o what about money for good grades?  What a marvelous incentive, one might think, for children.  In the City of Baltimore, for instance, we are told that students have been paid as much as $110 for improving their scores on the state graduation examination.  And lots of students did just that.  Is this not a win-win situation?  Students get money to spend; and the state gets to boast of higher grades.  Is this not enough to make an adult want to go back to school?  The remarks that follow are a reflection upon an article that appeared in "USAToday entitled: “Good Grades Pay—literally".

I think that this idea is a profound mistake.  The fact that school systems are resorting to this is, I believe, symptomatic of something profoundly problematic.  You see, the student-teacher relationship was once upon a time sufficiently personal that few things motivated a student like the approval and praise from the teacher. 

We were in school to learn; the teacher was there to teach us; and the relationship between teacher and student was such that in general the student was inspired and motivated by the teacher.  There was nothing like the marvelous feeling of satisfaction that came with answering a very difficult question or asking a very good question.  But there was also no substitute for the personal tie between students and their teachers.  I remember to this day the adulation I received from my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Owens, for asking a question about weather and the eye a hurricane.  He thought that the level of the question was way beyond my years.  And that was rather like the voice of God speaking because we all idolized Mr. Owens.

But there was a bond of trust between teacher and parent that made it possible for a Mr. Owens to have the influence that he had.  And we students knew it although we could not have put that trust into words. 

Well, it is no accident that teachers do not inspire like they once did.  The atmosphere in schools has changed radically.  In particular, the salubrious bond of trust between parents and teachers has all but evaporated.  Teachers are more like paid zombies, then human beings who are there to inspire students to learn.  We have become so concern with not making any mistakes with respect to any child that we are in fact making even a bigger mistake—one that is having an adverse impact upon all children.  This mistake consists in having a classroom that is shorn of the inspiration that can only be occasioned by a caring teacher.  The problem in a nutshell is this:

We have become so busy protecting students from the possibility of wrongdoing that we have lost sight of the importance of powering individuals to teach. 

And if that were not enough parents somehow seem to think that parental love consists in siding with their children no matter what—a line of thought that would have been downright incomprehensible when I was in grade school. 

Teachers commanded the respect of the parents of their students.  So it should come as no surprise that teachers commanded the respect of the children whom they taught.  We respected our teachers; we wanted their approval; and we delighted in the knowledge that they imparted to us.  Therein lied the ingredients for that combustible mixture called inspiration. 

We learned and ne’er a child got paid for learning.  I vividly remember writing a 15 page essay for, Mr. Mueller, my 10th grade biology teacher and a 10 page essay for Mr. Harmon, my 9th grade English teacher because I wanted to impress them.  I did just that; and the reward of doing that was priceless.

That is the point.  Money in fact cheapens the moment.  For the very point of learning during those foundational years should not be to attain money but to become excellent.  To introduce money is to sully the motivation that is essential to developing good moral character.  After all, if we are going to pay students to get good grades, why not also pay them to be moral.  Thus, a student who goes an entire year without getting any disciplinary points gets so many dollars; and the amount of $30, say, is subtracted for each disciplinary point that a student receives.  Clearly, something is wrong with that picture. 

These remarks apply without exception to parents providing monetary incentives.  There is much to be said for initially learning that being excellent is something that is to be appreciated in its own right.  Indeed, this sort of thing is called character building.  Of course, there is much to be said for earning money.  But in the immortal words of Solomon: “Unto everything there is a season”.  Significantly, children grasp the difference between simply giving a reward as a gesture of appreciation and being paid for doing something.  Parenting and teaching should keep that distinction alive.  There should always be appreciation for the excellences that we exhibit—an affirmation of the good that we have done.  But to pay students for learning as if that is their job is to make a fundamental mistake. 

There is much that we should learn but which no one will pay us to learn.  Indeed, such learning is the key to living well in all respects, both morally and intellectually.  There is, in truth, much learning about ourselves that we should do, but no one will pay us to do.  In fact, the very reason why the internet has been so wonderful for me is that it has served as a marvelous gateway to learning. There is much that I have learnt, thanks to the internet, but no one has paid me to learn; and on countless many fronts, I am indeed so much the richer for it. 

There will always will be a time when nothing makes more of a difference than that learning is its own reward—that intellectual curiosity that makes for marvelous discovery.  Paying children to learn is woefully myopic precisely because it is profoundly inimical to sowing those marvelous seeds of genuine intellectual curiosity the satisfaction of which is its very own reward. 

Cultivate in a child natural curiosity, and she or he will always be able to make money.  By contrast, if earning money is made the point of learning, then a child is apt to be bereft of the genuine intellectual curiosity that yields its own dividends if only because it gives rise to wonderful creativity in the face of adversity. 

Money is not, and cannot be, a substitute for natural curiorisity.  Those who support paying students to learn are engaging in foolhardy behavior whose legacy may be that of cultivating fools; for all that really matters to them is that both look good on paper.  And this the students know !   

t is surely a striking feature of modernity that living well would seem to be one of its greatest challenges.  One rightly asks: How is it even possible for people to have so much and yet be so full of discontentment?  The answer, I believe, is striking for its simplicity.  I maintain that in recent years modernity has systematically undermined our humanity.  Increasingly, we who are human have come to feel like pawns in the very environment that we have created and proclaimed in the famous biblical words: “It is good”. 

It is one thing to feel troubled upon occasion.  All of us do—and rightly so.  It is quite another, however, to feel entirely invaded by a sense of discontentment throughout one’s life.  And it is precisely this feeling that of late seems to have invaded the lives of so very many people.  What is the explanation for this?  An analogy might help.

There are many ways to have an absolutely scrumptious meal.  One way would be to sit down and eat it in a suitably pleasant atmosphere.  Here is another way: One could simply have the food fed to one intravenously.  Needless to say, it is only by doing the first that one actually enjoys the meal, though with the second alternative what one receives in terms of nutrients is identical to what one receives when one actually eats the meal morsel by morsel.  There is, alas, no other way to enjoy a meal except to sit down and eat it morsel by morsel, although there are alternative ways to receive all the nutrients that are constitutive of an enjoyable meal.

This simple example speaks to why there is so much discontentment in our lives.  Whatever else is true, it is a defining feature of humanity that we need time actually to enjoy various moments of life.  The mere fact that we have access to something whenever we want it does not thereby entail that we are actually enjoying it.  What has happened with modernity of late is that we have conflated the distinction between having access to a good and enjoying that good.

Another favorite example of mine in this regard is music.  With IPods and MP3 players and the like, we now have constant access to the music we enjoy.  But I wonder how often do people really enjoy the music to which they have constant access?  What surely does not follow is that we are enjoying our music—in the sense of appreciating its richness and intricacy—simply in virtue of the fact that we are listening to it with our portable music device.  Listening to a song I love while someone is drilling next door is hardly the same as listening to it when there are no other sounds competing with it.  And if I truly love a song, it is not enough that I hear it, I want to be able to enjoy it, which is impossible if I hearing the song in the context of a host of other competing sounds. 

This example is telling because it is generally supposed that listening to music is relaxing and refreshing.  But my very point is that there is a fundamental difference between listening to music in the sense of being able to hear it and listening to music in the sense of being able to enjoy it.  I maintain that modernity has collapsed precisely this distinction.  So guess what?  While it is true more than ever that people are listening to their favorite music almost constantly, it is surely false that they are generally doing so in way that is relaxing and refreshing when they are doing so via a portable music device.   Having access to something and truly enjoying it are not the same at all.

The key to living well is being able to enjoy the things and friends that we have.  And this is not done simply by having access to either.  Modernity, however, has hoodwinked us into thinking that access and enjoyment amount to the same thing. 

Ironically, this speaks to what is so very disturbing about cell phones.  They give us access 24/7.  But I suspect that most cell phone conversations are hardly enjoyable because people are often talking while doing something else or there is the constant problem of interruption as one or the other party puts the other on hold for a moment in order to talk with yet another party. 

Unless I am missing something, part of what makes a conversation enjoyable is not simply that we are exchanging words with one another but that in general we have one another’s undivided attention.  But with cell phones, we often end up competing for one another’s attention even as we are talking to one another.  It is simply impossible for that kind of conversation to be an enjoyable one.  Once more: access to what we enjoy does not entail enjoyment.

Notice, then, that with music and contact with our friends, we have unparalleled access to both.  Yet, it is simply false that we are enjoying listening to music and conversing with our friends more than ever.  Not at all. 

When the distinction between having access to something and enjoying it is systematically conflated throughout society, then precisely what one gets is a profound sense of discontentment that invades the soul.  We often do not understand why we experience so much discontentment given that we have constant access to so much.  The answer is quite simple: Never have so many had so much while actually enjoying so little of what they have. 

We have all heard the saying “Take time and smell the roses”. However, modern society has turned ignoring its meaning into a form of art.  We will live well only if each us finds a way to take time and truly enjoy the various things that we have.  And the simple truth is that part of enjoyment requires that we do not have other things competing for our attention at the very same time. 

It is a simple fact of life that some things cannot be short-circuited and at the same time retain their full significance.  An intravenous meal does nothing at all for the palate.  And the best of meals would not be worth eating if, between every bite, one had to run outside and attend to something.  The very best of conversations nourish the soul and lift our spirits only if the individuals speaking to one another have each other’s undivided attention.  This is why a cell phone conversation will never replace a face-to-face conversaton. 

It was not too long ago, that so very many had so much less and struggled for so much more.  Yet, they also enjoyed life so very much more.  We who have everything on-demand are enjoying life so very much less.  And the explanation for this is a painfully simple one, namely that we have lost sight of the difference between having on-demand access to things and enjoying them, in that we wrongly think that having on-demand access to things entails enjoying them.  Indeed, modernity seems to be about cultivating the desire for on-demand access tthings. 

If there should never be another war or social conflict regarding equality, this privileging of on-demand access portends a very sad future: For we who are human are quickly becoming vapid creatures precisely because we are squeezing out of our lives those experiences that affirm our humanity by way of simple enjoyment. 

One day, we might look around and wonder what happened to us.  Alas, the explanation will be ever so simple, namely that notwithstanding all that we have, it turns out that we have stopped taking time to smell the roses.  And now we have become oblivious to the marvelous fragrance that roses have.  Modernity is in a crisis; and it is a crisis that has nothing whatsoever to do with war.  What is at stake is our very humanity. 

y thinking is at odd with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ashcroft v. The Free Speech Coalition according to which virtual child pornography is protected by free speech.  In fact, I think that the ruling is inconsistent.  I hope to establish this in a rather surprising way.  At the outset, though, let us distinguish between: (i) children engaging in acts of sex and (ii) pictures of children that are pornographic owing to the sexual character of the imagery (for example, all individuals are nude and the adult is engaging in sexually explicit behavior, such as masturbating, but the child is not participating in a sex act,).  I am going to focus upon the latter.  The issue of harm is easily established with the former.  The latter, though, presents problems for the harm argument.

To begin with, we all agree that child pornography of all forms is morally unacceptable.  But where exactly is the harm with pictures of children that are riveted with sexual imagery, where all are nude but we do not have a sex act involving the child, although the adults are exhibiting sexually explicit mannerisms?  The answer has nothing at all to do with children not being able to give consent; for pictures of children are taken all the time without their consent.  Pictures of newborn babies are routinely posted on various photo sites and sent across the internet without the permission of the children in question.  No one thinks that this is even remotely inappropriate.  Quite the contrary, we expect it. 

How exactly is a nude 7-month old infant harmed by a photo of her or him placed in a very explicit sexual position with an adult—say, sitting on the knee of a nude adult male with an erection?  Let us call this Photo Exhibit A.  I assume that we take this to be absolutely and unequivocally morally unacceptable.  But how exactly is the 7-month old actually harmed?  A 7-month old infant has no concept of a penis, let alone an erect penis.  And a 7-month old certainly has no concept of inappropriate behavior with respect to the penis.  For a 7-month old, the penis and the finger are merely different body parts.  So, in what sense is an infant harmed merely by having a photo of her or him taken while sitting on the knee of a male with an erection, where all are nude? 

One can, at once, be more graphic and more disgusting here.  Suppose that an adult in the nude engages in masturbation while holding her or his nude 7-month old infant on the knee, and takes a picture of this.  Let us call this Photo Exhibit B.  The entire thing is despicable on so many levels.  Just so, in what sense is the 7 month old infant harmed?  A 7-month old has no concept of masturbation.  The infant either experiences the moment as some sort of annoyance or some form of amusement.  An annoyance is not thereby a form of harm, however.  Children experience annoyances all the time without anyone thinking for a moment that they are being harmed. 

In any case, the Supreme Court would surely consider Photo Exhibits A and B pornographic, as would I.  Moreover, the Court would rule that the photos are not protected by free speech.  But what makes these two isolated instances unprotected free speech cannot be explicated simply in terms of the infant being harmed.  For in these two isolated instances it is not at all clear that we have anything remotely resembling a harm that the 7-month old infant suffers.  There is none of the violation of trust that is characteristic of sexual abuse.

Children are harmed by being forced to engage in sex acts owing in part to the violation of adult trust that this involves.  I have not said anything to the contrary.  My observation, though, is that we can think of lots and lots of pictures, as Photo Exhibits A and B make abundantly clear, that rightly count as pornography involving children, where in point of fact no harm at all is done to the child. 

I hold that something can be morally disgusting without any actual harm being done.  Suppose a person simulates sexual movements by lying upon a life-size picture of either one of the major prophets of the three monotheistic religions.  A person who does this in the privacy of her or his own home harms absolutely no one.  The behavior is morally disgusting all the same.

Now, to be sure, one rightly notes that the U.S. Supreme Court would never deny that Photo Exhibits A and B are morally disgusting.  It is just that, so the argument would continue, the Court’s argument is tied to the child being harmed, and not to so evanescent a notion as moral disgust.  But if this is right, then it is not clear how the Court can rule against the making and dissemination of Photo Exhibits A and B. 

Well, the argument might be that although the children in Photo Exhibits A and B are not harmed, older young children (between the ages of 4 and 7, say) who see these photos will be harmed.  But this argument is hardly a good argument.  The Court has held that adult pornography in general is protected as a form of free speech.  Yet, it is not implausible to think that pornography is apt to be harmful to children who come across it.  Acknowledging this, the Court rightly holds that we are simply under a most stringent obligation to make it the case that adult pornography does not fall into the hands of children.  Well, why does this reasoning not apply equally to Photo Exhibits A and B?  Of course, some 10 year old might run across such a photo.  But then some 10 year old might run across some adult porn, too.  Surely some have and went on to live wholesome lives. 

Now, imagine Virtual Photos of Exhibits A and B.  So by hypothesis, we do not have a real child or adult.  With the Virtual Photos of Exhibits A and B, it follows that no one is harmed.  After all, there is no real person there to be harmed.  But what actually is doing the work here?  Of course, the absence of a real person ensures trivially that no one is harmed.  Here is the problem, though.  If it can be made reasonably certain that no harm will result even if real people are involved, then what argument can there be for not allowing real people to be involved?  The answer, if one is relying solely upon the harm principle, is none. 

My move, then, is quite a surprising one.  If the Court is prepared to allow that the Virtual Photos of Exhibits A and B are protected as a form of free speech since no harm is in fact done, then consistency requires that the Court allows that Photo Exhibits A and B are also protected in the name of free speech; for we do not get any harm there either.  The presence of an infant in the actual photos does not entail that a harm occurs to the infant. 

It is easy to miss the tension in the Court’s ruling if we focus upon explicit sexual acts on the part of children.  For then, we do perhaps get a vivid difference between virtual child porn and pornography involving real children.  Porn, however, is wide-ranging in terms of its content.  And there are lots of ways in which children can be depicted in a pornographic manner without there being a single sex on the part of the child.  Fortunately, the Court recognizes this; and it does not allow these sorts of pictures.  Its mistake, though, consists in thinking that we necessarily have a harm to the child in cases of this latter kind.  That thesis is just so much hand-waiving.  A nude male masturbating while holding a nude 7-month old infant on the knee is quite disgusting.  But we do not thereby have a harm to the infant here. 

Alas, this blog-entry turns upon what we already know.  Sometimes, even in the law, the issue is not that of harm, but of the utter moral repugnancy of the act itself.  Child pornography, virtual or otherwise, is an excellent case in point.  This is why I maintain that Photo Exhibits A and B, on the one hand, and Virtual Photo Exhibits A and B, on the other, stand or fall together; and I claim that they both fall.  In any event, to pretend that harm decisively marks the difference between the two is but a fabrication.  Pace Plato's idea of a noble lie: The fabrication may be a useful one, but it is a fabrication nonetheless. If, however, the only thing that matters is harm, then nothing could be more inappropriate than attributing harm where there is none.  So it is even if one is the Supreme Court of the United States.  Now, even if harm is what matters most, it is simply false that harm is the only thing that matters when it comes to what should and should not be permitted.  And this the Court should know. 

here is the rueful belief that interacting with a computer can be just as good as interaction with a person.  This is thought to be especially so in the area of games.  The belief is rueful because it is, in a most important respect, an illusion.  We have become so besotted with what computers can do that we are forgetting what they unequivocally cannot do. 

Try playing a game with a person, say chess.  What matters is not just the moves that the person makes each and every time.  But the ways in which the person behaved until the move is actually made.  A chess move can be made with lightening-like swiftness or a move can made after great reflection and hesitation.  From the standpoint of human observation the difference between these two alternatives is absolutely enormous. 

Indeed, if one is playing a first-rate chess player, there is no better sign that one is playing well than that, often enough, one’s opponent has to think about what her or his next move should be. 

There is could be no greater indication that one’s chess playing skills are at an amateur level at best than that after each move one’s part, one’s opponent makes a successful move in response without a moment’s hesitation.

The speed, then, with which an opponent responds to a chess move is not just a framework of time.  It can serve as a valuable piece of information.  The same holds for the facial expressions of one’s opponent.  If one is playing an expert chess player, then to see an unexpected furrowed forehead on the part of one’s opponent after one has made a move is to have some tremendously useful information about one’s own move: either one made a really, really stupid move or, by contrast, one made a really, really good one.  This information gleamed just from watching the facial expressions of one’s opponent.

Well, needless to say, facial expressions are a fundamental part of face-to-face social interaction.  The slightest variation can make all the difference in the world.  Speaking as a man: a woman’s look can be one of indifference or it can be that coy look that is surfeited with sexual appreciation.  But the difference between these two looks is nothing like the difference between a frown and a smile.  Indeed, the difference between a frown and smile is way too vast. 

Between good friends, the slight smile after an utterance on a friend’s part can be sign of jovial teasing on the part of the friend; whereas a slightly different look on the friend’s part can be one of utter puzzlement as to what one is going on.  Once more, the difference between these two looks falls considerably short of being as vast as the difference between a smile and a frown. 

A look of puzzlement is not at all a frown and a coy look saturated with sexual admiration is not a smile. 

Similar remarks hold for approval and disapproval.  Part of what it is to know a person well is to know the ways in which the individual’s facial expressions are indicative of either approval or disapproval.  Every child has basked in the approving look of her or his parents.  Every child has seen fit to modify her or his behavior owing to their disapproving look.

The moral of the story, of course, is that none of this can be learned from a computer.  Without a doubt, a considerable measure of dexterity that can be learnt from interacting with a computer.  Alas, dexterity does not even come close to exhausting the character of human interaction.  And to lose sight of this truth is to make a fundamental mistake.

If the only thing that a child is capable of is dexterity, then she or she will in fact be socially inept.  Although the child will know how to do lots of things very quickly, she or he will be a massive failure when it comes to modulating her behavior in response to the subtle reactions of those around her.  And so much of very meaningful social behavior is, in fact, quite subtle.  From excitement to utter boredom, the tell-tale sign is often none other than a subtle difference in facial expression. 

When people are riveted by what is being said their eyes, which is a comparatively miniscule part of the body, exhibit a kind of “lock” that is next to impossible to miss.  Every speaker knows when she has the attention of her audience in that way.  Likewise, every speaker knows when he does not have it.  A similar claim can be made with regard to deeply personal conversations, not least among these being romantic conversations. 

One thing is for sure: None of this will be learnt from a computer.  Nor, again, will a child learn from a computer the modulation of voice that indicates that depth of emotion that we find so profoundly affirming.  The words “I love you” or “That was excellent” owe everything to their delivery. 

Nor, again, will a child learn from a computer the majestic power of a pregnant pause that can animate us like nothing us can.  Sometimes one of the most beautiful moments that two human beings can experience between one another is that neither can find the words to express the depth of how much they mean to each other.  The very richness of the moment lies in their being at a loss for words.  A failure that is rich beyond words.  No computer can duplicate that!

None of this has much to do with dexterity.  But it has everything to do with being human.  And that is the point.  Computers cannot can close to simulating all of this without being specifically programmed to do so, where the programming is tied to knowing in advance what the next step be. 

The gift of humanity lies in, among other things, our free will.  What we can never know is just how what we say or do will make difference in the lives of another and how, in turn, their reactions will impact upon us.  It is not enough to know that a person will be polite or gracious, or that a person will be angry.  For a person can be these things in a multitude of ways.  And that is precisely the point.  Our humanity at its best lies in being in tune with that reality: there can be a multitude of ways. 

Technology has made some things obsolete.  The typewriter and the cassette tape are cases in point.  And virtual reality can, indeed, be quite instructive as a measure some aspects of human response behavior.  Just so, technology has never come close to even being a pale imitation of that which makes us human. 

If, however, we are so besotted with technology that we do not see this, then there is, alas, a respect in which technology has succeeded.  For part of our humanity lies not merely in the fact that we are human, but that we appreciate our humanity; and if we devaluate ourselves in supposing that dexterity is so definitive of who we are that the rest does not matter, then we have allowed ourselves to lose an aspect of our humanity without technology ever even coming close to replacing us.  And that is even worse.  Second Life should always be just that—a very distant second to the real thing. 

here is a painfully thin line between, on the one hand, drawing attention to the wrongs that people have committed along with holding them morally responsible for those wrongs and, on the other hand, fostering hate on account of having been a victim of those wrong.  And if there is anything that blacks, Jews, and Muslims have in common over and above their humanity, it is that they have all failed to be sufficiently attentive to this difference.  Of course, lots of others are teaching hatred as well. However, it is quite interesting that this claim can be made of these three groups.

Among each one of these groups one can find individuals who speak with such venom about the wrongs that “their people” have suffered that hatred for those who committed those wrongs would seem to be the only morally appropriate stance that a self-respecting black or a self-respecting Jew or a self-respecting Muslim could take.  And almost all talk as if the horrors of “their people” define the very nadir of evil.  Nothing could be worse than what "their people" went through.

So, little Muslim boys and girls are raised to believe that the world has been particularly hostile towards Muslim people; for it is held that no other people have come even close to suffering more.  Little Jewish girls and boys are raised to believe the parallel claim about Jews; and, of course, little black boys and girls are raised to believe the parallel claim about blacks.  Why this line of presentation is justified in the name of ethnic identity and solidarity. 

But it is not just this sort of thing is taught.  Rather, it is taught in a way that invites in a most profound way mistrust of the “others”.  Worse, this sort of thing is taught in a way the belief that “others” hav an invested interest in harming “your people” has enormous credibility. 

Needless to say, it does not take much to get from these remarks to hatred.  And there is no better catalyst for hatred than a very rich mixture of fear of “others”.  Fear automatically gives one a reason to distrust and an abiding distrust is to hatred what oil is to a match: a combustion waiting to happen. 

Things were not always like this.  Indeed, it is very difficult to find a message of hatred in the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Most unfortunately, though, hatred serves very well as a way of galvanizing people, because it is easy to instill fear which is, as I have already pointed out, is the primary catalyst for hatred.  A message of hatred is often the substitute for a positive message.

What makes this blog-entry particularly interesting, though, is just the fact that blacks, Jews, and Muslims can all be equally accused of teaching hatred.  And this is a commonality that no doubt each despises. 

Now, the claim that I am making is particularly sharp.  This is because I am in fact accusing each group of participating in evil.  And it is easy enough to think that surely I exaggerate.  Alas, I think not. 

First of all, no child is born with a sense of ethnic identity.  Ethnic identity is learnt.  Second, it is not from other ethnic groups that children learn to distrust those who do not share their ethnic identity.  No, children learn that from those who share their ethnic identity.  These two premises pretty much suffice to establish that it is from Muslim adults that Muslim children learn to hate “others”; and that it is from Jewish adults that Jewish children learn to hate “others”; and that it is from black adults that black children learn to hate “others”.  So who is teaching hatred? The answer is: blacks, Jews, and Muslims.  And to teach hatred is to participate in none other than evil itself. 

Now, I have spoken in quite broad generalities.  There are blacks who are not teaching no such thing to their children.  There are Jews who teaching no such thing to their children.  There are Muslims who are teaching no such thing to their children. 

But all I need for the argument is that enough are doing so.  As I noted at the outset: the justification for this is that “our people” have suffered. 

It goes without saying that the history of evil should be taught.  But a fair teaching would have lessons regarding “our faults” and not just the incredible wrongs of “others”.  Indeed, there seem to be some blacks in America who think that the only wrong blacks would ever have committed prior to American Slavery would have been that of consuming too many berries or whatever. 

Jews do not have a history of sainthood.  But what Jewish child learns this from adult Jews in the community?  Blacks do not have a history of sainthood.  But what black child learns this from black adults in the community?  Muslims do not have a history of sainthood.  But what Muslim child learns this from adult Muslims in the community? 

Needless to say, the considerations of the preceding paragraph lend considerable support to my claim that Muslims, blacks, and Jews are teaching hatred.  We are all fallible and make mistakes.  No group has cornered the market on infallibility; no group has cornered the market on fallibility.  But where does anyone—especially any child—learn this fundament and ever so basic truth? 

I do not claim that three groups have taught hatred equally.  The differences, though, if there be any, are absolutely uninteresting to me.  This is because nothing will change the fact that each group is guilty as charged.  The differences, such as they might be, do not give the members of any group anything to boast about.  All should be ashamed.  Starting there would already be the beginning of a better world. 

Painfully, it is most certainly the case that this blog-entry has equally offended blacks, Jews, and Muslims.  I shall take that as proof par excellence that I have actually gotten it exactly right.  When it comes to teaching hatred, especially to children, no one's suffiering can be properly countenanced as a moral pass.  Evil starts with the suppostion to the contrary; and blacks, Jews, and Muslims have, in the name of suffering, all ventured down that path.      

This essay owes much inspiration to Claudia Card's book The Atrocity Paradigm (Oxford University Press, 2002).  She makes the quite simple, but ever so profound point that victims of wrongdoing can themselves be evil.  I have merely undescored that truth in a way that most would not expect because, after all, her claim applies only to "others". 

t is not enough to have intelligence.  One also needs to act intelligently.  Acting intelligently requires the general wherewithal to act in accordance with what knows.  Now, it seems to me a striking feature of society that increasingly people are not acting intelligently.  What they know and what they do are worlds apart.  Presumably, the mental capacity of human beings has not, in the past 1000 years or so, changed much, if at all.  So, what explains this increasingly unintelligent behavior on the part of individuals?  I shall argue that modernity has cultivated a particularly interesting vice.

Spending well beyond one’s means is perhaps my favorite example of how having intelligence is utterly compatible with acting stupidly. After all, it is not as if a person who spends well beyond his means has not a clue as to the ominous ending that awaits him.  On the hand, a little basic arithmetic makes it abundantly clear that overspending will have disastrous consequences. On the other, there is so much discussion of this in the media that it is simply impossible for a person not to be aware of the considerable woes that come with spending beyond one’s means. 

Yet, people go right on spending well beyond their means.  How can that be?  Spending well beyond one’s means is in many respects a better example than overeating precisely people have to eat something or the other in order to stay alive.  Most of what people buy they do not need; and the proof of that is that they are buying something else shortly thereafter. 

What most intrigues me about overspending is the following question: “How can person know when he is spending well beyond his means?”  Surely the obvious question ought to be: “How on earth is it possible for a person not to know that he is doing this?

Tips are commonly offered these days that will help people to grasp that they are spending beyond well their means.  Interestingly, these tips seem not to be working all that well.  But then that should come as no surprise.  For needing a tip of that sort is rather like needing a tip that helps one to grasp that one does not know how to swim.  Which part of drowning in the water—or in debt—does not convince one?

The credit bills come each month; and it turns out that month after month, the person cannot even make the minimum monthly payments.  What else would it take to know that one has spent beyond one’s means?

They key to acting intelligently is really quite simple: Keep self-deception at a minimum.  It seems to me that modernity has mastered the art of cultivating the vice of self-deception: nay, mass self-decepton.  This, I believe, is why so many can be doing what is obviously harmful to themselves and not seem to realize it.  This is why it has become necessary to belabor the obvious. 

Again, spending beyond one’s means is a marvelous example.  It rarely happened 30 or 40 years ago.  Obviously, the explanation isn’t that people had more intelligence back then, though in this respect, it is clear that people acted more intelligently. 

But the circumstances of life back then made exceedingly difficult for anyone who was spending beyond his means to delude himself into thinking that he wasn’t.  It is not simply that credit card use was more limited.  There was a mindset in society back then that invited enormous self-examination in this regard.  The behavior of a person’s neighbors would have made it abundantly clear to him that his spending beyond his means was out of step with how he ought to be managing his monies.

Nothing makes self-deception more possible than the fact that “everybody is doing it”.  “Everybody is doing such-n-such” facilitates our being able to say to ourselves “My doing it is at least not all that bad”.  In fact, if everyone is doing something it can be very easy to think that there is something wrong with us if we are not.  Or, at any rate, one is concerned with not fitting in: as the case of young guys wearing pants that will stay on their ass makes abundantly clear.  Fitting in even trumps commonsense. 

And when it comes to creating mass self-deception nothing has been more effective than advertisement. 

Advertisement has been brilliant at cultivating desires, with something as simple as the McDonald’s Restaurant commercials being a marvelous case in point.  The food at McDonald’s is not particularly better than food at other places.  Yet, a McDonald’s restaurant rarely wants for customers. 

Advertisement preys upon extant desires and reinforces them to the point that people act upon them without reflection.  This is why advertisements are often more memorable than the programs.  The very weak accede to their desires in this way; then the less weak accede to their desires in this way; and then the mildly weak do so.  And soon we have a society a great many of whose members accede to their desires without reflecting upon them. 

A society a great many of whose members accede to their desires without reflecting upon them is a society that is ripe for massive self-deception.  Welcome to modernity. 

The account offered explains the absence of basic commonsense that seemed so prevalent not so long ago.  Stuff that everyone knew without anyone having to tell them explicitly.  I mean everyone knew once upon time that working up a sweat on a regular basis was key to keeping the pounds off.  Today, we have public service announcements informing us of that. 

If these remarks are right, then they bring out the extent to which we human beings are indeed quintessential social creatures. 

Self-deception and the unexamined life go hand-in-hand.  Modernity, then, is contributing mightily to mass self-deception because modernity is increasingly undercutting the wherewithal of individuals to engage in self-examination. 

How dumb are we?  On the one hand, we are certainly not dumber than those who preceded us hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  On the other, make no mistake about it: we are acting much dumber than anyone would ever have thought possible given the knowledge at our fingertips.  This is because the self-examination that underwrites and affirms our humanity is receding into the background.  Alas, so is our humanity. 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau saw us clearly as anyone that the difference between human beings and animals lies in the former exercising the capacity for self-reflection.  Take away the exercise of that capacity, and the behavior of human beings quickly comes resemble that of creatures in what Rousseau referred to as the State of Nature.