Great American Think-Off

In the category of totally serendipitous events: the Contentious One entered--on a whim, and for the first time in his life--the Great American Think-Off, a quirky-but-charming event held each of the last 21 years in New York Mills, MN.  The Think-Off question this year?  Which is more ethical: sticking to your principles or being willing to compromise?

With somewhere in the range of 400 essays being submitted, I did not expect to be selected as one of the four finalists.  But, I thought I might have a shot at it--after all, you just never know.  And so it came as a pleasant surprise to be named one of the two "compromise" advocates for the event.

Defending that case for compromise in a public forum--attended by maybe 250 people in the local high school auditorium--proved to be a daunting challenge.  My semi-final foe, who turned out to be the eventual champion, was a wise and gracious man by the name of Paul Terry.  I think that my essay was quite competitive with his, but in the end, he may have had a slight edge in the "Q & A" segment, hosted by a moderator and culminating in an audience ballot.

Anyway, the whole event was an unexpected shot in the arm.  For all of us, any sort of recognition for what we do is a rarity--to appreciate that, all you need to do is watch an episode or two of Undercover Boss.  So, under the circumstances, I tried just to soak it all in--despite failing to make the final round, and despite all of those voices within us that wonder, still, if we're really good enough.

Oh, and for the record, here's that essay:
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This year’s Great American Think-Off question is rooted in a longstanding conundrum: is it better to regard ethics as more absolute, or more relative?  Like any worthwhile question, there is no definitive one-size-fits-all answer.  Still, I would contend that in general, an approach based on compromise is the better way to go.

We have been cautioned not to dwell on national politics.  But to ignore politics entirely would be to miss an important teaching/learning opportunity.  In the last few years, we have basically been held hostage by people who are convinced that they must stick to their principles.  The only problem is that little can be accomplished by those who use principles to promote moral purity and take some perverse pride in their intransigence.  Where’s the virtue in that?  Principles tend to operate independently of context, and more importantly, of other people.  Those who stick to their principles may not be “selfish,” but an orientation to life that excludes the views of others and refuses to compromise is itself ethically suspect.  And so when advocates with principles square off in the public forum, the result of everyone sticking to those principles is gridlock, and a collective sense of loss and frustration.

Compromise is an interesting word.  It has a pejorative sense: if you “compromise your principles,” it sounds as if you lack integrity.  But in another sense, compromise is truly honorable: it demonstrates sensitivity to details, and nuances, and the ideas and feelings of other people.  Compromise shows a healthy respect for others and a healthy degree of humility as well.  Indeed, it is a false dilemma to suggest that either you stick to your principles or you “abandon” them and don’t have any.  It is misleading to suggest that compromise shows a lack of principle--because compromise is itself a principle.

My definition of ethics is not very fancy: if you have a choice to make, and that choice can affect others, then there is an ethical issue at play.  So, on a daily basis, we make many ethical choices: whether to drive our car or take the bus, whether to let our teenager stay out until 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, whether to buy from a company that exploits its workers, whether to be totally candid in our evaluation of our fellow employees, or the greatest moral quandary of the millennium: paper, or plastic?  In every case, the answer always becomes: it depends.  There are simply too many variables to consider.  If I have learned anything over the years, it’s that life is messy.  Unwavering principles, on the other hand, are just too darn neat.

One principle that I have stuck to since my junior year in college is to refuse to eat meat.  That does not mean I am totally unwilling to compromise.  I don’t carry placards in front of factory farms and fast food restaurants.  With comfort, style, and durability in mind, I tend to wear a little bit of leather.  I’ve never forced the rest of the family to go vegetarian; indeed, I cook hearty meals for the carnivores in the family regularly because it’s something that they want, and it needs to get done in our household.  But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve nonetheless done my part for animal welfare and made a difference; in this case, all that “sticking to my principles” would do is tick people off and make the rest of my family unhappy and inconvenienced.

Where I work, “transparency” is a celebrated concept.  But complete transparency would be a colossal mistake.  What about the practical limitations?  The economic and legal considerations?  And plain old human decency?  Once these competing considerations are offered, transparency suddenly gets a little more murky, and some element of compromise clearly emerges as the more sensible orientation.

The problem with principles is that they are like cotton candy—sweet, but lacking in substance.  You can offer a litany of saccharine platitudes (be fair!  be honest!  be nice!), but the question still lingers: what does it mean to be fair, honest, or nice?  That’s another reason why principles will only take you so far.

Of course, an ethical stance based on compromise is not without its potential pitfalls.  It could lead us to make inconsistent or contradictory decisions.  Rationality could be replaced by rationalizing.  Nonetheless, compared to the alternative, it’s way ahead.  For the problem with sticking to your principles is that, well, you are stuck.

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Thanks again to all who made it a memorable weekend, including my entire family who showed up to provide support, along with our very special friends Steve and Shirley Mellema!

Charge God with child neglect?

Just finished about my 10th Jodi Picoult novel--in this case, The Storyteller.  And although I am not drawn to stories about the Holocaust--they are, frankly, just too painful--I'm glad that I read this one simply because Jodi is such a gifted writer.

The story is dominated by the events crashing in on Minka, who eventually winds up in a Nazi concentration camp.  In considering her horrific existence, Minka says "Some of the women prayed.  I saw no point in that; since if there was a God, He would not have let this happen."  And of course, therein lies a fundamental problem with theism: the idea that God is at once omniscient, all-powerful, and endlessly loving.

When six million people are rounded up, beaten, starved, exterminated, and thrown into mass burial pits, no one can tell me that any sort of decent God would allow something like that to occur.  You can try to explain it, you can try to rationalize it, you can try to say that "God works in mysterious ways," but the reality is that either (a) God doesn't exist, or (b) God simply doesn't have all the magical powers with which He is associated.  Any other answer just makes no sense.  The suffering in the Holocaust (or Darfur, or Bosnia, or Cambodia--take your pick) has been so beyond tragic that any reasonable person ought to see the folly in thinking that God runs the show.  If He does, He should be charged with neglect and abuse.  A powerful, loving God would simply not tolerate such suffering.  Yet there are those, believe it or not, who think that God has a hand in all their little affairs of the day: whether they get to be homecoming queen, whether they get an accounting job, or whether it's going to rain on the day of the family picnic.  Hey--if God can take care of these trivial matters, where in the hell was He when Hitler charged into Poland?  Or when the gas chambers were turned on at Auschwitz?

Praying away the AK-47s

Ya just can't make this stuff up.

From the Huffington Post:  Rick Perry, the GOVERNOR of Texas, and a serious 2012 candidate for PRESIDENT of the United States, has revealed his own plan for combating America's gun violence problem: prayer.  PRAYER!

Huffington reports that in the Houston Chronicle, Perry acknowledged the problem of violence in the U.S. but said enacting tougher gun laws was not the right way to solve it.  Perry said that there was "evil prowling" in the world that has appeared in television and movies, and then found its way into vulnerable minds.  Perry reportedly said, "As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children."

Perry also assailed the liberal media and politicians for attempting to use the Sandy Hook shooting for a political end "that would not have saved those children," according to the Chronicle.  This is not the first time the outspoken governor has launched rhetorical assaults on "secularism." In September, Perry unloaded a blistering attack against those who believe strongly in a separation of church and state:  "Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you, and one of the untruths out there that is driven -- is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena," Perry said on a conference call.

Huffington concludes by noting, "This idea that prayer is the ultimate protection, even against guns, has been circulated among the conservative Christian community in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.  Bryan Fischer, an executive with the American Family Association, said God did not protect the victims of one of the deadliest school shootings in American history because children and teachers were not allowed to pray for protection in the classroom."

What to say?  Gosh, I've ranted about the idiocy and toxicity of organized religion more than once.  When "religious" people sort of mind their own business, I guess I can mind mine.  But when religion collides with public policy--in this case, whether we need legislative answers to the problems of gun violence--then I have a lot of bones to pick with people like Perry.  And I have to continue to ask, why in the world do the Rick Perrys of the world even have a national platform in the first place?  Why should they get ANY attention?  It's disgusting.

But, not to worry--get ready to pray away the AK-47s!

The 2000-year-old myth

Well, another Christmas season has come and gone, and once again I let out a huge sigh of relief.  There is something about the "holidays" that is often more depressing than inspiring; theologically, the problem is that the entire Christmas story is largely mythological.  That makes celebrating difficult.  And this is not a good time to be reading, as I currently am, Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion!  Nor is it a time to read the December 17 issue of Newsweek, where the cover story is, "Who Was Jesus?"  Dancing rather carefully around its main point, the Newsweek article notes that "the birth narratives of the New Testament are historically problematic," and that "the accounts of Jesus' life in the New Testament have never been called 'histories'; instead, they have always been known as 'Gospels'--that is 'proclamations of the good news.'  These are books that meant to declare religious truths, not historical facts."  Translated into less polite prose: the Bible is a story at best, not to be taken as anything that really happened.

That the Bible is not literally "true" is such a no-brainer to me that I have to wonder about anyone who believes otherwise.  Indeed, any educated person ought to know better.  Dawkins cites evidence that virtually all studies on the subject find a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ--that is, more intelligent people are less religious.  He also cites a survey of scientists that tallied 12 "believers" and 213 "unbelievers."  Dawkins challenges atheists to "out" themselves, much like gay people, because he offers evidence that atheists are held in even lower regard than homosexuals.  In a nutshell: smart people know that Christmas and Easter are a lie, and those who think so ought to say so and not politely sing "Away in a Manger"; otherwise, ignorance, prejudice, and a form of discrimination will continue.

To have the courage of one's convictions: this is a sobering challenge, no matter what the issue.  But with religion specifically, we live in an environment where there's a world of hurt waiting for those who profess to be unfaithful.  Those who were willing to kill Matthew Shepard may also be willing to kill the unbelievers; that may sound outrageous, but I'm willing to bet that any outspoken atheist has received his or her share of death threats.  Things are just that crazy.  If you don't believe me, consider the case of 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist  [http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/atheist-teen-in-rhode-island-receives-death-threat]; recently, she successfully sued to have a prayer removed from her high school cafeteria, making her the target of online attacks and death threats which are being investigated by authorities. She now needs a police escort just to go to school.

Onward Christian soldiers!

The 99 percent blues

Overall, it's been a pretty good week.  First, we have great weather for mid-November!  And, it's Thanksgiving--my favorite holiday for several reasons.  Finally, my stock at work seems to have risen--long story, but I got a little recognition for a couple things, and that was much appreciated.  In short, I'm feelin' a bit happier than normal and kinda successful, too.

Then the mail arrived yesterday.  It included a brochure from my undergraduate alma mater titled, "Macalester Tomorrow: Making a Difference One Student at a Time."  I thought that sounded appealing, so I turned inside to read, "You can help students forever with an endowed scholarship."  (Well, there's an appeal to immortality if I've ever read one--helping students FOREVER!)  And so it turns out that the college is asking if I'd like to help fund an endowed scholarship.  How can I support such scholarships at Macalester?  "With a gift of $100,000 or more, you can establish a new endowed scholarship fund."

Whoa.  Time out.  Stop the presses.  With a gift of $100,000 or MORE?  How about $75 or LESS?  Who in the bleep has this type of money to donate?  Where have I gone wrong?  In general, we seem to be doing OK, financially.  For most of the year, there's been a little bulge in the checking account of a couple grand--we haven't had that month-to-month, paycheck-to-paycheck panic that used to characterize our finances when there were two additional mouths to feed.  But the idea that we would have $100K--$100K--to give is so far out of my latitude of acceptance (social judgment theory/Sherif) that it's all at once amusing, insulting, and depressing.

There's been a lot of talk in the last year about the "1 percent."  I have to admit that I am envious of those people.  I consider it a big expenditure (as it was this week) to spend $344 to fix one of our vehicles.  But for some people, $344 truly is chump change.  The CEO at my workplace has a base salary of about $250,000--that's over $20,000 every month.  Yikes--what would I do with that kind of coin?  I think I'd figure out a way to spend it.  But I'm still not sure I would have enough to fund one of those endowed scholarships!

Advice for the GOP

Well, fortunately, my fears that Mr. Romney would be elected were unfounded!  That's one big "whew"!  Despite all the problems we face, I believe that we are better off staying the course with a more enlightened Chief Executive.

I say "enlightened" because one thing became painfully clear during election 2012: a fair number of Republicans are just plain ignorant, narrow-minded, and dogmatic.  In so many ways, the Republicans have been behind the times.  An essay in the current Newsweek by David Frum, former speechwriter for Bush the Elder, makes the point with laser precision.  Frum concludes his piece by writing,

"On the Republican side, the road to renewal begins with this formula: 21st century conservatism must become economically inclusive, environmentally responsible, culturally modern, and intellectually credible."  Very well said!

The reality is that 21st century conservatism embraces beliefs that simply don't square with modern sensibilities.  You can't pray away the gay.  You can't keep disputing that there is climate change.  You can't keep protecting the rich from paying their fair share of taxes.  You can't keep ignoring that the gap between the poor and the rich is widening.  You can't possibly believe that we should go back to criminalizing abortion.  You can't contend that it's God's will if a woman gets pregnant after being raped.  You can't keep yelling "Socialist" every time someone wants the government to have a role in things.  You can't seriously suggest that evolution is "just a theory."  And you can't let people carry around AK-47s because some guys 200 years ago wanted everyone to be able to carry a musket.

I do think there is such a thing, potentially, as "intelligent conservatism."  But I haven't seen very much of it of late--and as along as Republicans stick to their nonsensical propositions about the world, they help their opposition.  Which is just fine with me.  But really, GOP: do you want to make it quite that easy for those liberals to win?  That's my idea of "unintelligent design."

More fun and aggravation with "Kyle"

From previous posts, my thousands of daily readers from Boston to Bangkok may remember my friend "Kyle" (not his real name--gotta protect both him and me, for different reasons).  Kyle and I knew each other in high school and we were both on the debate team, but from there our lives went in very different directions.  Over the years, Kyle's political views have evolved into something that might even make Rush Limbaugh wince occasionally; he's about as far to the right as anyone I can imagine.

So, it should come as no surprise that Kyle is a little peeved about this week's election results.  And I can't blame him--from his perspective, it had to be a very deflating experience.  Therefore, to "make nice" just a bit, I wrote to him and complimented both Romney and Obama for running reasonably civil campaigns.  And I forwarded to him a Star Tribune commentary that made the same point--taking each of them to task at times, but also saying that it was anything but a gutter campaign for the two standard-bearers. 

But--surprise, surprise--Kyle would have none of that:

"Of course you want to claim Obama was 'within bounds' with his campaign. However, most observers agree that Obama started early trashing Romney personally and professionally, while the same cannot be said of Romney. Sorry, I do not agree that Obama is basically a decent guy. He is a product of the Chicago hood mentality of politics and it shows in his campaign and his campaign staff. It also shows in his administration.

"As for the next 4 years, I  see Obama doing all the socialist things he has done in his first 4 years, only more so. I see folks like myself, entrepreneurs, investors, and business folks hunkering down to survive the onslaught of big government. We are already seeing it in the first 3 days after the election, with massive numbers of layoff announcements, hour reductions, and companies going out of business. I don't think Obama will do anything about the deficit or debt, and unemployment will get worse rather than better. Regulations will continue to skyrocket, welfare and food stamps, and other such programs will continue to increase, family net worth will continue to drop, and the workforce will continue to shrink. Taxing the 'rich' will not come close to fixing the deficit, nor will slashing the military. Medicare will continue to go bankrupt, and social security will continue toward bankruptcy. Obamacare will dramatically increase in cost over the original estimates, and much of the private healthcare industry will begin to fade away. Obama will propose another stimulus so he can pay off his cronies again, and it will fail like the last one. He will also attack our 2nd amendment rights, and continue to favor our enemies over our allies on the world stage. He will do nothing about Iran and their nuclear development. He will continue to appease the Islamic world while they laugh at him, and he will set the stage for terror attacks abroad and at home. He will continue to push abortion rights and mandates on the church and others opposed to abortions, and will continue to undermine traditional marriage. He will push the global warming hoax as a route to government revenues, and further restrict the development of fossil fuels in the USA, leaving it to the private sector to actually develop private resources. Lastly, he will continue to hide his birth certificate, his school records, his passport records, his Selective Service records, and all the other records he has kept from public scrutiny.

"So you have your prediction, and I have mine. Check with me in 4 years. As for me, I will be protecting my family and my livelihood. I will do as little as possible to feed the federal government/liberal establishment beast, and will not tolerate nor do business with those who are undermining this country."

Whoa.  What to say?  I didn't want to spend an hour grappling with this hostility, but I did send Kyle this response:

One of these days, maybe, I'll figure out how someone who is so warm, gracious, and friendly in person turns into such an ogre when it comes to politics!  And maybe I will also figure out how someone can have such a black-and-white, heaven-and-hell view of the world, neatly divided into friends and enemies, good buys and bad.  And finally, maybe I'll figure out how basically every sentence in what you wrote includes some over-the-top, hyperbolic, and melodramatic language ("skyrocketing" regulations, "slashing" the military, Medicare going "bankrupt," paying off his "cronies," "favor our enemies," global warming "hoax," etc.).  And when you suggest that Obama is out to "undermine traditional marriage," you say something that is patently incorrect and quite out of touch.  In fact, I really do not know a single political figure in the U.S.--not a single one, Democrat or Republican--who is trying to "undermine traditional marriage."

As for the campaign itself, your charges are broad and unsubstantiated.  The debates, for example, were certainly spirited, but both Romney and Obama stayed out of the gutter.  And your comments about Obama seem to ignore what he said in the debates about these issues.  

You're right, of course, that taxing the rich will not come close to fixing the deficit; it's merely part of an overall program.  But it can make a difference.  And there is evidence to suggest that tax rates are not closely aligned with the overall health of the economy; the idea that a slight increase (from historic lows) in tax rates for the wealthy would wreck the economy is not borne out by any economic analysis that I've seen.

Take a cleansing breath.  And have a little faith in America.

A little voice in me says that when it comes to Kyle, we're not done with this.  But as my friends have counseled--and I have taken it to heart from time to time--this may be such a losing battle that it's not a battle worth waging.