Category: Fresno Bee Religion and Ethics Columns

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Star Trek and Racial Ethics: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

Fresno Bee, February 6, 2022

The discussion of race and racism in America continues. President Biden seeks to appoint Black female nominees to the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve. Some conservatives are outraged. Meanwhile, the NFL has been accused of racism by a former coach. And California cities are apologizing for racism against Chinese Americans, including Los Angeles, San Jose, and most recently, San Francisco.

As the history of racial politics unfolds before our eyes, it may be useful to imagine what race relations may look like in the future. For this, we might turn to science fiction. I’ve been reading a fascinating new book by Oregon State philosophy professor, José-Antonio Orosco, about social justice as imagined by “Star Trek.”

“Star Trek” was groundbreaking in its time for how it dealt with race. Orosco uses the show as a launching pad for reflection on contemporary racial issues.

The cast of the original show was decidedly diverse. The starship Enterprise was staffed by a Russian navigator, a Scottish engineer, an Asian helmsman, a Black female communications officer, and an alien, the Vulcan, Mr. Spock.

The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, made his views on diversity manifest in the motto of Spock’s Vulcan philosophy, which celebrated “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.” Roddenberry thought that an enlightened future would go beyond toleration toward the active embrace of our differences. To live long and prosper, as Mr. Spock might put it, we should value our diversity.

“Star Trek” emerged out of the tumultuous racial tensions of the 1960s. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reportedly liked the show and its portrayal of a racially inclusive future. The show even featured, in 1968, a famous interracial kiss, between Kirk and Uhura.

Orosco explains that in the 1960s, “Star Trek” imagined the future as “colorblind.” The idea was to downplay and ignore racial differences. The original series showed a future in which enlightened humans would no longer see race as important.

But Orosco argues that colorblindness contains a blind spot. In attempting not to see color, we may end up turning a blind eye to remaining racism. In trying to ignore race, we may in fact ignore racism. That may make it more difficult to eliminate racism. Racial inequities do not disappear simply because we ignore them. These things must be named, confronted and remedied.

As “Star Trek” was rebooted and updated in subsequent decades, the colorblind model gave way to a more deliberate embrace of multiculturalism. The point was not to ignore differences. Rather, “Star Trek” found ways to celebrate diversity — in its casting and in its plot-lines. Klingons and other “aliens” (including the android named Data) were brought onboard the Enterprise, welcomed and included.

It’s tempting to imagine that we’ve already arrived at this inclusive future. But we only get to the future by passing through the present. And in the present, there are still exclusions and prejudices that must be confronted.

This takes a conscious effort, including what scholars like Orosco call “anti-racist” work. As Orosco argues, to evolve in the direction imagined by “Star Trek” we must work to dismantle racism and racial prejudice. This work involves finding ways to make sure that institutions of power are inclusive. Apologies and reparations may also help.

We also need models that help us imagine a better world. Literature, film, and other arts have an important role to play in the development of the human spirit.

The hopeful vision of “Star Trek” is a tale of evolution. The utopia imagined by ”Star Trek” has a back-story. The Vulcans were originally a warlike people. But they overcame their self-destructiveness by learning to cultivate logic, nonviolence, and love of diversity. They even became vegetarians.

The humans in “Star Trek” also evolve. In the series’ imagined timeline, the 21st century was a terrible time of violence and dislocation. But we survived and learned from our mistakes. We became explorers motivated by curiosity rather than conquerors motivated by greed. We learned to value logic rather than violence. And we came to embrace the idea of infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

This is fiction, of course. The future is uncertain. But to boldly go where no one has gone before, it helps to have a vision of what the future may hold.

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Pacifism, Isolationism, and Just War: Ukraine, Russia, and Impending Hostilities

Fresno Bee, January 30, 2022

Should we go to war with Russia over Ukraine? A recent poll indicates that only 15% of Americans support that idea. The American public seems more sympathetic these days to isolationism and even pacifism.

Pacifists and isolationists oppose foreign wars, but for different reasons. The isolationist asks, “What’s in it for me?” The pacifist asks whether violence ever really solves anything. To the pacifist, isolationism looks cynical and callous. To the isolationist, pacifism looks naïve and utopian.

But isolationism and pacifism often converge. Consider Tucker Carlson’s opposition to a war against Russia. The Fox News firebrand is more of an isolationist than he is a pacifist. He recently said, “We’re really going to fight a war over some corrupt Eastern European country that is strategically irrelevant to us? With everything else that’s going on right now in our own country? No normal person would ever want to do anything like that.”

Carlson is also an opportunist. He may simply be trying to score political points by opposing Biden’s saber-rattling. But he gives voice to a reasonable reluctance about foreign wars. Isolationism is increasingly popular among Trumpian conservatives.

In his comments, Carlson also suggested that a war against Russia primarily serves the interests of the defense contractors who profit from war. This is the kind of argument that is often made by pacifists, who have long been critical of the military-industrial complex.

But the pacifist case against war is not only about profit and self-interest. Rather, pacifists ask whether violence and war ever really solve social and political problems. They believe that nonviolent solutions are better at producing lasting and stable peace.

Recent wars tend to support pacifist conclusions about the futility of war. American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in significant suffering for civilians and soldiers. These wars have not left the world better off.

Now, there is a moral argument in favor of war against Russia. The just-war theory teaches that war can be used as a response to aggression. This is connected to an international norm known as “the responsibility to protect” (R2P) which holds that there is a global responsibility to protect people against aggression, ethnic cleansing, genocide and war crimes.

But the Ukrainian crisis is complicated. Western powers warn against Russian aggression. Russia maintains that the West is behaving aggressively by expanding NATO into Eastern Europe. The Russians even appealed to the R2P doctrine to defend their invasion of Crimea in 2014, claiming that Russian sympathizers in Crimea were being oppressed. Critics claimed that this was a cynical employment of R2P, used by Russia as cover for its aggression.

And so it goes. Arguments about war are difficult and complex. Pacifists wonder whether there is not a better way. Isolationists will ask what’s in it for us. And just-war theorists argue about who has a responsibility to do what.

The gravity and the complexity of this issue require careful, critical thought. If American soldiers are going to be sent into harm’s way, our country ought to be engaged in deep moral reflection. The Congress ought to be debating this and voting on it, as the Founders intended when they stipulated that declarations of war ought to come from the peoples’ representatives.

Unfortunately, congressional declarations of war have given way to unilateral decisions about war made by the executive branch. At the same time, the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. and the polarization of our country make sincere debate nearly impossible.

It is not clear how to fix our political morass. But the good news is that in our country the citizens remain free to debate the morality of war. This is not true in Russia, where dissent is prohibited. Nor is it true in Ukraine, where war-resisters have been jailed.

Let’s make good use of our freedom. Our soldiers deserve that from us. We must think carefully about the morality of war before we ask our sons and daughters to kill and die on our behalf. To honor the troops, as the saying goes, means that we should listen carefully to the pacifists, the isolationists, and the just-war theorists. Now is the time for reasonable debate, before the howling of the dogs of war drowns out critical thought.

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Is the US a Christian Nation?

Fresno Bee, January 23, 2022

In our secular society, Christianity has become an interest group vying for influence in the marketplace of ideas. It is no longer taken for granted that this is a Christian country.

Consider a recent case before the U.S. Supreme Court, involving a Christian group that wanted to raise its flag outside city hall in Boston. The court is considering whether this would be an endorsement of Christianity by the city, or whether the flag is merely the private expression of Christian citizens.

Christian Flag SCOTUS Blog

If the Christian group wins the case, its victory will mean only that the group has the right to express its religious beliefs in a public forum. They must take turns along with advocates of LGBT rights, BLM protesters, and other groups who want to fly their flags. No one is arguing here that the state ought to reserve a privileged place for Christian symbols and beliefs.

American secularism is grounded in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The First Amendment’s “establishment clause” prevents government entities from endorsing any faith. Its “free expression clause” permits individual citizens to express their own religious (or non-religious) beliefs.

Clarity about this is important, given the shifting religious identification of American citizens and the threat of religious violence. Our system allows people with diverse religious and non-religious beliefs to peacefully coexist. And it prevents the government from oppressing religious minorities.

Some people continue to maintain that America is a Christian nation. A recent report on NPR quoted a minister at a “patriot church” in Tennessee, who said, “You know why there’s churches everywhere and not mosques? Because we’re a Christian nation.”

But the First Amendment and our shifting demography point in another direction. In a report published at the end of 2021, the Pew Research Center indicates that the Christian population has continued to decline. Only 63% of Americans identify as Christian. Non-Christian religions (Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, etc.) account for another 6% of the population. And even among the faithful, religious belief is often lukewarm. Fewer than half of Americans report that they pray daily. Only about 40% say that religion is very important in their lives.

The fastest growing group in our country is the “nones,” those who answer “none of the above” when asked about their religious affiliation. The “nones” have nearly doubled since 2007, when Pew began tracking the data. Nearly one in three Americans (29%) are “nones.” This includes some atheists (4%) and agnostics (5%). But many of the non-religious simply do not identify with traditional religious categories.

It is true that at one point in our history, Christianity was the dominant faith. But even that claim needs qualification. Many of the founders had unorthodox views. George Washington attended church infrequently. When he did go, he refused to take communion. Thomas Jefferson admired Jesus, but was skeptical of the Bible’s miracles. John Adams claimed that the Christian view of the trinity was absurd. And America is the home of alternative Christian faiths such as Mormonism, Adventism, and Christian Science.

Critics will also argue, as Frederick Douglass did, that a nation founded on slavery could hardly be called “Christian.” Douglass argued against “the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” He said, “I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton said something similar. She thought that Christianity contributed to the oppression of women. She worked with a team of feminists at the end of the 19th century to rewrite the Bible. The result was “The Woman’s Bible,” which thoroughly revised the Bible’s patriarchal and misogynistic texts.

And so it goes. We disagree about what Christianity means. A growing number of us no longer identify as Christian. And Christian groups must vie time on the flagpole along with other interest groups.

This is the reality of our secular system, operating under the First Amendment. Under our Constitution, religious liberty is valued while the government is prevented from endorsing any specific religion. In this country we are free to argue about the meaning of the Bible. We are also free to gather round the flagpole and argue about history and the role of religion in our public life.

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January 6: American Democracy and the Challenge of Tyranny

Fresno Bee, January 9, 2022

The American political system remains in crisis, one year after the Jan. 6 riot. A recent poll shows that 40% of Americans believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate. The same poll indicates that a majority of us fear the future will bring more political violence.

This is alarming. But polarization and distrust are par for the course in the American system. This dysfunction is a feature of the system, and not a bug. Conflict was hard-wired into a system that was set up to safeguard against tyranny.

I explore this idea in more detail in my forthcoming book, “Tyranny from Plato to Trump.” The American founders were focused on preventing tyranny. They were less interested in efficiency than in preventing the consolidation of power.

The question of whether our system is working depends upon what we think this system is supposed to be doing. If we think the government is supposed to respond to the will of the majority, we will be disappointed. But if we think that the American system is intended to prevent tyranny, then the virtue of its dysfunctional design becomes apparent.

The problem of tyranny is an ancient one. In the ancient world, political power was often consolidated in the hands of a strongman. Sophocles warned against the hubris of Oedipus. Plato warned that tyrants were predators who preyed upon their own people.

The American founders studied ancient philosophy and literature. They accused the British king of behaving tyrannically. When they set up the American system of government, they were interested in preventing tyranny by establishing the Constitution’s separation of powers. James Madison defined tyranny as the “accumulation of all powers” in the “same hands.” The solution is a system in which divided powers limit each other. As Madison put it, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

The good news about the American system is that its checks and balances worked to prevent Donald Trump from consolidating power. Local officials refused to comply with Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. The House impeached the lame duck president. The courts provided independent confirmation of the integrity of the election. Members of Congress certified the election, led by Vice President Mike Pence. And when the Capitol was assaulted by an angry mob, those insurrectionists were arrested, put on trial and convicted.

All of this is part of a slow and messy process. This is the way the American system is designed to work. It moves slowly and incrementally. It is not easy for a strongman to take control in this system and purge his enemies. Nor is it easy for democratic majorities to enact radical change. There is too much friction built into the system for quick and radical solutions.

Some people don’t like this sluggish system. Some long for a nimble system that can react quickly to emergencies. A number of people even seem to desire a savior who would ride to the rescue with a flaming sword.

But the people’s desire for a savior can be exploited by would-be tyrants. In response to emergencies, the people are often willing to sacrifice ethics in the name of expedience.

History teaches us that there are no saviors. It shows us that when power is concentrated, corruption is sure to follow. Atrocities occur when reaction outpaces rationality.

The U.S. Constitution is not perfect. It was flawed at the start, since it permitted slavery. A civil war was fought to eliminate that peculiar form of tyranny. Other corrections and improvements followed.

It took centuries to improve this system. More work remains to be done. One obvious problem is the inordinate power of small states. Citizens of small states such as Wyoming and Rhode Island have much more representational power than citizens of California. And citizens of Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have no real representation.

We ought to continue to improve the system. But this is tedious work. Progress will be slow in coming. And there will be no perfect result.

This will bother those who dream of utopia. But utopias do not exist. The human condition does not permit perfection. There are no political saviors. And the dream of a savior can easily become a tyrannical nightmare.

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Practice gratitude and live a grateful life

Fresno Bee, December 26, 2021

The holiday season encourages us to practice gratitude. One way to lean into gratitude is to celebrate the lost art of writing thank-you notes. A good thank-you is more than a text message saying “Thanx.”

I learned this from the women in my life who are role models of gracious gratitude. My grandmothers always sent handwritten cards and notes. My mother’s artful cursive gives style to her thank-yous. My wife writes lots of thoughtful thank-you notes.

We forced our children to put pen to paper after Christmas and birthdays. They seem to have learned the art of saying thanks. As young adults, they write heartfelt expressions of gratitude.

This little ritual is an ethical and spiritual practice. It is important to take time out and really think about what you are grateful for.

Gratitude is often in short supply in an impatient world. Envy, anger, and other negative emotions can undermine the spirit of gratitude. And sometimes we get grumpy, even about the need to write a thank-you note.

The good news is that in expressing gratitude, grumpiness dissolves. Positive virtues are often developed by a kind of “fake it until you make it” contrivance. Even if you are not feeling particularly thankful, the emptiness of the blank page forces you to conjure up some gratitude.

Giving thanks is an important social ritual. You are expected to say thanks in certain situations. When the server brings the meal, you say thanks. After a job interview, you ought to write an email saying thanks. And so on.

Parents ask their kids, “What do you say?” in response to Grandma’s gift. The child knows that the correct answer is “Thanks, Grandma.” This compliant response to a parent’s prompting is an important start. But it is not yet gratitude.

Gratitude is deeper than saying thanks.

That’s where a thoughtful thank-you note plays a role. A decent thank-you note should have at least three sentences. First, you say what you are thankful for. Then you explain why you are thankful. Finally, you express good wishes toward the person you are thanking. By the time you’ve written those three sentences, the spark of gratitude may be kindled.

That’s why a hand-written note is better than a texted “Thx.” Mechanical expressions of thanks have little to do with gratitude. Pre-printed thank-yous often arrive in our inboxes, in response to charitable donations, bill payments, and the like. Sometimes they even arrive in response to wedding gifts or graduation gifts.

A mechanical thank-you acknowledges a gift or payment. The note lets you know that the check was not lost in the mail. But acknowledgement is not gratitude.

Gratitude is an expression of heartfelt gladness. It is not simply a receipt. It is also an appreciation. The word “appreciate” has the word “precious” concealed within it. Genuine gratitude involves reflecting on what you appreciate.

Philosophers have thought about gratitude for thousands of years. The Stoic philosopher Seneca suggested that true gratitude is not simply mechanical or self-interested. Ritual thankfulness occurs in religion and in business. This is often a superficial formula without thought.

Even worse, there are people who ingratiate themselves with sweet talk. Gratitude can be used to manipulate and take advantage. Slick salesmen express gratitude while picking our pockets. True gratitude is not like that at all. Rather, it is linked to generosity, friendship, and love.

Seneca also suggested that a good life should be imbued with a spirit of gratitude. He said, “we wish to depart from human life as full of gratitude as possible.”

A good life would be one in which envy and resentment give way to gratitude. To live well is to be grateful for this moment and this life. We should live in such a way that when the end comes, we can be grateful.

In the new year, then, let’s resolve to be less resentful and more grateful. One way to do that is to put pen to paper and write an old fashioned thank-you note. This reminds us of the generosity and good will of our friends and relations. It spreads goodwill by letting other people know that we appreciate them. And it encourages us to count our blessings, even in the dark of winter.