o whom would you be most inclined to forgive: the Nazi or a the parent who sexual abused her or his own children?  There are three possibilities: (1) forgive both; (2) forgive neither; or (3) forgive one and not the other.  Some people think that one should always give because, after all, every human being errors in some way or the other.  This, of course, is true enough.  But most human beings do not even come close to being a nazi or to sexually abusing their own children. 

So the argument for forgiving either one or both of these individuals simply cannot be anchored in the view that we all make mistakes.   

Now with regarding to nazis, there is a line of argument put forward by Thomas Nagel and Margaret Walker that goes simply like this: But for the grace of God, most of us (if we are not Jewish) would be nazis.  That is, had we been born in that despicable environment most of us would have embraced the very ideals that we deem morally horrific.  There is no gainsaying this point.  The killing of millions of Jews would not have happened had most people actively opposed such a thing.  And there is little evidence that most people have the fortitude to go up against a veritable tidal wave of public opinion.  In such instances, we are much more likely to convince ourselves that we are wrong, even if we are right. 

At any rate, I mention this because the line of argument does not at all apply to people who abuse their children sexually.  In Western societies, at least, no one claims to have been carried away by the winds of ideology according to which the very idea of being a decent or loyal or committed individual called for sexually abusing one’s child.  There have always been instances of child sexual abuse in society, but there has never been an ideology to that effect.

Then, too, there is this difference.  We can actually make sense of there being instances when vindictive anger and hostility towards another person is ever so justified.  We can make sense of this even, though we may suppose that a person should never act on such sentiments. 

But is there really a way to make sense of sexually abusing one’s child?  Surely not.  There can be no justification for even the thought, let alone the inclination to act on it. 

There is, to be sure, the idea of loving one’s neighbor.  But no one has ever supposed this to mean that love of neighbor should be on a par with love for one’s child.  For the person who has to choose between saving his child from drowning and saving a neighbor from drowning, where it is impossible to do both, this should simply not be a moral dilemma.  The child gets saved. 

Again, whatever love we may have for our neighbor, one supposes that there is a natural inclination to love one’s child that has absolutely no equal whatsoever in loving one’s neighbor.  That is, while morality requires us to refrain from harming others, love requires to do for our children what we can never be obligation to do for a neighbor. 

If these considerations are right, then we end up with a rather striking thought, namely that the person who sexually abuses his child is, in a most important respect, worse than a nazi or, for that matter, a vicious slaveowner.  The decent person is naturally repulsed by the sentiment of harming others.  But harming others does not require the further step of overcoming the natural sentiment to love and do good that surely applies with respect to children. 

So in terms of exhibiting morally obnoxious behavior the child sexual abuser does the nazi one better. 

For the obvious reason, it is easy to miss this since the aim of the Nazi regime was the extermination of Jews, and that is not the aim of child sexual abuse.  But it is easy to bring out the difference by comparing a nazi who raped a Jew with a nazi who sexually abused his very own child.  As horrific as the first is, the second is just that much more repulsive for the reasons that I have already given.  Whatever difficulty we have understanding rape, in the first place, committing such a horrific act against one’s very own child is just that much more incomprehensible.  The latter is unfathomable at an entirely different level. 

So let me return to the question: Whom would I be most inclined to forgive.  Well, to begin with, I think that forgiveness that restores trust has to be earned.  And from the fact that I no longer hold a grudge against you, it does not follow in the least that I now trust.  As Howard McGary noted, I may stop holding a grudge against you because this is the best way for me to get on with my life.  This does not all mean that you have earned my trust.

In a published essay entitled “Forgiving the Unforgivable”, I sketch a story of a nazi whom I call Adolph Paul-Damascus, who I think earns forgiveness. 

Alas, I still have trouble forgiving a parent who sexually abuses her child.  For to my mind such a person has a more warped and perverted nature than even a nazi—such a person’s behavior is even more unnatural.  Anger and hostility and the misrepresentation of others, even the demonization of others, I can all make sense of in various ways.  I think that every human being can be so hurt and devastated that he strikes out at even innocent people.  I do not justify this.  I do not excuse this.  But I can grasp how it can happen.  And those who say that they cannot are, I suspect, being more than a little disingenuous. 

I can further grasp the reality that people are sometimes swept up in the moment.  This happens with all sorts of things.  As I have already noted, the simple truth is that most of us do not have the fortitude to go up against the crowd—to endure being ostracized and rejected.  Most of are simply too weak.  I do not justify this.  I do not excuse this.  But this truth about human beings is confirmed time and time again.

But to abuse one’s child sexually requires either overcoming the natural love that one has for that child or never having that love in the first place.  This is beyond me in every conceivable way.  With every child that I have ever seen, I have been moved immeasurably the beauty of its moral innocence and the majesty of the fact that something so marvelous has developed out of two tiny cells.  I think that one has to be a monster not to see these things in a child.  A child: so dependent, so needy, and so responsive to love.  As I argued, in The Family and the Political Self, the very survival of the human species turns upon parents being moved in this way towards children. 

I might find within me the wherewithal not to hold a grudge against a parent who sexually abused his child.  But I could never ever trust such a parent again.  To my mind: the child sexual abuser is not just evil, but irredeemably so.  

As fate would have it, I don't think that any nazi ever measured to up to my fictional Adolph Paul-Damascus.  Thus, none ever merited forgiveness.  With the parent who sexually abuses his very own child, I rule out forgiveness, understood as restoring trust, on conceptual grounds.  

You have my answer to the question.  What is your answer?  Whom would you be inclined to forgive: The nazi or the parent who sexually abused his child?

reedom is an absolutely wonderful thing.  But freedom without responsibility is disastrous.  And surely an important part of that responsibility lies in the use of commonsense.  Anyone is free to pick up a hitchhiker.  And doing so is easy enough, in that all one has to do is stop the car.  Yet, everyone knows that this simple act can be one of the most ridiculously foolish things that a person can do. 

We all know that rape is wrong.  This, though, does not change the fact that a person did something absolutely foolish if he or she picked up the hitchhiker who committed the act of rape.  For we all know that picking up hitchhikers is very, very, very dangerous.  Suppose the hitchhiker had a sign that read “I was just robbed”.  As it turns out, this was but a ploy to get some driver to stop.  Needless to say, the hitchhiker cannot be sued for both misrepresentation and rape. 

It is, to be sure, a truism that no one asks to be raped.  Alas, this truth does not change reality that a person has acted foolishly in failing to take certain precautions.  Commonsense requires that we not act foolishly.  And there are very few excuses, if any, for not exercising basic commonsense.  Everyone who drives knows that it is basic commonsense not to p[ck up hitcherhickers.

In a very real sense, MySpace.Com is rather like a highway with all sorts of people standing around looking for a ride.  Some of these people are indeed innocent.  Other, unfortunately, are exceedingly malicious.  The problem, of course, is that distinguishing between the innocent and the malicious is next to impossible.  

It is my view that the lawsuit against MySpace.Com has virtually no merit.  It is common knowledge that misrepresentation is a rampant feature of the site.  In fact, it is known that sexual predators of all sorts avail themselves of the site and misrepresent themselves.  Thus, believing what someone on the site says about himself and than actually meeting the person is rather like believing the hitchhiker’s sign that reads “I was just robbed”, and stopping to give the person a ride. 

Indeed, I understand that the defendant is already contemplating filing a counter-lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiff misrepresented herself on the site: He claims that she is younger than she claimed to be.  If she did misrepresent her age, that can hardly come us a surprise.  For expecting that someone is actually representing himself accurately on MySpace.Com is rather like going to a costume party and supposing that the various modes of attire represent the way in which the person wearing the attire actually carries herself or himself.  Only a fool would do such a thing. 

This is a commonsense moment.  Laws can never ever protect us from the failure to exercise basic commonsense.  Lest there be any misunderstanding, the young girl’s rape—if indeed that occurred—was inexcusable.  But no less inexcusable was her agreeing to meet with the teenager in the first place.  Her doing so does not excuse the immorality of his raping her.  But the immorality of his raping her does not excuse her foolish irresponsibility. 

It is well-known that MySpace.Com does not verify age.  Indeed, it did not verify the plaintiff’s age.  So I would be stunned if the courts held the site liable for the male’s representation of his age. 

But the question that invariably arises is this: What explains such a manifest lack of commonsense on the part young people nowadays?  I do not hold that all things can be explained by reference to the family, but much can.  Having and exhibiting commonsense is very much a function of the kinds of parental expectations in place, as well as the kind of parental behavior that is modeled by the parents in front of their children. 

Think of commonsense on the order of a language.  As everyone knows, the more masterful a command of the spoken language that parents exhibit around the home, the greater the command of that language the children will come to have.  No one learns a language by first being given the appropriate instruction: the rules of grammar, syntax, and so forth.  

Much of commonsense behavior is exactly like that.  It is not so much by instruction that occasion commonsense on the part of our children by way of instruction as it by way of example.  And it is this simple truth that we are losing sight of with our increasingly busy lives.  Just as 20 minutes of instruction per day would never in and of itself suffice to render a child a competent speaker of the language spoken at home, it also the case that 20 minutes of instruction per day will never in and of itself suffice to bring about on the part of the child what we refer to as commonsense.  For in both cases, it is not the instruction but the exemplification that makes the biggest difference. 

Like every decent person, I am pained by the rape.  But there is the issue of preventing harms and wrongs to oneself by taking reasonable and basic precautions—by exhibiting rudimentary commonsense.  And we cannot ignore the conspicuous absence of commonsense in the name of our favorite ideology.  The truth that no man should ever commit a rape will never entail the negation of the truth that a woman has the responsibility of taking reasonable precautions. 

I do not like being assaulted when walking down the street.  And anyone who does wrongs me.  But this truth does not absolve me of the responsibility of taking reasonable precautions. 

So without having ever met the parents of the teenage girl, there is little doubt in my mind that they were irresponsible parents.  For there is the poignant truth that a 14-year old was hanging out with a 19-year old.  In teenage years, they are in different worlds.  And parenting a teenage daughter is about driving this simple and basic point home.  There is nothing that a 19-year old male wants with a 14-year old female other than sex.  This is one of those bits of commonsense that are part and parcel of parenting.  Every mother knows this; every father knows this.  At least each mother and father should know this.

Do I believe in equal rights between women and men?  More ardently than most would ever suppose.  Yet, I do not think that women and men are the same.  And good parenting reminds us of those difference and it reminds us of the importance of keeping those differences in mind. 

If anyone ought to be sued, the parents ought to be sued for failing in their responsibility as parents. 

What is happening in this case is something quite horrendous, namely that a wrong that a child has suffered is being used to mask the utter irresponsibility of the parents.  And this is becoming one of the grave social patterns of the American culture. 

As for the male, there is certainly no pity in my heart for him.  If I had my way, he would be castrated (given that he actually raped the girl).  But to live well in any society is to recognize that some people are to be avoided, which brings me back to the daughter. 

Had her parents been giving her the attention that she deserved and had her parents been paying attention to her activities, it is most unlikely that the scenario with the teenage male would have ever gotten off the ground.  For one thing, they would have known about her false profile on MySpace.Com.  Then they would have been monitoring her on-line communication.  Finally: they would have known where she was going and with whom she was spending time.  That is what responsible parenting is about.

If I am right, then MySpace,Com is none other than the portal through which the manifest neglect of the girl’s parents became realized. 

After all that has been said about MySpace.Com in recent years, it is simply not possible to be a decent parent and not closely monitor an account that one’s child has on the site—if, that is, one’s child is allowed to have an account there in the first place.  That is the responsible thing to do in this world of ever increasing freedoms. 

n the New Testament, it is said that love hides a multitude of faults.  The idea seems straightforward enough:  If I love a person, then I do not dwell upon the individual’s faults.  And I certainly do not make it my business simply to draw the attention of others to the person’s faults.  In fact, there are times when I may go on as if the fault was not even there.  We see this ever so clearly with physical defects.

When we truly love a person who has a physical defect, we come to the point where we barely notice the defect.  In fact, that person may remain more conscious of the defect than we are.  One of my dearest friends lost a finger several years ago; and it continues to bother him.  When we first met, he was ever so reluctant to shake my hand.  Years later, I think that he has all but forgotten that I know.  He is absolutely comfortable in shaking my hand, doing today what he never did when I first met him, namely extending his hand first for a handshake with me.  I saw the beauty of his character, and not the defect of his hand.

Part of what made the movie Elephant Man so utterly moving at one point is that a stunningly beautiful woman makes the Elephant Man forget, if only for just a moment in time, his abject hideousness as they recite poetry together.  She brought out the best in him, by getting him beyond his hideousness.

Therein lies the spirit of the expression that love hides a multitude of faults.  At its very best, love aims to bring out the best in us.  In the typical instance, it is true that physical defects, unlike faults of character, cannot be changed.  Moreover, it is typically the case that physical defects do not flow from a defect in character.  With physical defects, love at its best masterfully discounts such defects because they cannot be changed and, moreover, they are not owing to our own fault.

With shortcoming of characters, love does not require—and indeed, it cannot require—that we allow a person to wallow in mediocrity.  For that, quite simply, ain’t love.  If love seeks to bring out the best in a person with physical defects, then by the same token love seeks to bring out the best in a person with defects of character.  And that, when broadly put, speaks to two options: One is to help the person to eliminate the defect of character.  The other is to help the person to compensate for the defect of character. 

Somehow, in the last 15 years or so, the idea of love has become utterly distorted.  It has come to mean ignoring or even lying about the wrongs of a loved one.  More generally, love has come to mean blind acceptance of a loved one even when that person’s faults has caused another great harm. 

Thus, love has become synonymous with blind loyalty; and that effectively turns love into a vice.  No morally decent person would demand blind loyalty of another; no morally decent person would offer blind loyalty to another.

I hold that one of the greatest gifts that a friend or a sibling or a parent can give to the other is a level of righteousness of character that would inspire excellence on the other’s part and occasion shame if the other did something wrong.  Quite simply, it is impossible to inspire excellence if it is known that for us anything goes.  And parents who systematically lie to cover up the wrongs of their child and who defend their child no matter what, far from showing their child that they love her or him: These are parents who have made it abundantly clear to the child that they have no standards of excellence to which they expect the child to live up to.  Of course, they have uttered no such thing.  But this is where actions speak louder than words. 

Quite simply you cannot love me if you approve of everything and anything that I do.  I cannot love you if I approve of everything and anything that you do.  And insofar as feelings get in the way of grasping this truth, then feelings are the problem—not the truth itself.  For this truth remains utterly unchanged and untarnished. 

Love is not harsh for the sake of being harsh.  Love is not vicious.  Yet love is not without boundaries.  Love never knowingly contributes to the harm of another.  A defining feature of blind loyalty is that it contributes to the harm of another while protesting that it is doing nothing but good for the other.  This is a vice—not a virtue.

The best way to bring this out the remarks in the preceding two paragraphs is by drawing attention to the fact that blind loyalty or love that approves of all is tantamount to indifference with respect to the other being excellent.  And indifference is never affirming.  Indifference harms.  It never uplifts.

It strikes me as most fascinating that as the world has grown more materialistic, genuine love is increasingly receding into the background.  On the one hand, there is no logical connection here; on the other, this is not mere coincidence.

Time was, surely, when showing another that one cares for her or him was not about, and could not have been about, showering the person with material goods.  Showing love was inextricably tied to the ways in which people showed support for another when that person was in need, and it was about helping people to help themselves.  The ways in which parents made sacrifices for their children for instance pretty much settled the question that they loved their children.  And children grasped this point all too well.

But material things allowed us make a very fascinating maneuver, namely appeasement.  When a child cries nowadays, we have found it much more convenient to give it something to distract it than to attend to it.  Sadly, this way of proceeding creates a pattern: for both the parent and the child, displays of love have become associated with giving the child a material thing rather than being there for the child in a nurturing and supportive way. 

And by the time a child is an adolescent, the very idea of parental love has been perverted: Material things are the representation of parental love.  And when things serve as the representation of parental love, then the idea of blanket approval cannot be far behind.  For once things are allowed to stand in for love, then the idea of love as a form of nurturance and a springboard for excellence of character has already been cast aside.  The idea of love has been removed from its moral, spiritual, and psychological moorings. 

Love at its best involves giving of oneself on behalf of a loved one.  And this giving is in turn replenished by among other things expressions of acknowledgement and gratitude on the part of the recipient who sees himself as having benefited from the giving of oneself that one has done.  That is why love at its best is very, very, very personal. 

In allowing material things to have become the symbol of love we have effectively detached love from the personal.  And perhaps the most stunning proof of this is that, more so than ever, people feel increasingly less loved although there seems to be no end to the material things that they have been given in the name of love. 

When the simplest gesture is seen as flowing from love itself, that gesture takes on a profound and enduring meaning.  But when love is defined as a merely a function of what one gives, then what is given invariably loses its meaning and significance in a short matter of time.  That is why thousands upon thousands of dollars can be spent on weddings only to have the marriage barely last a year.  The price-tag of the wedding became the measure of love.  Thus, its value proved to be fleeting and necessarily so. 

Whether it be the love between friends or parental love or romantic love: Love at its best carries in its wake gratitude.  We who are the object of another’s love are moved by a priceless gift that no amount of money can purchase and for that we are grateful.  In return, our gratitude inspires love to spread its wings even farther, which in turn deepens the gratitude.  This is a cycle to be sure.  But there is nothing at all vicious about it.  Quite the contrary, it is the most virtuous cycle humankind has ever known. 

Love at its best perfects—creating always and forever a more perfect union.  This is the love that makes for the best parent-child relationship.  This is the love that makes for the best friendships.  This is the love that makes for marital ties at their best.  And so it is that love hides a multitude of faults.  It does so by rendering our faults increasingly less prevelant in one way or another.  That is love.   

his blog entry is personal.  I checked my email yesterday only to receive a message from Franck, a dear friend of mine in Paris.  The news was that his brother had been attacked and brutally beaten by a gang of at least 30 teenagers.  In one sense, it does not matter whether the act was antisemitic or not.  For the physical damage done is not more or less serious depending upon the ethnicity of the person.  Yet, I have difficulty not suspecting that my friend’s brother was a target of vicious antisemitism.  They did not rob him nor is there any indication that the attack was an act of revenge.  Nor, again, is the brother a member of some opposing gang. 

Just as a bombing can be said to have all the markings or signature of Al-Qaeda, this attack has all the markings or the signature of antisemitism. 

Wrong is wrong.  But wrong takes on a special pain when decent people are its object—people who are simply trying to get by in life.  I have known Franck for at least a decade.  His life is the very embodiment of goodwill and open-mindedness.  He is the kind of person with whom one gets frustrated precisely because he seems not to get angry enough at times. 

I have read and re-read his email messages; and I have read and re-read the blog that he created to reflect upon this pain in his life: Violence Extreme au Clos de Noyers. 

Even as Franck reflects out aloud in great pain, he exhibits a goodness that is rare.  He has not blamed this one and that one.  He has not called this one and that one names.  No, he has asked the most painful of questions: How could my neighbors—those with my brother and I have played ball and have had daily discussions—have commit this atrocity?  Indeed, in his second set of comments, Franck goes so far as to suggest that the problem is simply that 2 or 3 hoodlums are exercising just a little too much influence.

Alas, I do not agree with Franck regarding this last point.  It is a very striking thing about the world that it is extremely difficult for the few to get the many to do any thing unless the many are already disposed so to behave.  If there is any lesson to be learnt from Nazi Germany, it is that one.  Hitler could not have created Nazi Germany were the citizens of that country not already disposed to embrace his antisemitic rhetoric. 

I could perhaps accept Franck’s explanation if the gang had only robbed Yoan, the name of Franck’s brother.  As an aside this already tells you just how sorry the state of the world has become.  Evil has become such a prominent part of one society after another that we now negotiate with it.  Oh, they only robbed her: Well, you see that weren’t so bad after all.  For they could have done this or that.  Instead, they just took her money.

Back to Yoan: if the gang had only robbed Yoan, I might be willing to attribute this to stupidity.  But an attack that is vicious and persistent is another matter entirely.  That sort of viciousness presupposes an existing hostile sentiment on the part of the participants.  The gang did not just rob Yoan.  They broke body parts, including damaging his skull.  This is what 30 or so young males did to a 21-year old guy who was by himself.  That is not the sort violence that just happens.  That kind of violence is not about looking to have some fun, which unexpectedly turns into something nasty.  That is violence that is anchored in a very well-defined set of sentiments and has a very clear target. 

It is admirable of Franck that he has not invoked one invective after another in discussing the assault upon his brother.  Yet, I am inclined to think that Franck is being a little too measured.  For as I have said, the attack has all the markings of an act of antisemitism: “Oh, its just a Jew.  It does not matter what sort of harm we do, as the person deserves it”.  I have difficulty seeing the difference between Yoan’s case and the case of Illan Halimi, a young Jew who was brutally murdered. 

My worry is that the average young Jew in France is so desperate for acceptance that she or he has become vulnerable in that desperation.  It seems that the desire to be accepted was exploited in Halimi’s case.  And it would not surprise me in the least if we should have exactly the same situation in the case of Yoan. 

I shall conclude this entry with a most ominous observation.  France has been a part of my life for only 15 years.  Yet, I personally know of this Jew here and this Jew there who was an object of what, for all the world, looked like an antisemitic attack.  The significant point is that the three or so people in France whom I know who have been the object of what was probably an antisemitic attack is already three times more than the number of people in the United States whom I know personally who have also been the object of an antisemitic attack. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mon Cher Franck, en écrivant ce petit essai je fais qu’un simple geste de soutien.  C’est la moindre chose que je puisse faire pour toi.  Pendant ton moment de douleur, je veux que tu saches que je pense à toi et ton frère.  

very now and then life bestows upon us an absolutely stunning irony.  Of course, it is generally the case that Hollywood opposes the war in Iraq, whereas the religious right has generally been in favor of it.  What makes this odd is that the following.  On the one hand, the Iraq Muslim population of Iran and the Middle East in general has to be against just about everything that Hollywood is for.  On the other hand, when it comes to basic moral values, the religious right and the Muslim population of the Middle East have much in common. 

This is certainly true in the area of sexual morality.  While the religious right is hardly in favor of the burka, it is certainly for modesty on the part of women.  By contrast, if there is anything that Hollywood seems to be against, it is female modesty: the more sexually provocative the better.  Again, homosexuality is considered a sin by the Muslim religion.  But for Hollywood, being gay is just about fashionable.  I understand that ever since the success of Brokeback Mountain, leading male actors have been looking for gay roles to play.  The religious right, obviously, condemns homosexuality, and wanted nothing more than to see the film fail at the box office. 

Non-marital sex and affairs are what Hollywood is all about.  I mean nothing like a sexual trysts to pump up a star’s declining ratings.  Needless to say, the Muslim Middle East flatly rejects this behavior as morally bankrupt, as does the religious right. 

More generally, Hollywood eschews sexism, whereas the Muslim Middle East comes dangerously close to embodying it.  The religious right is not quite as far along as the Muslim Middle East.  Still, many suppose that the man is the head of the household.  This line of thought can be given various non-sexist interpretations.  One might be that women and men are equal but have different roles owing to differences in gender.  Hollywood, needless to say, is not having any of that. 

So it is ironic beyond words that Hollywood opposes the Iraqi war and the religious rights supports it.  After all, we are not talking about mild discord, on the one hand, and passing agreement, on the other.  Hollywood despises the very values that the Muslim Middle East represents; for Hollywood makes a mockery of the religious right for embracing those very same values.  The religious right, by contrast, shares many of the fundamental moral values embraced by the Muslim Middle East.  

So why isn’t Hollywood for the war and the religious right opposed to the war?  Wouldn’t that be the logical line-up?  Let us start with the religious right.

Many Christians see the Muslim Middle East in the throes of a Muslim crusade, where this entails the diminution of the role of Christ.  There seems to be little that is conciliatory about Islam. 

Christians get to have Jesus in their heart; and this allows for a person to disagree and still claim that he is a Christian.  Jews by birth don’t have to believe much of anything and they can still claim to be Jewish.  The same holds for converts.  Indeed, the only kind of Jew that Israel rejects as matter of principle is she or he who claims to be a Jew for Jesus. 

Islam is a compliance-heavy religion.  And many on the religious right have felt threatened by its non-compromising vision of who is the one true prophet.  Whereas Christianity has managed to think of Jews as their Elder Brother, Islam seems threatening to the religious right precisely it offers nothing that is conciliatory to Christians. 

Officially, Christianity claims to have superseded Judaism and Islam claims to have superseded Christianity.  Christianity artfully insists upon this; whereas Islam seems to insist upon it with a vengeance.  And that makes it a threat to Christianity.  So we have an explanation for why the religious right has generally favored the war. 

This leaves us, then, with Hollywood.  Why on earth has it been so adamantly opposed to the war?  Surely, the answer cannot possibly be that it sees values in the Muslim Middle East with which it resonates.  Nor can the issue for Hollywood be the European one.  I suggest that the real reasons for Europe’s opposition to the war was its fear of violent uprisings on the part of its large Muslim Arabic population.  Threats of violence have a way of persuading people.  And large parts of the Muslim Arabic world have turned being violent into a form of art.

Perhaps Hollywood simply thinks that all wars are wrong.  Well, there is no real evidence of that.  Nor can it really be that Hollywood thinks that murdering innocent people is just fine so long as it is Muslim Arabs killing Muslim Arabs.  That surely is a despicable moral view.  There is no end to the vicious ways in which Arab Muslim leaders in the Middle East have treated their very own citizens. 

Then there is the issue of slavery.  We know that to this day parts of the Muslim Arabic world engages in slavery, where many of the slaves are blacks.  Opposing slavery ! ! ! How much more politically correct can one get.  Where is Hollywood?

I do not necessarily have to agree with where a person stands in order to be able to make sense of why the person stands there.  I hold a very simple view, namely that hostility towards Bush is so great—he so profoundly despised—that many people opposed the word in Iraq for no other reason than that Bush was leading it. 

Hollywood is as self-centered and as rapacious as it is possible to be.  There is no reason to think that a higher moral calling explains its steadfast opposition to the war.  For it is its own higher calling—though certainly not a higher moral calling. 

I can think of some very good reasons why we should not have gone to war with Iraq.  Some of them, to be sure, come with hindsight.  The problem is that I have heard none of those good reasons come from Hollywood.  Yet, no group of people ought to have been more prepared with good reasons for opposing the war than Hollywood precisely because it is diametrically opposed to just about everything that the Muslim Arabic world stands for.  Insofar as one group of human beings can be considered the natural enemy of another, the Muslim Arabic world is Hollywood’s natural enemy. 

Unfortunately, Hollywood is so besotted with its own power that it has never seen fit to make sense of its own stand.  Equally unfortunate is the truth that most people are too busy graveling—for access to the kind of power that the folks of Hollywood have—to be concerned with the simply reality that Hollywood has essentially opposed going to war with those who regard it as representative of the very height of immorality.  Hollywood has opposed going to war with people who despise it as much as it despises Bush.  This is one of the great ironies of the moment. 

Believe that gratitude is the greatest of all social lubricants.  Gratitude is none other than the appreciative and ever so willing acknowledgment of the good that another has done on one’s behalf.  And limitless are the forms that gratitude can take.  Nothing allows for more originality than the expression of gratitude.  Accordingly, it is very, very, very rare that a person is not in the position to express gratitude.  These cases aside, anyone who is too busy to express gratitude is too busy, indeed.  For reasons that I shall indicate at the end of this essay, it is owing to expressions of gratitude that I consider myself very much alive. 

What follows is a confession:  There is much for which I can forgive a person.  For I understand that we all make mistake; and when people are willing to acknowledge and make amends for their mistakes, where genuine sincerity abounds, I can often find it in my heart to forgive that person.  But ingratitude is another thing entirely.  I have enormous difficulty forgiving the ungrateful.  For I have enormous difficulty forgiving someone who is enjoying (or has enjoyed) the benefits of another’s labor, but who does not express his gratitude for the effort that the other person made on his behalf.  This is an incongruity that I cannot abide. 

I understand that the absence of gratitude does not make a person evil—a Hitler the Second, as it were.  Still, my natural tendency is to disassociate myself from the person.  This is because the absence of gratitude bespeaks a profound self-centeredness that I simply cannot abide.  Indeed, it seems to me that anyone who maintains a relationship with a person in the face of sustained ingratitude on that person’s part also has a problem.

Gratitude is an independent affirmation of the good intentions with which another takes himself to have behaved.  Thus, gratitude is very much a moral power.  For there is the issue of what a person intends to do for another and there is the issue of whether or not the person’s intentions realized their end.  Gratitude is a way confirming to the agent that his intentions realized their end. 

No matter how wonderful you think that the cake that you made for me tastes or how beautiful you think that the piece of art you produced for me is, and all with good reason, there is not and cannot be a substitute for the confirmation that comes with my expression of gratitude to you for what you have done. 

Indeed, no matter how much you have may have obviously done to help me, there is nothing on the face of this earth that can substitute for my expression of gratitude.  For that is a confirmation that I judged your behavior as you wanted me to judge it.  And nothing takes the place of that confirmation.  No amount of self-knowledge; no amount of objective assessment of the matter. 

The absence of gratitude, when it is appropriate, can in fact be vicious.  For you see, gratitude is an acknowledgement of the purity of another’s intentions.  After all, if in the end your only reason for helping me was to obtain media publicity, then I rightly feel used, though I have benefited.  Moreover, the purity of your intentions has been called into question.  My absence of gratitude may reflect just that.  Or I may engage in what we might call perfunctory gratitude, which is on the order of saying “Congratulations” to the person to whom one lost (being a good sport) or saying “I am pleased to introduce Smith” (mere social protocol).  Perfunctory gratitude can be appropriate. 

But if you have helped me and have been there for me over time, giving of yourself when you did not have to, then what is owed is the real thing.  And the absence of gratitude in this case is essentially a denial of the good intentions with which the person acted on my behalf.  Sometimes, of course, we have reason to question a person’s motives, in which case gratitude is indeed not in order.  But when a person has been helpful and decent over time without ever committing a transgression, then questioning the person’s motives is inappropriate.  After all, what other evidence can we have that a person is doing what is right by us, then that the person has been consistently doing so over time without committing a transgression. 

The absence of gratitude, then, in the face of a person’s doing what is right over time is none other than an affront to the person’s efforts on one’s behalf.  The absence is an affront precisely because there is no excuse for not showing gratitude. 

It should now make more sense as to why I distance myself from those who show an absence of gratitude.  It should now make sense why anyone should.  Living right calls for considerable self-control and foresight.  It requires making sure that one does what is appropriate as well as making sure that one does not do what is inappropriate.  Not acknowledging such behavior on the part of another is a form of viciousness—a form of moral discounting if you will.  Essentially, then, the absence of gratitude is an insult.  Its absence is tantamount to attributing—and entirely without good reason—unsavory motives to a person who had every reason to think that she or he has acted with good will.  Only a psychologically unhealthy person would put up with that.

It should also be clear why gratitude is such an extraordinary social lubricant.  For insofar as we aim to be decent human beings, nothing provides greater independent affirmation of that than the gratitude of others.  Gratitude is the moral affirmation with one’s own will of the will of another.  And for all of its simplicity that is an absolutely riveting expression of moral power.  The proof of this is just how much we treasure those expressions of gratitude that we have received. 

Over the years, I have received various gifts from my friends students: a shirt from Africa, the Hebrew Bible in French and English, a pen with my name on it, and various notes of thanks from this one and that one.  These are like rubies and diamonds in my life.  I try to live right.  And these gifts are indications from various individuals with whom I have formed ties or whom have taught (or both) that I may have met with some success in that regard.  These gifts are an acknowledgement that I, with all the various things in life that I have going for me, could not possibly give myself. 

I remarked at the outset that gratitude takes a multitude of forms.  And one of the remarkable forms that it has taken is that one of my former students shares with me the joys of his fatherhood.  I sometimes wonder if he realizes how precious and transforming a thing he is doing.  That is a worthiness I could never give to myself, though I lived an eternity.  The same holds, but in a different way, for the Rougemont family in France (which now ranges over three generations).  I have to remind myself that once upon a time I did not know them.

I believe that I live one of the richest lives on the planet.  Not because I travel between two continents like some people move between adjacent towns.  Not because I pretty much have the material things I want.  These things are nice; and there is no denying that.  But I live one of the richest on the planet because I have been blessed with expressions of gratitude that have elevated my soul to unimaginable heights.  This does not make for immorality, but life shorn of gratitude would surely be some form of death itself.  Thank God: I am very much alive.  To the many who have made that a reality:

T h a n k  Y o u