Blog: The Ethical Echo Chamber
My Interview with Bill Martinez
Click to hear my interview with syndicated radio show host Bill Martinez:
Double Standards and the Death of Civil Society
Interview begins at the 33:30 mark. Enjoy!
Double Standards and the Death of Civilization
“Don’t say what you’re thinking.”
“It doesn’t matter how you feel.”
“Honesty is not always the best policy.”
It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? And yet modern society has created an entire value system based on these axioms. It’s called political correctness.
At the same time, however, there seems to be a freakish disconnect between the cultural extremes of political correctness and libertinism. On the one hand, the list of socially unacceptable words, phrases, and ideas keeps growing longer; on the other hand, regard for verbal filtering plummets in virtual free-fall.
At first blush, we might explain this away as an obvious consequence of competing ideologies and worldviews. Certainly, the popularity of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz can be understood as a natural reaction to the vacuous rhetoric of our elected officials, and to the farcical condemnation of benign comments and legitimate opinions as “hate speech” by the chattering classes. When a prominent university attempts to censor of words like mothering, fathering, and American as “microaggressions,” the inevitable consequence will be an equal and opposite reaction from the other side of the ideological divide.
But what is truly baffling are the offenses committed by proponents of political correctness themselves.
Christopher Hitchens: Almost a Hero
It’s remarkable how we can develop a deep fascination, sometimes to the point of fixation, toward people we despise.
This is not particularly healthy: we gain much more by studying those who are worthy of our admiration and reverence, both as models for the refinement of our own behavior and as sources of inspiration that demonstrate the heights to which human nobility can soar.
But human nature produces an incessant magnetism toward the negative, no matter how much we may know better. So I couldn’t resist clicking on Daniel Oppenheimer’s recent retrospective* on Christopher Hitchens, one of my least favorite intellectuals.
I’m glad I did.
In Memorium
Today marks the second anniversary of my father’s death. He was a man of unyielding principle and discipline, of meticulous honesty and unwavering standards. He had the ability to create an instant rapport with others and charm them without guile or manipulation, but he never seemed able to completely let down his emotional guard to truly connect. He could be hard, but he instilled in me a code of ethics and integrity that have formed the foundation of my sense of self and my worldview.
I wrote this tribute to him for Father’s Day in 2001:
Honor (is learned from) Thy Father
“A Special Place in Hell”
I am quoting. Don’t shoot the messenger.
In fact, it was Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as U. S. Secretary of State, who declared, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”
Apparently, Ms. Albright believes that Hillary Clinton is either unworthy or incapable of winning the office of the president on her own merit. One has to wonder whether Ms. Albright also believes that she herself was appointed Secretary of State because of her sex rather than her abilities.
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem was close at hand to weigh in on the issue — predictably on the wrong side. “When you’re young, you’re thinking: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,’ ” sneered the crusader for women’s rights and dignity.
Just imagine if a man had said that. But so it goes in our age of unabashed double-standards.
In then, in classically Clintonesque style, the fearless former revolution tried to revise her message: “I misspoke on the Bill Maher show recently,” Ms. Steinem posted on Facebook, “and apologize for what’s been misinterpreted as implying young women aren’t serious in their politics.”
“Misspoke”? “Interpreted”? So what exactly was Ms. Steinem trying to say?
It’s heartening that at least some women are seeing through the smoke and mirrors.
“Shame on Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright for implying that we as women should be voting for a candidate based solely on gender,” said Zoe Trimboli, a 23-year-old self-described feminist from Vermont.
Indeed, that would be like suggesting that people voted for Barack Obama only because he’s black.
Wouldn’t it?
Four Ways to Make Attention Deficit Less Disorderly
Many years ago, when my eldest son was about six years old, I introduced him to Chutes and Ladders, the next board game up from Candyland on the sophistication scale. Nothing but luck, the game nevertheless contains an engaging element of the unpredictable, as any roll of the die can rocket you up a ladder to the top or send you plummeting down a slide to the bottom.
My son took to the game immediately, and we bonded as we moved our respective pieces up and down the board. And then, with fatherly foresight, I waited for the moment of supreme joy and excitement as my son counted his piece onto the 100 mark at the top of the playing grid.
“You won!” I cried out, expecting him to respond with elation.
Instead, my son looked at the board, looked at me, and burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” I exclaimed, genuinely flummoxed.
“I don’t want the game to be over!” he bawled.
Oh, if only they could stay six years old forever.
It’s worth examining what happens as we grow older that makes us lose the joy of the game in our headlong pursuit of victory. Maybe it’s that we’re not paying attention. Maybe it’s that we’re paying too much attention.
Or maybe it’s both.
And Justice for All?
Two Israelis have been sentenced by an Israeli court for the murder of a Palestinian teenager.
How many Palestinians have been sentenced by Palestinian courts for the murder of Jews?
River of Fire — More than just a Legend?
According to Jewish history, the Assyrian King Sancheriv exiled the ten lost tribes of Israel around 6oo BCE and scattered them throughout his kingdom.
According to legend, the tribes were taken to a land on the far side of the Sambatyon River, which raged with a current so violent that it could not be crossed and, by some accounts, burned with fire.
Needless to say, a river of fire must be a fabrication of pure mythology.
But not if you ask Andrés Ruzo. In a recent Ted Talk, Dr. Ruzo describes how he followed a family folktale deep into the Amazon forest to discover a river fed by a geothermal hot spring with an average temperature of 86 degrees Celsius.
(Not quite boiling, but much hotter than your extra-hot coffee, which is about 60 degrees.)
Modern technology allows us to do things that were once the realm of science fiction and sorcery. Modern discoveries are showing us that the legends of the past may have more truth to them than we ever imagined possible.
The next new thing all over again
Why didn’t I think of that?
Can you remember the world before Post-It notes? Have you ever paused to appreciate the brilliant simplicity of the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver?
How many times have you cursed yourself for sloshing tea onto the table or dropping your keys between the car seat and console? But you never thought of the Tea-Pot Frame of the Drop-Stop Car Seat Gap Filler, did you?
Don’t feel too bad; you have plenty of company. That’s why we might all benefit from reading Adam Grant’s new book, The Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.
But here’s the problem: For years, Dr. Pepper challenged the cola establishment with it’s tag-line, Be Original. Promoters knew that we all like to think of ourselves as one-of-a-kind, to imagine that we are masters of our own destiny, a breed apart from the herd. The sad truth is, however, that we only want to imagine it; in reality, nothing scares us more than the fear that we don’t belong.
Even the Dr. Pepper ads reflected our ambivalence toward non-conformity: a whole room full of people line-dancing, in perfect sync with one another, singing “Be original.”
Anti-conformity is easy. Just say no to the party line, and you can always find a cadre of nay-sayers willing to accept you into the ranks of their new conformity. Just look at some of the most unlikely front-runners in our political primary race.
True non-conformity is much more difficult. It requires thought, courage, integrity, perseverance, conviction, and the willingness to be able to join when it’s right to join and stand alone when popular opinion will crucify you for breaking ranks.
It’s just too hard for most of us most of the time. But then, nothing good comes easy, does it?
Yonason Goldson 