21st Century Virtues

Almost 2500 years ago, the Greeks were seeking wisdom about the right conduct to guide the moral and intellectual development of Athens. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all agreed that virtues are central to a well-lived life. These are the leading virtues that Aristotle lists as defining the life seen as appropriate for a high-born Greek citizen:

· Courage
· Temperance
· Liberality (to do with attitudes towards one's wealth)
· Magnificence (ditto)
· Greatness of soul (to do attitudes to social inferiors)
· Good temper or gentleness
· Being agreeable in company
· Wittiness
· Modesty

Aristotle had something else to say about virtues. He thought that every virtue was a sort of midway point between two extremes - his “doctrine of the mean“. Think of a person being confronted with danger. He or she might run away. Or they might react over-aggressively, perhaps throwing their lives away when such a thing was disproportionate to the situation. That is, a person might react in a cowardly way, or in a rash way. But there is a third way: a middle way between these two extremes. It is the way of courage.

Today, in the 21st century, we all agree that Aristotle‘s virtues such as courage, temperance, and good temper are all essentials to human well-being. But in order for us to live well, all of these virtues must fit together.

Some virtues seem to be more in vogue at some particular time in history. From the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues are as follows:

Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation.

Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

As you can see, Ben Franklin in his day stressed the virtue of frugality - “a penny saved is a penny earned”. Thriftiness and the postponement of instant gratification are not so much in fashion in America in the 21st century. The national debt hovers around nine trillion dollars. Total American household consumer debt averaged $11,840 in 2005. Even the war in Iraq is being fought on borrowed money. As of July 15, 2006 the war in Iraq has cost each household over $2600.

In the nineteenth century, hard work was considered an important virtue in the United States, and in the 21st century it is still valued as a prime virtue. A recent news report compared the work habits of Americans with their European counterparts and concluded that Americans work more hours each year with less vacation time than do the Europeans.

Finally, we should remember that virtuous individuals are recognized not just for what they do but also for what they are.

If you were to make up your own list of the virtues most important in your life in the 21st century, which ones from the following list would your include? Why are they important to you?

Acceptance/ Bravery/ Caution/ Defiance/ Determination/ Devotion/ Discretion/ Flexibility/ Focus/ Forgiveness/ Generosity/ Gentleness/ Gratitude/ Honesty/ Humbleness/ Humor/ Impartiality/ Industry/ Innocence/ Justice/ Kindness/ Love/ Loyalty/ Majesty or Dignity/

Moderation/ Obedience/ Openness/ Patience/ Peace or Serenity/ Prudence/ Reliability/ Responsibility/ Sensitivity/ Simplicity/ Sincerity/ Sobriety or Calmness/ Spontaneity/Steadfastness/ Strength/ Toughness/ Tranquility/ Trust in Others/ Trustworthiness

The Boulevard to 9/11

If you should decide to watch the ABC propadrama titled "The Path to 9/11", which more aptly should be titled "The Boulevard to 9/11" (considering all the traffic in information available to the Bush administration before the attack), please print and keep the following article in front of you for reference. As you listen to the President’s speech, every time he tries to connect the war in Iraq with 9/11 you should remember the following report and repeat to yourself three times the following mantra:

“The war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.”

President Bush was in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered.

Full transcript:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Consult this list of errors when viewing "The Path to 9/11":

"Top 10 Errors: ABC Corporation's Distortion of History Far-Reaching, Joe Conason [numbers ours]

ABC's docudrama "The Path to 9/11" is a false version of history. It popularizes right-wing myths by exaggerating Clinton's failures and Bush's successes, depicting events that never happened.

1. According to Richard Clarke, White House anti-terrorism czar under Clinton and Bush, his former assistant Roger Cressey and others with direct knowledge of the circumstances, Clinton "approved every request made of him by the CIA and the US military involving [the use of force] against bin Laden and Al Qaeda." Planned operations to take out bin Laden either by ground assault or missile strike didn't happen because senior intelligence and military officials told the president that they could not be conducted successfully.

2. Especially shameful, by the way, is former 9/11 Commission chairman Tom Kean's endorsement of that particular tall tale, as a consultant to the ABC production team. A nice enough man, although never the sharpest mind on the commission (or anywhere else), the former New Jersey governor may be promoting the party line on 9/11 now because his son Tom Kean Jr. is the Republican Senate nominee in his home state (and recently benefited from a fundraising appearance by former President Bush). But Kean's strange willingness to ignore his own findings does not change the facts.

3. The movie shows former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- who is played as a fussy, irritable Margaret Dumont-style matron -- thwarting a missile strike against bin Laden's desert camp by warning his Pakistani friends in advance. That never happened, either.

4. And in its most blatant appeal to right-wing pathology, the movie repeatedly suggests that Clinton was either distracted or prodded by the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the ensuing impeachment, taking action or deferring action for political reasons. Clarke has repeatedly denied that considerations of that kind influenced policy on any occasion. (Whit’s note: And even if this were true, the Republicans should bear the blame for distracting President Clinton with their political machinations about a sexual affair, something many other Presidents of both parties had been known to engage in while in office. But Republicans said that his sexual affair was different because it happened in the Oval Office, and thus dishonored the White House. Apparently they had forgotten about Warren G. Harding, a Republican president, who had sex with his mistress in a closet near the Oval Office back in the 1920s.)

5. Clarke has said that the Clinton administration didn't fully comprehend the threat from al-Qaida until the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. (Neither did Clinton's critics.)

6. And it is also true that Clinton didn't mount a full-scale assault on the al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, as Clarke advised, but that decision, regrettable as it now seems, was influenced by broad geopolitical considerations. And Bush declined that option as well, until after the 9/11 attacks.

7. If the producers of "The Path to 9/11" unfairly indict the Clinton administration with fabricated scenes and notions, they go out of their way to exonerate the Bush White House by ignoring certain damning facts -- and creating substitutes that make the president look better. The movie shows a smarmy, condescending Condoleezza Rice demoting Clarke in January 2001 when she takes over as national security advisor. Clarke tries to warn her that "something spectacular" is going to happen on American soil, and she assures him that "we're on it," which they assuredly were not.

8. Indeed, the script downplays the neglect of terrorism as a primary threat by the incoming Bush team -- and never mentions the counterterrorism task force, chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, that never met for nine months before 9/11.

9. The famous Aug. 6 presidential daily briefing, which warned the vacationing Bush that al-Qaida intended to strike here, is given due attention. But the movie then shows Rice telling her associates that "as a result of the Aug. 6 PDB, the president wants to take real action" against al-Qaida. But the 9/11 Commission report's section on the PDB clearly states that the August warning was not followed up on by Rice:

"We found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an Al Qaeda attack in the United States." No action was contemplated before 9/11 and the movie's attempt to claim otherwise is another distortion.

10. Nowrasteh's most egregious fictionalizing occurs in Act 4, which depicts a supposed strike on bin Laden's Afghan redoubt that is called off at the last second by Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security advisor, who says, "I don't have that authority." Under cover of night, a CIA agent known only as "Kirk" leads a Special Forces team into the remote mountain compound where the al-Qaida chief is hiding. "The package is ready!" cries Kirk over the satellite phone, but Berger aborts the operation because he doesn't want to take responsibility.

That incident simply never occurred. As Clarke himself would have told Nowrasteh, no CIA officer ever tracked bin Laden to his hideout. Neither did Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader who is shown guiding the aborted operation. The handsome, charismatic Massoud, later assassinated by al-Qaida agents, asks Kirk angrily, "Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?" That sort of rhetoric is frequently uttered by actors portraying characters such as Massoud and O'Neill, who are no longer around to dispute the script.

Had Nowrasteh consulted the 9/11 Commission report, not only would he have found no evidence to support his exciting imaginary assault on the bin Laden compound, but he would also have learned that the underlying assumptions were completely wrong. The report states explicitly, as Clarke and other senior officials have affirmed, that Clinton and Berger ordered the CIA and the military to use any force necessary to get bin Laden."

The Mad Bomber

A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds, or even thousands, of people may die. The authorities cannot make him divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. He refuses to say anything and requests a lawyer to protect his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also be morally justifiable to torture the mad bomber's innocent wife if that is the only way to make him talk? Why?

Up the Crack with a Paddle

Most of us know that it is illegal throughout the United States to inflict cruelty on animals. If you take a board and hit a cow, a pig, a dog, or a cat, for instance, you can be prosecuted and fined and possibly jailed. Animals are protected against cruelty by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

The flogging of military personnel was outlawed over 100 years ago. It also is illegal for a superior to strike a subordinate employee in American industrial plants. Police cannot legally strike a non-resisting person during an arrest. There is only one place left where an adult under the cloak of authority can use violent means against another non-resisting individual. That place is in some American schools.

California banned spanking in public schools in 1987; but it is still legal in 22 states (most of them in the South) for an adult in authority in a school system to take a board, called a paddle, and hit a pupil numerous times with it. The most commonly cited reason for such action is “talking in class”. This punishment is most often inflicted on children with learning and physical disabilities, followed by those children who are members of a minority race.

Those parents and teachers who favor paddling often use the biblical “spare the rod” passage to say that God commands us to discipline our children in that manner. In fact, in the 1800s a pupil could receive a number of lashes, in which he or she would be beaten with a whip or rod, for some of these offenses:

1. For calling each other liars (4 lashes)
2. For wearing long fingernails (2 lashes)
3. Boys and girls playing together (4 lashes)
4. Fighting at school (5 lashes)
5. Boys misbehaving to girls (10 lashes)
6. Swearing at school (8 lashes)
7. Playing cards at school (10 lashes)
8. Climbing for every foot over 3 feet up a tree (1 lash)

A closer reading of the Bible, however, reveals that it was King Solomon, and not God, who voiced this command. And perhaps you know that one of Solomon’s children, Prince Rehoboam, later became known for enslaving and torturing his people. This might be a classic case of an abused child becoming an abuser.

Spanking, as a form of corporal punishment, is administered by striking the buttocks repeatedly with an open hand, a belt or strap, a whip, a switch, a rod, or a paddle.

Those child specialists who favor spanking say that it should not be done in anger, it should be rational and consistent, and it should be used only as a last resort. The child being spanked must perceive the spanking as logical and just. Forcing a child to expose their bare buttocks for a spanking results in the child’s humiliation and a feeling of helplessness.

Anti-spanking advocates assert that one of the best arguments against spanking is that it is abusive, ineffective, and teaches the child that physical violence is acceptable as a method of dealing with other people.

I received corporal punishment twice while going through the public school system, the first time during the first week of the first grade. My female teacher bent me across her knees and whacked by buttocks several times with her open hand. I reacted by headbutting her in the abdomen with considerable force. Fortunately, she was not pregnant at that time.

The second time I received corporal punishment was in the fourth grade. We had a man teacher, an ex-marine of enormous physical proportions, who used a paddle about 30 inches long with holes in it. One day a female pupil told the teacher that I had hit her at recess, which wasn’t true. The teacher made me bend across a desk and hit me at least 20 times with the paddle. That night I looked at my buttocks in the mirror and found that both cheeks of my buttocks and upper thighs were black and blue. If this act of violence had occurred today, that teacher could be arrested and charged with physical assault upon a child. I have never forgotten that incident - the pain, the violence, the humiliation, and the injustice of it all.

But I still won the battle of wills. I refused to cry during the paddling, which infuriated the teacher and possibly led to more whacks. But my stoic demeanor won the admiration of my peer group.

On a lighter note, seventh grade teachers at the junior high often referred disruptive students to the vice-principal for discipline, which he usually administered with a paddle similar to the one I previously described. One day a boy was sent to his office to be disciplined. This young man had a sensitive “trigger” for inducing himself to vomit anytime he desired. The vice-principal instructed the lad to lean across his desk for the paddling. As he did so, the student noted that the lower file drawer filled with student records was open, and as the paddling was administered, he stuck a finger down his throat and emptied his three-hour-old lunch all over the files. The vice-principal was livid and someone said later that he had instructed all the teachers not to send “that little bastard” to his office again.

How about you? When you were in school, did you ever meet with the “Board of Education”? What are your views toward spanking children? Do you favor parents spanking children? Do you approve of school personnel paddling your child? Do you think corporal punishment is effective? Why?

I'll Take Manhattan and the Country Living

If you had an unlimited amount of wealth and could live anywhere you
desired, would your choice be an urban, a suburban, or a rural area?
The reason I ask is that the daughter of a friend of ours is a graphic artist who lives in New York City with her architect husband. For five days a week, they'll take Manhattan for the lifestyle it affords them - good jobs, the excitement of big-city living, the amenities, the Broadway shows, the fine restaurants, and the wealth to afford that kind of lifestyle.

But when the weekend comes, they take a train on a two-hour journey to their country home in Connecticut. Near the train station, they have a car in a parking lot, which they drive for about another hour to get to their
country home. There they relax for the weekend with a slower pace of
life in which they tend their vegetable and flower gardens, relax under the trees, listen to the twittering of birds, and watch the fluttering of butterflies.

Very early in the hours of Monday morning, they are on their way back to big-city living.

What do you think of their choice? Would you do it? Again, go back to the opening paragraph. You have unlimited amounts of wealth and can live anywhere you desire. Would you choose the big city, the suburbs, or a rural area? Or, like the individuals I just mentioned, would you choose to live more than one lifestyle?