Moral Health

The other day, I saw a mom doing something unusual: While walking along the street, she was marvelously spending time interacting with her child.  The little infant was trying to manage pushing the stroller that he had previously been riding in.  He was advancing bit-by-bit.  And there was his mother attending to every step of success on the infant’s part.  The child was surely the same age as the infant to the right pushing his stroller—about 3 years old, I would gather.

From a far, I watched them with great satisfaction and deep emotion as the mom walked up the street with the child pushing the stroller and with the mother being so wondrously engaged by each and every moment.  For you see, what I had witnessed has in fact become rather rare, namely a parent actually spending time with their child as the parent walks along with either the child in toe or pushing the child in the stroller.  Why?  Because way too often nowadays the parent is on the cell phone blabbing away and in a very deep, deep and ever so profound sense the 3-year old child is simply not the primary object of the parent’s attention.

One does not have to be a genius to extrapolate as to how this talking-on-the-cell phone behavior on the parents who are walking with their 3-year old children will bear upon children.  It will bear negatively upon their children in two quite obvious ways: (1) The child will feel much less loved.  (2) The child’s command of the language will be considerably less rich.

In the not too distant past, a parent’s taking a 3-year old infant child out in a stroller or for a walk was none other an instance of special quality time between the parent and the child.  Unless the child was sleeping, the parent was animated by nearly every gesture on the part of the child.  The 3-year old child had the attention of her or his parents, whether it was car or a person or a pile of dirt to which the child pointed and said “Look!”  Not anymore.

Nowadays, whether the 3-year old child actually has the attention of her or his parents would to be none other than a matter of accident.  Indeed, even if the child is having a mild crisis, the parent might very well finish the conversation before turning to address the child’s concerns.  In terms of feeling “the love”: Why, I feel more love talking and walking with my friends than many a 3-year old, nowadays, is apt to feel from her or his parents when the parent is carrying the child along.

Then there is the issue of the child acquiring a command of the language.  When you think about, it is simply amazing just how competent children become in speaking simply by being spoken to by their parents and friends.  The cumulative effect of all those simple conversations is utterly majestic: fluency in the language.

And it does not matter how complicated the language it.  In French, the difference between saying (a) “I am going to sleep” and saying (b) “I am going to have sex” is distinguished simply by the reflexive “me”: (a*) “Je vais me coucher” and (b*) “Je vais coucher”.  But ne’er a child raised in France gets that wrong.  Or so it was in the past.  I am willing to bet a lot of money that nowadays young French children do not have the clarity that they used to have regarding the difference between (a*) and (b*) precisely because in France, too, parents with their children are too busy talking on their cell phone.

During the most formative years of a child’s life, the cell phone is having a most deleterious impact upon parenting, as so many parents unthinkingly privilege talking on their cell phone over talking and interacting with their child.  In the spirit of the saying, “One never gets a second chance to make a first impression”, it is also true that “One never gets a second chance to raise a child in the way that she or he should be raised.”

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

Mr. Gac Filipag. I cannot begin to put into words how much I admire this man.  He is the very personification of determination and having the will to stay the course.  Fleeing Yugoslavia and coming to the United States in the hopes of living a better life he became a janitor at Columbia University.  He started taking courses at the University; and some 20 years later he earned his baccalaureate degree.  Mr. Filipag is the very personification of what it means to stay the course and to keep one’s eyes on the prize.  He is the poster-child for the idea of not making excuses for oneself.

Next to Mr. Filipag, I have had and led one tremendous easy life.  I have never had to flee to another country in the hopes of leading a better life.  And the only menial thing that I have ever done was work in a super market for two weeks.  But wait a minute. It is equally true for countless many people in the United States that they have a tremendously easy life.

Mr. Filipag made an opportunity for himself.  By contrast, most young Americans have one opportunity after another thrown at them.  Mr. Filipag did what, at the outset, I am sure no one ever expected that he would and what surely no one initially encouraged him to do: he took a course and then he took another course.  And so it went.

Mr. Filpag turned the land of opportunity, as many often refer to the United States, into a reality.  By contrast, so very many individuals who are born in the United States make thwarting every opportunity given to them their full-time job.

Of course, Gac Filipag was a mature 32 years old (or thereabouts) when he arrived in the United States.  And no 15 or 20 year old individual can be expected to have the maturity of a 32 year old.  Still, the self-discipline that he was showing at 32 years of age surely sits upon a veritable mountain of good family upbringing.  Either that, or he indeed has angel.  I say that because he did not come to the United States and let loose.  He did not come to the United States and find every excuse available to wallow in mediocrity.  No, he came to the states with nothing; and with a most admirable degree of self-determination, he made something of himself.

Rather than focusing upon what he did not have, Mr. Filipag fixed his gaze upon what he could have; and with a steadfast that may be without equal, he worked towards that goal.

Some will no doubt go on about the fact that at the age of 52, he is getting his baccalaureate degree a little late.  But he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he fulfilled his dream.  And nothing can deprive him of that ever so marvelous sense of accomplishment.

I cannot live vicariously through Mr. Filipag.  Just so, I can look at his life with a depth of admiration that truly animates my soul.  He does not know me; and our paths will most likely never cross.  Yet, by his determination and fortitude he crossed a finished line that many readily supposed that he would never cross.  And in so going, he has given me a gift of inspiration that I shall have forever.  Thank You, Dear Mr. Filipag, Thank You.

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

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Rather than focusing upon what he did not have, Mr. Filipag fixed his gaze upon what he could have; and with a steadfast that may be without equal, he worked towards that goal.© 2012 Laurence Thomas

So viewing child porn is now legal–at least in the State of New York  Possessing child porn, though, is still illegal.  So it is according the New York Court of Appeals.  This may be the most ridiculous legal ruling ever.  Now, there is a respect in which the Court certainly has a point.  We all know that while surfing the internet, it is possible to come across a site by mistake that one finds utterly despicable morally, be it some Nazi propaganda site or an adult porn site.  This may be owing to having accidentally typed the wrong thing or a virus infection.  So in a like manner it is possible to come across an instance of child porn.  So if this is what New York Court of Appeals had in mind by its decision, then fair enough.  No one penalized end up with a criminal record for possessing child porn merely because the person mistyped a word or the person’s computer is infected.

Alas, the problem with the Court’s ruling is that it unwittingly allows for viewing child porn by streaming it.  This is because the Court ruled that there is a difference between unintentionally viewing child porn and procuring it or intending to do so.  That is right.  Alas, the problem is that strictly speaking streaming child porn no more constitutes an attempt to procure it, then streaming any other kind of video constitutes an attempt to procure that video.  Streaming child porn is not an attempt to procure it.  Just so, it is a most deliberate attempt to view it.  And therein lies the problem.

The New York Court of Appeals has roundly ignored the difference between (a) accidentally seeing an instance of child porn on the internet and (b) deliberately viewing child porn on the internet, even though one has no intentions whatsoever to procure it.  In effect, the Court treats (b) as an instance of (a).

Needless to say, the length of time viewing something is quite significant in terms determining whether a person intended to be viewing it or not.  Surely it takes no more than a minute or so maximum to recognize that what one is seeing is child porn, just as it takes no more than that amount of time to recognize that it is adult porn one is viewing.  Pornography being what it is, no one needs to watch an entire film, be it child or adult porn, in order to determine that indeed it really is porn.

Still, there is a real respect in which technology has indeed changed the game a bit.  It is now perfectly possible for a person to have some data on her computer pertaining to porn—even child porn—although had no intentions whatsoever of viewing the porn.  A few years ago, something analogous would have been entirely out of the question.  If one lived alone, then barring someone putting them there without one’s knowledge, there was simply no way to have porn images in one’s home if indeed one did not bring the porn home.  By contrast, owing to the nature of the internet it is possible to have what I shall refer to as a “porn trace” somewhere on one’s system without one being in anyway aware of it.

And if that is so, then technology has become a most disconcerting ally of child porn.  All that it would take is a porn site with quite an adult porn name to in fact stream child porn, since viewing streaming porn, be it child porn or adult porn, is not about procuring it.

What adults voluntarily do with one another is pretty much their business.  But all of us rightly draw the line at child porn.  The problem is this: In the matter of viewing child porn, the New York Court of Appeals has so shifted the burned of proof upon the would-be-accuser that in fact the Court has opened the door to viewing child porn.

On my view, one incontrovertible mark of an evil society is that it allows a loop-hole that permits the viewing of child-porn.  We must find a way to close that loop-hole.  I propose that any company that streams must certify that the porn is adult porn—and not child porn.  Second, I propose that adult porn and only adult porn should have certain configuration to it that clearly marks it as adult porn.  This is the least that we can to undermine the streaming of adult porn.  It is what we must do.

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

Never in the history of humanity has there been so much knowledge coupled with so much irresponsible behavior.  The irresponsibility that we are routinely seeing in 2012 comes very close to making some of the ridiculous behavior of the past look sane.  We learn that a 13 year-old girl takes new pictures of herself with the help of—you guessed it—her mother.  Or there are teachers in junior high school and high school who have sex with their students.  Or there is the mother who goes to a tanning booth and becomes so tan that she ends up looking utterly gross.  And if that were not enough, she helps her daughter to become that tan as well.  Then there is the obviously intelligent President Obama who is obviously so hostile towards the rich that he does not seem to notice that increasing the taxes of those who earn more than $200,000—as he proposed—does absolutely nothing to bring down the deficit, which is slowly but surely undermining the economy of the United States.

I will not even bother to mention many of the absolutely absurd things that people are posting on their Facebook page.  Likewise, the fact that people cannot take responsibility for something as personal as eating properly is utterly mind-boggling.  And given what we know about the significance of parental love, I find utterly disgusting and stupefying that parents walking with their child are more likely to be on their cell phone than conversing with their child.

Here are two more cases of absurdity worth mentioning that pertain to the matter of race.  (1) Black cyclists in Mobile (Alabama) attacked a white person and explicitly claimed that they are doing so in the name of revenge for the young black teen in Florida, Trayvon Martin who was killed by Zimmerman.  But the black mayor of Mobile (Alabama), Mr. Sam Jones, claims that there was no racial motivation on the part cyclists who claimed that they attacked the white man in the name of revenge.  (2) At Syracuse University, a young white graduate student in the School of Education, who was doing student teaching at the Danforth Middle School in Syracuse, was suspended for an entire semester in the Fall of 2011 because he dared to say on his Facebook page that he found offensive the statement by the NAACP person (who was observing the student teaching) that only black people should teach black elementary children.  The absurdity of the suspension becomes only greater when one realizes that the white student was student teaching at the Danforth Middle School under the auspices of Syracuse University.  So the University itself did not agree with the claim of the NAACP person.  But why let that get in the way?

As I have already indicated, I do not deny for a moment that horrendous things have been done in the past.  But the indisputable difference is that we have vastly more knowledge at our fingertips than humans had a mere 50 years ago, let alone centuries ago.  Yet, it is anything but obvious that with the knowledge available human beings are more reasonable, more reflective, and more judicious in their thinking or assessment of matters.  And there is the rub.  Indeed, in comparison to the extraordinary amount of knowledge that we have at our disposal, it can be said that human beings are becoming less reasonable and less properly reflective.  Far from resulting in better reflection, as Raymond Kurzweil in the Singularity supposes, the very opposite is taking place: The level of reasonableness we are seeing is coming dangerously close to being inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge that we have at our very fingertips.

What is supposed to be the distinguishing feature of human beings is that we, unlike animals, can rise above our feelings in order to do what is reasonable, where what we deem to be reasonable is properly determined by the knowledge that we have at our disposal.  When a dog attacks an infant, we grasp that the dog cannot be held morally responsible for that behavior even as we may, as we say, “put the dog down”.  But how can we possibly make sense of high school teachers having a sexual twist with a student?  For the impropriety here is so palpably evident that one has to be on the order of a zombie in order not to grasp it.

How does Syracuse University suspend for an entire semester merely for posting on his Facebook his disagreement with a NAACP person’s claim that only blacks should teach blacks, when the University itself does not agree with that statement?

In a world surfeited with knowledge at our fingertips, what we are increasingly seeing is not greater reasonableness and thoughtfulness as well greater insight and foresight.  Oh contraire!  What we are increasingly seeing is an utter explosion of sheer unbridled expressions of unexpurgated desires.  In effect, human beings are becoming more like animals than animals themselves.

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

We expect the horrific name calling of Jews from KKK groups and neo-Nazi groups.  That is one aspect of the very evil of such groups.  But of late the horrific name calling of Jews has come from a most unexpected quarter, namely Jews themselves.  Jewish soldiers and police officers have been called Nazis by the ultra-Orthodox.  And non-observant Jews have been called Nazis by ultra-Orthodox Jews.

One might have thought that before any Jew would even think to call another Jew a Nazi, the Jew called a Nazi would have had to have joined the very ranks of a Hitlerian army.

Recently, Rabbi Evan Shore of Shaari Torah Congregation of Syracuse gave a most moving and powerful arguments against calling Jews Nazis.  In effect, his argument is that Jews calling Jews Nazis is tantamount to Jews themselves giving Hitler and his cohorts a posthumous victory.

Since Rabbi Shore is the rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue he understands all too well the significance of being an observant Jew  So he understands the anguish, if you will, on the part of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel over the fact so many Jews in Israel are not observant.  Needless to say, anguish on the part of the ultra-Orthodox is one thing; whereas showing a level hostility towards Jews that calls to mind Nazi soldiers is quite another.  And Rabbi Shore’s majestic and poignant point is that no Jew should call a Jew a Nazi merely because that Jew is not observant.  Why?  Precisely because that in effect is tantamount to displaying towards that Jew the very hatred that was invoked by Hitler to kill millions of Jews.

I very much like Rabbi Shore’s argument.

One can be disappointed in a Jew for all sorts of reasons and yet not be at all justified in regarding that Jew as evil as a Nazi.  Non-religious Jews may have many shortcomings but there is no ocean wide enough to reflect the gap between merely being a non-observant Jew and being as evil as a Nazi.  That is to say, merely being non-observant as a Jew does not even come close to embodying in one’s life the evil a Nazi in Hitler’s army.

One of the defining characteristics of the era run by Hitler and his cohorts is that any and every excuse was used to demonize the Jews and thus have an excuse to kill them.  Rabbi Shore’s most poignant point is that in calling Jews Nazis merely because the Jews are non-observant, the ultra-Orthodox are likewise demonizing Jews.

We expect antisemitism from certain quarters.  We expect some to manufacture reasons to demonize Jews.  That is, we expect some to be committed to finishing what Hitler started, namely ridding the world entirely of Jews.  Individuals with that aim are evil people.

Now, non-observant Jews may very well be open to criticism for failing to be observant.  In failing to be observant, however, such Jews are by no means committed to finishing what Hitler started.  And it is this very simple truth and reality that the ultra-Orthodox surely realize.  It is this simple truth that Rabbi Shore asks all Jews to bear in mind, be they ultra-Orthodox or not.

It is this very simple truth and reality that the ultra-Orthodox must surely acknowledge.  Nay, it is morally irresponsible for them not to do so.  One way to understand evil is that it attributes to a person an egregious moral defect and shortcoming that she or he manifestly does not have.  Only an evil person would call a person known to be innocent a rapist or a child molester.  Sheer disappointment will not justify making such charges against the person.

So who is more evil: the non-observant Jews or the ultra-Orthodox who the non-observant call Nazis?  Well, I find myself drawn to the conclusion that there is a most profound respect in which it is the ultra-Orthodox who are more evil than the non-observant Jews.  Rabbi Shore did not make that claim; and I do not think for a moment that I can speak for him or that I am speaking for him.  The pursuit of righteousness can never be an excuse to label as evil someone who is not.  The only excuse that I can think of for the ultra-Orthodox is that we are increasingly live in a world in which the appreciation for the meaning of words is decreasing.  Regrettably, if the ultra-Orthodox can call Jews Nazis merely because the Jews are non-observant, then the ultra-Orthodox have slipped mightily in their command of what it means to be righteous.  Again, Rabbi Shore did not say that.  I did.

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

If killing is so terribly wrong, then the following question forcefully presents itself: Why is it that when a white kills a black person, black folks become terribly outraged and hold protests and make the charge of racism.  The ever so “upright” Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are brought in to talk about the depth of racism.  Protests are held and there are marches to draw attention the view that racism still exists—nay, still alive and flourishing in the United States. 

But when a black kills a black, one barely hears a peep out of anyone.  There is no Reverend Al Sharpton or Reverend Jesse Jackson convening groups of blacks to point out the horror of a black killing a black.  There are no marches.  There are no protests.  There are no outcries of great pain and loss.  Yet, black-on-black crime, rather than white racism, is the great plague in countless many black communities.

Now, of course, racism is wrong.  But is the killing of black less wrong and less disconcerting when it is done by a black rather than a white?  Or, to go the other way, is the killing of a black more wrong and more troubling when it is done by a white?  Alas, these two questions hardly receive an affirmative answer.  In fact, there is a way in which it can be argued that the killing of a black by a black is even worse—or so it is if one takes seriously all this talk about ethnic identity and ethnic pride.  Indeed, few things are more incongruous than the fact that blacks can go on and on and on about ethnic identity and self-identity and yet do more violence to one another than any non-black. 

To repeat: Nothing I have said diminishes the wrong of a white killing a black.  For the wrong of killing is a wrong no matter what the ethnic combination might be between the murderer and the victim. 

But, to change gears a bit, surely something is wrong when the very people who can go on and on and on about the problem of racism when a white kills a black are deafeningly silent when a black kills a black.  And of course, there are countless whites who join blacks in expressing outrage over a white killing a black.  But when has one heard any of these very whites turn to the “upright” Reverend Al Sharpton or the equally “upright” Reverend Jesse Jackson and asks “What is up with all this killing of blacks by blacks?”  Why are you not speaking out against it?  Likewise, when has any of one these white people spoken out against black-on-black killings?  

Putting all of the above considerations together, it looks for all the world as if we have a serious degree of dysfunctionality among many blacks.  And guess what?  Many white liberals are contributing to that dysfunctionality. 

Let me put the point a different way.  If I really care about you, then it goes without saying that I will be there for you when others wrong you.  But guess what?  It is also the case that when I see you harm yourself, I am going say something to you as well.  Indeed, both the former and the latter actions equally follow from what it means to genuinely care about an individual.  And if I never say anything to you when I can see as clearly as the night follows the day that you are seriously harming yourself, then what unequivocally follows is that there is a deep level of hypocrisy on my part with respect to you; for I simply do not care about you as much as I say I do.

Well, the point holds equally when we move to the group level.  Whites who claim to be so committed to racial equality and the flourishing of blacks are being more than a little disingenuous when all that they can see is the wrong of racism by a white against a blacks—and never the horrendous wrong committed by blacks against blacks.  And if the issue here is that a white is ipso facto a racist in virtue of criticizing a black, then precisely what we know is that the term of racism is mutated into nothing more than an incoherent form terminology of which blacks avail themselves in order to have momentary leverage.  And if white liberals lack the courage to point that out, then they, too, are rather hypocritical.  For it is an inescapable truth that I cannot really be your friend if I stand by and watch you destroy yourself.  The factor of race does not change this truth one iota.  Be it on the individual level or the group level: I cannot be your friend if I stand by and watch you harm yourself. 

What follows from the preceding considerations is that change is very much in order.  Change on the part of blacks and also change on the part of white liberals who claim that they are so committed the flourishing of blacks.

 © 2012 Laurence Thomas

Making Excuses is on my view none other than a non-violent form of evil.  Indeed, I suggest that (short of violence itself) there is no greater impediment to living well than making excuses.  The making of excuses stands in stark opposition to taking oneself seriously as a fully responsible person.  And no one has ever lived well without taking herself or himself seriously.  

At the risk of offending all sorts of people, I am prepared to say in general that the blacks of yesterday lived much more meaningful lives than the blacks of today.  So it is notwithstanding the reality that racism was far more vicious back then than it is now.  I would explain this difference by none other than the fact that the blacks of yesteryear rarely made excuses for themselves.  By contrast, the blacks of today have turned making excuses for themselves into none other than an art form.

I am a regular listener of the Dr. Laura program; and of late few things have stunned me more than the creativity that people display in coming up with reasons for why they cannot follow Dr. Laura’s advice and thereby do the more responsible thing.

People are roundly mistaken in thinking that self-love is incompatible with—nay, precludes—self-criticism.  I suggest that there is no clearer sign of self-love than the ability to take stock of one’s behavior.  On the one hand, self-criticism should not be confused with self-deprecation.  On the hand, other, self-love should not be thought to entail the absence of self-criticism. 

What is more, and this gets to the very heart of the matter, a society does not promote both proper self-love—as Rousseau would say—and a deep sense of personal responsibility by refraining from the proper criticism.  I repeat: It does not.

Insofar as freedom is worth anything to a human being, it is precisely because we use the freedom to realize our talents.  In so using freedom, we give to ourselves a gift, anchored in self-knowledge, than no one else can ever give to us, no matter how much they do for us.  Indeed, we become and experience ourselves as being the author of our own lives.  And that is a gift that we give to ourselves that no one can ever give to us.  However, in a society that cultivates making excuse and blaming others for our own irresponsibility the very fabric of our humanity is eroded.  

Needless to say, no society should ever deny the wrongs that were perpetuated by that society.  However, there is a fundamental difference between (1) being ever so mindful of the wrongs of the past and (2) allowing those so wronged and persons of that ancestry to use the wrongs of the past as an excuse for irresponsibility.  I would argue that the fundamental mistake of America is that somewhere in the 80s (1) was thought to entail (2), with the result being that (3) across the board having a strong sense of responsibility began to fall by the wayside.  

This clearly shows itself in, for example, the classroom.  Students on most college campuses in America do not get the kind of education that they should receive; and here is why in a nutshell.  Every white professor knows that he is automatically a racist if she or he criticizes a black or a Latino student; and the result has been a perverse equality with respect to students in that nowadays no one in the classroom—be the person black, white, brown, yellow, or whatever—is much criticized even in a constructive way by professors.  

50 years ago, it was obvious to all that with liberty comes responsibility.  And black folks who, owing to racism, had low-paying jobs nonetheless understood that they had a responsibility to their families and acted accordingly.  Nowadays, a black with a low paying job is just as likely to blame racism for the fact that she or he does not have a better job and then use that as an excuse for squandering her or his pay check rather responsibly supporting the family.  But I misspoke: That mode of behavior has become common place across the board, resulting in what can only be referred to as morally bankrupt equality.  Notice the parallel to point in the preceding paragraph about the erosion in educational instruction.

The very idea that liberty and responsibility are inextricably intertwined typically is one that upon falls upon deaf ears these days.  Everyone wants liberty without responsibility—a pairing that would have been deemed conceptually and morally incoherent to the founding authors of the United States.  

So there is a profound respect in which we are not becoming a better nation, even as equality increases; and the reason for that is none other than the truth that we no longer underwrite the majestic sense of responsibility of which human beings and only human beings are capable.  As we give pride of place to liberty, we increasingly turn a blind eye to responsibility.  And that reality sounds the death knell of society.  One very profound aspect of Dr. Laura’s thought can summed up in just that assessment.  

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

David Duke or Louis Farrakhan?  Because I am such a fierce proponent of free speech, I would not any qualms with either individual being invited to give a lecture at a university.  For it is has always seemed to me that we should not just listen to people repeating beliefs that we already know and embrace.  David Duke thinks that blacks are socially and intellectually inferior to whites.  Farrakhan thinks that Jews played a major role in American Slavery and that Jews also control the American government.  Yet, for reasons that I shall present momentarily, I think that Farrakhan is far worse morally than David Duke.

Now, I also think that people who hold manifestly ridiculous view should have to listen to a sincere and poignant critique of their views.  So such a person would give here or his lecture; and then that lecture would be followed by a 15 minute assessment before questions from the audience would be entertained.  It is not enough to believe that Duke or Farrakhan is wrong—after all, people can believe just about anything.  Rather, one should have defensible reasons for so believing that either of these two people are wrong. 

So on my view, free speech could indeed be a very powerful educational tool.

As for the intellectual ability of blacks, let us concede for the sake of argument that no black has ever shown the genius of an Einstein or a Da Vinci.  What hardly follows from that assumption is that blacks are dumber than all whites.  It hardly follows that all blacks are intellectually inferior to even most whites.  After all, exactly how many whites have displayed the genius of an Einstein or a Da Vinci?  Probably not even enough to form a good lynch-mob! 

As for Jews and the slave trade: the issue is not whether some owned black slaves.  That is indeed true.  It is also true that some blacks owned blacks slaves.  After all, slavery was practiced in Africa by blacks against blacks.  What makes Farrakhan’s claim about Jews playing one of the key roles in the bringing about of American Slavery so very disturbing is that he does not produce a scintilla of evidence to back up that claim.  Indeed, he does not even tell an elaborate story that would give the claim an ounce of credibility.  And given the existence in the past of deep and venomous antisemitism among whites, the very idea of American whites, or whites throughout the world, relying upon Jews for the slave trade is absolutely incredulous.  Notice that not even Hitler gives Jews any credit for treating blacks as inferior.  

This brings me to my claim that Louis Farrakahn is morally worse than David Duke.  Duke is clear that he is committed to the white race.  By contrast, Farrakahn claims to be committed to justice and righteousness.  And there is the rub.  Every since I learnt about him in the late 80s he has been making absolutely untenable and vicious claims about Jews.  It is now 2012, and he is still making those claims.  He made precisely those venomous claims about Jews running the slave trade in his recent address to the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference at UC-Berkeley. 

The very man who claims to be fighting against injustices against blacks, and thus standing up to injustice against blacks is the very same person who expresses some of the most vitriolic antisemitism ever to be expressed.  What I ask is the moral difference between him and the venomous mouth Martin Luther, 1483-1546, who wrote the horrendously antisemitic pamphlet “Jews and Their Lies”?  The answer is very simple: little, if any difference.  Most poignantly, this raises the question of why he was invited by the Afrikan Black Coalition.  The claim is that he was invited for his positive message; and one student claimed that what he got out of Farrakhan’s lecture is that “. . . we as black students can take our education and utilize it to build the black community back up.”  No sane person on this planet—certainly no such person with or in the course of getting an education—could ever convince me that but for Farrakhan that thought would never have occurred to her or him.  

If any group were to invite David Duke to speak at UC-Berkeley, black students would be up in arms on the grounds that he is a racist and thus inviting him to speak constitutes a form of racism.  Well, is it not the case that with Louis Farrakhan all that we have is none other than a racist with a different shade of skin?  And to excuse Farrakhan’s racism on the untenable grounds that he is offering new insight regarding the struggle for black equality is woefully and sadly ever so disingenuous—a fact that is not excused on account of being black.

 © 2012 Laurence Thomas

White liberals are so busy wringing their hands and flagellating themselves over the wrong of racism, that it effectively turns out that blacks can do little, if any, wrong.  Another way of putting this point is that for white liberals generally, the issue of blacks being either accountable or responsible simply does not get off the ground.  And if that point seems like sheer hyperbole, then I ask you ask you the following: When was the last time you heard a white liberal criticize the black-on-black crime that is rampant in many black communities in the United States?  

Or what about the practice of “no snitching”?  According to this absurd view, if a black woman is raped by a black man, it is wrong for her to report that wrong to the police because, after all, legal enforcement is held to be nothing than more than the tool of the white man to oppress black people.  In many cases, she will be physically harmed if she does call the police.  What white liberal has criticized that practice.

In no way does one have to deny that racism has been displayed by white officers towards blacks in order to see just how absurd it is to hold that a black woman cannot report the tremendous wrong of rape.  

On college campuses, white liberal professors can see racism in just about anything that moves.  And one consequence of this is that the term racism has all but lost its meaning in the academic world.  Every white student on a college campus knows that she or he is likely to be deemed a racist just by disagreeing with a black about a matter pertaining to racism.  And white liberal professors are more likely than not to underwrite that line of thought.  Here is a quite interesting example.  In my 400-person Philosophy 191 class this Spring 2012 semester, a Latino student insisted that only Latino people should adopt a Latino infant.  There was effectively dead silence on the part of white students in the class.  And upon encountering various white students in the class while moving across campus, the sentiment expressed by all was very simple: Disagreeing with that Latino student made them too vulnerable to the charge of racism.  It took showing a YouTube video of a phenotypically black male talking about his extraordinary love for his phenotypically white mother, who had adopted him, in order to put white students in the class at-ease with openly disagreeing with the Latino student.

I take it as a given that no one should ever forget the evil of racism.  But in the ever so typical case, young black students alive today know no more about the evil of being a victim of the vicious racism of yesteryear than do young white students know about the evil of being an agent of the vicious racism of yesteryear.  

Yet, to hear white liberals tell it, blacks are an authority on what counts as venomous racism simply in virtue of being black.  Worse still, to hear white liberals tell it: the term “racist” has become something akin to what
the late-J. L. Austin called a performative utterance, namely that in this case merely saying that something is racist thereby makes it racist.  So it is on most college campuses.  So it is with such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  But needless to say, this means that blacks have no accountability whatsoever in how they use the term “racist”.  And white liberals are totally blind to just how irresponsible they are being in taking this posture towards the use of the word “racist”.

Worse still, white liberals are beginning to use the word “racist” in a like manner.  The proof of this is Senator Harry Reid’s claim that debating about whether to pass health care reforms was analogous to debating about whether or not to end slavery.  

I have a very simple view.  There can be no progress on the part of any single individual or group of individuals in the absence of a clear measure of responsibility on the part of either the individual in question or the majority of people who make up the group in question.  A most poignant truth is that proportionally blacks killed far fewer blacks during the middle years of the 20th Century than they do now.  In general, blacks in the past behaved more responsibly and a much greater sense of accountability then than they do now.  Indeed, the Civil Rights Movement as lead by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not just about blaming whites for racism but acting responsibly and accountably in the face of racism.  There would have been no successful Selma march had that not been the case.

Since so much of this is obvious—the facts pretty much speak for themselves, a question that ever so forcefully presents itself is this: Why is it that white liberals fail to see the obvious.  More poignantly, why is that they fail to see that they are doing more harm than good to blacks by not holding blacks both accountable and responsible.  To hold blacks accountable and responsible is to nurture the very soul of black folks.  Of course, it would be ludicrous to say that white liberals are worse than the KKK.  Yet, there is a poignant sense in which that turns out to be true in just the way in which it is true that real friends do not let friends drive drunk.  No man has to be a woman in order to know that rape is absolutely and unequivocally wrong.  Well, in a like manner one does not have to be black in order to see that black-on-black crime and the indiscriminate use of the word “racism” is doing more than good for black people.  

I have heard talk of the new KKK.  The lynching of blacks is so passé.  It is not at all clear to me that the new KKK would not in the end applaud white liberals for the damage that in fact they, white liberals, are doing to blacks by not insisting on responsibility and accountability on the part of blacks—a modus operandi in the present that in no way denies the evil of the past.  

Are blacks better off or worse off on account of white liberals?  Alas, the truth of the matter is that there is very straightforward respect in which blacks are worse off on account of white liberals.  In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr: Where do we go from here?

© 2012 Laurence Thomas

For a printed copy of this essay, click here: Liberals Who Harm

Even if one thinks that no one has a right to birth control supplies, one can still maintain that Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Susan Flute was utterly wrong, misguided, and malicious.  He called her a slut and a prostitute.  And those labels go well beyond what is appropriate even if one thinks that the idea of having a right to birth control supplies is just plain ludicrous.  Here is the sound-bite of Rush Limbaugh: Rush Limbaugh MP3

Let us concede, for the sake of argument, that Limbaugh was engaging in his usual hyperbole in attacking Susan Fluke.  But even here there are limits.  There is a difference between hyperbole and character assassination; and there is no doubt at all about that: Limbaugh’s remarks regarding Susan Flute were none other than character assignation.  

For one thing, whatever objections anyone may have to people having sex outside of the bounds of marriage, it is simply inappropriate to hold that a person who does so is morally bankrupt.  It is certainly inappropriate to label such a person a “slut” or “prostitute” in the absence of the behavior that warrants those labels; and we know that merely having sex outside of marriage does not suffice to warrant such appellations.  

A slut is not just someone who has sex outside of marriage, typically a female.  Rather, the person is someone who frequently has sex and, moreover, the person indiscriminately has numerous partners.  An unmarried woman who is in a committed relationship and who has lots of sex with her partner is not a slut.  

Limbaugh’s objection to the federal government paying for birth control surely did not give him the right to refer to Susan Fluke as a slut.  And the word “slut” is so negative that using it even as a form of hyperbole in talking about a particular person whose moral character one does not know is simply morally inadmissible and inexcusable. 

Of course, liberals have been quick to criticize Mr. Limbaugh direct criticism Susan Fluke and the utterly horrific comparison of her to a slut and a prostitute.  However, my view is that conservatives should be equally quick to do so.  And as far as I can see, the reasons that conservatives have for doing so dovetail with the reasons that liberals have for doing so, namely that Limbaugh engaged in an entirely unwarranted assault upon Susan Fluke’s character.  

That assault upon Susan Fluke’s character is wrong whether or not one thinks that the federal government should underwrite birth control.  

If Limbaugh hard exclaimed that all woman who believe that the government should underwrite the use of birth control are sluts and prostitutes, his remarks would still have been objectionable, since that is clearly false.  Just so, there would not have been a direct assault upon the character of a person whose personal life he (Limbaugh) knows nothing about.  And from a moral point of view that difference is a non-trivial difference.  

There has been a call to boycott sponsors of the Rush Limbaugh show; and I have considerable sympathy for doing that.  Unless Limbaugh apologizes, then I have considerably sympathy for such a boycott although I do not have the general disgust for him that many do.  My reasoning here is very simple: (a) One simply does not make venomous remarks about a person’s character when one does not anything about that person.  (b) Wherever one stands on the idea of the federal government underwriting the expense and use of birth control, it is simply false that users of birth control are, in virtue of being such, morally bankrupt individuals.  Surely, Limbaugh knows this.  There is no story that anyone could tell that could convince me that he does not.  

Putting the forgoing considerations together, then what follows is that Limbaugh’s attack of Susan Fluke’s character by calling her a slut and a prostitute was ever so morally indefensible.  He owes Susan Fluke an apology.  And apologize is what he would do if he is a person of admirable character, as surely he would claim that he is.

What he should have said—and any number of people would agree with him—is that it is utterly obnoxious and absurd for her to maintain that the federal government should underwrite her use of birth control.  That is an absurd view whether she is in a committed relationship, including marriage, or not.  

© 2012 Laurence Thomas