Texas Has the Best Textbooks in the Country. Or do we?

27 02 2010

My good friend Nancy W from Little Rock Ark wrote me the other day with a concern she has with State Board of Education of Texas.  You might ask why does someone in Arkansas care about the SBOE?  The reason is that the SBOE of Texas is the state that about 46 or 47 states in the US follow when it comes to deciding on school books for their schools.  So, don’t we make good book choices?  Not according to many citizens and school officials.  Texas has become the battlefield for issues revolving around science and creationism and more recently over what is being included in history and government books as it pertains to references to the founding fathers creating a Christian nation.  According to many, this is first of all not true and trying create the impression that that this misrepresentation is a clear breach of the “wall of separation between Church and state” that Thomas Jefferson spoke about.  The current issue is whether the United States was conceived as a Christian nation.  Conservatives argue that it was.   Others would say that the founding fathers even though religious espoused the idea that God was not necessarily a Christian God.  Consider the words of the Declaration of Independence that states, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation…..that all men are endowed by their Creator….  This asserts that God has a hand in the affairs of men but that is more a deist conception of God, rather than a Trinitarian God.

 A good book to give a balanced assessment of religion in the creation of the United States is Jon Mecham’s book American Gospel.  Here are several quotes attributed to the founders. (2006)

 “Writing to a Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., in 1790, President Washington assured his Jewish countrymen that America “gives…bigotry no sanction.”  In a treaty with the Muslim nation of Tripoli initiated by Washington, completed by John Adams, and ratified by the senate in 1797, the Founders declared that, “ the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…” p. 19

 Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1790:“ I believe in one God, creator of the universe.  That he governs it by his Providence.  That he ought to be worshiped.  That the most acceptable service we can render to him is doing good to his other children.  That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.  These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever sect I meet with them.

 As to Jesus of Nazareth…I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, an I have…some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.” P.2

 “On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles,” he [Jefferson] said, “ all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning, and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”  P. 29

 “I never told my religion nor scrutinized that of another,” Jefferson wrote. “I never attempted to make a convert, nor wish to changer another’s creed.  I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives…” “ For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read,” Jefferson said.  “By the same test the world must judge me.” P.35

 The most controversial appointee running for re-election Don McLeroy and his opponent Thomas Ratliff are so far down the Republican primary ballot they’re lost in the myriad of judges, representative and straw votes that it’ll be difficult to find them, much less know the issues involved.

 I’m sorry Nancy, but anyway, here’s your comment it its entirety.

 I believe it is unethical to use one’s narrow religious beliefs to determine laws and regulations that apply to public schools. Of course, a public servant makes decisions based on his/her belief and faith, but not when it goes against scientific data and affects the common good. The enrollment of children in public education is very diverse and different from a private academy which may teach values that reflect their faith.  For instance, I would not vote for something that proposed a prayer which could not be accepted by all children in the school classroom (ie, Jewish, Muslim, Catholics, etc) and I would not propose teaching a particular view of the universe that opposed the best knowledge of science. Even though I had retired from teaching when I served on the State Board of Education in my state, I learned that curriculum issues should be driven by the professional staff.  I believe it is unethical to use one’s narrow religious beliefs to determine laws and regulations that apply to public schools. Of course, a public servant makes decisions based on his/her belief and faith, but not when it goes against scientific data and affects the common good. The enrollment of children in public education is very diverse and different from a private academy which may teach values that reflect their faith.  For instance, I would not vote for something that proposed a prayer which could not be accepted by all children in the school classroom (ie, Jewish, Muslim, Catholics, etc) and I would not propose teaching a particular view of the universe that opposed the best knowledge of science. Even though I had retired from teaching when I served on the State Board of Education in my state, I learned that curriculum issues should be driven by the professional staff.


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Categories : 1, ethics

Tit for Tat Ethics

11 02 2010

 

In past posts, we have considered factors influencing ethics without much consideration of the structures that effect person’s responses to those behaviors.  This post deals with one way of responding to another person or institutions behavior.  Game theorist Robert Axelrod set up a competition to see what strategy would be most successful in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma game (remember the prisoner’s dilemma).  Solutions were submitted by a large number of competitors with the object being to see who would be most successful.  Two hundred rounds of the game were played with the winning strategy and surprisingly simple solution being Tit for Tat.  The strategy was as follows:

In the first round, one player cooperated and after that did whatever the other player did the previous round.  In other words, if the other player cooperated, player one cooperated.  If player two defected, then player one responded in a like manner.  What’s fascinating is that Tit for Tat never won a round.  The best it ever did was a tie, but over two hundred iterations, it had the best score. 

The features that make the game work is that it is “nice because the player using it never betrays first.  It is provokable in that it quickly and reliably punishes the other player’s betrayal.  It is forgivable because it can quickly return to cooperation even after defection and it is straightforward because it is simple enough that other players see that cooperation is the best choice.”  ( Games People Play, The Teaching Company, 2008)

Whether this system is workable in all situations in real life is debatable but I think there are situations that it applies.  Remember our discussion about putting children in timeout and parents saying that it didn’t work.  The fact was that in most of those situations parents were inconsistent in carrying out of consequences and threats.  In foreign relations we see that with dictators and demagogues it is difficult to deal with them if they see that when they push against other nations and those nations acquiesce to their pushing the belligerent nation pushes even more until either they get what they want or someone places serious sanctions against them.  North Korea and Iran are current examples of this.  And we saw this same response with Hitler in WWII.  On the other hand, we have seen that Israel has taken a very aggressive posture towards aggression towards it and have used the Tit for Tat strategy very effectively.  You attack us and we will immediately retaliate.  On the other hand they have not always done a very good job with their own citizens as it pertains to illegal building of settlements on the West Bank. 

For individual Christians who believe in forgiveness Tit for Tat may seem severe.  We believe that everyone should be given another chance and that is as it should be.  But we also know that in both the old and new testament there was the concept of consequences and even though forgiveness may flow out of a broken relationship, consequences still occur.  So the question that I ask you, the reader, to consider and comment on are:

  1. How do you see Tit for Tat working or not working?
  2. What situations might you use Tit for Tat in your own relationships?
  3. What better ways might you engage persons that you feel have broken ethical covenant?

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Categories : ethics

Ethical Conflict

22 12 2009

Ex. 8:12-15

“After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh.  And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields.  They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them.  But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.”

In part two of Relational Ethics, Politics and Conflict we explored the idea of covenant as a means of dealing with conflict and the basis for establishing reciprocal ethical standards.  But this may be putting the cart before the horse.  Theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr in his book Moral Man and Immoral Society takes a more radical position on conflict than many sociologist and academics.  He states, “the relations between groups must therefore always be predominately political rather than ethical, that is, they will be determined by the proportion of power which each group possesses….  The coercive factors, in distinction to the more purely moral and rational factors, in political relations can never be sharply differentiated and defined.  It is not possible to estimate exactly how much a party to a social conflict is influenced by a  rational argument or by the threat of force….Whatever increase in social intelligence and moral goodwill may be achieved in human history, may serve to mitigate the brutalities of social conflict, but they cannot abolish the conflict itself.”  Theologian Bernard Loomer also addresses the issue in terms of power inequalities and states that “we seldom relinquish our power voluntarily.  We loosen our grip and make our concessions only when we are forced to do so by some competing group that has acquired sufficient power to bring us to the negotiating table, as the history of the labor-management conflict and the modern women’s movement illustrate….We tend to trample on or remain indifferent to those people whom we feel we can safely ignore.”  Throughout history we see this phenomenon occurring over and over.  In the Exodus scripture we note that Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites go to keep from having frogs throughout the kingdom.  But when Moses and Aaron leave the court he changes his mind and decides not to let them go.  That’s why it took seven plagues to get Pharaoh to let them go.  Even then he reneges on his promise and goes after them with his army, only to have his army destroyed.  Power is difficult for despot to relinquish.

            In order to understand this inequality of power we not only need to address the issues of economic and social power but also in-group, out-group relationships.  In-groups are those persons who form a power relationship that is dominant in the particular culture that it exists.  Out-groups are those who lack the power of influence of the in-group and are considered in some sense to be inferior to the in-group.  In the Pharaoh, Moses scriptures Pharaoh was the in-group and Moses was the out-group.  These differentiations exist in multitudinous ways where an in-group may be an out-group as it relates to another more powerful group and vice versa.  Even though Moses was perceived as being the weaker, because of his relationship with God, he was really the stronger. 

Because an in-group sees itself as being better and having more self-esteem and power over the other, ethical treatment of the out-group may suffer.  Ethical behavior of the out-group may also be affected.  In the arena of race relations a white in-group may feel itself superior to a black out-group and therefore snub or treat them with less respect and take advantage of them including doing bodily harm to out-group members.  The out-group may view this treatment as unjust and justify stealing, burning or otherwise breaking existing laws as punishment and “pay-back” for past grievances.

            In the instance the O.J. Simpson murder trial that ended in acquittal, most whites who saw the trial believed that Simpson was guilty while the majority black jurors and the African American public tended to believe he was innocent.  There were many in the black community who may have believed that he was guilty but that the acquittal was pay back for past injustices to blacks. 

            If there is an inequality of power in societies that effect ethics how then is it that some cultures and situations are able to make covenants that bolster relational structures?  Where then, does the concept of covenant in ethical conflict fit?  I suggest that there are steps that precede many conflicted power struggles before covenantal relationships can exist.  Some of the possible steps are as follows:

  1. Out-group seeks to gain redress for injustices
  2. In-group will not meet or recognize validity of out-group
  3. Out-group continues to seek redress and to meet.
  4. In-group uses force and physical or economic intimidation to suppress out-group
  5. Out-group enlist secondary support from both inside and outside their group
  6. Out-group uses demonstrations and economic sanctions against in-group
  7. A breech occurs in the wall of support with moderates breaking ranks with in- group.  Moderates seek change to ameliorate and pacify out-group. 
  8. The beginning of relational power sharing
  9. Forming a permanent covenant

All during the process the out-group attempts to have a dialogue with the in-group or to forcibly displace the in-group.  In the earlier stages this does not happen and may take years for negotiations to begin in earnest.  At some point with or without a plan developed, the two groups form the semblance of covenant.  The covenant may begin with the in-group acknowledging that the out-group has a right to exist and to bring grievances.  Conversations may start and stop at every point of the negotiations.  And from the outside, constituents from both the in-group and out-group may do whatever they can to maintain the status quo, even when bloodshed occurs. 

The situation may be complicated when one or both sides engage in violence against the other side or when there exists a myth of entitlement such as the violence in Northern Ireland and in the Palestinian, Israeli conflict that has been fueled by both reality and myth that justifies further violence. (Def. myth—Attempt to state humanity’s faith or belief in the reality of experience and the meaning and value of that reality for life on the historical level.[Christian Word Book]) In both of these instances each side to the conflict are bound together by an ingrained historical myth that must be dealt with before change can occur.  Often the full impact of the myth cannot even be discussed either with the other group or with outsiders.  Much of the groups self is bound up in the myth.  In these instances there is little incentive to listen to the others point of view, their history, their myth or for them to treat the other ethically.  Their anger, prejudice and mythology are the glue that binds them together. And in a perverse way it binds both adversarial groups together in a seemingly endless Gordian knot.

In order to bring about change there needs to be a new story, a new created mythology that embraces the possibilities for living together in the future.  This has to come out of dialogue and will not have come about as the initial goal of that dialogue.  It comes about as a result of a continuing dialogue through each side telling their story and in the process, creating a newly constructed story.  

Coming soon—a process of creating a new story.


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Categories : ethics

Relational Ethics, Politics and Conflict

12 12 2009

  In our article entitled “The Difference Between the Moral and the Ethical” we considered some of the ethical challenges for an individual working in an organization.  Even though there is not always a clear cut distinction between the ethical and the unethical, it tends to be less challenging since the issues that a person faces are more concrete, definable individually definable. 

However, the larger the organization, the more opportunities there are for missteps and unintended consequences.  The decision matrix becomes larger and complex.  And in some organizations the tendencies exist to see the organization itself and its continued survival as the primary goal.   Setting that concern aside for a later discussion, we know that within organizations there are constituent stakeholder groups that must be considered when making decisions.  Some of these include:

  1. Shareholders
  2. Management
  3. Workers
  4. Customers
  5. Suppliers
  6. The public
  7. Governmental entities

Each of these constituent groups has a stake in the future of the organization.  Depending on the power of a constituency, decisions concerning one group will affect the others stake and subsequent outcomes.  And due to the inevitable imbalance in power of each group, decisions will impact possible ethical, moral, legal and responsible behaviors. 

Not only are these of concern when considering ethical behaviors, but organizations (particularly large entities) have to grapple with issues of disclosure whether in annual and quarterly reports or with the media. 

We don’t have to go far to see the consequences of these perplexing situations.  Examples abound:

  1. Making sub-prime loans to unqualified people with the idea of fulfilling home ownership as the American dream for everyone.
  2. The bundling of these loans into packages that were rated AAA even though they were not.
  3. Giving brokers and investment persons huge bonuses for putting together complicated derivative concepts that very few people understood. 
  4. Bailing out banks and institutions that were “too big to fail”

And as we know there has been much second guessing and finger pointing at all concerned.  To name just a few:

  1. Congress for making it possible for unqualified parties to buy a home.
  2. Congress for allowing banks and other financial institutions to get so large and complex that bailouts became inevitable.
  3. The institutions for not having the discipline to monitor their programs and insure that they were sound.
  4. Individuals who took the deals that later made them lose everything they had.

 

We could go right down the line with the blame game as each constituent group bought into the shell game.  Whether we consider the events leading up to the fall to be unethical, irresponsible or just stupid, much of our economy bought into it.  And now as we try to work our way out of the situation, it seems that we are going back to the same old behaviors and prescriptions.  We’re told that the consumer is the one that will get us out of the mess by buying more instead of trying to bolster our infrastructure and focus on education, paying off debt and saving for retirement.  We continue to witness the increased economic power of countries like China and the oil producing nations and talk a lot about energy independence, our national debt and the unabated orgy of spending for goods that most people don’t need, but feel they have to have.  We’re like an addict who knows the outcome of his addiction but can’t seem to have the discipline to change. 

So, are we doomed to this never ending cycle of “exuberant optimism”, catastrophe, renewal, and back to social amnesia?  Whether it’s the prophets of the Bible or modern day prophet’s, history would indicate that this is our human condition.  Rational philosophy and liberal theology tend to imply that humanity is evolving and that humanity’s dark side will be conquered by reason.  Sociologist Kimball Young states,

 “the only way in which collective conflicts, as well as individual conflicts, can be successfully and hygienically solved is by securing a redirection of behavior toward a more feasible environmental objective.  This can be accomplished most successfully by the rational reconditioning of attitudes on a higher neuro-psychic or intellectual symbolic plane to the facts of science, preferably through a free discussion with a minimum of propaganda.”

 On the other hand, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr sees the issue quite differently. 

  “What is lacking among all these moralists, whether religious or rational, is an understanding of the brutal character of the behavior of all human collectives, and power of self-interest and collective egoism in all inter-group relations.”  He goes on to say, “The relations between groups must therefore always be predominantly political rather than ethical, that is, they will be determined by the proposition of power which each group possesses…”.   “Whatever increase in social intelligence and moral goodwill may be achieved in human history, may serve to mitigate the brutalities of social conflicts, but they cannot abolish the conflict itself.”  

 With this in mind we will now move to how power and conflict have been and can be used to bring about change.


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