If you love dogs, then you must hate people

Leave it to Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten to come up with whatever evidence she can to support whatever case she is making.  Those who read her know that she's a longtime foe of things like "secular humanism" or "moral relativism."  So, in the August 25 edition of the Strib, Kersten shows how the world is going to hell: one academic researcher, in one obscure study, found that, hypothetically, people might save their pet before a human being in the face of an advancing runaway bus.  From this, she concludes that humans have become increasingly devalued.  Oh my.  Although the Strib chose not to publish my response to her rant, there's always a place for rejected material at good ol' CI!  So, for the record, here is what I sent to our local daily newspaper:

I must confess to being intrigued by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.  Although I disagree with her most of the time, I frequently try to figure out what makes her tick.  And that sense of mystery surely surfaced again when I read her recent column, “Is puppy love turning us into misanthropes?”

Her thesis: because one academic study done in Georgia revealed that a fair number of people would choose to save their dog from a runaway bus rather than a person, we may be taking the civil rights of humans for granted.  Not only that, but we are plagued by a society that embraces the dastardly philosophy of “moral relativism.”

When faced with such a bizarre and convoluted argument, it’s hard to know how to unpack it.  One gets the feeling that she was looking for something—anything—that she could use to advance a more sweeping agenda.  And, in so doing, heaven forbid that a little common sense and balance should get in the way.

The study she cites is purely hypothetical—it can’t determine what people would actually do in “real” situations.  At best, it’s an intellectual parlor game (and one in which I’m guessing some chose to save the animal because in the abstract, animals are often viewed as more “helpless” than humans).  But equally disconcerting is her assumption that if anyone cares as much about the family pet as an unknown human being, that somehow this inevitably reduces the status of humans.  To care about animals does not mean we don’t care about humans—if anything, such a concern for all living things should be welcomed.  For Kersten to even vaguely hint that people would “love to throw granny under the bus” is offensive.  She even has the chutzpah to bring up the Declaration of Independence, arguing that humans have certain unalienable rights.  Then, if she hasn’t gone far enough off the beam as it is, she uses this study to help her rant against “scientific materialism and moral relativism.”

What, according to Kersten, is moral relativism?  Because it involves no “universal truths,” each person simply chooses what’s “true” for him or her, with the goal to simply be “happy.”  In her view, moral relativism is all about “our personal preferences and tastes”—nothing more.  Such a description is equally ridiculous and totally misleading.  It’s a false dilemma to suggest that either we have absolute standards or basically no standards at all.  Earth to Katherine: moral relativism is still based on principles, and standards; it is simply that in most situations, there are competing principles that must be carefully weighed and considered.  Even Kersten has her relativistic tendencies: for example, she lauds “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but is quite comfortable to deny those guarantees to people seeking same-sex marriages.  I think in the end what can be so galling about Kersten’s prose is its smug simplicity: take one obscure study and then conclude that Western Civilization is in danger because the Judeo-Christian framework is in peril.

Kersten is right, of course, that we must always consider morals and ethics.  But whether she likes it or not, there are lots of ways to do that, most of which are more complicated than she makes them out to be.  In looking for a nice, neat ledge to stand on, she not only trivializes the need for ethical reflection, but she also offers a caricature of those who don’t see eye-to-eye with her that’s unjustified, erroneous, and more than a wee bit unfair and paranoid.  Take a cleansing breath, Katherine: all of us care about doing the right thing; we just sometimes have more deep and nuanced notions about it.  Moral relativism, simply put, is not the lack of morality, nor is it simply justifying whatever one wants to do.

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!