Moral Health

No doubt it is but a publicity stunt in order to get media attention.  And to some extent it worked.  The distinguished French newspaper Le Monde quickly picked up Gaddafi’s claim.  As of this moment (15h00), the New York Times has not mentioned it.  As I read the story, I asked myself three questions: (1) Is there any chance of Islam being accepting of other religions?  (2) Is it reasonable to expect a public outcry from other Muslims?  (3) Will there be a public outcry from others?

Imagine the Pope or a Cardinal asserting that Europe should return to the days of old and fully practice Catholicism.  There would surely be a public outcry on the part of many.  The Pope or Cardinal would surely be branded as intolerant of other religions.  And then Muslims would talk about the extent to which there is such unwarranted hostility towards Islam.

But is this a one way street?  Is that while other religions can be hostile towards Islam, there is no such thing as hostility on the part of Islam towards other religions because, after all, the thought is none other than Islam rightly sees itself as superior to other religions and in Muslims publicly asserting the superiority of Islam what we have is nothing more than the truth being asserted. 

The concern that I have just raised has two dimensions to it.  One is the issue of religious tolerance on the part of Muslims.  The other is the insistence on the part of non-Muslims generally that Islam be tolerant of other religions.  I do not hear cries of tolerance from Muslims.  It is particularly noteworthy, though, that I do not hear cries of tolerance from non-Muslims.  And that concerns me greatly.

In terms of social practices, few things are more objectionable than double-standards.  If the Christian and the Jew are expected to make all sorts of public gestures with regard to sanctity of all religions, especially the three monotheistic ones, then the Muslim should be held to that standard at well. 

To state the obvious, it is clearly racism against Muslims to insist that all Muslims are terrorists.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  But just as it is not wrong and discriminatory to insist that in the United States, there will be no marriage between Muslim men and girls who are barely in their teens, it is not wrong and discriminatory to insist that Muslims adopt a public posture of tolerance towards other religions.

Not to insist that Muslims adopt such a public posture is to give Muslims and Islam a public standing that we shall surely come to regret.  Not to insist that Muslims adopt a public posture of accepting all religions as viable—especially three monotheistic religions—is to give Islam a standing of superiority vis-à-vis other religions.  And that is wrong. 

Here another way of putting the point: Being respectful of Islam cannot possibly entail any form of self-deprecation.  Yet, a form of self-deprecation is precisely what we engage in when in the name of equality and respect we are very vocal in our instance that Christians and Jews to be tolerant of one another, but we seem to lose sight of the validity of this ideal when it comes to holding Islam to the very same level.  

Lest there be any confusion, I take the private-public distinction to be a valid one, an obvious one, and a fundamentally important one.  I understand that no one in the throes of her or his particular form of religious worship, either alone or with others engaging in the same worship practice, is going to extol the virtues of some other religion.  That borders on absurdity.  In public, though, we can with perfect consistency acknowledge that other religion have holiness as their aim.  Being respectful of other religions, we require no more of us than that acknowledgment. 

This brings me back to Mr. Gaddafi.  His assertion that Europe must convert to Islam was most callous and insensitive to the reality that Christianity and Judaism have holiness as their aim.  And the deafening silence of those who would waste no time criticizing a Christian or a Jew who make a like statement bespeaks a horrendous hypocrisy that I am ever so confident will come back to haunt them.  

I cannot imagine a liberal tolerating such a claim on the part of a Christian or a Jew.  It will ever so wonderful day when I can also say that I cannot imagine a liberal tolerating such a claim on the part of a Muslim.

She has to be monstrously callous in order not to understand the anguish that building a mosque upon Ground Zero is causing the families of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack against the United States.  Accordingly, the very idea that Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks that there should be an investigation of groups who oppose a mosque upon Ground Zero is utterly stupefying and reveals a callousness that can only be characterized as a side of the face of evil itself. 

The issue, of course, is not whether Muslims have right to build a mosque or to practice Islam.  Of course, they do.  But the fact that someone has a right to do something does not settle entirely settle matters; for it can very well be true that a person should not do what she or he unquestionably has a right to do. 

For example, suppose that you borrowed my HD-television from me and you left me a notarized statement promising to return it to me on the 5th October by 5 p.m.  However, your child was murdered on the 4th of October.  Needless to say, your returning my television to me is likely to be the very last thing on your mind.  And I would have to be an absolute bastard not to grasp that.  And if I should come to your home asking you for my HD-television, you would clearly take my doing so to be an utterly morbid display of indifference to the loss of your child that you have just suffered.  And if I called law enforcement in order to force you to comply with your agreement, per the notarized document bearing your signature, to return the television, it would surely be appropriate for you to characterize my behavior as an instance of evil.  This would be a just characterization of me, although I am acting within my rights.

Well, when a person of Nancy Pelosi’s stature cannot see the obvious issue of the anguish of the families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and so the reason why they are opposed to having a mosque at Ground Zero, she can only be rightly characterized as a moral monster.

And the characterization of her as a moral monster holds all the more so in view of the fact that she is maintaining that groups who oppose the mosque at Ground Zero should be subject to investigation. 

While no criminal investigation is in order, certainly something akin to a moral court is in order.  She needs to be judged as having made a morally bankrupt assessment.  Either her stance was a complete lapse of judgment or it issues from a moral depravity that makes unfit to be a member of the United States Congress. 

For what it is worth, one can be opposed to there being a mosque at Ground Zero and not at all have deep biases against Muslims.  Indeed, precisely what I would hope is that any morally upright Muslim would grasp the reason why there is fundamental opposition to a mosque being built at Ground Zero.  And, in particular, I hope that any morally upright Muslim would grasp that one could have that angst without harboring any ill-will towards Muslims. 

For Muslims to insist upon building a mosque at Ground Zero in the face of the enormous angst that doing so would cause is for Muslim to be brutally insensitive to the reality of just how it is that Ground Zero came about.  

Ground Zero is not the outcome of a natural disaster or some horrendous human error.  Ground Zero is the consequence of a most willful and deliberate act committed by some Muslims in the name of Allah.  Nothing will change that reality.  What is more, while it is true that many Muslims did not commit the terrorist act committed against the United States, what we know is that many rejoiced in the fact that such a successful terrorist act had been committed against America.  

There is, then, a very real respect in which Ground Zero is rightly understood as hallow ground on the order of the grounds of Auschwitz.  And one has to ask just how it is that the Speaker of the House, Ms. Nancy Pelosi, is unable to comprehend this ever so simple moral reality.  In a like manner, one has to ask: Why is it that Muslims do not comprehend this simple reality?

For a people who can get ever so worked up over a comic cartoon caricature of Mohammed, surely they can grasp what it means for Ground Zero to have extraordinary symbolic significance for those who have lost their loved ones owing to the terrorist attack committed against the United States.  

None of this requires denying that Islam is a peaceful religion or even debating that matter.  For the assessment that Islam is a peaceful religion will not change the reality of the terrorist attack that was committed in the name of Islam.  What is more, the pursuit of peace can just as easily take place in a mosque that is adjacent to Ground Zero as it can in a mosque that is built upon Ground Zero.  

Coming back to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, there can be little doubt in my mind that she is a morally depraved person.  Here is why.  She might very have reasons—perhaps even good reasons—why having a mosque built on Ground Zero would be a good thing.  But none of that should be an impediment to her understanding why people stand in opposition to that.  But it is the next step on her part that truly reveals the morally vapid nature of her character; for she has suggested that those who oppose building a mosque at Ground Zero need to be investigated as if the very nature of the opposition must surely stem from some wicked and fulsome ideology.  Well, only someone who is morally depraved could think that.  And one such person is currently Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, namely Ms. Nancy Pelosi.  I have another name for her: Traitor!

No one denies that the word “nigger” has a most unsavory history.  Again: No one denies that.  But we must also be honest that words can change; and there have been significant changes with the word “nigger”.  Here is a simple one.  About a year ago, late at night, I heard one white male address his white male friend as follows: “What’s up my nigger”.  The two are Syracuse University students; and the greeting between them took place across the street from where I live. 

Well, during the era of the Old South or the Jim Crow era or even later, I am as confident as I am about anything that ne’er a white person ever addressed a white person as “nigger,” where this was meant as a friendly greeting.  And then there is the term “wigger,” which of course is the term for white males who adopt the attitude and style of the “street nigger”. 

What is more, the word “nigger” is now used more freely than it was ever used three or four decades ago.  No one—I mean absolutely no one, black or whatever—could have said “What’s up my nigger?”  Four decades ago the word “nigger” was primarily a derogatory term; and the simple truth of the matter is that the word “nigger” is no longer just a derogatory term. 

In an important respect, the word “nigger” has evolved like the expression “mother fucker”.  And so we have the late Bernie Mac doing one of the most comical skits ever involving the expression “mother fucker”. 

One way of understanding Dr. Laura is that it is simply hypocritical not to acknowledge the evolution of the word “nigger” and to pretend, whenever it is convenient, that the word has none other than exactly the same force and usage that it had in the past.  No one with half a brain could think that.

In none of this do I mean to deny that the word “nigger” still has derogatory connotations.  But so does the word “queer”.  Yet, just as the word “queer” also has come to have connotations that are clearly not negative the word “nigger” has come to have connotations that are clearly not negative.  There is even “QueerbyChoice.Com”.   Who can rule out “NiggerbyChoice.Com”?

Late in April, two white guys (in their late teens) in a SUV were driving along listening to a rap song replete with the word “nigger” here and there.  I do not think that they were in the least bit phased that I saw them.  And I, by contrast, was not in the least bit phased by the fact that they were two white guys listening to a rap sing replete with the word “nigger”.  That scenario would not have even been imaginable some 30 years ago.  Not at all.

So, whatever else is true, we cannot pretend that word “nigger” has not evolved.  It has. 

Accordingly, it is despicable for those who worship the god of political correctness to ignore the reality that the use of word “nigger” has unmistakably changed, even though there are still connotations.  Those who bow to the god of political correctness go on as if the usage of the word “nigger” has been frozen in time and that any use of it is derogatory and, in particular, any use of by whites is derogatory.  

Alas, usage is not determined theory, but by and only by the way in which people actually use words.  

A positive example would be helpful.  In the past, only women could say to one another “I love you”, where this was not an expression of familial affection, and not be suspected of being lesbians.  20-years ago, two men who said “I love you” were either deemed as gay or they had some psychological problem.  But that is not true anymore.  Men can verbally express affection; though, to be sure, there has to be a certain masculine style to it: “I love ya, man”.  Recently, I put precisely those words at the end of a note that I wrote to a former student.  And in turn I have had male students utter the words “I love ya, man” or “We love you” to me after lecture, and it would have been absolutely foolish for me to think that this was an expression of sexual affection for me on their part.  Utterly foolish.  One could insist that only gay men say “I love you” to one another, but one would simply be wrong.  

Here is the deal: The word “nigger” is simply a much more complicated word than it used to be.  While it clear has retained some of its negative connotations, usage has forcibly moved the word beyond just having negative connotations.  This, of course, makes it possible for people to play with the ambiguity.  Just so, it is simply unfair and implausible for those who bow to the god of political correctness to maintain that for whites the usage is only negative.  I began this blog-entry with a very clear case to the contrary—a case where a white guy says to his white friend “What’s up my nigger?”  Black people are more than a little insecure if they cannot acknowledge this reality.  More precisely, it is malicious and disingenuous for blacks to see racism in every use of the word “nigger” by a white person.  

Here is a simple truth: Black people do not own the word “nigger”.  And if tomorrow all white people start using it to refer to a bad-ass white who brilliantly does sophisticated calculus, then the word will simply have that connotation.  One will hear one white person saying about another “She is one mean nigger in that calculus class” and it will be a matter of paying that white student a very high intellectual compliment.  Of course, one can insist that no such thing will ever happen.  All I can say is the following: If 30 years ago one had told any black person that one day a well-off white college student would warmly address another well-off white student with the words “What’s up my nigger?,” the black person would have been convinced that one is in the throes of the effects of some kind of hallucinogenic drug.  No one could have seen that usage coming.  But usage did arrive.  Quite simply, the guardians of political correctness need to get over it.

With rare exception, context typically makes all the difference in the world.  Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a person who shoots straight from the hip; and her thinking is that if it is wrong to say the word “nigger”, then it is wrong for anyone to say it; accordingly, blacks do not get a free pass.  I fully concur with Dr. Schlessinger.  It is incomprehensible to me that blacks can get so very bent out of shape if a white person utters the word “nigger” merely to illustrate a point or when the word is part of a quote when that very word commonly issues from the mouths of blacks time and time again. 

Now, it would be one thing if whenever blacks uttered the word “nigger”, they meant something positive by it.  But that is far from being the case.  A black is hardly being complimentary if she or he says to another black: “You mother fucking nigger.  What the hell were you thinking when you did such-and-such?”  There is nothing at all complimentary in that use of the word “nigger”. 

Dr. Schlessinger was trying to illustrate a point to the caller.  And at the same time she was expressing her exasperation over the fact that there is such an untenable double standard with respect to the use of the word “nigger”—so much so that it has become de rigueur to say the “n-word” instead of saying the word “nigger” outright in a case such as the following: “I was stunned to hear that Smith had been called nigger by her son”. 

I concur with Dr. Schlessinger’s exasperation.  I also want to say that I know her personally, having met her in 1996.  Indeed, I have had the honour of meeting her family.  I can attest to the fact that racist motives do not operate in her life.  On various occasions I have heard her directly say on her radio program that it does not matter what color her son’s bride turns out to be just so long as she is a woman of character.  Truth be told, I cannot recall ever hearing any of my liberal white colleagues speak in that way about their children although it goes without saying, of course, that none of them are in any way racist.

Insofar as Dr. Schlessinger is opened to criticism her, it is that she does not appreciate that others do not fully appreciate her deep and abiding moral perspective.  Let me explain. 

I am very visibly black.  Yet, I am not in the position to use the word “nigger” in reference to other blacks.  The circumstances of my life are seen as too fortunate; accordingly, the supposition of condescension on my part would easily enough creep in.  Never mind that the circumstances of my life that make me rather fortunate make me rather fortunate vis-à-vis everyone—not just blacks.  I have learnt to appreciate this fact about myself. 

In a similar manner, Dr. Laura Schlessinger needs to appreciate a like fact about herself.  In this ever so complicated world, it is far too easy for people to see her have having inappropriate motivations than it is for them to fix upon the excellence of character that she is exuding in the context.  

A neutral example will be useful here.  In the fall of 2009, I posed a question to my 400-student class.  It was the first day of class; and so I did not know any names.  Four guys in the back to my left raised their hand: three white guys and one Asian guy wearing glasses”.  So I called on the Asian guy by saying “The Asian guy with the glasses”.  Well, the entire auditorium gasped.  I went on with the lecture.  But when I saw the Asian guy the next class I asked him did he grasp why I said “Asian guy with the glasses”.  He looked me almost puzzled and responded “Yeah, you wanted me to answer the question”.  To that response I had but two words to say: Thank You.

Also sitting towards the back was a Muslim woman wearing a hijab; and after the class gasped over my saying “The Asian guy with the glasses”, I retorted with the observation that if the Muslim woman had raised her hand and I wanted to call on her on that first day of class I would have said “The Muslim woman wearing the hijab”.  Her response was: “That would be just fine”.  She was not the only Muslim woman in the class, but throughout the semester she was the only one who wore the hijab.  

We live in a period in history when simple commonsense has fallen by the wayside.  Therein lies the real problem with Dr. Schlessinger saying and repeating on several occasions the word “nigger” as she was conversing with the caller.  Guess what?  Laura Schlessinger was trying to make a point.  And one of her most profound points in talking to many a caller is that the caller’s point of view is not the only point of view that counts.  In an odd way, this very point applies to Dr. Schlessinger herself.

There was a time when living a life that so demonstrably aspired towards moral excellence was something of a trump card.  In terms of meaning well, people automatically gave such a person the benefit of the doubt.  In order for that not to happen, the person almost had to say “Hey, I am having a mean moment.  Watch out”. 

Alas, that day has long since gone.  A prophet could perform countless miracles on a daily basis, along with numerous other good deeds, and yet somebody would be so self-centered as not to see that the honorable motivations of the prophet because they feel as if the prophet had somehow over looked her or him.  Never mind that the person was always more than a block or so behind the prophet.  Clearly the prophet should have look around for the person!

I am hardly suggesting that Laura Schlessinger is a prophet.  She would not want that.  But I clearly mean to be stating that her motives are ever so honorable.  One would hope—nay, expect—that her callers would appreciate that.  Insofar as we live a decent life, we want to be taken for the good that is characteristic of the life that we live and not the mistakes that people typically make who live no such life.

A former white student of mine turned me on to the extraordinarily humorous ways in which Bernie Mac uses the word “nigger”.  Another white student of who wrote his dissertation with me is absolutely comfortable with saying the word “nigger” in conversation with me when we are talking about things that have been said and he is reporting to me remarks made by others.  In both cases, they knew that I put the quality of their character above the color of the skin.  

Quite simply, the faux pas that Dr. Laura Schlessinger made can be attributed to the expectation that the caller would put the content of Dr. Schlessinger’s character above the color of Dr. Schlessinger’s skin.  As I have indicated: Such was a way of life once upon a time.  Indeed, it was very ideal so majestically articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr. himself—an ideal that has very much animated Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s life.

Is selective fetus reduction murder?  Imagine the following.  You discover that you are pregnant with twins.  But hey: You didn’t want twins.  You only wanted one child.  So, you decide to abort one of the fetuses.  Did you commit murder?  Oh, let me add that both twins are perfectly healthy.  Hence, there is not even the issue of saving one in order to keep the other alive.  Barring some accident, both will come out of the womb perfectly healthy.  Now, since early abortions are justified, then what could possibly be wrong with killing one of the twins when, to begin with, one had only wanted one child? 

Painfully, I am not recounting a novel.  I am not recounting the poignant dilemma of Sophie’s Choice.  Rather, I am recounting a form of decision making that some women are making nowadays.  And I must confess to being utterly mortified.  Alas, this may reflect my own intellectual shortcomings.  But for me, the very idea of choosing to kill one of two healthy children comes so very dangerously close to seeming like a form of eugenics. 

In the 15 July 2010 issue of Elle, we get just such a story.  And what makes it so difficult for me to not think of eugenics when I reflect upon that story is that the couple chooses to kill one of the unborn twins simply because bringing the twins into the world would get in the way of the rather fine life style that the couple wants to live.  There is something very fulsome about this, especially when there is a rather noble option available, namely putting one of the twins up for adoption. 

How, one wonders, could the couple not have considered the option of putting the other child up for adoption?  And if they could live with killing the child, is there any reason to think that they could not live with knowing that the child was being cared for and loved by a couple who desperately wanted a child but could not have one?  But if the latter constitutes deep psychological torment whereas the first does not, then we have a deep, deep problem with regard to attaching the right value to life. 

Just under a decade ago, I wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Will the Less-than-Perfect still be loved?”  In that essay, I imagined parents aborting an unborn child because the child’s skin or eyes, say, will not be of the right color.  Regrettably, we are getting much closer to that view of children than I would ever have imagined.   

Most people in Western culture balk at the idea of arranged marriages, because it is supposed that marriage should flow from the love between two people.  Well, our attitude toward bringing children into the world suggests that we are increasingly valuing children in the wrong way.  We want them to fit into our plans, where parental love as its best is about parents making the most significant of sacrifices in order that their children will flourish.  This is the insight that animates Michael McFall’s book Licensing Parents and my book The Family and the Political Self.  

I noted much earlier that abortion is legal; and, to the surprise of many perhaps, I am of the opinion that abortion should remain legal.  But as with many options available in life, we should not avail ourselves of those options simply because we can.  

Just so, we should be about cultivating an attitude of valuing children in society; and that we are simply not doing so if selective fetus reduction is increasingly seen as an available option simply because a woman has children in the uterus than she had planned on.  

This brings me back to the question that animates this blog-entry: Is selective fetus reduction murder, it being understood that issues are not a concern at all?  My own view is that if it is not murder, then it is surely the cousin of murder.  In any case, the practice certainly bespeaks a moral attitude that is abominable.  Selective fetus reduction is about choosing who shall live and who shall die; and it is about doing so in a way that is particularly pernicious and arbitrary and callous.  How does a loving mother choose which of her healthy unborn infants should die?  

Alas, the history of Nazi Germany shows that we can live with evil all around us if in fact everyone all around is accepting of that evil.  The fact that the story appeared in Elle is indicative of how close the American society has become to being a society that is tolerant of evil against the most innocent of all, namely infants.  

Why, it is increasingly the case that we are more animated about tearing down a building designated as a historical landmark or having animals be kept in a zoo than killing a healthy unborn child.  If someone were to go out and kill a chimpanzee there would be an uproar.  Yet, Elle publishes a story about a couple who chooses to kill one of two perfectly healthy unborn twin infants because having both of the children would not fit in with the couple’s life style.  

Alas, it may very well be that we are not on our way to becoming a morally vapid society.  Rather, with selective fetus reduction in tow, it turns out that we have reached that destination.  It is just that we keep calling it progress because, after all, it is yet another instance of the increase of liberty.

Much has been said about the psychological toll that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken on American soldiers.  Little, however, has said about why these wars have taken such a tremendous psychological toll but the fierce battles of World Wars I and II did not do so.  Ironically, I think that there is a very simple explanation for the difference—one that liberals refuse to acknowledge.

Quite simply, Americans were proud of the soldiers who fought in World Wars I and II.  Anyone who had given such military service was treated with extraordinary respect and deference.  A tremendous sense of gratitude was displayed towards any such soldier.  There was a very straightforward sense in which any soldier of these two wars could have tremendous pride in public for having rendered such service.  Certainly, it would have been absolutely unthinkable for college presidents and deans and professors to speak in a demeaning way of those who had served in the military during World Wars I and II.  To this very day, none do so.

I suggest that this social backdrop was none other than a profound psychological balm—the Balm in Gilead, if you will—for the psychological trauma that soldiers endured during World Wars I and II.  It is so very much easier to cope with psychological pain when there is an immutable backdrop of appreciation for what one has done and the sacrifices that one made to do it.

Fast forward to the present and the very opposite is true in terms of the general attitude that Americans have towards soldiers.  In particular, college presidents and deans and professors seem to think that they have some sort of special anointing that entitles them to denounce those who serve in the military.  Against this backdrop to serve in the military nowadays is effectively to be pariah in society.  And that has to be a very deep form of psychological pain to members of the military—a pain that only deepens the psychological scars of the military service itself.

On a recent airplane trip, there were four young men sitting in the vicinity where I was seated all of whom had volunteered for military service.  They effectively had a most pleasant surprise as a conversation ensued between us.  “So where are you guys off to?”, I asked.  One guy looked and with a sense of hesitancy  and responded “To boot camp”.  To that remark I responded: “Awesome, I am so very impressed and honoured to be sitting next to you”.  Well, I do not think that the four young men could have been much more surprised than if an angel of the Lord had appeared.  

I did not inquire as to why they had signed up for the military.  I did not raise the issue of whether or not it would have been better for them to attend college.  That is, there was not the slightest hint on my part that there might have been a better alternative to signing up for military service.  These gentlemen were so not expecting such a positive attitude from the middle-aged man sitting in their midst.  And when I told them that I am a professor there was a sense of bewilderment on their face.  Perhaps—so they might have momentarily thought—I had misunderstood what they said they were going to do!   

I went on make the following very simple point: Whatever one thinks about this war or that war and the other war, those who serve in the military are deserving of respect and gratitude.  That is indeed my official view; and it is a view that I am very public about in the classroom.  Indeed, it my view that as a token of gratitude the grade of every senior in my class who has enlisted in the military should be raised one full letter grade higher.  

As a professor my attitude has so surprised students who have enlisted in the military that some have even wondered about my motives.  One can just see the look in their eyes: “What is he really about?”  A professor who is supportive of students who enlist in the military!  A black professor who is supportive of students who enlist in the military!  Is this for real?  Dare I count the number of stereotypes that get exploded?   

“Freedom is not free”.  That is a very simple observation and an ever so profound truth.  I treasure the point.  It is so very sad that we who insist upon the freedom to do just about anything, no matter how foolish it is, are oblivious to the background conditions which make that freedom a reality of our lives and social environment.  This claim is particularly poignant with respect to college presidents and deans and professors who in the name of freedom of thought and diversity have advanced some of the most implausible views imaginable.  And while in this regard their imagination is ever so fertile, they cannot seem to grasp the simple truth that the very freedom which they enjoy is not free.   

To all who enlist in the military, I have but two words to say to you:

Thank You!

A form of wrongdoing about which very little is said is that of using the pain of injustice as an excuse to do wrong or to ignore the suffering of others.  Be it sexism or antisemitism or racism (against whatever group) or homophobia, there is no gainsaying the truth that the wrongs involved in either instance have been horrendous.  In each case, the personhood of the victims of has been diminished in some significant way.  Perhaps a rank-ordering is possible.  However, I am not interested in that.  What intrigues me is a wrong of a very different kind, namely the wrong of using the fact that one has been wrong as an excuse to wrong or belittle others.

Another way of putting the point is that we should never be so pre-occupied with elevating the wrongs that we have suffered that we thereby feel that we have an excuse to diminish the suffering of others.  This is a way of privileging the wrong that one has (or one’s people have) suffered; and that is truly objectionable and inhumane. 

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that we trivialize the incredible richness of humanity when we suppose that our experiences of wrong constitute an excuse to wrong others or ignore the suffering of others.  Indeed, this in effect is to privilege our suffering over the suffering of others and that it is entirely objectionable. 

I shall not say anything about the Shirely Sherrod scenario because it is fraught with complexities.  Besides, I am sure that everyone already has a view and nothing I could say would change what each person already thinks about the matter.

For me, alas, the real lesson to take from Ms. Sherrod is precisely the importance of bearing in mind that when a person is suffering, our own history of suffering should never be an excuse to belittle what that person is going through.  Likewise, for the wrong that a person is suffering vis-à-vis our own history of having been wronged. 

There is a dignity of which each and every human being is capable; and one aspect of that dignity is the wherewithal to be responsive to the suffering of or wrong done to another notwithstanding our own history in either respect.  

Whatever else is true, pride in who we are does not require that we diminish the humanity of the other; and diminishing the humanity of the other is precisely what we do when we use our own suffering as an excuse to wrong others or to ignore their suffering.  

Here is a very clear example of the point being made.  Suppose that I lost my 11-year old child because the child was murdered by one of them.  That, obviously, is just horrible.  But now suppose that it turns out that one of them has a 9-year old child who is murdered.  It does not matter who committed the murder.  For the more important point is that it would be quite despicable of me to take delight in the fact that one of them has also lost a child to murder. 

Bitterness is the most common explanation for why people take delight in the suffering of others or the wrong that is visited upon others.  And bitterness is like rust to metal: absolutely corrosive. 

I shall end this blog-entry by pointing out that at no point have I made a comparison claim of any sort regarding which wrongs against which group are the worse.  If it is possible to establish a ranking, this much is clear: Being ranked the group that has suffered the most or that has been the most wronged would not in any way be an excuse for the members of that group to use the wrongs that its members have endured as an excuse to take delight in the suffering of others or to wrong others.  To have moral integrity is to be mindful of just this truth.  

Not only is living with others nightmarish in the absence of integrity, it is also true is that living with ourselves is nightmarish in the absence of integrity.

The very idea of rape by deception is utterly indefensible; for the idea trivializes the very wrong of rape.  Here is the story.  In Israel, a Palestinian man by the name of Sabbar Kashur presented himself as a Jew to a woman who is a Jew.  Later that evening, the two then went on to have consensual sex in a nearby building.  The woman later discovered that Kashur is Palestinian and files a legal suit against him; and an Israeli court ruled that she was a victim of “rape by deception”.  He is to receive a jail term of 18 months in prison.

Had she been deceived?  Well, it goes without saying that she had been.  Had she been in anyway raped?  Absolutely not.  And the fact that an Israeli court ruled that she had been “raped by deception” reveals none other than a deep, deep bias on the part of court, since the idea of “rape by deception” is in fact incoherent.  To the question “Did Kashur commit a wrong?,” the answer is obviously: Yes.  Did he in anyway rape the women, it is just as obvious that the answer is: No.

By definition, rape involves the absence of consent; and we do not have the absence of consent on the part of either individual.  Worse, we do not even have a deep and systematic form of deception on the part of Kashur.  That is, while it is certainly true that he deceived her on that fateful evening, what we manifestly do not have here is a case where Kashur had constructed a complete façade in order to deceive her, which brings me to a quite significant point: Sometimes the fact that we have been deceived tells us as much that is negative about ourselves as it does about the person who deceived us. 

The woman charges that she would never have been interested in Kashur had he not claimed that he is a Jewish bachelor looking for a serious relationship.  Presumably, the point here is that she, too, was looking for a serious relationship.  And therein lies the problem with her very own behavior and her very own story.

I would not expect any person looking for a serious relationship with someone of her or his religious-ethnic background to have sex on the very first night with someone whom she meets.  A man who really wants a woman to know that he takes her seriously—as opposed to just looking for a night of sex—would surely not be so inclined.  And unless this Israeli woman has just arrived here on this planet—which of course is not the case—she surely knows this.  So the fact that she did have sex with Kashur on the very occasion that she met him tells us something quite significant and less than positive about her.  More to the point, her very behavior belies her claim that having a serious relationship is one of her priorities.  For the judges not to have been mindful of this universal truth underscores the point that they were rather bias in their judgment against Kashur.  

The article does not specify where exactly the two met except downtown Jerusalem.  However, it is difficult to imagine a context (where the two would have met for the very first time) that would change anything that I have said in the preceding paragraph.  Certainly, their meeting in a synagogue for the first time would not be such a context.  And if they met in a bar, the point of the preceding paragraph is all the more applicable.  

Then there is the following reality.  Given that the sex was completely consensual, then it unmistakably follows that she gave Kashur certain indications that she was interested in having sex with him.  It is difficult imagine a woman looking for a serious relationship so behaving upon her very first meeting with a man.  Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a man looking for a serious relationship wanting a woman so to behave.  

In her famous essay “Moral Beliefs, Philippa Foot makes the poignant observation that if person is too easily tempted to do what is unjust that the person is not just after all.  This point applies to countless other contexts outside of justice.  If intellectual acumen in a woman is really important to me, then I should not be dating the first women whom I encounter if I am clueless regarding her intellectual wherewithal.  Again, if I am deeply committed to eating wholesome meals, then my meal of choice cannot be a meal that one obtains at a fast-food chain.  Finally, if I really have no interest in spending lots of money on a car, then it should not turn out that a Mercedes Benz is the car that I typically purchase.  And so on. 

From a public relations standpoint, the court’s ruling merely reinforces the view, held by many, that Israel is grossly unfair in its treatment of Palestinians.  Indeed, the paper known as The Guardian uses the story of the court’s ruling to make just this point.  

There was no rape.  There was deception.  However, it was the kind of deception that only a fool falls for in the first place.  And that fact is what makes the court’s ruling so utterly despicable.  There was no history of Kashur cultivating a public image that in point of fact disguises who he really is.  Say, he regularly attend a synagogue and gives the pretense of being Jewish and then he strikes up a romantic relationship with one of the women in the synagogue, only to have her discover by accident that he is Palestinian.  That would have been a horrendous form of betrayal on his part.

Instead, he lied about being Jewish.  He might have lied about his education or his employment.  And the women might have been just as gullible. 

Alas, Gideon Levy very powerfully brings out the folly of the court’s ruling.  If Kashur had in fact been a Jew, but pretended to be a Muslim in order to have sex with a Muslim woman, would he have been convicted of rape if the Muslim woman found this out and reported him?  The answer, of course, is: Surely not.  With the case of Kashur, what we have is none other than a miscarriage of justice committed by an Israeli court.

Friendship at its best in full bloom is most extraordinary.  There is a mutual understanding between the friends that is perhaps without equal.  There is a trust between them that is surpassed only by the gods.  For this very reason, friendship at its best involves extraordinary self-discipline on the part of both parties to the friendship. 

With friendship at its best, not only would neither friend harm one another, neither friend would ever do anything that would even have the appearance of harming the other.  And this each friend knows about the other rather like a person knows the very back of his hand.  Indeed, I would go so far as to say that we do not have friendship at its best if we do not have that level of self-discipline on the part of each friend; for if we do not equal self-discipline that what unequivocally follows is that we do not have equal trust between the two individuals.

By this account, friendship at its best is indeed ever so rare.  To be sure, there are lots of friendships which very much veer in the direction of friendship at its best, but precious few ever reach fruition in this regard.

Now, the surprise in this regard is that there is a very real sense in which friendship at its best is unforgiving.  Let me explain.

We all make petty mistakes.  We all do and say stupid things.  Alas, we can make all sorts of mistakes without ever coming even close to violating the core trust that a person has in us.  Suppose that I did not return the book when promised.  Barring some special story that faux pas is essentially annoying—not a deep violation of trust.  The same holds if, on some occasion, I did not call when I say that I would.  And so on.  Only a fool would hold on to these mistakes and not forgive the friend.

Alas, I think that there are mistakes that a friend can make that are simply unforgivable—not in the sense of holding a grudge against the person forever, but in the sense that the depth of the friendship is, in all likelihood, permanently destroyed.

So suppose that you and I are the very best of friends and I spread the rumor that you acted in a most inappropriate way sexually with your students.  Now, to begin with, what is important here is that we do not have a simple mistake in this instance.  It can indeed be a mistake that I not return a book when promised or that I not make a phone call as promised.  However, it cannot be a mistake that I spread the rumor that you have acted in a most inappropriate way sexually with your students.  For it is not as if there is some admirably decent thing that I might have been trying to say about you and, merely as a result of getting tongue-tied, I ended up saying that you acted in a most inappropriate way sexually with your students.  What is more, in the absence of a lobotomy I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the above mentioned rumor horrendously tarnishes your character.  

Putting the foregoing considerations together, we get the conclusion that spreading such a rumor has an unqualified willfulness to it.  Therein lies the reason why such behavior on the part of a friend is essentially unforgivable in that the extraordinary friendship that once was there has simply vanished—and in all likelihood the friendship is simply unrecoverable.  For if a person could spread such a venomous rumor on one occasion, then there is simply no reason to believe that she or he could not spread such a venomous rumor on another occasion.  And that is the problem of the betrayal of trust playing itself out ad infinitum.  

Now, friendship at its best requires that each friend exercises the requisite foresight in order to be true to the trust that the friend has in or him.  This brings out the significant point that exercising foresight involves a tremendous measure of self-discipline: Before one acts, one carefully examines the situation.  It is thus no accident that when we have deep friend of the same sex (as I have been assuming throughout) and one of them is married, then the other friend exercises considerable—nay excruciating—circumspection with respect to the friend’s spouse.  This is done in order to avoid the very appearance of evil and, moreover, to eliminate even the very possibility that something might go wrong.  It also affirms to one’s deep friend that one is eternally mindful of the sacredness of her or his marriage.  Indeed, if one loves the friend, how could one not be eternally mindful of the sacredness of her or his marriage?

The last point of the preceding paragraph is part of the explanation for why it is so painful to have it turn out that one’s spouse and one’s best friend end up having a sexual fling.  The trust that one has in each has been betrayed.  Surely if the marriage should last, the friendship cannot be as it once was.

I distinguish between eternally harboring resentment and drawing a decisive line in the moral sand.  With friendship at its best there are decisive lines in the moral sand.  The very trust of such friendships is inextricably tied to there being such boundaries.  

Now let me ask a question.  Which would you prefer: To have your best friends have an affair with your spouse or to have your best friend spread the vicious rumor that you acted in a most inappropriate manner sexually with your students?  I would not dream of hazarding an answer.  Still, I thought I would ask the question.  

I end with what might be a startling insight.  I suspect that while much lip service is paid to the good of friendship at its best, there are some who do not want such a friendship.  Perhaps there are many who do not.  This is because friendship at its best is so very morally demanding.  And as so often the case in life, people are willing to settle for second-best.  To that simple truth, friendship is not the exception to the rule.

Everyone knows that good teaching is about imparting knowledge to students.  Alas, teaching at its best is about much, much more than that.  It has to be, because good teaching at its best involves two more human beings interacting in a mutually respectful manner.  And that fact alone suffices to get one beyond the portal of merely imparting knowledge.  What is more, there are better and worse ways to impart knowledge to another.  And teaching at its best is not—I repeat: is not—on the order of a god speaking to mere mortals.  Rather, teaching at its best is much more about intellectual equals interacting with one another who merely differ in the amount of information they happen to possess at any given point in time.   If these remarks are right, then being a teacher can be a veritable fountain of self-knowledge.  This is especially so at the undergraduate level; and this essay shall be limited to undergraduate teaching.

Teaching at its best is an extraordinary indicator of the measure of a professor’s trustworthiness.  For with teaching at its best, the issue of trust will assert itself in ways that a professor will least expect and over which a professor simply has very little control.  It is, for example, impossible for a professor to know whether her or his comportment and intellectual agility will inspire a deep and extraordinary instance of self-disclosure on the part of a student.  And once that gate has been opened, a (decent) professor cannot simply slam the door shut and pretend that it was never opened in the first place.  

Most significantly, though, there is the following conceptual truth: There can be no better indication that one is trust worthy than that from time to time intelligent people of good moral character should trust one.  So, on the one hand, the trust is not coming from someone who is lacking in the ability have and exercise foresight.  One the other, the trust is not coming from someone whose own moral shortcomings make her or him vulnerable.  

Some individuals are more than a little puzzled by my love for my students.  Well, part of the answer is that over the years my students have been a wonderful barometer of my being trustworthy.  

As I have adumbrated, the trust can manifest itself on a number of fronts.  The trust may indicate that one can marvelously see beyond the student’s ethnicity to her or his humanity.  Or, the trust may indicate that one has been a fundamental fount of inspiration in the midst of difficult times.  Or, the trust may indicate that one is not just formally accepting of a person’s sexual configuration but that one is remarkably at-ease with the way in which a morally upstanding person identifies herself or himself sexually.  Or, the trust may indicate a very salubrious bond of affection that means so much to the student’s own flourishing.  Then, of course, there is the trust that can occur between a professor and a student, where the issue of sexual attraction might be a factor.  In this regard, the trust of my female students has been priceless. 

Now, I taught one student who was easily regarded as one of the most gifted undergraduate students ever to receive at bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University.  The student’s first course of his college career was Philosophy 191 with me; the student’s very last course of his college career was my course American Slavery and the Holocaust.  In all, the student took some 27 credits with me.  Needless to say, that was an affirmation that I could not give myself.

The same holds for a student who showed up in my Philosophy 191 class after a considerable amount of tension between us in the Freshman Forum course that I taught.  For the remainder of that student’s undergraduate year, the person took numerous courses with me.

No matter how intellectually gifted a professor might be, a professor cannot affirm herself or himself in any of the ways mentioned in the preceding three paragraphs.

As the very term “self-knowledge” makes clear: To have self-knowledge is to have substantial insight into oneself that is very much warranted.  When it comes to being trust worthy and to the view that one is making a positive difference in the lives of others, warranted self-knowledge is not attained by mere sophisticated acts of ratiocination.  Intellectual gymnastics do not warrant the view that one is trustworthy or that one is making a positive difference in the lives of others.  Only the right kind of interaction with others will warrant that assessment.  And teaching at its best provides countless many tidal waves of social interaction where such an assessment can be warranted.  Otherwise, we would not have teaching at its best. 

It is against the backdrop of the proceeding remarks that I am so very pleased that teaching is a fundamental aspect of my professional career.  I often been struck by my clarity with regard to the kind of person that I am.  It is with enormous gratitude that I say that I owe that clarity to so very many of the college students whom I have taught over the years.  

At its best, undergraduate teaching is a veritable ocean of self-knowledge for the one doing the teaching, namely the professor.

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