ethics news & views

Moral education: Evaluating Emory's efforts alongside peer institutions

Educators miss a critical opportunity if they assume that students are fully formed moral beings by the time they enter college or university, according to the research team from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The college years are perhaps the most crucial period for a solid grounding in moral and civic education, but most educational institutions have pushed these concerns from the center of campus life to the margins and have segregated them to the extracurricular realm.

Transparent democracy: Discerning the shape of emerging global governance

A growing corporate “transparency movement” and growing global civil society—both enabled by information technology—will pull globalization into the side of the good. So says Ann Florini in The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World.

Gollum, gollum: the effect of small cruelties on those in moral transition

Twisted and misshaped by centuries of attachment to the all-powerful One Ring, the creature Gollum finds his way on screen for the first time in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Played as an eighty-year-old heroin addict by the critically lauded Andy Serkis, the computer-generated Gollum follows (and later leads) the hobbit Frodo and his servant Sam on their quest to carry the One Ring to its destruction inside the evil realm of Mordor.

Tolkein fans will no doubt remember Gollum as the previous bearer of the One Ring in the prequel The Hobbit. Frodo’s uncle Bilbo tricks Gollum out of “his precious,” a loss that Gollum seeks bitterly to redress decades later when he tracks Frodo and his accompanying Fellowship en route to Mordor. Finding the two hobbits asleep, alone, and lost after the splintering of the Fellowship, Gollum springs upon them in hopes of retrieving the One Ring.

The ethics of future shock: pressures for the exercise of moral imagination

How can we solve the problems of the future? This is the question at the center of Thomas Homer-Dixon’s book, The Ingenuity Gap. Homer-Dixon is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. Before we can answer the question he has put to us, we need to understand it. Our future will involve systems of increasing complexity that generate complex problems. In order to avoid serious disasters, we will often have to respond to these complex problems with incredible speed.

Globalization and its discontents

By Stacia Brown. In former Clinton economic advisor Joseph Stiglitz’s analysis of "market fundamentalism" within the institutions of globalization, the World Bank gets to play good cop to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) bad cop. The IMF has failed to live up to its original mission of ensuring global economic stability, Stiglitz argues, because it has adopted an unofficial, even secretive, corporate agenda aimed at pursuing the aggressive interests of global finance. In comparison, the World Bank has begun initiating progressive reforms in order to better address the grassroots economic needs of developing countries.

Haunted by the totalitarian past: Lessons in the failure of moral imagination

“Who worries about totalitarianism these days?” we may well ask. After the events of September 11, the specter of totalitarianism seems a faint memory compared to the more pressing global problem of terrorism.

But for Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the two are not so easily separated, for obvious reasons. An unrepentant Marxist and unapologetic Roman Catholic, Zizek sees a totalitarian menace where others see a totalitarian memory. Specifically, Zizek fears that false memories of what totalitarianism was endanger our chances of imagining a more whole society, exercising our moral imaginations, and condemning present evil.

A Just response? Terrorism, democracy, and 9-11

Is the world of September 2002 substantively different from that of September 2001? How much has our country changed since the terrorist attacks of one year ago? As we prepare for the anniversary of what has become commonly known as “9-11,” what is the lasting impact of these events on our daily lives?

Jonathan Schell’s “Letters from Ground Zero” should be mandatory reading as our nation approaches September 2002. While this portion of A Just Response is perhaps the most dated section of the book, the immediacy of reporting, Schell’s proximity to the site of the New York attack and the emotional rawness of these writings offer a window into the tangle of emotions we experienced last year as we watched the towers of the World Trade Center crumble into dust and twisted steel. Schell grapples with the desire to see the terrorists responsible for the devastation brought to justice and the fear that the response from our nation’s leaders might be hasty and out of proportion.

[ Posted by Paul Ficklin-Alred on September 01, 2002 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) ]

Fast food inevitability?

Have you ever complained to others that hamburgers don't taste as good as they did when you were a kid? It isn't just your imagination.

Do you look at the defeated, exhausted faces behind the counter at your local McDonald's and wonder where the happy, fresh-faced employees in the commercials work? Most likely, they don't exist outside the ads.

Servant leadership defiled: Reflections on Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed

In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join the millions of Americans who work full-time and earn poverty-level wages. Ehrenreich, a nationally renowned writer who contributes to The New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, wanted to cover the impact of welfare reform by immersing herself in the world of the working poor in the United States. She and her editor openly wondered how anyone could survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour. He challenged her to find out. So began a yearlong journey, during which Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as an inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce.

[ Posted by Melissa Snarr on March 01, 2002 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) ]

Habits and Hobbits: Message from the Director

In contrast to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with its relatively innocent portrayal of white magic, the first film of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, rises to a different level of complexity. It involves us in a host of perplexing issues and experiences. The harmless hobbits, little people with their underground homes and agrarian life, seem peaceful enough.

Gandalf, the elder sorcerer, early gives us reason to trust his apparent integrity and kindliness. Bilbo Baggins, the prosperous senior hobbit, from all we can tell has been a good father figure to his nephew, Frodo Baggins. He seems to be a respected, if distant, member of his community. He gives a great birthday party for himself, which all the villagers enjoy. Then, at the party’s climax, he bids the community goodbye, and disappears. Literally, disappears before their very eyes.

After the protests: is capitalism the new bad guy?

The last two years have seen a string of mass protests, the most publicized of which has been the anti-WTO protest in Seattle. Amidst the picket signs and shattered McDonald’s storefronts, many are asking if global capitalism has its dark side.

Community in California: What about the rest of us?

When Carolyn Shaffer and Kristin Anundsen were writing Creating Community Anywhere, they forgot one minor point: northern California isn’t the only place to find community.

Given the plethora of innovative collaborative efforts in the San Francisco Bay area, of course, their oversight is understandable. Shaffer and Anundsen live in a region of numerous self-help groups, ecological groups, alternative retirement communities, meditative retreat centers, cooperative housing groups, internet communities, and various organizational and corporate “families.” With so many examples at their doorstep, no wonder the authors assume their book sufficiently delineates the communal territory. They even throw in a few references to the Shakers and Thomas More’s Utopia to cover their historical bases.

What makes community work? A hands-on, grassroots approach

At the beginning of their short book on community-building characteristics, Wilder Research Center associates Paul Mattesich and Barbara Monsey explain the limitations of their study. It only utilizes information already “written and available,” which means that communities without accompanying research studies are not included. Further, their study focuses not on all communities, but solely on those “based on residence and social or psychological attachment” (neighborhoods, urban blocks, etc.).

Teaching for America

In October 1988, Princeton senior Wendy Kopp needed a post-graduation plan. "I was searching for a place to direct my energy that would give me…significant responsibility," she recalls. "I wanted this opportunity right away, not ten or twenty years down the road. More important, I wanted to do something that would make a real difference in the world" (3).

Instilling the fear of God into corporations

In the promotional preface to Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Peter Senge writes, "If Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was the bible for the first industrial revolution, then Natural Capitalism may well prove to be it for the next." While his acclamation might be historically premature, Senge's point is worth noting. Natural Capitalism aims at nothing less than a second industrial revolution.

The end is near: one dollar, one vote, and the dying breath of democracy

"That a peasant may become a king does not render the kingdom democratic." Woodrow Wilson, 1910 (88)

To imagine Thomas Frank standing on a street corner wearing a large sign announcing the end of the world would not be inappropriate, especially if you picture him yelling in a hoarse voice at passersby, say, in downtown Seattle during the World Trade Organization protests. Hair shirt and locusts included, of course.

A return to nature?

In Force of Imagination: The Sense of the Elemental, John Sallis calls philosophers to return to nature. His instruction is not a unique one: pick up any environmentally savvy text these days—or any feminist theory worth its salt—and you'll find similar injunctions. What makes Sallis's work stand out from the crowd—and in my opinion, what makes it worth reading—is its attentive engagement with those philosophers often deemed "the bad guys" by contemporary postmodern and liberation discourses: Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Fichte, Nietzsche, and the Romantic poets.

Isn't it ironic? Rebuilding 'the commons' in an age of skepticism

How can we keep the public arena alive and well in a culture that the journal Hermenaut has called a culture of “fake authenticity,” marked by ironic humor and pre-fabricated “authentic” Irish pubs? Echoing Stephen Carter’s words to Emory last year, Purdy reminds us that public life is not something that exists on its own, but something that exists only insofar as we actively participate in it.

How does a life grow? Palmer listens to the voice of vocation

Toward the end of Let Your Life Speak, author and educator Parker Palmer grieves the shift from agricultural metaphors to manufacturing metaphors in American culture. We no longer frame our lives in terms of seasonal change and rhythm, he says; we frame our lives in terms of how we must construct them. A Chinese child will ask its parent, “How does a baby grow?” But an American child will wonder, “How do you make a baby?” (97) This loss of awareness of our dependence on a power that guides and balances us has led, Palmer argues, to a crisis in American culture.

Changing the subject: Richard Rorty on irony and moral hope

How should we organize our private and public lives in an ironic, mass media world? How can we even go about being ethical persons? Richard Rorty imagines a world where we can be as ironic as our culture and still be profoundly ethical.

On our own terms: Bill Moyers on dying

Improving care for the dying–and ultimately, each of our experiences of dying–is the focus of growing concern for patients, families, health care professionals, and public policy specialists in the United States. From 9 to 10:30 p.m. each night from Sunday, September 10 to Wednesday, September 13, PBS aired a series produced and edited by Judith and Bill Moyers entitled “On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying.” The series followed the journey of more than a dozen individuals, their families, and their caregivers through the dying experience as they, according to Bill Moyers, “help us to understand dying not as a failure of medicine, but as a natural part of life.”

Review of Fleming book

Getting Ahead Without Losing Heart (Savannah, GA.: Frederic C. Beil Publishing, Inc., 1999) by Andrew T. Fleming with foreward by James W. Fowler

This book explores the career and lifestyle choices of seven high achievers, who chronicle in their own voices important educational and career choices. Readers meet, among others, a successfull Wall Street trader who dreams of becoming a doctor, a Dartmouth graduate who happily works as a hotel desk clerk, and a former automobile shop secretary who makes it into investment banking and must choose between the job she earned and the man she loves. These intimate and insightful accounts are woven together by the author's own journey on and off the fast track during the period of these interviews. Each story includes questions for reflection and discussion and an appendix of book and films for those who wish to explore life-work themes further.

Review of Sharon Welch, Sweet Dreams in America

Sweet Dreams in America: Making Ethics and Spirituality Work (New York: Routledge, 1999)

Oppositional language is often the backbone of social change. The moral vocabularies of certainty, demonizing the other, and self-righteousness are clear and powerful motivators. Battle cries of "us versus them," "justice versus injustice," and "good versus evil" mobilize protestors seeking "voice in the system."

Review of Turner book

A Journey Toward Servant Leadership (Macon, GA.: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 2000), by William B. Turner with Delane Chappell

This is a personal narrative of the life and spiritual journey of William B. Turner, chairman of the Executive Committee of Synovus Financial Corp., a book that, in the words of Senator Sam Nunn, "illustrates in words...how to live a full, abundant life through full, abundant use of all of God's gifts in our daily challenges."