enazir Bhutto is perhaps the most prominent martyr thus far of the 3rd Millennium.  She was willing to risk her life for what she believed—not by surreptitiously launching murderous attacks against others, but by stating in public her beliefs and hopes for her nation, Pakistan.  She had the courage of her convictions.  Although her Islamist murderer blew himself up, can anyone really doubt that she was the more courageous person by far? 

This shows at once that the willingness to kill oneself does not thereby make one a paragon of the virtue of courage.  Indeed, a most poignant truth is that people kill themselves for all sorts of reasons that have nothing at all to do with courage.  Bhutto’s murderer was not a man of courage.  Rather, he was a man who exploited Bhutto’s courage.

I do not suppose for a moment that Benazir Bhutto was without fault.  Indeed, Plato suggests in his magnificent work the Republic that there is something problematic about anyone who wanted to hold public office.  There is no reason to deny that she was interested in obtaining power because she delighted in that sort of thing.  Yet, it must be acknowledged that in her quest for power she did not lose sight of the good of the people.  Indeed it must be acknowledge that the good of the people was fundamentally important to her.  After all, it was a good for which she was willing to put her life on the line.

It is, to be sure, a matter of debate whether democracy, as we know it in Western countries, is suitable for all the world.  Just so, there can be no gainsaying the truth that a society can take its members seriously only insofar as it gives them a choice in who their leaders should be.  There is a kind of affirmation that can be given to the other only insofar as one allows the other to choose.  Whatever her shortcomings might be, Bhutto grasped this truth.  And she was willing to put her life on the line to make this truth a reality for the people of Pakistan. 

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is a wake-up call to the West.  The success of Islamist terrorists (not to be confused with righteous Muslims) is tied to sufficiently many folks in the West somehow managing to believe that the aims these Islamists are no less legitimate than the aims of democracy.  Those who believe this take the humanity of those under Islamist dominion less seriously than they take their own humanity.  Just as no one thinks for a moment that it is “natural” for a person to want to be a slave, it is plainly absurd to suppose that it is “natural” for people to embrace the domination of Islamists terrorists.  And as Rousseau observed in The Social Contract: Even if a person might choose slavery for himself, he is surely not entitled to choose it for his children.

Bhutto died because she was willing to stand for what she believed in.  She did not die trying to appease all.  She did not die because she was a chameleon who got confused in moving from one audience to another.  She had too much integrity to be a chameleon.

Do we have any politicians like that in the United States who are running for president?  Ms. Clinton?  Mr. Obama?  Mr. Romney?  Mr. McCain?  The sad thing is that it is far from obvious that we do.  How can it be that the country which often claims to be the leader of the free world does not have a presidential candidate who obviously matches Bhutto in terms of integrity and courage?

This is one profound reason why Bhutto’s assassination is a wake-up call. 

Politics without courage and integrity amounts to none other than a form of manipulation.  And insofar as a nation of people are more interested in self-gratification than the integrity of their political candidates, then it follows that such a nation of people has invited its very own manipulation by politicians. 

Benazir Bhutto’s death is a most poignant reminder of two things.  One is that there are, in fact, moral and political truths.  The other is that there are some who above all else are committed to denying these truths and who, to that end, will destroy the very best that life offers.

Some have compared her to Nelson Mandela.  I, on the other hand, think that the more apt comparison is Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was hardly perfect). He saw “the Promised Land”.  He did not get to enter it.  Bhutto returned to Pakistan in the hopes of establishing “the Promise Land”.  She did not get to do so.

King’s dream was fulfilled because sufficiently many in the United States saw a need for change.  Bhutto’s dream will be fulfilled only if sufficiently many of the community of nations will see the need to change. 

And this brings us to another reason why Bhutto’s assassination is a wake-up call.  The idea of a war on terrorism has been mocked by many and dismissed as so much nonsense.  Bhutto had returned to Pakistan in the hopes of making her country a better nation for all of its citizens.  She had returned the spirit of providing equality for all.  Alas, this simple conception of equality, which we in the West take for granted, was seen as a threat by some with a quite different political outlook, namely one which relegated a great many human beings to a position of abject subordination. 

Unless sufficiently many nations of the world stand resolutely opposed to what Bhutto’s murder and inalterably committed to regarding her death as just that, then those who have murdered her will have been given a way out.  If along with nations such as Canada and South Africa and Japan: the European Union and the United States cannot stand unshakably united in their condemnation of those who murdered Bhutto, then by default her assassins will have scored one of the most significant political victories in modern times.  In that case, Bhutto’s death will be in vain.

Of course, she knew that her demise was inevitable.  King did as well.  But an inevitable death as sad as that is need not be one that is in vein.  And it is up to those of us who survive to make it the case that this is not so.  Like King, Bhutto made the ultimate sacrifice; for she advanced her cause with courage and integrity. 

The real question is whether the nations of the world will sanctify her death or whether they will find an excuse to retreat from the reality of the heinous wrongdoing of those who murdered her.  Islamists are counting on the retreat.  For the humanity of the world, especially those in Pakistan I can only hope that the Islamist terrorists are wrong.  Again, righteous Muslims are not to be confused with Islamist terrorists

In a word: By the moral posture that they take towards the evil of the Islamist terrorists who murdered Benazir Bhutto, the nations of the world hold in their hand the fate of the future of the Pakistani people—even the fate of the future of the world.  That is a wake-up call if ever there was one.  And if we take the humanity of the people of Pakistan as seriously as we take our own humanity, it should be manifestly clear that they are counting on us.

f it is obvious that we should accept and affirm the humanity of all regardless of bodily configuration, it is not as obvious as one might think just what it means to affirm the humanity of all regardless of bodily configuration.  The straightforward reading is that we should be fully committed to affirming the humanity of the physically challenged, be they blind or deaf or lacking a limb that is function or absent altogether.  These individuals should not be cast aside as lesser human beings. 

But wait a minute.  Some would say that this very wording bespeaks a bias.  The new line of thought—that is, the political correct line of thought—insists that all human beings are physically challenged but simply differ in terms of the way in which that is so.  Accordingly, it is inappropriate to speak of the blind or the deaf or a person without a limb as being more physically challenged than someone who has his sight and hearing and the use of all of his limbs.  It is merely that the blind or the deaf or a person without limb is challenged in different ways than is the person who his sight and hearing and the use of all of his limbs. 

This is the politically correct attitude towards the deaf or the blind of those without a limb.  And it is a ledger de main moment if ever there was one. 

It is manifestly clear that, once upon a time, societies did what was terribly wrong: the blind or the deaf or those without limbs were cast aside as lesser human beings.  But there is non-trivial difference between saying that (a) deafness, say, does not make one a lesser human being and saying that (b) there is no rational reason to prefer having the capacity to hear to being deaf, since the difference merely amounts to no more than different ways of getting about in the world.  The animal kingdom makes it manifestly clear that the capacity to see or hear is, with very rare exception, an enormous asset. 

Something has gone wrong with human reflection when we cannot acknowledge that each and every one of the senses is an asset to have.  And it is simply fallacious reasoning to hold that this is false merely because any given human being can learn to survive without any given asset—and survive well in fact.

This brings us to the very heart of what motivated this blog-entry.  It is not uncommon nowadays for deaf people, in particular, to wish to raise children who are deaf.  To this end, deaf couples are choosing embryos who most likely to result in a child who is deaf. 

Quite simply this is none other than a most heinous form of narcissism.  The issue is not whether deaf people can have an enormously rich and meaningful life.  Obviously they can.  They can live a life so rich and meaningful that they are not mindful of their deafness.  Indeed, it is impossible that a deaf person may succeed in ways that he would not have succeeded has he not been deaf.  In a like vein, it is not at all clear how Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder would have been more successful were they to have had sight.  Regarding the point that one might actually do better as a deaf or blind person, one has to be careful about what follows from it.

It can also be claimed that had American Slavery not existed and had Frederick Douglass not been born a slave, he would not have become the distinguished person that he became.  Yet, what most certainly does not follow from this is that slavery was not a bad thing as such.  And it would horrific for Douglass to think that his children needed to go through slavery in order to build character.

Slavery, of course, is an evil; whereas deafness as such is not.  But what exactly is imposing deafness upon a person, if not an evil?  And what right does another human being have to do such a thing?  However, successful a deaf person might be in spite of his deafness, he has no right whatsoever to impose deafness upon his child. 

One of my most successful students—indeed, one of Syracuse University’s most successful students—is deaf.  His name is Geoff Herbert.  In my Philosophy 191 course, Herbert sat on the front row of Grant Auditorium and for each lecture he had me a gadget to put around my neck during lecture that facilitated his hearing my lecture.  He often attended my office hours; on numerous occasions we had face-to-face discussions. 

Geoff Herbert claims that he does not want to have hearing; and I can, in fact, see how he might make such a claim; for he has clearly turned his deafness into one incredible asset, as his MySpace page makes abundantly clear.  In fact, his handle is DeafGeoff.  If there is anyone who might be called the Frederick Douglass of deaf people, Geoff Herbert certainly has as good of a claim to that appellation as any deaf person whom I know.  Mr. Herbert, whom I admire profoundly, was masterfully at-ease with himself. 

Still, if someone exactly like Geoff Herbert—say, Opidopo—were to arrange that his children should be deaf, he would be inflicting a horrendous wrong upon them.  Not because being deaf is wrong, but because he has no right whatsoever to impose deafness upon his children because this would make him feel good about his deafness.  He would have no right to valorize deafness at the expense of his children.  It would be utterly narcissistic for Opidopo to do this. 

Why?  Because none of Opidopo’s successes would change the fact that by and large hearing is an extraordinary asset.  It is precisely because it is such an asset that we marvel at people like Geoff Herbert; for he flourished mightily without it.  More accurately, he flourished mightily in spite of a considerable biological disadvantage.  He has not shown that there is no difference between being deaf and having hearing.  Not at all.  Rather, what he has shown is that it is possible for a person to surmount that biological disadvantage with considerable majesty. 

A phenomenally successful deaf or blind person does not have the right to be so besotted with his success that he refuses to acknowledge that in point of fact he has surmounted an enormous disadvantage. 

Now, as a matter of fact, I think that it is true that deaf person will never be able to hear a Mozart or a Marvin Gaye or a Pavarotti.  Similarly, a blind person will never be able to hold a majestic sunset or rainbow.  It was 10 years ago that I beheld Cape Hope with my very own eyes.  I will treasure that moment for ever. 

At any rate, I am willing to concede that the deaf and the blind may experience in extraordinarily majestic ways that surpass anything that I can imagine.  But from this truth, what surely does not follow is that being deaf and being blind are on a par, respectively, with having hearing and having sight.  A blind person can never be concerned with racial differences in the way that a person with sight is.  So in this regard there is an innocence to being blind that has no equal among the those with sight.  This truth hardly shows that being blind is on a par with having sight.  Certainly, what does not follow is that as we are now biologically constructed human beings in general would be better off blind.

And this brings us to the heart of the matter.  Given the way in which human beings are now constituted, the success of phenomenal success of this blind person or this deaf person or this person shorn of a working limb is very much tied to the existence of one person or another who can see or hear or who has limbs that are functional.  Not so the other way around.

This means, then, that by itself blindness or deafness or being shorn of a limb cannot possibly be seen as independent good in the same manner that we rightly regard having sight or hearing or having the use of all of our limbs.  That is, no one thinks that sight is an asset only there is blindness; and so on.  This is not shown to be false because there are those here and there who prove to be enormously successful in the absence of the asset of sight or hearing, any more than American Slavery is shown not to be the horror that people suppose because some blacks flourished in spite of it.

Self-deception occasioned by narcissism can be the only explanation for why adults who are blind would want to bring it about their children are blind; or adults who are deaf would want to bring it about that their children are deaf.  And so on. 

Just as there can be no excuse for treating the blind or the deaf as lesser human beings—as surely they are not, there can also be no excuse for turning this truth into what it is not, namely a license to ignore the reality of the difference between a body all of whose parts are functioning properly and one where this is not the case.  To render a child deaf or blind at birth is to make it the case that a child is born with body parts that do not function properly.  There is no amount of success on the part of any deaf or blind person that defeats this truth.

~~~~~~~~

Having perused his MySpace page, I wonder if Mr. Geoff Herbert would disagree with me.  If he writes a response to this entry, then I will print it here.  I suspect, though, that he is probably having way too much fun to be concerned with this.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have since heard from Geoff Herbert and concurs with the sentiments of this blog-entry.  He was also profoundly moved by my claim that he is the  Frederic Douglass of deaf people.   There can be little doubt that I got that assessment just right.  Insofar as it is possible to turn deafness into an absolutely extraordinary asset, Geoff Herbert has done precisely that.  Most people deaf or not will never go on to do as well as Herbert is doing, just as most people, black or white or whatever, did go on to do as well as Douglass did.  Part of Herbert's success surely is that he is masterful at making fun of himself, as when he makes fun of being in jail with Paris Hilton.  This is a way of turning defeat into victory.  To get sense of what I mean, I invite the reader to go to YouTube and view some of his videos.  He has so mastered the art of being silly that his deafness is rendered a non=issue.  Go Geoff  ! ! ! 

Amously, Plato held the thesis that a person could not knowingly choose to do that which is wrong.  Alas, contemporary society would suggest that, although Plato was no doubt an intellectual giant, he was sorely mistaken about this point; for if contemporary society bears witness to anything, it bears witness to the reality that people knowingly do what is wrong all the time.  Indeed, it happens with poignant frequency that people knowingly do what is harmful to their very own person. 

Now, if Plato’s claim is obviously false, what is equally problematic is the fact that people knowingly do what is wrong—even harmful to themselves.  I mean if people do not have the wherewithal to refrain from harming themselves, then it is all the more implausible to expect people to refrain from harming others.  And how on earth is it possible that people knowingly do what is harmful to themselves?

Significantly, and most importantly, the harm that people knowingly do to themselves is rarely a direct and immediate form of harm such as putting a gun to their head and killing themselves.  Out of the more than 6 billion people on the planet, comparatively few commit suicide.  So we mortals are comparatively good at avoiding direct and immediate harm to ourselves.  By contrast, we seem to be comparatively disastrous at avoiding embedded harms.  An embedded harm is a piece of harmful behavior that can be ostensibly characterized as pleasant behavior, but which in fact is known to be harmful. 

If listening to the Dr. Laura program is any indication, then romantic involvements are one of the paradigm examples of an embedded harm.  For instance, it is not uncommon for Dr. Laura to receive a call from a woman who dated, had sex with, and became pregnant by a man whom the woman knew from the outset to have serious anger management or drinking problems.  Dr. Laura invariably asks: How on earth did you let yourself become pregnant by a man whom you knew, from the start, to be so unsatisfactory as even a mate, let alone a father? 

The question is a very good one.  But if it is, then it would seem that there is something to Plato’s thesis after all.  A similar point can be made about any number of other activities such as people putting themselves into significant debt by gambling. 

The explanation for why numerous human beings subject themselves to embedded harms lies in one word: self-deception.  And it is the capacity for enormous self-deception that distinguishes human beings from all other animals on the face of the planet. 

One way of understanding Plato’s thesis, then, is as follows: (i) psychologically healthy individuals are not prone to self-deceptive behavior; accordingly, (ii) a psychologically health person will rarely if ever know the Good but go on to choose to do that which is bad for her or him. 

What is particularly of the moment here is that Plato held that only those who received the right kind of upbringing were apt to be psychologically healthy individuals and so not to be the kind of individuals prone to self-deception.  What on earth did Plato suppose was occasioned by the right sort of upbringing?  The answer, I suggest, is the ability to distinguish between (a) the intensity of desire for a given good and (b) the reality of that which has presented itself as satisfying that desire, but in fact does not—a reality impostor. 

In fact, one might argue that the move from infancy to childhood maturity is tied to making this distinction with sufficient finesse.  A properly developed adult is one who has the capacity to make this distinction to yet a much, much greater degree. 

We all have intense desires for all sorts of goods.  And if we are sufficiently fortunate the thing which presents itself as satisfying an intense desire for a given good does precisely that.  But is not uncommon for an intense desire that we have to go unsatisfied, and that all we encounter in terms of satisfying that desire is one reality impostor after another. 

If I understand Plato correctly: he held the quite simple, but yet ever so profound thesis, that with the right upbringing an adult would rarely if ever accept a reality impostor for the real thing, no matter how intense the individual’s desire for the thing in question might be.  And, of course, living well is inextricably tied to exercising precisely this sort of self-command in our lives.  This, in turn, tells us something that we all know, namely that the real problem is not so much in having desires but giving into them we should not.  And precisely what is thought to distinguish human beings from animals is that, even in the absence of any kind of threat, we can choose not to give into our desires. 

This is the freedom of the self of which Plato wrote.  It is the only freedom that he thought worth having given that one is a human being: the freedom, and so the wherewithal, to refuse to do that which one knows to be bad for one.  Plato held that we cannot take ourselves seriously as human beings without taking seriously this kind of freedom.  Contemporary society is too busy ignoring the reality of its human to take seriously this truth about its humanity. 

ffhand, Aristotle is perhaps the last person in the world from whom one might expect anything insightful regarding social diversity as we understand it nowadays.  What on earth could this man from a very homogenous society, which he prized, have to say about diversity?  Well, to be sure, he does not have all that there to say about diversity.  But then who does?  Just so he does have something instructive to say about it, as I now hope to illustrate.

Famously, Aristotle held that there is one way to be excellent, but many, many ways to be lacking in excellence.  This claim should not be confused with a different claim, namely that excellence itself is very limited.  Consider the case of music.  There are many musical types or genres: from classical to opera to gospel to country to hip-hop.  At its best, each constitutes a form of excellence.  Marvin Gaye was no Luciano Pavarotti.  But it is equally true that Luciano Pavarotti was no Marvin Gaye. 

So notice how applicable Aristotle’s remarks are to music.  Even if the songs are sung in key, countless are the ways in which black gospel songs or opera or hip-hop music can be sung badly; whereas singing each musical type well is rather limited.  For it is true, in fact, that each musical type has its own—dare I say it—rhythm. 

Aristotle never claimed that excellence is limited.  And there is no evidence whatsoever that he thought that.  It stands to reason that excellence is infinite in its scope.  But the thesis that excellence is infinite in its scope is not at all the same as the claim that anything can count as excellent.  Aristotle would never ever have embraced the claim that anything can count as excellence.

It seems to me that contemporary democratic societies confuse these two theses:

(1) Excellence is infinite in its scope

and

(2) Anything can count as excellence

We should certainly be open to new forms of excellences.  Indeed, it is surely ludicrous to suppose that all forms of excellence have already come to pass.

By definition, however, not anything can count as an excellence.  An excellence is not what anyone can do if only he should try.  That is why we do not regard being able to speak or walk as an excellence.  For what requires explaining is not that a person can walk or speak, but that an individual cannot do one or the other.

Likewise, this is why singing off-key is not an excellence; for anyone can do that rather effortlessly and without training.  By contrast, to be able to hit a note flawlessly on-demand time and time again requires enormous skill as well as a measure of practice even for talented individuals. 

In the following way, these remarks apply rather interestingly to social diversity.  Social diversity does not mean—indeed, it cannot coherently mean—that anything that a non-white does counts as an excellence.  Rather, it has to mean the very important but quite different thesis that there are forms of excellences that have not been produced by whites—excellences which have their origin in the traditions and lifestyles of non-whites.  Nor, again, can social diversity mean “This or that behavior that we do is excellent because, damn it, we say it is!”

Aristotle thought that human beings at their best were about realizing excellences.  All members of every ethnic group are human beings.  So, according to Aristotle, all members of every ethnic group should be about realizing excellences. 

I am, of course, aware that Aristotle thought that slavery was natural.  It should be remembered however that he did not think that it was natural that the slaves should be black.  Although Aristotle was mistaken about what counted as a full-fledge human being, he was not mistaken about the idea of what such creatures should strive for.

Aristotle further understood that when human beings were not striving to realize excellences this meant that something had gone terribly wrong in their socialization.  This point is extremely significant because it tells us what, at yet at another level, we already know, namely that excellences do not just happen.  They have to be cultivated. 

It is interesting in this regard that religious diversity underscores Aristotle’s point.  Whether we are talking about Judaism, or Christianity or Islam: each of these religious practices can be configured in such a way as to constitute a most magnificent excellence.  And one sign of this, surely, is that some of the most magnificent music ever written, namely Christmas music, was inspired by the hopes of Christianity.  One does not have to be a Christian to appreciate the magnificence of Handel’s Messiah.

In a similar vein, the orchestration and execution of a synagogue service has a grace and aplomb that is truly moving.  Time and time again, I marvel at the ways in which all the parts come together and fit together. 

I do not have to attend a mosque in order to imagine that a like claim can be made for Muslim services. 

What do we have here?  The answer is three great religions and three opportunities for marvelous forms of excellence in worship.  I I have not claimed that we always have excellence with either religion.  Clearly we do not.  But the reality of these flaws does not detract one iota from the truth that what we have in each case is the possibility for three forms of extraordinary religious excellence.

Freedom that eschews excellence is freedom that is bankrupt freedom.  And it is this immutable truth that all members of the human race must find a way to embrace.  The de-coupling of freedom from excellence has been one of the most damaging things that have come about with the contemporary idea of equality.  And this, alas, has a most ironic result, namely that freedom from racism does not in the end constitute all that we really want.  This is because freedom from racism is worth much less than we might suppose unless that freedom is none other than a call to be excellent.  

Aristotle thought it natural that people who are naturally slaves could not answer the call to be excellent (except perhaps in very limited ways).  And he thought that a corrupt society was a sure impediment to non-slaves answering the call to be excellent.  We who claim to be non-slaves, namely all of us, would do well to heed Aristotle’s insights about humanity and excellence.  Human excellence, like a marvelous garden of flowers, has to be cultivated.  

t is widely held by  many that religion is sexually repressive. Although many who make this claim target Christianity, as with the site UndoJesus.org, I see no reason to think that insofar as the criticism applies it applies only to Christianity.  There is no shortage of sexual prohibitions in Islam.  Certainly, Islam is just as critical of homosexuality, for example, as is Christianity.  And I have read with horror the views (written in 1992) of Rabbi Na'hman De Breslev's regarding sex in Remèdes à la Passion Universelle.

But now what exactly do folks like those at UndoJesus.org mean in claiming that religion is sexually repressive?  Everyone quickly points to the truth that the sexual desire is naturally occurring among healthy individual, as if that truth pretty much undercuts any all criticism of sexual behavior. Of course, nothing of the sort is true. 

Along with the sexual desire, nothing is more natural among healthy individuals than the bodily elimination of waste material.  Yet, no one thinks for a moment that this should be done anywhere and wherever it pleases a person to do so.  It would be horrendous for all sorts of reasons, not the least of them being sanitary ones, if people routinely defecated on the streets or in public buildings. 

Although I agree that some religious views have held sex to be something dirty, it is obvious that there is nothing unsanitary about sex.  Just so, it would be horrendous if people gave in to their sexual desires whenever it pleased them to do so. 

Without supposing for a moment that there is anything dirty about the sexual desire, one can still maintained that the sexual desire is one that very much needs to be properly held in check.  Indeed, it needs to be held in check precisely because it is so very potent and often expresses itself with great force long before it can be appreciated. 

Those who think that religion by its very nature is sexually repressive cannot really mean that the world be better off if 13 year adolescents with raging sexual hormones simply gave into their sexual urges; for that would be a recipe for sheer disaster. 

This shows straightaway that it is mistake to argue that if something occurs naturally among healthy individuals, then it is wrong to have in place practices that are intended to minimize, if not eliminate entirely, its expression in certain contexts.  Was there ever a time when it was just wonderful for 13 year old to give in to their every sexual desire?  One has difficulty imagining that such could have been the case.  Yet, it is clear that the biological capacity for human sexual desire to express itself with such force at the beginning of adolescence was not selected against, since this capacity remains in place. 

No one has ever told a good story that explains how homo sapiens survived, given that their hormones were raging at the beginning of adolescence.  Just so, one thing is abundantly clear nowadays, namely that a culture that catered to such a capacity would ill serve its young.  Such a culture would enormously harm its young by letting them become so sexually active to such an extent.

It is worth noting that in order to get an enormous problem here, we do not need to introduce the additional problem of adults abusing adolescent children sexually.  It suffices for the argument that adolescents would do damage to themselves because they are simply not psychologically ready for either the emotions or the responsibilities that came in the wake of sex. 

The problems here are not circumvented by the existence of birth control or the availability of abortion.  For one thing, the use of birth control requires foresight.  And the absence of foresight is easily one of the defining characteristics of adolescence.  I see very little foresight among my college students.  So there is no reason on the face of this earth to expect it from a beginning adolescent. 

As for abortion, it is in fact an operation, which we should certainly not want an adolescent girl to have to undergo.  Or so it is if we care about her. 

So we have seen one very decisive reason for arguing that the sexual desire should be held in check although it is unquestionably natural.  Here is another reason from a very different direction.

Returning from Paris last year, there was a couple across the aisle from me that was making out.  I mean the only thing that was in the way was their clothes.  Fortunately, there was not a child in the vicinity, but there been one I would have been livid.  I would have been livid not because sex is dirty in any way, but because this perfectly acceptable adult behavior is not one to which children should be exposed.  To do so is, in the words of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, to sexualize children.  Accordingly, we have yet another reason to hold sexual desire in check—a reason that has nothing whatsoever to do with thinking that sex is in any way dirty. 

From the acquisition of language to the use of their bodies, children are in the throes of rapid self-mastery.  Much of what they learn comes from the things that they see and hear the adults around them do.  Sexual desire has not yet obtained a purchase upon the life of a 5-year old.  Accordingly, sexual behavior should not at all be a part of her or his learning repertoire.  If adults had “harmless” sex in the streets or public building or wherever they felt like doing so, whenever they felt like doing so, the proper development of children would be exceedingly marred. 

Not only would there be 5-year olds simulating sexual behavior with one another, they would most certainly do so with adults as well; and this, of course, raises the issue of pedophilia. 

I began this essay with the observation that many people take religion to be sexually repressive.  To hear them tell it, nothing would be better for society and its members than if people were allowed to give expression to their naturally occurring desires.  However, I gave two quite powerful examples that show this line of reasoning to be manifestly false.

The mistake of religious critics in this regard is to suppose that holding in check a naturally occurring desire thereby constitutes a form of repression.  What the critics cannot seem to wrap their minds around is that doing so can also constitute a form of self-mastery.  If indeed religion has gone too far in one direction, and there are respects in which this is true, the critics have not proven themselves to be any wiser, since they have gone too far in the other direction.  Indeed, their proposal sounds the death knell for society.  This, by the way, actually makes their alternative worse than the one they are criticizing.

he Gold Rule reads: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  It was not too long ago, when the rule had considerable force.  It was actually possible to get a person to re-think what she or he had done by simply asking: Would you want someone to do that to you?  I mean that approach worked across a number of quite different contexts, from slamming a car door to brandishing something dangerous in a person’s face. 

The approach even worked for something as simple as holding the door for a person.  A parent would say: “Don’t let the door go like that.  Would you want someone to do that to you?”  And you know, the child would understand immediately that holding a door for a person is the decent thing to do. 

What is particularly striking about the world in which we now live is the notorious truth that people often do to others precisely what will make them furious if it is done to them.  Hence, the title of this essay “Mocking the Dead”. 

It was once thought to be the very height of indecency to mock the death of innocent people.  But nowadays, we can find students dressing as victims of those who were killed in the Virginia Tech Massacre and people can find a way to commend or at least not criticize Robert Hawkins who murdured numerous individuals at an Omaha mall on 5 December. 

This is puzzling at every turn because there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that if either (a) those mocking the Virginia Tech victims or (b) those finding kind words for Hawkins had lost a loved one owing to such a senseless killing, these individuals would be seething with anger and outrage that someone caused them the loss of a loved one.  Not only that, they would find it highly offensive that anyone would act in a way that even came close to mocking their loss. 

So the obvious question is this: How can it be that people who would be rightly outraged when something is done to them can be so utterly callous in their behavior when it comes to a similar loss that another has suffered?

What explains this profound moral disconnect on the part of ordinary citizens?  I am reminded here of Stanley Milgram’s book, Obedience to Authority.  The book very poignantly illustrates just how horrendous otherwise decent people can behave if they should find themselves in the wrong circumstances.  Given orders from a supposed authority from Yale University, ordinary folks put their moral sensibilities aside.

In an important book entitled State Craft as Soul Craft, George Will noted that once upon a time religious institutions were the husbandry of virtue.  On a weekly basis people attended religious services were their values were reinforced in a multitude of ways. 

Religious institutions no longer play that role in society; and the result is a tremendous moral vacuum.  And one consequence of that moral vacuum is the loss of the tendency on the part of people to engage in the kind of moral projection that is required by the Golden Rule. 

Whatever else is true, religious institutions once served as a constant reminder of our common humanity.  People who were unalike in so many ways shared something in common during services.  Indeed, they came together in order to do so.  The person to the right may be poor.  The one to the left may be a distinguished physician.  Someone sitting somewhere else in the assembly may be a teacher.  The other a factory worker or police offer.  And so on.  There was much that people did not have in common.  Yet, for all that individuals did not have in common, what they did have in common transcended their differences.  That was the ideal, at any rate, to which people regularly assented to varying degrees. 

Few if any ever embraced that ideal fully.  Yet, the ideal was there and it had its pull to varying degrees upon first one person and then another. 

Against this backdrop, the Golden Rule flourished.  It was a perfectly natural way of thinking about both ourselves and others.  And as I have indicated, it is beyond dispute that the rule did a lot of work.  Most significantly, failure to live up to that rule when it was rather clear that one should have done so typically occasioned considerable shame.  The words “How could you have done that?  Would have wanted me to do that to you?,” could make a grown man wince with shame. 

Now, the move that I am about to make is quite surprising, namely the following.  There is a very real sense in which contemporary society owes its inspiration to Kant.  All that a person really needs to get things right is to reflect upon things in the right way, and the deliverance of reason would do the rest.

I understand, of course, that Kant’s thought admits of far more sophistication than what is conveyed by the remarks in the preceding paragraph.  Yet, the kernel of truth that I am after is this: The need for social reminders such as religious institutions seems quite unnecessary if all that we have to do is look within ourselves for the answer that reason alone delivers. 

What is missing is the very riveting truth that, in the vast majority of instances, the self that we are is shaped by the nature of our social interaction.  There is no self guided by reason alone.  There never has been.  There never shall be.  Experience, including the things of which we are frequently reminded, shape the way we reason and the weight that we give to one thing rather than another.  Experience shapes our moral sensibilities.  And the things of which we are frequently reminded stand as a significant form of experience.

Modern societies are manifestly without the sort of moral booster rocket for the Golden Rule that once existed.  And therein lies a fundamental part of the explanation for behavior that simply could not have happened not so long ago.  There is also a quite astounding insight here, namely that we need to be reminded of our common humanity.  And if this is right, then those silly rituals that do so are far more important than has been realized by most. 

We all know that we are human.  That is obvious.  But just how we feel the weight of one another’s humanity is tied to the kinds of lives that we live and the things that nurture us.  Or to put the point another way: the motivational force of the truth that we are all human is much more tied than we realize to the ways in which that truth is nurtured.  The mere knowledge does not do all the work.  This is obvious upon reflection; for any number of truths can be experienced differently depending upon the situation in which we find ourselves. 

I shall always remember a Mr. Choi this semester who went out of his way to meet me in order to compliment me.  I already knew that he was a very kind and respectful person.  But that particular moment give substance to what I knew in an unforgettable way. 

Institutions that regularly remind of us of our common humanity nurture our moral sentiments.  We do not need to reach a zenith point on each occasion.  But one thing is for the sure is that the zenith points that we do reach are most nurturing. 

Living well needs constant seasoning and re-mixing.  The lie of modern democratic societies is that nothing of the sort is true, since we already know what is obviously true, namely that we are all equally human.  But the truth that we are all equally human is one thing; whereas the ideal of doing right by others is quite another.  Living well is about getting from the first truth the second one.  Alas, it would seem that as a society we no longer have either the courage or the will to make the journey.  And it shows.

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This blog entry was inspired by the excellent PajamaMedia entry

Why are College Kids Mocking the Dead