All human lives matter
That seems to be a simple statement and, yet, over the years, humans have been disagreeing about what this statement means. This is accomplished by various means including:
Asking when does one become a human life? Some would argue that this is at the moment when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Some might argue it is important to talk about the potential for life to begin. Certainly, in times past when it was more difficult to carry a fetus to term and many children and mothers died in childbirth it was very important to not waste the sperm which were the thought to be limited. Some social and political theorists have suggested that it is only at a certain stage of development than one can be considered human. Some have suggested that the mentally challenged or others who cannot meet the prevailing standards for what is required to be a functional member of a community do not deserve the same rights or even the right to live. Some think in terms of the body politic and not the individual. Thus, as Jay Lifton in the book The Nazi Doctors points out, doctors under the Hitler regime could think of killing certain people as no different than amputating the limb of an individual.
· Deciding that some lives matter more than others. If the body politic decides that some individual or group presents a threat then they can be labeled as an enemy and be jailed and/or killed.
· Deciding that some who are convicted as having committed certain violent crimes can by legally put to death by the state.
· Deciding that some who have committed certain “crimes” can be locked up and treated and be punished for long periods of time.
· Deciding that some who seem to pose an immediate threat to an individual, a community or a group can be killed. A recent example is the killing of police officers by Micah Johnson and the subsequent killing of Mr. Johnson.
One can also debate the meaning of the word ‘matter.’ What does it mean to matter? Does saying that a human life matters mean that every human life deserves:
· Enough food to just stay alive.
· Any food whether it is health or unhealthy.
· Clothing to protect from the elements.
· Health care at a very basic or elementary level but not expensive procedure or the same general access to care.
· Means of exchange such as money to purchase what seems important or necessary to an individual.
· Protection from discrimination.
· The freedom to dress or not dress as one chooses.
· The freedom to engage in sexual activity as long as it is with a consenting adult (however adult is legally defined).
· Equal protection.
· The right to marry whom one chooses or the right of others to decide the marriage partner.
In our increasingly complex society the question of how we take care of and treat each other – one’s individual and collective responsibility – gets addressed in such international organizations as The United Nations or by the body politic of a particular country. In some countries such as the United States all three branches of the government can weigh in on these issues.
These issues can also be addressed using the various means of communication now available. Some suggest that despite having means of communication that we communicate less and less. This morning I listened to and later read the transcripts of two Ted Talks.
· Michael Sandel –The Lost art of democratic debate (posted June 2010).
· Jonas Gahr Store – In defense of dialogue (posted January 2012).
Professor Sandel reminds the listener that:
“Aristotle first used the term "ethics" to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. Philosophical ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state (Greek polis).
…
Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not only a theoretical knowledge, but rather that a person must have "experience of the actions in life" and have been "brought up in fine habits" to become good (NE 1095a3 and b5). For a person to become virtuous, he can't simply study what virtue is, but must actually do virtuous things.”
Professor Sandel gives examples of Supreme Court majority and minority opinions which demonstrate how to conduct what he considers a rational or democratic discussion about issues which they agree merit such serious consideration. One of the examples he gives is that of the question of whether a golfer who’s had a medical condition should be legally permitted to use a golf cart in professional tournaments where their use had been forbidden.
“And Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, said he had read all about the history of golf, and the essential point of the game is to get a very small ball from one place into a hole in as few strokes as possible, and that walking was not essential, but incidental.”
…
“Now, there were two dissenters, one of whom was Justice Scalia. He wouldn't have granted the cart, and he had a very interesting dissent. It's interesting because he rejected the Aristotelian premise underlying the majority's opinion. He said it's not possible to determine the essential nature of a game like golf. Here's how he put it. "To say that something is essential is ordinarily to say that it is necessary to the achievement of a certain object. But since it is the very nature of a game to have no object except amusement, (Laughter) that is, what distinguishes games from productive activity, (Laughter) it is quite impossible to say that any of a game's arbitrary rules is essential."
Whether one agrees with either the majority or minority opinion in this case is not the issue. Humans have been proving that very educated, thoughtful good people can have very divergent opinions about most subjects; that if we listen carefully to each other we often have to admit that the person or persons with whom we disagree can help us think outside of our small box.
Jonas Store, the Norwegian politician and diplomat, suggested in his January, 2012 Ted Talk:
“Another acknowledgment we've seen during these years, recent years, is that very few of these domestic interstate, intrastate conflicts can be solved militarily. They may have to be dealt with military means, but they cannot be solved by military means. They need political solutions. And we, therefore, have a problem, because they escape traditional diplomacy. And we have among states a reluctance in dealing with them. Plus, during the last decade, we've been in the mode where dealing with groups was conceptually and politically dangerous. After 9/11, either you were with us or against us. It was black or white. And groups are very often immediately label terrorists. And who would talk to terrorists? The West, as I would see it, comes out of that decade weakened, because we didn't understand the group. So we've spent more time on focusing on why we should not talk to others than finding out how we talk to others.”
As we know it is now July of 2016 and it would seem that those running for political office or those making decisions for the body politic do not see the need for “dialogue” or “democratic debate.” It seems that the skill being honed is one of defending what one already believes and/or attacking one’s opponent. This is done using sound bites on Facebook messages, tweets, shouting matches which are touted as debates or on so called news programs which 24/7 seemingly re-broadcast these sound bites.
Yet, if one is paying attention, one also notices that there are those who are engaging in or inviting the engagement in dialogue. The Supreme Court of the United States continues to use the rules or at least the guidelines of Aristotelian debate. There are some news stations which attempt to provide forums for more considered exchange of opinions and ideas. Magazines such as the New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly in the United states are committed to allowing space enough for very detailed discussion of some very important issues. Interviewers such as Terry Gross and many of the Ted Talk presenters carefully attempt to define or restate an issue in a way which opens up the topic for a more in depth discussion. Many of the blogs I read go well beyond sound bites or just restating opinions. There are groups such as the group of women in Egypt about whom I read this morning who are using Facebook to explore what it might mean to be a person in Egypt who happens to be female.
I do think that it is possible for us to continue to expand the arena in which we challenge ourselves to:
· Suspend judgement and focus on listening.
· Explore the possibility that there are many ways to define or state the issue or issues.
· Consider the possibility that concepts such as knowing, justice, human, violence, culpability, and many others can be viewed from many different perspectives.
· Consider the possibility that we are all equally human and not labels which pre-determine our worth.
· Consider that it may be worth our time and money to teach the rules of debate or dialogue suggested by such individuals as Aristotle and those “philosophers” who continue the tradition.
Written July 12, 2016
That seems to be a simple statement and, yet, over the years, humans have been disagreeing about what this statement means. This is accomplished by various means including:
Asking when does one become a human life? Some would argue that this is at the moment when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Some might argue it is important to talk about the potential for life to begin. Certainly, in times past when it was more difficult to carry a fetus to term and many children and mothers died in childbirth it was very important to not waste the sperm which were the thought to be limited. Some social and political theorists have suggested that it is only at a certain stage of development than one can be considered human. Some have suggested that the mentally challenged or others who cannot meet the prevailing standards for what is required to be a functional member of a community do not deserve the same rights or even the right to live. Some think in terms of the body politic and not the individual. Thus, as Jay Lifton in the book The Nazi Doctors points out, doctors under the Hitler regime could think of killing certain people as no different than amputating the limb of an individual.
· Deciding that some lives matter more than others. If the body politic decides that some individual or group presents a threat then they can be labeled as an enemy and be jailed and/or killed.
· Deciding that some who are convicted as having committed certain violent crimes can by legally put to death by the state.
· Deciding that some who have committed certain “crimes” can be locked up and treated and be punished for long periods of time.
· Deciding that some who seem to pose an immediate threat to an individual, a community or a group can be killed. A recent example is the killing of police officers by Micah Johnson and the subsequent killing of Mr. Johnson.
One can also debate the meaning of the word ‘matter.’ What does it mean to matter? Does saying that a human life matters mean that every human life deserves:
· Enough food to just stay alive.
· Any food whether it is health or unhealthy.
· Clothing to protect from the elements.
· Health care at a very basic or elementary level but not expensive procedure or the same general access to care.
· Means of exchange such as money to purchase what seems important or necessary to an individual.
· Protection from discrimination.
· The freedom to dress or not dress as one chooses.
· The freedom to engage in sexual activity as long as it is with a consenting adult (however adult is legally defined).
· Equal protection.
· The right to marry whom one chooses or the right of others to decide the marriage partner.
In our increasingly complex society the question of how we take care of and treat each other – one’s individual and collective responsibility – gets addressed in such international organizations as The United Nations or by the body politic of a particular country. In some countries such as the United States all three branches of the government can weigh in on these issues.
These issues can also be addressed using the various means of communication now available. Some suggest that despite having means of communication that we communicate less and less. This morning I listened to and later read the transcripts of two Ted Talks.
· Michael Sandel –The Lost art of democratic debate (posted June 2010).
· Jonas Gahr Store – In defense of dialogue (posted January 2012).
Professor Sandel reminds the listener that:
“Aristotle first used the term "ethics" to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. Philosophical ethics is the attempt to offer a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state (Greek polis).
…
Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not only a theoretical knowledge, but rather that a person must have "experience of the actions in life" and have been "brought up in fine habits" to become good (NE 1095a3 and b5). For a person to become virtuous, he can't simply study what virtue is, but must actually do virtuous things.”
Professor Sandel gives examples of Supreme Court majority and minority opinions which demonstrate how to conduct what he considers a rational or democratic discussion about issues which they agree merit such serious consideration. One of the examples he gives is that of the question of whether a golfer who’s had a medical condition should be legally permitted to use a golf cart in professional tournaments where their use had been forbidden.
“And Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, said he had read all about the history of golf, and the essential point of the game is to get a very small ball from one place into a hole in as few strokes as possible, and that walking was not essential, but incidental.”
…
“Now, there were two dissenters, one of whom was Justice Scalia. He wouldn't have granted the cart, and he had a very interesting dissent. It's interesting because he rejected the Aristotelian premise underlying the majority's opinion. He said it's not possible to determine the essential nature of a game like golf. Here's how he put it. "To say that something is essential is ordinarily to say that it is necessary to the achievement of a certain object. But since it is the very nature of a game to have no object except amusement, (Laughter) that is, what distinguishes games from productive activity, (Laughter) it is quite impossible to say that any of a game's arbitrary rules is essential."
Whether one agrees with either the majority or minority opinion in this case is not the issue. Humans have been proving that very educated, thoughtful good people can have very divergent opinions about most subjects; that if we listen carefully to each other we often have to admit that the person or persons with whom we disagree can help us think outside of our small box.
Jonas Store, the Norwegian politician and diplomat, suggested in his January, 2012 Ted Talk:
“Another acknowledgment we've seen during these years, recent years, is that very few of these domestic interstate, intrastate conflicts can be solved militarily. They may have to be dealt with military means, but they cannot be solved by military means. They need political solutions. And we, therefore, have a problem, because they escape traditional diplomacy. And we have among states a reluctance in dealing with them. Plus, during the last decade, we've been in the mode where dealing with groups was conceptually and politically dangerous. After 9/11, either you were with us or against us. It was black or white. And groups are very often immediately label terrorists. And who would talk to terrorists? The West, as I would see it, comes out of that decade weakened, because we didn't understand the group. So we've spent more time on focusing on why we should not talk to others than finding out how we talk to others.”
As we know it is now July of 2016 and it would seem that those running for political office or those making decisions for the body politic do not see the need for “dialogue” or “democratic debate.” It seems that the skill being honed is one of defending what one already believes and/or attacking one’s opponent. This is done using sound bites on Facebook messages, tweets, shouting matches which are touted as debates or on so called news programs which 24/7 seemingly re-broadcast these sound bites.
Yet, if one is paying attention, one also notices that there are those who are engaging in or inviting the engagement in dialogue. The Supreme Court of the United States continues to use the rules or at least the guidelines of Aristotelian debate. There are some news stations which attempt to provide forums for more considered exchange of opinions and ideas. Magazines such as the New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly in the United states are committed to allowing space enough for very detailed discussion of some very important issues. Interviewers such as Terry Gross and many of the Ted Talk presenters carefully attempt to define or restate an issue in a way which opens up the topic for a more in depth discussion. Many of the blogs I read go well beyond sound bites or just restating opinions. There are groups such as the group of women in Egypt about whom I read this morning who are using Facebook to explore what it might mean to be a person in Egypt who happens to be female.
I do think that it is possible for us to continue to expand the arena in which we challenge ourselves to:
· Suspend judgement and focus on listening.
· Explore the possibility that there are many ways to define or state the issue or issues.
· Consider the possibility that concepts such as knowing, justice, human, violence, culpability, and many others can be viewed from many different perspectives.
· Consider the possibility that we are all equally human and not labels which pre-determine our worth.
· Consider that it may be worth our time and money to teach the rules of debate or dialogue suggested by such individuals as Aristotle and those “philosophers” who continue the tradition.
Written July 12, 2016
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