Category: Responsibility

Character Education is Up to Parents, Not Schools

7/31/2019

Albert Einstein notably said that, “Most people think that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong. It is character.” Einstein should know, because it was at his urging that Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Manhattan Project, which would develop the world’s first atomic bomb. Though he was not personally involved in the Manhattan Project, it was a decision which Einstein regretted his entire life – he was horrified by having contributed to the destruction that the bomb made possible.

In my estimation, we are typically educated so that we will get into the right college and be successful monetarily. Far less emphasis is placed on developing a strong moral character, which is often only an afterthought. If intellectual achievement outpaces the development of moral character, we get a population of people bent on being smart and successful but not much concerned about the needs of others.

How does someone develop moral character? I'll give you a hint; not in school. The largest scientific study conducted on the subject concluded that school-wide character education programs produce no improvements in student behavior or academic performance. Moral character develops in the family and through exposure to various life experiences. Parents therefore need to be intentional about character education for their children, and in this post, I’ll give some tips for how to do it.

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Why Radical Feminists and Radical Men's Rights Advocates Are Both Wrong

1/9/2014

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There is a lot to dislike about the radical, or extreme feminist and men's rights movements. Both believe that they are combating sexism against their respective groups. I argue that by focusing on gender difference as the source of every ill, they are instead promoting a divisive, dominance based paradigm. Both groups tend to have flawed and irrational world views, and to promote a dualistic ideology of dominion and victimization, rather than one of equality, mutual respect and partnership.

The feminists of the the 20th century helped to level the playing field for women in the West. Unfortunately, the gender struggle of the past decades has radicalized a subset of individuals. We need to realize that we will not get equality by pointing fingers and complaining about which gender is or has been the biggest victim of oppression. The result of the present situation, is that both genders currently face sexism in society; women because of troglodyte viewpoints, and men because of feminist backlash.

Perceiving everything in terms of gender difference is a method of divide an conquer, which keeps people from focusing on our common humanity, and from having empathy for one another. The problem lies specifically with the age-old dominion and oppression based world view. Both the extremes radical feminism and radical men's rights, matriarchy and patriarchy, imply an unethical domination of one gender by the other, leading to even more misunderstanding.

Both matriarchy and patriarchy represent a failure of the ancient egalitarian ideal. Contrary to popular belief, patriarchy was not always the dominant paradigm throughout history, and it need not be going forward. Patriarchy is flawed, and matriarchy is also flawed. Neither men nor women should game the system to their advantage, or try to unethically assert power or superiority over other people.

There is another way; egalitarianism. Egalitarians acknowledge that every person, male and female, has equal innate rights. No individual or gender is entitled to special privileges, because that would imply that one individual or group has rights that other humans do not have. The result of true egalitarianism, not one which is forced on people from the top down, is a partnership or equalitarian world view, where each gender's contributions are naturally viewed as equally important to society and part of a larger, all-encompassing whole. Each gender balances and compliments, rather than conflicts with the other.

What does this have to do with ethics, you ask? Much! The true source of domination does not emanate from some abstraction, such as patriarchy or society, but rather, it originates from within the individual. I concede that while oppressive societies can limit free will, individuals choose to promote domination or freedom by virtue of their beliefs and actions. People can choose daily to be ethical, not to use their free will to dominate others, and to eliminate any arrogant and irrational beliefs in their own gender's superiority. Then we will have truly equal partnership and respect between the sexes.

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Breaking Bad's Secret Message: Actions Have Consequences

12/5/2013

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Most people watch television to be entertained. AMC’s popular series Breaking Bad, is a rare show which entertains and does something infinity more important; it examines serious moral issues in grave detail. Vince Gilligan, the creator of the show, stated, “If there’s a larger lesson to Breaking Bad, it's that actions have consequences.”

The actions in question often relate to the downward spiral of the show’s anti-hero, Walter White, who after a cancer diagnosis, goes from ordinary high school chemistry teacher to brilliant and violent meth kingpin. While overtly a modern Western about science, drugs, and criminality, Breaking Bad is secretly a moral treatise.

Widely touted as one of the best television series of all time, Breaking Bad concluded in September 2013. The show has also been criticized for its grittiness, cynicism and lack of humanity. There may be certain times when viewers will inevitably feel cynical because the show accurately portrays human failings, consequences and the tendency for self deceit. All moral choices are human, but some are just not pro-humanity. The show's deeper purpose is to realistically explore overarching themes of moral choice, personal conduct, responsibility, self-deception, and karma.

Note: if you have not seen the entire series, there are spoilers below.

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What Everyone Needs to Know About Violence and Self-Defense

11/30/2013

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In my experience, many people do not have a well thought out position regarding interpersonal violence and self defense. The prevalent attitude seems to vary between two extremes; a naive type of pacifism on one hand, or a let's get em’ type of aggression on the other. Both positions are unreasonable in different ways. This post provides a deeper examination of the ethics of violence and self defense. When properly understood, non-aggression and forceful self-defense are not morally incompatible.

A careful study reveals that even thinkers credited with advocating pacifism, including Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King, and at least one Buddhist sect, advocate self-defensive force as moral, necessary and courageous. This makes sense, of course, because the need for self defense will persist until everyone in the world non-aggressive. Therefore, the most pragmatic and ethical position is one of conscious non-initiation of violence, which at the same time does not preclude forceful self-defense if necessary.

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The Shadow: How Introspection Can Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Yourself

9/25/2013

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It is basically an inevitable condition of living that you are going to screw up at some point. Even the most ethical people occasionally let their guard down and make mistakes. What differentiates some people from others, however, is the desire to take personal responsibility for mistakes, learn from them, and move past them. Many people have good intentions, but they fall short of being able to really change. A mistake or a fault is a thing that we must face whether it is happy or not. The process of correcting faults and improving your character has historically been called the Great Work.

Some people handle mistakes by convincing themselves that whatever happened wasn’t their fault, blaming others, or trying to forget about the situation altogether. The desire to ignore our faults and mistakes is strong because society teaches us to reject rather than embrace certain negative qualities. However, ignoring our mistakes can make things more difficult in the long run because if we do not learn from our mistakes, we may end up repeating them.

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