Should College Graduates Swear an Oath to Social Responsibility?

Peter Singer writes favorably about a new trend at Harvard Business School. New MBAs are taking an oath to use their skills and credentials to promote corporate social responsibility rather than just the bottom line. For years, mainstream capitalist theorists, such as Milton Friedman, have argued that the only responsibility corporate managers have is to make as much profit as they can for their stockholders (as long as they obey the law). Now, with the meltdown of the housing and credit markets, some MBAs are thinking they need to have a wider ethical perspective.

Singer admits that over 80% of Harvard MBAs have not signed on board to be more ethically minded, but he has hope.

This made me wonder whether college graduates shouldn't be encouraged to think about their social responsibility. As Singer points out, the idea of professionals swearing to "do no harm" is not a new idea. We should remember that the idea of a bachelor's degree comes from the medieval notion of having succeeded at being a baccalaureus--literally a squire to a knight. That is, one has mastered a set of special skills supposedly to be used for the benefit of society (saving widows and orphans and such).

There is a Graduation Pledge Alliance that champions the idea of college graduates taking such an oath. The oath goes something like this: “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.” The idea has not really taken off beyond a few liberal arts and religious schools.

Is the idea of college graduate social responsibility an idea whose time has come or naive wishful thinking?

The Right to Deliberate: How the Health Care Debate Might Get with the Times

News reports from the past week suggest that Obama has fallen prey to the romanticism of the colonial New England; he has a nostalgia for the town hall meeting. These get togethers allowed village members to gather together to voice their views on matters of common concern in front of town officials and one another. They were sort of the nice version of the Salem witch trials.

Obama, and other Democrats, have been using this forum to raise awareness of the his health care reform proposal. But it seems that in many of these events, well-organized protesters have been able to take the focus off the specifics of legistlation and onto the expression of their anxiety, fear, and willingness to shout down anyone who disagrees with them.

James Fiskin suggests that maybe we should get over this nostalgia and update our political interactions in favor of deliberative poll forums.

Instead of a forum that gives a self-selected assortment of activists an opportunity to vent their anger and frustration, a deliberative poll forum encourages deliberation among participants. This means that people are chosen as representatives of the variety of opinions in a community, are given packets before the meeting that contain information and data about the specific question at issue, and then are charged to talk ("discourse") with one another. It is not sufficient to simply chant or repeat the views that one had at the beginning of the meeting. The hope is that the group can actually think through the issue together, weigh evidence, looks at counterexamples, and perhaps come away with a different understanding of the problem than they had when they came in.

Fiskin notes:

"...we have collaborated on more than 50 deliberative polls around the world. The process has certainly been shown to help overcome sharp divisions. In a 2007 deliberative poll in Northern Ireland on education reform, the percentage willing to agree that “most Catholics” or “most Protestants” were “open to reason” rose 16 points. Those agreeing that most Protestants or Catholics were “trustworthy” also increased considerably.

One we held in Bulgaria, about policies toward the Roma, or Gypsies, produced strongly reconciliatory policies at a time when loud fringe groups wanted to build walls around the Roma communities. And in a deliberative poll in Brussels just before the recent European Union elections, people from 27 countries, partaking in discussions in 21 languages, moved to support more tolerant policies toward immigrants.

If deliberative polls can produce mutual understanding in such cases of sharp ethnic and political conflict and across such linguistic divisions, surely this process can help members of Congress have civil, constructive conversations with their own constituents about health care."

For all the talk about politicians such as Obama tapping into new technology, like Facebook and Twitter, for campaigning, maybe we should also consider new ways of doing democracy that don't harken back to the days of powdered wigs and horse drawn carriages.

Sotomayor is Confirmed 68-31

I spoke to a group of Latin@ high school students today and told them we need them to be the leaders of the community in the future. I told them we need to achieve like Sonia.

Should 39th Become Cesar Chavez Blvd in Portland? Interview on the Mark and Dave show (1190 KEX AM)

(Cesar Chavez Street in Austin, Texas. By Larry Miller via Flickr)

I was interviewed on the Mark and Dave Show on 1190 KEX Am News radio yesterday about the legacy of Cesar Chavez. You can listen in here (the show plays during rush hour from 4-7pm. My interview is during the last hour, about 3/4 of the way through the podcast)

Yesterday, the Portland City Council voted to rename 39th Avenue after Cesar Chavez. Seems like there is a very big political controversy over this. For the past few years, the City Council has made missteps in trying to get a street named for Chavez, angering various groups in the process.

As I said in the interview, I think its appropriate that a major city on the West Coast do something to honor Chavez (especially considering how much agriculture is part of the Oregon economy!) I don't really have an opinion as to whether a street is the best way to do that.

What I think is unfortunate is how the issue of the street becomes one of recognizing Latino/a contributions to the city ( some of the mayor's remarks suggest that this is a way of honoring Latino/a history in Portland). This reinforces the idea that Chavez was an ethnic leader most of all. Chavez always pointed out that the farmworker movement, and the United Farm Workers in particular, was multi-racial. In fact, the first big strike by the farmworkers was organized by Mexican and Filipino workers (led by Larry Itilong). Here is Itilong, alongside United Auto Worker labor leader Walter Reuther, and Chavez:



Personally, I think it would be great if Portland had a public school named after Chavez. Maybe one of the Portland Community College branches? How about a work center for day laborers in NE so they they could have a place to meet, instead of having to stand around the street corners off Burnside? Maybe one that could offer legal advice, provide child care, and even English classes for free? Something that could make a real tangible difference in the quality of worker's lives would truly honor Chavez's legacy.

Guerilla Philosophy: Is there room for philosophical graffiti?

The London Underground drivers are exposing commuters to philosophical thoughts ranging from Sartre to Gandhi (presumably over the speakers?). Here some philosophers and politicians share what aphorisms they would like to hear.

This made me think of what it would be like to do guerilla philosophy--graffiti with a philosophical twist, spread out across public spaces. Such graffiti is common in Latin America (Eduardo Galeano is good at collecting this "street wisdom." He has said: "The walls are the publishers of the poor".)


(Translation: Poverty is a time bomb)

Anyway, here is my selection for a philosophical nugget in the public sphere:

"With individuals, as with nations, respect for the rights of others means peace"

Benito Juarez

(Photo by Guillermo Campos via Flickr. Street art in Coyoacan, Mexico)

The Revolution Will Not be Twittered: Some Skepticism on Twitter and Politics

Since most mainstream journalists have been neutralized in Iran, news of the protests pouring out to the world has come from social media, particularly Twitter. Twice now, previously in Moldova, and now in Iran, Twitter has become a tool for people to use in revolutionary political circumstances. It has helped to coordinate mass actions and to spread news about authoritarian repression.

But does it transform political action?

Mike Madden, in this piece in Salon.com, thinks not. Social media has been useful in documenting what is going on, getting information out, but it has not been something that radically changes how political action is taking place. Indeed, he worries at how easily social media can be blocked and then subverted by officials to spread disinformation and confuse activists.

Michael Walzer (one of my favorite political thinkers) muses here that its not clear whether the internet has changed political action very much.

In order to change things, people need to get out and be organized. Twitter and Facebook can be useful in getting people information and mobilizing mass rallies. But mobilization is not the same thing as organizing. Getting a bunch of folks to show up to a protest can be a good thing, but really, what matters more is if you can get them to stick around afterwards to do what Walzer calls "scut work"--filling envelopes, handing out fliers, cleaning up the meeting place, and generally showing their dedication to a group ideal.

If you have people who are willing to show up to protests, you have activists. But activism is usually very "flash in the pan" kind of activity--going to a rally, signing a petition, writing a letter. These things are important, no doubt. But what I take Walzer to suggest is that a social movement, in order to challenge entrenched power, needs organizers--people who are willing to do the activism, but also the less visible, and less publicized/glamorous, work of fundraising, phone banking, door to door knocking, and scut. (For an excellent discussion of the difference between organizing and activism, see this essay by Mark Rudd)

Organizing work is more long term and about building relationships with people so that they become aware of an issue and of the group of people who want to do something about that issue. This is not quite the same thing as creating a network, which social media is really good at. To say that people are in a network does not really say much about the quality of the linkage (think of all the people who might be your Facebook friends or followers on Twitter--to say they are all linked up does not fully describe the differences or similarities between them all. After all, we are all networked or linked up to Kevin Bacon by six degrees of separation, but that really doesn't tell us anything very interesting about the power relationships in those links).

There is a really great story that, I think, really captures the difference between activism and organizing (and also hints at the tedium of organizing and why it might not be so interesting to many): Some young activists went to see Cesar Chavez to find out how he made the farmworker movement so successful--building a powerful union out of literally nothing. He replied: "Well, we talked to one person, and then another person, and then another person, and then another person." No, they said, what's the secret to organizing? He answered: "You talk to one person, then another, then another, and then another."

Organizing, then, creates a group solidarity among individuals through discussion and deliberation that they might not have had before. It gives them a sense that they can accomplish actions together (Hannah Arendt says this is what power really is). Instead of being simply an aggregation of bodies at a rally, they are are group of colleagues united in a cause, trying to construct new opportunities for different kinds of political action. Organizing creates those relationships. Social media, it seems, can help the work of a movement get done faster, but it cannot replace the need to raise consciousness and a sense of agency that is the essence of political action.

(Photo: By Kamyar Adl on Flickr)

Is Marriage Equality Radical Enough? Judith Butler on Same Sex Marriage, Polyamory, and the State

New Hampshire becomes the sixth state to legalize same sex marriage today. The New York Times calls it another step in "mainstream Amerca" coming to "accept" the idea of marriage equality.

Judith Butler, in this new interview in The Monthly Review, talks about the conservative trend behind the marriage equality movement. She worries about it having the effect of normalizing certain kinds of relationship configurations, namely two individuals in a special legal/romantic bond, while making other kinds of romantic bonds seem perverse or unnatural. Moreover, she also considers that the marriage equality movement reinforces the idea that recognition by the state should be something that our affective relationships require for validation. Here's an except from a really good read:



Butler :"Of course, if marriage exists, then homosexual marriage should also exist; marriage should be extended to all couples irrespective of their sexual orientation; if sexual orientation is an impediment, then marriage is discriminatory. For my part, I don't understand why it should be limited to two people, this appears arbitrary to me and might potentially be discriminatory; but I know this point of view is not very popular. However, there are forms of sexual organisation that do not imply monogamy, and types of relationship that do not imply marriage or the desire for legal recognition -- even if they do seek cultural acceptance. There are also communities made up of lovers, ex-lovers and friends who look after the children, communities that constitute complex kinship networks that do not fit the conjugal pattern.

I agree that the right to homosexual marriage runs the risk of producing a conservative effect, of making marriage an act of normalisation, and thereby presenting other very important forms of intimacy and kinship as abnormal or even pathological. But the question is: politically, what do we do with this? I would say that every campaign in favour of homosexual marriage ought also to be in favour of alternative families, the alternative systems of kinship and personal association. We need a movement that does not win rights for some people at the expense of others. And imagining this movement is not easy.

The demand for recognition by the state should go hand in hand with a critical questioning: what do we need the state for? Although there are times that we need it for some kinds of protection (immigration, property, or children), should we allow it to define our relationships? There are forms of relation that we value and that cannot be recognised by the state, where the recognition of civil society or the community is enough. We need a movement that remains critical, that formulates these questions and keeps them open."

Empathy, Equity, and the Wise Latina Judge: Sotomayor and the Supreme Court Oath of Office

The conservatives may have point about Sonia Sotomayor. Some pundits have pointed out that the oath of office for the Supreme Court seems to dismiss the kind of judicial attitude espoused by Sotomayor and Obama. That is, it seems to disallow "empathy" as a judicial tool, and certainly prohibits anyone from claiming that certain "standpoints" (perhaps such as those by a "wise Latina judge"--that now infamous phrase of Sotomayor's) ought to be epistemically privileged in legal decision making. Here is the text of the oath:

“I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (title) under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

One commentator (who has a philosophy degree from Stanford!) suggests that these words immediately disqualify Sotomayor from the Supreme Court. According to Bryan Fischer, she has said that she will take into account "persons" and will rule based on factors such as empathy with the identity of the petitioners in court, rather than strict impartiality as the oath calls for.

I don't know much about the history of the word-smithing behind this oath but the phrase "...I will administer justice without respect to persons," is a curious one. Given the clause that follows ("and do equal right to the poor and to the rich"), the phrase might suggest that a judge is not to allow the identity, or reputation, or influence of an individual in a case, to sway an understanding of the appropriate application of the law. This would be a general warning against bias or favoritism.

Yet, commentators are taking this wording to suggest that "impartiality" means not taking into account any particularities of a person's background or history. In laying out his criteria for choosing a justice, Obama said he thought we needed:

“... somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

Jonah Goldberg, of The Nation Review, calls this deeply offensive, i.e, racist, and nonsense:

"The reasoning here is a riot of dubious assumptions. Obama and Sotomayor both assume that a firsthand understanding of the plight of the poor or the African-American or the gay or the old will automatically result in justices voting a certain (liberal) way. “I would hope,” Sotomayor said in 2001, “that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” This is not only deeply offensive, it is also nonsense on stilts. Clarence Thomas understands what it is like to be poor and black better than any justice who has ever sat on the bench. How’s that working out for liberals?"

These views seem to imply that the administration of justice is a mechanical thing. Law is like an algorithm: anyone can plug in a few variables and get the same answer. Indeed, some commentators are now using former Justice O'Connor's saying that a wise man and wise woman should come to the same conclusion as some kind of repudiation of Sotomayor and Obama.

If this is how the oath of office is to be interpreted, then I say so much the worse for the oath. It seems to assume a very simplistic idea of legal decision making that ignores a fundamental virtue of jurisprudence: equity.

As Plato and Aristotle understand it, equity is a kind of correction to the written law administered by real live judges.

In The Statesman, Plato writes against the idea of the law as some of kind of system of rules that can be applied like a logical proof:

"The differences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule. No art can lay down any rule which will last forever...."

Equity, then, is an art (or more accurately, the practical wisdom) of learning how to take into account certain details of a particular case and consider them relevant in deciding how a law applies. It is an art in the sense that it is not a codified science, but more like a knack, a practice, that seasoned practitioners know how to do.

Aristotle calls equity "justice that goes beyond the written law" and offers an example: Imagine a law that prohibits the infliction of wounds with iron weapons. X strikes Y while X is wearing an iron ring. In addition to the general assault, shouldn't X face of charge of inflicting a wound with an iron weapon? Aristotle says this is a case for equity--learning to see the case in a wider perspective that takes into account: "not to the action itself, but to the moral purpose; not to the part, but to the whole; not to what a man is now, but to what he has been, always or generally." Clearly, justice, according to Aristotle, can only occur if we have some sense of the people we are dealing with.

An oath is not necessarily a job description (even though federal officials can be charged with treason or high crimes for violating their oaths). But it seems that, in the case of the Supreme Court oath of office, we ought to reconsider whether we are committing judges to an unsophisticated kind of jurisprudence. We should recall Cicero who said that only "the crowd" identified law and justice with the written decree; true law has to do with reason and the wisdom that comes from experience interacting with persons in the real world.

Is the U.S. ready for a new economic paradigm? America, Argentina, and a New Paradigm of Dignity

Back in December 2008, I compared the take over the the New Republic Window factory in Illinois with the factory take overs in Argentina in 2001.

This interview with a couple of Argentine journalists describes how the economic situation in Argentina in 2001 is similar to what is taking place in the United States today. They say we are now faced with making choice about whether we want to go back to a system in which banks control the economy, or a "new paradigm" in which work builds the economy in favor of the dignity of people and of society. Is the U.S. ready for a new anarchist inspired worker's movement?



Thanks to Latin American News Review.

A Modest Proposal: Anti-Fascism Day April 20

I don't know whether there is such a day on April 20 (the day Hitler was born). This is Holocaust Memorial Week, but it seems we should also have a day to rally against the attitudes and political habits that generate intolerant and arbitrary government. This great speech by Charlie Chaplin, from the film, The Great Dictator, is relevant, even over 60 years later (in fact, Chaplin's call reminds me of the ideas of Martin Luther King, jr--read his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, in which King talks about the need for a revolution of values)

Citizens Not Americans: Obama's Political Metaphysics on Power and Privilege

Philosopher Linda Hirshman argues that within the first few words of his inauguration speech on Tuesday, Obama changed the political metaphysics of the United States. He opened by calling out to his "fellow citizens" not "my fellow Americans."

Her view is that citizenship harkens back to ancient Greek ideals of someone (she acknowledges the gender and class bias in the ideal) who is prepared to engage in the work of the community--making laws in the Assembly or defending the homeland as a soldier. Citizenship involves an understanding of self that is involved and commitment to one's relations in the civic sphere.

American identity, on the other hand, is about individualism and isolation. It privileges being left alone by government, and by the community, in order to pursue one's one private goals.

For Hirshman then, Obama is calling us back to a more ancient sense of virtue and active participation in public matters. Citizens not Americans.

While Hirshman recognizes that the old Greek role of citizen was built on a foundation of sexism and slavery (free, propertied men had other people to do their work for them, enabling them to engage in all this civic virtue), she fails to recognize that there was another group in the ancient Athens she glorifies. This would be the metics, the resident non-Athenian aliens, who usually were merchants and could utilize some public services, but were not allowed in the law making roles of society. They were forced to accept laws not of their own choosing in exchange for the privilege to remain.

The idea of the metics is important to remember because American citizenship has usually meant something very different than the ancient Greek ideals. Judith Sklar, in American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion, points out that American citizenship was always a status role--it meant you were in, you were all right, and usually, you were all white. Groups fought for inclusion into citizenship, not because they wanted to get more involved in the public matters, but because they wanted to be on the inside of power and privilege.

Today in the United States, it is estimated that there are close to 16 million undocumented immigrants who perform many of the same services to the community that the metics did for ancient Athens. They have rights to some public services, but unlike some European nations, most immigrants have no way to influence public decision making. The longer they stay without a voice, the more they become second class members of society who serve the first class citizens. As Michael Walzer has said before in his book Spheres of Justice, such a condition is intolerable in a democratic society

In addressing himself to fellow citizens, is President Obama calling us to civic virtue, or is reminding the group with power and privilege, served by another class of people with neither of those goods, to continue to enjoy their hegemony?

Should Latino/a Workers Occupy a New Republic (Windows and Doors)?

A group of mostly Latino/a workers, who were laid off from a window factory in Chicago, have decided to stage an occupation of the factory rather than be turned out. You can read about this group of workers and the national attention they are bringing to the worries of ordinary working people here.

It seems that the workers feel they were not given full consideration of federal law before being laid off and are asking the owners of the factory, who claim they are broke, to give them the entire severance and vacation pay they are due. The workers claim that they will stay until Christmas, if need be.

The union to which the workers belong claims that they are simply engaging in an action that goes back to the 1930s when American workers would nonviolently occupy factories to pressure owners with their demands.


The occupation by the Republic Windows and Doors workers reminds me of the factory take overs in Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis. There, many factory owners also went bankrupt and simply left town, leaving the workers with little or no notice of a shutdown. Instead of simply accepting defeat, the workers of many of these factories went back to work and occupied facilities. They started to run the factories on their own, creating their own forms of management and production. Workers began to develop their own theories of a non-hierarchal work place, and of democratic decision making on the shop floor, that started to spread throughout the country. Soon, neighborhood assemblies were forming, in which people could talk about their reactions to economic crisis, and plan collective action that was independent from the state institutions and political parties. Some of these citizen activists called this kind of grassroots democracy horizontalism. You can read more about this movement here and also here.

The Republic workers aren't currently thinking of running the factory on their own. They simply want to get what is due to them. But wouldn't it be a great example if ordinary workers could take production matters into their own hands and demonstrate how the economy really works because of them and not because of the generosity of capital lending financial institutions which are pocketing so much of the taxpayer bailouts?

Did the Obama victory represent a revolution of ideas?

This week in my political philosophy course, we talked about the anti-democratic design of the federal government--that fact that certain institutions, such as the Senate and the Electoral College, were created to put a brake on popular movements in society.

Its also interesting how the election results in both the Electoral College and the popular count give drastically different impressions of the support behind Obama. For instance, Rep. John Lewis called the victory a "nonviolent revolution", and a revolution of ideas, that represents a culmination of the hopes of Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you look at a map of the Electoral College results, it certainly seems like a landslide in favor of change. (The graphic also gives you a chance to look at different results going back to 1996.)

But the results of the popular vote are less decisive. Obama won only with about a 5% margin, as was predicted by the polls. Not quite the landslide.

Some other interesting points: the youth vote did not particular surge this year, anymore than it did for Kerry in 2004. What Obama did do is to solidify a coaltion of people of color behind him, particularly Latinos/as (who seemed to have been the ones to win it for him in New Mexicio and Colorado). You can see some interesting analysis here.

Does it Matter Who Wins? Obama, Palin, and Strategy for Social Justice

No matter which party wins today in the presidential race, it will be an historic election. One the one hand, we might have our first African American president. On the other, we might have the first woman vice president. Either way, the end result will be an individual in a position of power who would never have been allowed there by the Founding Framers of this country.

Courtney, over at Feministing, reports on the feeling in the air in the multiracial, multicultural streets of Brooklyn, NY. If Obama wins, she writes, it will provide hope for youth, and renewed faith for elders that social justice movement can work.

Undoubtedly, we are in historic moments. Some cautionary notes:

Malcolm X, speaking in 1964, on the eve of the passage of the historic Civil Rights Act, warned his audience not to be content with making reforms in the United States. He urged them to think more broadly, in terms of human rights. He said of American politics:

"Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate."

It is certainly true that an Obama administration will be different, and perhaps, more receptive to social justice concerns. But social justice will require more than just having the right people in place at the table or in the White House.

William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolishionist, refused to vote in elections because he felt it gave legitimacy to a political system that behaved immorally. I think it is problematic to think of voting as an expression of purity. There are those who will not vote for either McCain or Obama because they believe both represent compromised positions. They will vote for third party candidates, who will most certainly not win, because they cannot bring themselves to tie their fortunes to someone they consider distasteful.

There is perhaps another way to think of this. Machiavelli taught us (in the Discourses) not to think of politics as a game of virtue, or to honor our politicians because of their honorable characters. Instead, he taught that politics is an arena of struggle. If you don't participate, you risk allowing other groups into that arena who might threaten your liberty. Political action, then, ought to be strategic; how best can you defend your views? Voting should be seen as a strategic move rather than as a direct expression of your views, making sure that the political arena is open enough to allow you to manuever in it. In this sense, voting third party in U.S. elections might not be the best thing to do, since it is most certainly a wasted vote and unlikely to create any strategic space in the political arena (though it might make you feel personally good)

Garrison wrote, in 1838:

"There are those who disapprove of every form of political action, on the part of abolitionists.... We cannot yield to this reasoning. It proceeds, we think, upon a narrow view of the subject. Politics, rightly considered, is a branch of morals, and cannot be deserted innocently. …We, however, view political action chiefly as a means of agitating the subject.... To conclude this part of the subject, our true policy is not to turn party politicians, but in politics as elsewhere to stand firm by our principles, and let the politicians come to us...."

Despite whomever wins in the presidential race today, the power to make change will still depend on grassroots organizing and ordinary people who will push those in office. We will have to be strategic.

Can we Trust Joe Biden? Plagiarism and Moral Character: A New Engage Podcast

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to face down a peculiar political scandal. It seemed that he had been caught plagiarising a speech from Australian Prime Minister John Howard. You can see Harper's notorious speech next to the original here.

In an article for the website Inside Higher Ed, Jonathan Beecher Field wonders why we in the United States aren't outraged that Joe Biden is a contender for one of the highest public offices in the land, considering that he is habitual plagiarist. It seems that not only did Joe Biden fail a class in law school for plagiarising, he was later caught stealing from a speech during his 1988 bid for the presidency. Field says that all academics should be outraged at the choice of this man for the VP position.

In the newest Engage interview, Dr. Courtney Campbell, the Hundere Professor in Religion and Culture at OSU, talks with me about the moral nature of plagiarism and why it should be condemned as a practice. We discuss what kind of harm plagiarism causes and how we should understand and evaluate the character of people, such as Joe Biden, Martin Luther King, Jr. and now, Stephen Harper, who are public figures, seeking the trust of their communities, but have been shown to exhibit this kind of moral failing.

You can listen to this interview at the new Engage site here.

Does Following the Money Make us Mean and Lonely? Money and American Political Life

"Money, its a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.

Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.

But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they're
Giving none away."

It turns out Pink Floyd may have had it right about money. Peter Singer writes that the psychological effects of money on us may have some profound ramifications for political and ethical deliberation. Recent studies suggest that when people are cued to think about money itself (such as with pictures of cash, or of play money), they tend to become more isolated, more narrowly self-interested, and less helpful to others.

So think about how one might be solicited for money in regard to all sorts of moral and political issues. It seems each day I get several letters from the ACLU, Amnesty International, Barack Obama's campaign, the local food bank etc, asking me for a donation. Singer believes that such efforts might actually be counter productive in some cases--for those groups that want to foster some sense of community or group responsibility, the emphasis on money might tend to make people feel less interested in assisting others. "Money consciousness" might be disempowering.

So what happens to our politics when issues get infused the language of economics?

Bill Clinton was famous in his first presidential campaign for cutting through political smoke and mirrors when he announced: "It's the economy, stupid."--implying that what Americans really cared about were bread and butter issues concerning their livelihoods. It is not uncommon today to point to experience in business, or as a CEO, as a qualification for political leadership.

Yet, Aristotle, and more recently, Hannah Arendt, both seperate economics (dealing with issues of simply reproducing life) from politics (dealing with issues of acting together to achieve ideals or actualize values). Perhaps the recent turn in American life that collapse politics into economics (resulting, perhaps, in a rise of money consciousness) leads to a fragmented citizenry that has a hard time thinking of what it means to accomplish grand projects together?

Enjoy some classic rock (but don't expect to feel good about it afterwards):

The Military-Industrial Complex and You

"If the law is of such nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law." Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's famous essay on civil disobedience addresses the question of disengagement from government and a reliance on individual conscience. He feared being absorbed in a mob mentality, in general, and lost in a movement of mindless people who utilized the coercive power of the state in particular. Remember, of course, he spent time in jail for failing to pay taxes during the U.S. invasion of Mexico--a war he considered to be especially unjust. His example inspired Gandhi and Cesar Chavez to think that one of the important principles of nonviolence is: non-cooperation with whatever is humiliating is paramount.

I know some people who refuse to pay their federal taxes because they don't support the military and I know a lot more who wish they could bring themselves to take such a stand against the government.

But a new book suggests that our involvement in the military and its operations is far more complex and raises questions about our collective responsibility and culpability. Nick Turse demonstrates that the military-industrial complex is quite wide; that is, the number of corporations that do business with the military is quite vast and many of them provide ordinary goods and services that most people use on an every day basis--the the toothpaste and shampoo we use in the morning, the appliances we fill our house with, to the stations we watch on televsion. We literally cannot escape from some kind of involvement with an organization that provides material assistance to the military and its capacity to cause destruction.

Thoreau had Walden to which he could retreat and experiment with self-reliance. In our highly integrated, technology society, it seems that there is less space with which to exercise the first principle of nonviolent ethics.

Does the size and reach of the military-industrial complex in modern America morally implicate civilians in any violence, destruction, or human rights violations that the military may commit?

Thoughts on Independence Day: Are Frederick Douglass's Words Mere History?

George Carlin (1937-2008) Philosopher? (At least a Buddhist, no?)

Luckily, Blogspot doesn't have to follow rules about the Seven Filthy words, which Carlin made so infamous, and later made their way up to the Supreme Court in the case of Federal Communications Commission v Pacifica Foundation:

"At some point there leading into the '90s, I divorced myself from any stake in the human adventure or the American adventure. That sounds kind of pompous so let me just break that down. What I decided was that I didn't give a fuck about what happens on this planet to these people. I mean, I see the nice things in people, I see the good things, but I also see what a depraved, sick species we are, the only species that kills its own for personal gain.
I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us. I think that's a huge mistake and it's disappointing to me. Now, the corollary is, America was given great gifts, this ideal form of government, this most improved form of self-government that has ever come along up until that time, and we squandered it. And once again, on the same two things: gizmos and toys and gadgets -- goods, property, possessions -- and also this country is far too religious for its own good.

So at some point, I drifted away from feeling any allegiance. Abraham Maslow the psychologist once said, "The fully realized man does not identify with the local group." Boy, when I read that, I said, that's me. I don't identify with city, state, government, religion, association, county, organization or species, even. And what I realized was that this feeling of alienation from all that gave me a kind of emotional detachment that was very valuable artistically. To be able to look at things and not give a fuck. To not have a rooting interest in the outcome. I don't really care what happens in this country. I'll be honest with you. I don't give a fuck what happens. I don't give a fuck what happens to this earth, because it's all temporal and it's all bullshit." Thanks to Theresa!

"They all look alike to a person not a Jap"*: The Legacy of Korematsu at OSU

*Justice Hugo Black, author of the opinion in Korematsu, on the fears many white Americans had about Japanese American citizens during World War II.

This past weekend, Oregon State had its annual commencement ceremony. What was unusual about this year was that OSU decided to correct a massive historical injustice. Forty-two former students of Japanese descent, who had been forced to an internment camp after the federal order in 1942, were given honorary degrees in place of the ones they were not allowed to complete. (You can read the OSU press release here. I'm proud to say that I know one of the students, Andy Kiyuna, who got this process started. Though I can't take any credit for inspiring him to get this underway. From what I understand, that honor goes to my colleague, Lani Roberts)

The internment camps were justified by the Supreme Court in the 1944 case of Korematsu--a case that is widely reviled. Over 100,000 American citizens were stripped of their civil liberties and their dignity by the government's decision. What is even more shocking is that the government supressed evidence that could have been used by the Supreme Court to rule against the executive order.

In Korematsu, the court essentially said that the internment camps were justifed because military leaders had testified to their need for national security purposes. They said that there was evidence of "disloyalty" among Japanese American citizens that suggested that sabotage was possible along the West Coast. As it turns out, the Justice Department had reviewed many different intelligence reports and found the military reports to be unsubstantiated. In fact, the Justice Department told the Solicitor General, Charles Fahey, that he ought to present these intelligence reports in his argument before the court. He ignored these requests and, instead, testfied that everything in the military reports (that the Japanese Americans along the West Coast were not to be trusted because there was good evidence of conspiracy and treachery among them) was accurate. The Supreme Court then deferred to the military leaders and cited their report in the legal opinion.

And we are still picking up the pieces of this injustice here in Oregon...