Category: Fresno Bee Religion and Ethics Columns

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Fortitude and Resilience in the Face of Tragedy

Right now fortitude is needed more than fantasy.
Admit fears, shed tears, get back to work

Fresno Bee, October 6, 2017

It feels like the world is falling apart. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and massacres clog the headlines.
Even El Capitan recently crumbled.

Of course, the rocks have always been falling. Each new hurricane and earthquake is a reminder of our fragile place on this spinning globe. Each new outburst of cruelty is a reminder of the human capacity for evil.

We cannot give up hope. But dark times need fortitude more than fantasy. Fortitude is grounded in a clear-eyed assessment of the world. This old-fashioned virtue has other names: grit, resilience, tenacity, and courage. Fortitude helps us face danger and endure stress. It gives us the energy and audacity to confront adversity.

Fortitude is solid and realistic, while hope is insubstantial and ethereal. The hopeful live in a world of “maybe.” Maybe after this hurricane season, we’ll take climate change seriously. Maybe after Vegas, we’ll take gun control seriously. Maybe next time, we’ll do things differently.

FORTITUDE IS GROUNDED IN A CLEAR-EYED ASSESSMENT OF THE WORLD.

It is possible that things will improve. But they won’t improve without hard work and common sense. Unrealistic hope is delusional. And hope without labor is merely hot air.

Reality is immune to our desires. Death and suffering are as pervasive as ignorance and selfishness. We need to accept the inevitable and focus on things that are actually in our control. We can regulate our efforts and subdue our fears. Beyond that lies fortune and fate.

Moderate fatalism is not a recipe for despair. Despair dwells in the negative and broods over misery. The risk of hope is that it gives way to despair when the hoped-for dream does not arrive.

The truth is that things are mixed. The earth is not static. Evil people exist. But so too do heroes, mothers and martyrs. Right now someone is dying; but someone else is being born. Someone is lonely; but someone else is falling in love. This vast world contains a multitude.

Reality includes hurricanes and earthquakes. It also includes tranquility, beauty and joy. We ought not let outrage and anxiety destroy our enjoyment of life’s bounty.

Our spirits will break if we try to take in all of the suffering of the world. This does not mean that we can ignore other people’s pain. But it does mean that compassion is a finite good. Help the victims if you can. But understand that grief and sorrow are local affairs.

Recent tragedies seem overwhelming. But there is always bad news somewhere. The media magnifies calamity. Catastrophes attract our attention.

It is wise to control your consumption of news. If the news is bothering you, turn it off. If you want good news and inspiration, look for it. Common decency is the unexceptional background condition of normal life. Talk to a neighbor. Or call an old friend. Most people are doing OK most of the time.

The ancient Greeks taught that evil can be endured and that good is easily obtained. They advocated moderation and courage. The Christians added faith, hope and love. It is sometimes useful to “let go and let God.” But grit and determination remain important. Fortitude was celebrated by Aquinas and others in the Christian tradition.

IT IS WISE TO CONTROL YOUR CONSUMPTION OF NEWS. IF THE NEWS IS BOTHERING YOU, TURN IT OFF.

Fortitude requires vigilance and prudence. It is prudent to prepare for disaster. But vigilance is not fear. Courage depends upon a sense of proportion that prevents panic. With preparation, some ills can be avoided. And many evils can be endured with patient resolve.

A sense of proportion puts anxiety in its place. The world continues to hum along after each quake, storm, and massacre. This bigger picture provides a source of hope. It is true that this too shall pass.

The big picture also makes us humble and forgiving. El Capitan crumbles on occasion. So too does the strongest man. We are all vulnerable. Our common fragility is the source of solidarity.

Share your strength when you can. But be modest about compassion. No one is strong enough to shoulder all of the suffering of the world.

In the end it is our resilience that is the source of progress. It is what we do after a disaster that actualizes hope. Comfort the afflicted. Lick your wounds. Admit your fears. Wipe away your tears. And then get back to work.

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Worrying about football and the flag misses the point of actually being better Americans

Fresno Bee, September 29, 2017

We live in a country where only about half of the eligible voters bother to vote. People actively strategize ways to avoid jury duty. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans have ever served in the military. And the president admitted during his campaign that it is smart to find ways to avoid paying taxes.

And yet here we are fretting about football and the flag. Football does not increase voter turnout. It fills no jury boxes. It can cause brain damage. It includes scantily clad cheerleaders and lots of beer. It’s fun. But it is a diversion and a distraction that has nothing to do with patriotism.

The flap about the national anthem is also a distraction. Singing the anthem is a symbolic gesture. But a song is no substitute for active engagement and critical thinking. 

SINGING THE ANTHEM IS A SYMBOLIC GESTURE. BUT A SONG IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND CRITICAL THINKING.

Standing for the anthem is not going to get people to be more civic-minded. It certainly won’t change racism and sexism in our culture. The song is a battle hymn, not a celebration of democratic values.

There is nothing in the anthem – or in football – that encourages us to spread equality, love our neighbors, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or respect women. Nor does football or the national anthem teach us anything about the Constitution.

And we are desperately in need of constitutional education. A recent survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center concludes that 37 percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. And only 26 percent of Americans can correctly name all three branches of government.

It is the First Amendment, by the way, that guarantees our right to protest. And the courts have ruled that the First and Fourteenth Amendments give us the right not to salute the flag. In 1943, the Supreme Court held that “patriotic ceremonies” should be “voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine.” To think that patriotic displays should be compulsory is “to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.”

So here is a proposal: Instead of singing the anthem before games, let’s begin our sporting events with a lesson in the law that appeals to free minds. We could recite the First Amendment or the Preamble to the Constitution. Nothing could be more American than this. This is a nation of laws, after all. Our liberty is grounded in the Constitution.

Of course, thinking is more difficult than singing – and less fun. We want to holler at the high points of the anthem. We want beer and brain-scrambling hits. No one goes to a football game for a lecture.

IT WOULD BE BETTER TO USE OUR SUNDAY AFTERNOONS DISCUSSING JUSTICE, LIBERTY, AND EQUALITY.

So maybe we need something more sexy and aggressive. How about having players recite the fiery words of the American icons of social protest? From the Boston Tea Party to Martin Luther King, Jr., nonviolent social protest is as American as apple pie.

We could have players recite inspiring quotes from Thoreau’s famous essay on “Civil Disobedience:” “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.” Or: “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.”

Or players could quote from John Adams’ description of the Boston Tea Party. In 1773, Adams wrote, “There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this effort of the patriots. The people should never rise, without doing something to be remembered— something notable and striking.”

In previous generations, protests were much more dramatic than taking a knee. Thoreau refused to pay his taxes. Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting. African Americans sat-in at segregated lunch counters. And the sons of liberty destroyed British property.

Social protest is inconvenient. It forces us to think. As Martin Luther King said, “it creates tension in the mind.” Thinking is not much fun. It is much harder than singing. But it is thinking that spreads the blessings of liberty.

Some have said they will stop watching football now. That’s great. It would be better to use our Sunday afternoons discussing justice, liberty, and equality. These things are more important than football. But these values whither and die when we remain distracted by songs and games.

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Welcoming Strangers, Moral Thinking, and Diversity

Want a more peaceful world?
Start by learning about other cultures and languages

Fresno Bee, September 22, 2017

If we want to broaden our thinking, we must enlarge our vocabularies. Recent research shows how learning a foreign language changes the way we think about ethics. Experiments conducted at the University of Chicago indicate that non-native speakers tend be less emotional and more impartial in ethical decision-making.

Researchers confronted people with a typical moral dilemma. Imagine there is a run-away train headed for a group of five people. Is it morally correct to push a bystander in front of the train, slowing it down and saving those five people?

Non-native speakers are more likely to choose to kill the one in order to save the five. People are less likely to reach that conclusion when asked the question in their native language.

One explanation offered is that people who think in a secondary language tend to process information in a more formal and less intuitive way. Thinking in a native language is more deeply rooted in intuitions, emotions and taboos.

SECOND-LANGUAGE ACQUISITION TEACHES HUMILITY. OUR IGNORANCE OF OTHER LANGUAGES SHOULD MAKE US LESS PROUD AND SELF-ASSURED

This research is thought-provoking. Could international negotiations be affected by the choice of language? Or consider what this suggests about debates about immigration and multiculturalism. Immigrants may be thinking in more objective terms, while monolingual nativists are more emotional and driven by intuition.

This research also leads us to imagine that foreign language acquisition could help build a more peaceful world. Learning to communicate in a foreign language opens the door to a more cosmopolitan point of view. A new language helps you see the world differently. It also helps you understand the limits of your own language and worldview.

Second-language acquisition teaches humility. The easy conversations of children babbling in a foreign tongue are mind-blowing when you do not know the language. Our ignorance of their languages should make us less proud and self-assured.

Philosophers have long been interested in the language question. In the 17th century, the philosopher Leibniz—one of the inventors of calculus—hatched a plan to construct a universal language. This language would be used to transmit science. It would facilitate global commerce. And it would help create world peace.

In the 19th century, philosophers abandoned this cosmopolitan project in favor of an emphasis on national identity and the rich worldviews found in the depths of culture. The philosopher Hegel once said that we only truly possess ideas that are expressed in our mother tongue.

Romantics like Hegel celebrated the deep poetic resonances of life, language and thought. It is true that the overtones and connotations of the mother tongue run deep. But Romanticism can breed ethnolinguistic nationalism, which is divisive and undermines the cosmopolitan ideal.

These days the dream of a universal language has given way to the need for linguistic sensitivity and cultural pluralism. Instead of advocating a universal language, we need more and better understanding of other people’s languages and worldviews.

The philosopher Wittgenstein once said, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” This implies that we can only think what we can say. If our vocabulary and grammar are limited, so too is our thinking.

WHILE SOME PEOPLE REMAIN WEDDED TO CLOSED-MINDED NATIVISM, THE FUTURE IS COSMOPOLITAN, MULTICULTURAL, AND POLYLINGUISTIC

This sounds abstract, so an example might help. Consider how the introduction of foreign words into English helps us think more clearly. In English, for example, we have one word for love. But there are three words for love in Greek: eros (sexual love), philia (the love of friendship), and agape (brotherly or universal love). Understanding these words can help us think more carefully about love.

Or consider how much the American vocabulary (and diet) has been enriched by the inclusion of foreign words for food, from burritos and croissants to samosas and tofu.

While some people remain wedded to closed-minded nativism, the future is cosmopolitan, multicultural, and polylinguistic. We benefit from being uprooted. Change causes us to grow. It is good to be forced to think about things in new ways – and in a new language.

If you want to broaden your mind, travel, eat new foods and learn a new language. This can affect the way you think about ethics. It can make you more humble. And it can also help you develop agape, the kind of love that is hospitable and welcoming to strangers.

http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article174830841.html

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Social Media, Civility, and Intelligence

Do social media make us wiser or dumber? That depends on our choices

Fresno Bee, September 15, 2017

Is the world getting dumber? Twitter co-founder Evan Williams thinks so. In commenting on Twitter’s role in electing Donald Trump, Williams said people are isolated and narrow-minded in their consumption of news. He said the whole “media eco-system” is “making us dumber.”

Of course, stupidity has always been with us. Ignorance is the birthright of every generation. But Twitter has a unique role in fueling the comedy of errors – the “covfefe” – playing out across our screens.

This week, U.S. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, or someone using his account, apparently “liked” a porn video on Twitter. Cruz blamed “a staffer who accidentally hit the wrong button.”

This makes you wonder about security issues and the risk of hacks. It also reminds us that porn is just a click away: at work, at school, or in the statehouse. If Ted Cruz can stumble upon it, so can any kid with a smart phone.

Twitter is responsible for other mayhem, especially when it is used as a vehicle for public policy. President Trump’s confusing recent tweets about DACA have kept people guessing. He has proclaimed unvetted policies via Twitter, such as the ban on transgender persons in the military. And he continues to use Twitter to launch ad hominem invective at “crooked Hillary,” “the fake news” and other enemies.

IT IS WE, THE PEOPLE, WHO ALLOW OURSELVES TO SUCCUMB TO THE TEMPTATIONS OF STUPIDITY.

But the technology is not to blame. A tool is not responsible for malice or error. The Internet was not designed specifically for pornography. And Twitter was not intended as a platform for policy statements. The great dumbing down is not the medium’s fault – it is ours.

The social media ecosystem does provide a temptation for rudeness, crudeness and lewdness. But it is our eyes that move fast across our screens. It is the human user who swipes and pokes, looking for stimulation.

The speed of the medium favors the salacious and obscene. Click-bait preys upon short attention spans. It does not reward subtlety or complexity.

twitter logo

The American attention span is shrinking along with our vocabulary and our sense of privacy. But it is we, the people, who allow ourselves to succumb to the temptations of stupidity.

Information swirls, unfiltered and raw, simple and direct. This is a great democratizing shift. Now the politicians and pornographers can go directly to the people. The Internet knows what you like and it will deliver it to your inbox.

But important things – public policy and sexual relationships – are complicated. Relationships and ideas need time and privacy. A policy is more than the flick of a thumb. Love is more than clicking the “like” button.

Understanding and intelligence are cultivated in quiet solitude. Wisdom grows slowly through a process of exploration and revision.

Our ever-present screens prevent us from finding privacy and silence. This makes us impatient and cranky. Courtesy and eloquence are rare. Civility is a quaint relic of a slower time. And compassion? Well, there is no button for that in the comments section.

We also lack guides and mentors. Experts have been demoted. Editorial expertise is replaced by robots and algorithms.

“Power to the people” is the slogan of the social media revolution. But who is to guide us or teach us how to interpret the information we circulate?

SO ARE WE WISER OR DUMBER?
THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT WE CHOOSE TO DO WITH OUR LIBERTY AND OUR TECHNOLOGY.

Plato feared democracy because it puts the mob in charge – the dumb, vicious and reactionary mob. He warned that the mob easily succumbs to false prophets and demagogues who flatter our baser instincts. I’m sure he would be appalled by the Twitter revolution.

Democracy is dangerous. But it is also precious. The freedom to Tweet is a modern invention. Long centuries of war and turmoil have secured our right to forward outrageous images on our tiny screens.

So are we wiser or dumber? That depends on what we choose to do with our liberty and our technology.

Social media creates an opportunity for better choices. We really do have the world at our fingertips. We can use this incredible resource and our liberty to build a better world.

We can choose to be civil, eloquent, and compassionate. We can educate rather than denigrate. Instead of accepting stupidity, we can strive for wisdom. The first step is to stop blaming the medium, while taking a look in the mirror.

http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article173413896.html

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Justice, Compassion, and the Dreamers

DACA controversy reveals conflict between blind justice and broad compassion

Fresno Bee, September 8, 2017

The reconsideration of DACA presents an example of the conflict between justice and compassion. It also shows us the conflict between a narrow conception of our obligations and a broader point of view.

Justice requires impartial application of rules. The goddess of justice is blind. She administers law without considering the identity of those who receive her decisions. Justice is a goddess of the public sphere. She demands that we extend moral concern universally, fairly, and without exception.

Compassion operates differently. The goddess of compassion opens her eyes and her arms. She attends to people’s concrete situations, making exceptions for the disabled, the displaced and the disadvantaged. The motherly goddess of home and hospitality focuses on individual identity and relations of care.

Compassion and justice disagree whenever there is a conflict between mercy and rule-following. Justice requires equal treatment and unbiased judgment. Compassion makes exceptions for special needs and mitigating circumstances.

The DACA debate asks whether we should extend compassion to the children of immigrants who did not knowingly violate the law when their parents brought them here. Justice may ignore this fact and simply apply a rule that says if you are not here legally, you must leave. Compassion begs us to consider that these young people have no other home to return to and bear no responsibility for their predicament.

President Trump’s statement about DACA uses moral language. But he prioritizes compassion for Americans, saying, “We must also have heart and compassion for unemployed, struggling, and forgotten Americans.” He admits there is something unfair about punishing children for the actions of their parents. But he said that fairness for American citizens was his first priority. He explained, “Before we ask what is fair to illegal immigrants, we must also ask what is fair to American families, students, taxpayers and job seekers.”

Trumpian morality applies compassion and justice in a limited nationalistic way. This fits with the president’s America first agenda.

Moralists have often criticized this kind of nationalism. The goddesses of justice and compassion are not national deities. Morality universalizes.

Justice and compassion extend across borders. The goddess of justice is blind even to national identity claims. And the “mother of exiles” – as the Statue of Liberty has been called – opens her arms to the world’s homeless and huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.

ANY RESOLUTION WILL REQUIRE US TO THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT THE NATURE OF LAW AND MORALITY.
IT WILL ALSO REQUIRE US TO REFLECT ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN.

It is not surprising that American religious leaders responded with dismay to Trump’s announcement. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned Trump’s decision. The bishops wrote, “Today’s actions represent a heartbreaking moment in our history that shows the absence of mercy and good will, and a short-sighted vision for the future.”

Mercy and good will are the heart of the ethics of compassion. The bishops extend this globally, applying the commandment to love one’s neighbor in a universal direction.

Trump and his supporters reject this view of morality. They also discount the religious critique of this policy. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, said that limiting immigration was a matter of “national sovereignty.” He also said that the Catholic church has “an economic interest in unlimited immigration,” suggesting that the church wants immigrants to fill pews and coffers.

The president and his supporters have also claimed that Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was unconstitutional. They want Congress to take action. But hundreds of law professors, governors, and other legal and political leaders have argued that DACA is constitutional.

The constitutional question is related to the moral question. Does our legal system require strict impartiality and blind justice or does it permit discretion and compassion? Is the Constitution a system that puts America first and focuses only on questions of national sovereignty? Or are there values in our constitutional system that point in a more cosmopolitan direction?

These are not easy questions to answer. We disagree about religion, morality, and the Constitution itself. These conflicts run so deep that they may never be resolved.

But any resolution will require us to think carefully about the nature of law and morality. It will also require us to reflect on what it means to be an American.

http://www.fresnobee.com/article172036532.html