Moral Health

Having an abortion should not be the subject of a woman’s tweets.  So it is whether one is for or against abortion.  Angie Jackson maintains that she is tweeting about her abortion experience, using RU486, because she wants to demystify what having an abortion is all about.  Does that explanation work for you?  I certainly hope not. 

Consider a slightly analogous case, namely a women tweeting about giving birth because, after all, she wants to demystify the birthing experience.  Well, the problem in this case is that we have what surely constitutes a case of misplaced priorities.  However wonderful it might be for a woman to demystify the birthing experience to the world, surely she should be far more interested in bonding with her baby than sending out tweets at every step along the way.  The same holds if the father should be present.  Giving birth is one of the most remarkable things that a woman does in life; and while I have not a clue regarding the specifics of such a wonderful act, I would not want my dearest friend to tweet about it from the delivery room. 

Of course, whether to tweet or not about a very personal matter is a personal choice.  But that truth does not settle the question of propriety.  Abortion is certainly no more personal than giving birth.  Yet, it is manifestly clear to me that it would be abominable for a woman to tweet about her birthing experience.  Indeed, I would take her doing so as evidence that she is dysfunctional in some important way—there is a detachment from the moment that is out of order.

To be sure, having an abortion is just the opposite of giving birth.  So, there cannot be the same excitement about bringing life into the world.  But if a woman wishes to demystify abortion, it seems highly unlikely that sending tweets is the way to go.  For one thing, one cannot put enough information in single tweets to make tweeting about the experience really informative beyond what we already know.  For another, sending out tweets trivializes the abortion experience.  And whether one is for abortion or not, the experience should not be trivialized. 

Having watched Angie Jackson’s video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Ud3g2ymOM

I am more than a little persuaded that her motives are less than stellar and innocent.  There was not a word in her video that was informative or instructive.  That is, I do not think for a moment that anyone viewing her video would have a greater sense as to why using RU486 is less complicated than folks would have supposed.

In her video, Angie Jackson tells us that having an abortion, using RU486, is rather like having a miscarriage.  Well there: That certainly clears up everything.  Surely, any woman hearing that well grasp immediately that having an abortion using RU486 is entirely unproblematic.  I am being sarcastic; and, alas, that is the point. 

There is no reason whatsoever to think that typically women are worried about having an abortion; and for those who are worried, there is no reason whatsoever to think that such women are or will be re-assured by Angie Jackson’s tweets and YouTube video.  And given what she actually says, it is ludicrous to think that Jackson could really have been motivated by the concern to be re-assuring to other women who might think to have an abortion. 

What is more, Jackson tells us that she has significant health reasons for having an abortion.  Well, if that is the case, it is not at all clear what has been the point of twittering about the experience and posting a YouTube video.

Here are Angie Jackson’s concluding remarks:  ABORTION. 

“So I just want to let everybody know that you, too, can have an abortion if you want one.  It’s o.k.  It is not shameful; it is not secret.  It is not killing a child.  I have a little boy.  You guys have seen him on my video channel.  He is my world.  I want to stay alive be his mom a lot longer.  So I am having an abortion.  I hope everybody on YouTube has a great and godless day.  Peace.”

First, her words hardly sound like an individual aiming to offer insightful considerations regarding abortion for those with serious health concerns.  Second, it is surely the very rare person who would object to a woman having an abortion if the mother-to-be has serious health concerns that would arise if she proceeded with the pregnancy.  And in term of having an abortion whilst having significant health problems, she does not say anything that is remotely informative, let alone re-assuring.

Jackson tells us that “You, too, can have an abortion if you want one”.  And she ends with “Have a great and godless day”.  Her motivation was not to inform people about anything.  Rather, she used the pretext of being informative for no other reason than to flaunt the fact that she is having an abortion using RU486.  Whatever else is true, Angie Jackson should not be the spokeswoman for the pro-choice movement.  Why, Angie Jackson does not have enough intellectual horsepower to be the spokesperson for herself, let alone a social movement.

Watching corrupt politicians defend one another is most disconcerting.  Their behavior so poignantly invites the question “Have you no shame?”  And the very poignant answer to that question is a very unabashed: “No”.  Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel provide us with one of the latest example of corruption on the part of politicians, to say nothing of the past actions of New York Governor David Paterson with his personal chauffer David Johnson and, in particular, Johnson’s domestic abuse of Sherr-Una Booker (Johnson’s ex-girlfriend).

What stuns me more than anything is just how indifferent politicians have become to moral appearances.  People are doing things that are clearly and manifestly inappropriate; and they have no shame at all.  Indeed, if anything is true, politicians have mastered the art of claiming that an obvious wrongdoing is not so obviously a wrong after all.  That is rather analogous to a high school teacher having sex with a student and then claiming that she or he did not do anything inappropriate at all. 

The most obvious question that arises is this: How did this moral climate come about?  How did it come to pass that people can do what is obviously wrong and claim, without an ounce of shame, that their behavior was not morally unacceptable?  Indeed, people are no longer concerned with even the very appearances of morally inappropriate behavior.

Trips down memory lane have their limits; for such “trips” may simply tell us no more than that times have changed.  Not so in this case, however.  Time was when at the very least people were very much concerned making sure that things looked the right way.  And the fact that this might not be the case was often enough a reason to refrain from the behavior in question.  The following is a simple example.

I know a number of married couples.  In each of these cases, though, my primary communication is with the husband and not the wife.  The explanation for this unbelievably simple: appearances.  The issue is not whether women and men are equals on all accounts, both morally and socially.  Of course, they are.  Rather, by maintaining my primary communication with the husband, I thereby show a deep and fundamental respect for the basic intimacy that is a defining feature of married couples.  Most importantly, my behavior keeps even the suspicion of wrongdoing at bay.  Such is the significance of appearances. 

In the case of marriage, we can pretend that appearances do not matter because after all we are rational creatures.  But the journey from the heights of pure rationality to the cluttered and ever changing road of reality makes it unequivocally clear that appearances do matter. 

Just as appearances matter in a basic matter of social interaction between women and men, where marriage is involved, it is equally true that appearances matter in all aspects of life where exhibiting morally right behavior is a matter of great significance. 

So we have Charles Rangel using his position as Chairman of the powerful House tax writing committee using in his position in obviously inappropriate ways.  And then we have Nancy Pelosi showing him unequivocal support.  Then we have David Paterson preventing or derailing the prosecution of his aid David Johnson for Johnson’s domestic abuse of a Booker (the aid’s ex-girlfriend).  In both cases, what we have is a brazen show of indifference to moral appearances.  In particular, what is made manifestly clear is that individuals are much more committed to maintaining power than doing what is morally right.  I hold the following very simple principle: It is impossible to be a morally decent person and, at the very same time, be indifferent to how things appear.  And so the utter indifference to appearances that we are seeing on the part of politicians reveals the depth of moral corruption that exists among them.

The obvious question that presents itself is this: Why have individuals become so indifferent even to moral appearances?  The answer, I believe, is a painfully simple one, namely the move to moral relativism.  If anything is a reason not to set our moral sights high, surely moral relativism is.  Of course, moral relativism is perhaps not the outright rejection of moral values.  Just so, moral relativism undermines the idea that there are moral ideals to which all individuals should subscribe.  Thus, moral relativism undermines a sense of public accountability that fully animates the behavior and thought of all. 

Moral objectivity places a deep and inexorable conception right and wrong in the public space.  Accordingly, all are reminded in countless ways, both explicitly and inexplicitly, of the standard of moral excellence that are expected of us.  It is the very rare person who does not stand in need of such reminders.  Or, to put the point another way, the absence of reminders in the public space will result in the weakening of resolve for all but the strongest of individuals. 

In a way that most of us would never have imagined: We are reaping what we have sown.  Moral excellence in general requires a moral climate.  To suppose otherwise is rather like supposing that children will come to have an excellent vocabulary although they rarely interact with anyone who exhibits such excellence.  Not happening.

Elisabeth Badinter, the distinguished French scholar and professor at the École Polytechnique, has published a new book entitled Le conflit: La femme et la mere (Flammarion 2010).  In the book, Professor Badinter mourns the fact that women are increasingly valuing the role of motherhood over the realization of their talents and skills in the work place.  For she thinks that this is tantamount to none other than a return to male dominance.  A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that this is not so at all.  It is in this regard that I find the views of Dr. Laura Schlessinger so very telling and to the point.

The issue, of course, is not whether women are capable of doing brilliant things in the work place.  We know that they are.  To be sure, there are men who cannot seem to wrap their mind around this truth.  However, the point most certainly cannot be that unless every man accepts women as fully equal, then the struggle must go on.  I say this because unanimity regarding matters of equality would appear to be an impossibility, whether we are talking about the sexes or ethnic groups.  Indeed, there are women who believe that women are superior to men with regard to morals; and there are blacks who believe that blacks are superior to whites with respect to morals.

At any rate, Laura Schlessinger’s point is twofold: (1) If adequately informed women would prefer to devote their lives to raising children rather than excelling in the work place, then surely there is nothing wrong with women making that choice?  (2) There something majestic about motherhood that has no equal in terms of other activities.

There are good reasons why we suppose that (2) is true.  In their evolutionary reasons why (2) is true.  These reasons fall under the category of parental investment.  Women put their lives on the line to bring a child into the world.  For that very reason, it stands to reason that there is a bond between mother and child that has no equal between father and child.  This is why in the movie “Sophie’s Choice,” for example, it is the mother rather than the father who is asked to choose which son shall live and which son shall die.

Such a choice would of course be painful for the father.  However, because the mother has brought each child into the world, such a choice has a pain for the mother that simply has no equal in the life of the father.  This we instinctively grasp.

At any rate, what intrigues me is that Professor Elisabeth Badinter has entirely discounted this reality regarding women and motherhood.  Or, to put the point another way, it is as if Badinter takes motherhood to be on a par with any other task that a woman perform.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not believe that biology is destiny.  I do not think for a moment that a woman must become a mother.  Even if there is a certain “pull” in that direction, I certainly think that a woman might resist that pull.  None of us can do everything; and a woman might very well think that all things considered she would rather do something else rather than be a mother.

Just so, it is surely understandable why a woman might want to become a mother.  I mean if we can understand why a man might want to become a father, then surely we can understand a woman’s wanting to become a mother.  And if a woman should bring life into the world, why would she not want to stay home and nurture the very life that she brought into the world?

What can be more incongruous than bringing life into the world and then having someone else raise it?  Why, nowadays, we seem to attach more importance to interacting with our cars and gadgets than we do with the children whom we bring into the world.

In a word, Dr. Schlessinger’s point is that there is no greater gift a mother can give to her child than staying home and raising the child. This follows from the simple truth that every child wants to be loved; and nothing is more conducive to that feeling than the presence of a parent.  The mother stands as first choice in this regard owing to the sublime truth that the child issues from her body.

The heart of Badinter’s problem is that she is too busy seeing equality as a measure for measure activity.  Women and men are moral equals; and it is a poignant truth that we see that we see that reality more clearly now than we saw it in the past.  But this moral equality hardly means that women and men match one another in their behaviors.

What never ceases to amaze me is that we accord moral “natural” differences to ethnic groups than we do to women and men.  So it is although it is a brute fact that the differences we accord to ethnic groups have no moorings whatsoever in evolutionary theory.  This brings out the power of ideology.

Badinter is a brilliant philosopher.  However, she is driven by an ideological view of women.  She thinks of motherhood as a form of oppression and that reveals none other than a deep, deep hostility towards both women and, in particular, children.

One does not have to believe that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant in order to grasp that there is an extraordinary majesty to motherhood.  I believe no such thing.  I have never believed such a thing.  Yet, I regard motherhood as a tremendous gift.  Likewise, I have enormous respect for women who have excelled in roles that do not pertain to mothering.  Indeed, I am entirely at-ease the mother and the brilliant female research scientists.  Just so, my enormous respect for each woman flows from two very different sources, just as my enormous respect for a male fire fighter and a male professor flows from two very different sources.  I can see marvelous moral equality in all of these.  It is such a pity that Professor Elisabeth Badinter cannot.

It is very reveling that so often people talk about freedom and then they insist that another is free only if she or he is acting as they want that person to act.  Even the Almight holds that human beings are perfectly free to go against His will.  So it is very striking indeed that people often accord human beings less freedom than God does.

Zero Tolerance is increasingly turning out to mean zero common sense.  The way some schools now implement the idea of zero tolerance it is tantamount to believing that a person is actually sick when the individual utters “I am sick of this mess”.  For the moment, no one responds to the utterance “I am sick of this mess” by exclaiming “Oh my goodness, let me call a doctor”.  So we know that commonsense still has some purchase upon reality.

Alas, when it comes to the assessment of things in schools it is manifestly clear that common sense has taken a leave of absence.

Case 1: A fourth grader is sent to the principal’s office and nearly suspended for having a 2-inch toy gun in his possession.  Like anyone, I hold that there is much to be said for students not having objects that can be easily mistaken for a weapon.  But that precept surely rules out the worry that a 2-inch toy gun is indeed a real gun.

I know extremely little about guns.  But it is inconceivable to me that I would mistake a 2-inch gun for an actual gun.  So one has to ask: What the hell was the teacher thinking in sending the fourth greater to the principal’s office?  Likewise, one asks: What on earth was the principal thinking?

Case 2: A 12-year old girl is hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling on her desk.  “What did she doodle on the desk?,” you ask.  The answer: her name.  Not profanity or some racial slur.  Not a nasty and vicious comment about some classmate.  None of these things.  No, she doodled her name.

Like any reasonable person, I concur with the judgment that students should not doodle on desks.  But taking the student out of the school in handcuffs for doodling?  That response is so ludicrous that there is nothing that can proffered as an explanation that would make sense of such a drastic measure.

Once upon a time, the idea was that adults were models for maturity of judgment and measured behavior—especially teachers.  The very idea was that children growing up learnt how to behave not simply by what they were told to do but also by the kind of behavior that they witnessed on the part of adults.  Adults were the standard-bearer of reasonable behavior.  And certainly there was the idea that teachers were.

Clearly things have changed.  And this change does not bode well for the future of our society.

With the case of either the boy or the girl, I am hardly suggesting that a reprimand of some sort was not in order.  But clearly the reprimand should be proportional to the offense.  If a handcuffing a child is seen as the appropriate response to the child’s doodling her name, then what on earth would be appropriate if the child doodled some vicious remark about a classmate?  Handcuffs and a noose?  Or merely handcuffs and ankle-cuffs?

Similarly if a teacher and principle reacts to a 2-inch toy gun as if it were a real gun, then it becomes rather difficult to imagine what would be the appropriate reaction in the face of what is in fact an actual gun.

The question that most obviously presents itself is the following: How is it possible that the idea of zero-tolerance came to be construed in such an inane and absurd manner?  The answer, I believe, has to do with the quite mistaken that such behavior is required by fairness and complete fairness precludes any exercise of discretion.  This, in turn, is no doubt thought to have the advantage of precluding any discrepancies in treatment owing to cross-cultural differences.

Alas, the problem is that such blanket uniformity turns out to be a form of injustice in and of itself has been moribund and there can be no justice when justice is shorn of reasonableness.

Suppose we have a student from France whose command of English is still crude.  So the student from France tries to express friendly feelings and says to a student “I kiss you,” which is the literal translation of “je t’embrasse,” a very common expression between good friends in France, be they female-male, female-female, or male-male.  Now a policy of zero-tolerance with respect to expressions of intimacy would entail that the student from France trying to express himself in English should be punished, which of course is absurd.

My example is born of a real experience when a good male from France was visiting the United States and we got together.  As we were parting ways, he said to me “I kiss you”.  I knew immediately that he was not making a sexual advance, but that he was offering a literal interpretation of a very warm expression in French commonly used between good friends.  In reacting to my friend’s utterance I used what goes by the name of commonsense.

It is the very use of commonsense that zero-tolerance precludes and therein lies the fundamental problem with zero-tolerance.  Let us allow that the policy that no one should have any sort of gun on school premises applies to all guns whether they are real or not.  This move obviously precludes the possibility of someone bringing toy gun to school that could easily enough be mistaken for a real gun by just about anyone.  Well, once one allows this point, then surely what follows is that it is silly to treat a 2-inch toy gun as if it might be mistaken for a real gun.  So it is even if the student is informed that he is not allowed to have that gun on school premises.

Doodling on a desk counts as defacing school property.  Still, precisely what we know is that children do precisely that sort of thing when they get bored.  To ignore the very character of what it is like to be a child is, in fact, to act contrary to common sense.

In a word, then, children are growing up experiencing their teachers, who are adults, acting in ways that are manifestly contrary to common sense.  This is a social configuration that is entirely inimical to the proper development of children.

We wonder why our children are dysfunction.  Alas, part of the explanation may very well be consequence of the implementation of the absurd policy of zero-tolerance.  For that policy is none other than a way of teaching, by way of adult modeling, that common sense does not matter.

Which is worse? Being called a racial epithet (pick the one that most suits your ethnicity) or being betrayed by a dear friend, amongst whom I shall one’s spouse.  Contrary to what the norms of political correctness hold, I maintain that in the typical case being betrayed by a dear friend is much more morally traumatic than being called a racial epithet by a known-bigot.  A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that this is so.

When is the last time you can remember being the object of racial slur by a dear friend?  If you are like me, there have been no such instances.  And that, of course, is just the point.  Racial slurs invariably come from those who we are already know have deep racial biases (towards whites or blacks or Asians or Arabs or whatever).

Here is a simple way to put the point.  Suppose that you know that Sampson has rather strong KKK or Black Panther sympathies.  Well, would you be surprised if in the fit tremendous anger Sampson called you a kike (the KKK person) or racist (that Black Panther person) if you are Jew in one case or a white in the other?  Surely not!  And to get worked up over the fact that Sampson did would be rather like getting worked up over the fact that a propeller plane does not move through the air like a jet does.  No one in her or his right mind can expect a propeller plane to do that.

Well, to know that Sampson has strong KKK or Black Panther sympathies is to know that he has unreasonable and indefensible racial attitudes.  Thus, the more appropriate surprise should be that it took the person so long to utter a racial slur—and not that the individual eventually did so.

If someone presents herself or himself as bigoted, it is rather foolish to have expectations of that person with regard to racial attitudes that apply only to someone who is not bigoted.

The betrayal of dear friend is an entirely different matter entirely.  For one thing, a dear friend has presented herself or himself as someone who cares rather deeply about one’s well-being-even one’s flourishing.  A dear friend has presented herself or himself in ways that would give one every reason to believe that one can let one’s guard down.  One can talk about personal finances or one can share a very deep personal pain or quite revealing hopes or quite revealing moments of despair.  And so on.

For another thing, there is no such thing as revealing deeply personal information by accident.  Revealing personal information is not at all the analogue to the spontaneous utterance of “ouch” when unexpectedly experiencing great pain.  The utterance of “ouch” is a reaction.  Revealing personal information cannot be construed as a reaction.  This is something that one does intentionally and that one can only do intentionally.

Suppose that Smith tells me that he was sexually abused by his father.  I am simply unable to fathom how it could remotely plausible for me to have reason to tell someone else about Smith.  So it is even I am providing comfort to another person—say, Jones‑‑who has suffered the same misfortune.  For whether Jones knows Smith or not, my offering comfort and support to Jones does not require telling Jones about Smith.

Suppose, now, that the circumstances of Jones and Smith are parallel and Smith has indeed flourished in spite of the abuse.  Could this possibly excuse my telling Jones about Smith, because I want Jones to know that he, too, can overcome this?  I think not.  Certainly not without Smith’s permission.

What is more, there is no way to construe my telling Jones about Smith’s child sexual abuse as anything other than a deliberate and fully intentional betrayal of Smith’s trust.  There is no spontaneous “ouch” counterpart to telling Jones about Smith.

These considerations bring us to why violating a deep trust is so very much worse than a racial epithet from someone known to be a bigot.

By definition, a bigot has given us reason to believe and expect that he will have untoward views about us. He certainly has given us no reason whatsoever to believe that truth and facts trump unwarranted racial attitudes.

By contrast, a dear friend has given us every reason to believe that the information that we share with him is sacred and that this sacredness is secured by the rich bond of affection that the person has for us.  Needless to say, we do not expect a bigot (a KKK or Black Panther) person to have a bond of affection for us if we are of the right ethnic group (say, black in the first case or white in the second case).

Now, it is impossible to have a bond of affection for someone and do anything that comes remotely close to harming that person intentionally.  Indeed, there is a very natural inclination to the contrary.  Accordingly, revealing something utterly personal can only be construed as a form of intentional harm—intentional psychological harm, to be sure, but intentional harm nonetheless.  For speaking is definitive of what counts as intentional behavior.  What is more, it is an intentional harm which reveals that, contrary to one’s comportment around the person, one does not deeply care about the person.  Thus, the harm is tied to a deception that one has perpetrated with respect to the person.  And therein lies what is surely a most poignant difference between the bigot and the betrayal of a dear friend.

The bigot is bad.  But we know in the first place not to put our trust in a bigot.  A friend who betrays us, by contrast, has exploited the vulnerabilities that are part and parcel of being the object of another’s affection.  The appearance of good has been the platform for the so-called friend doing harm to us.  This scars us in a way that a racial epithet from a known bigot cannot possibly scar us.