Similar scenarios involving the detonation of adult victims follow. You see, the only way to get “everyone” to save the planet by cutting carbon emissions by 10% is to eliminate those who refuse to do it. Continue reading →

Fire Fighting in Obion County, Unethical Community of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

In Obion County, Tennessee, a man’s home burned to the ground as the local fire department refused to do anything about it. The homeowner, Gene Cranick, had refused to pay a County fee for fire control services from the neighboring city of South Fulton. It was understood that only homeowners paying the fee would be provided assistance by the fire department, but Cranick, the sly fox, decided to test the system. Not only did he start burning rubbish in his back yard, he let the fire spread to his home. Then, in a panic, he dialed 911 and offered to pay whatever it would take for the South Fulton firefighters to put out the flames…but was told it was too late.  They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning down. They did arrive to help put out the fire when it spread to Cranick’s neighbor’s home, but then he had paid the $75. Continue reading →

George Washington Says Jon Stewart Is An Ethics Dunce

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

All right: Jon Stewart’s post-Rick Sanchez meltdown quip that “All he has to do is apologize to us, and we’ll hire him back!” (evoking Sanchez’s fatal accusation that a conspiracy of Jews runs the news) was pretty funny. The problem is that it and a couple of other barbs he aimed at the fired and disgraced ex-CNN host will be heard by millions three weeks from now, on October 21, when the special “Night Of Too Many Stars” is finally aired. Comedians never have to be kind, fair, empathetic or classy, and often are not—just think about all the jokes about Lindsay Lohan, a sadly immature young woman seemingly incapable of curbing self-destructive behavior—but gloating is gloating, and doing the Flamenco on the face of a fallen adversary is neither attractive not admirable…even if it’s funny. Continue reading →