Mangasarian's Sins: A Reconsideration of Early Ethical Culture Values from an Early Twenty-first Century Perspective

The Perspective: Mine.

The Date:     2021, almost a quarter of the century may no longer be considered “early,” but it feels like we still have a long way to go before we get mid- or late- 21C.

Reconsideration:     Well, this is a first consideration for me, but M. M. Mangasarian gave “Our Besetting Sins” as a platform address during his tenure as Leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Chicago (1892-c1900).  The text was then published in Series 2 of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record (1896) after editorial review by at least, I suspect, Felix Adler and S. Burns Weston (publisher of the early volumes).  No doubt the platform was considered by many before my own re-consideration.

My curiosity was initially piqued by the word “sin.”  I didn’t think that Ethical Culture framed itself in these terms.  Instead, while I do see “moral” used with (uncomfortable) frequency in early Ethical Culture publications, those morals seem most often to be framed positively as ideals to which we might aspire--and are strongly urged to do so.  Talking about sin seems to fit in more with Mangasarian’s earlier turn as a Presbyterian minister than his then role as an Ethical Culture Leader.  Nonetheless, I was curious to see what he might be identifying as sin and how it might differ from the favorite sins of Christianity.

As a quick aside, we are most of us familiar with the list of Seven Deadly Sins (even if we can’t remember all their names):  Pride, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth.  There is a lesser known (to me) list of sins which oppose the similarly lesser known (to me) list of Seven Capital Virtues, which I add here for contrast:  Lust, Worship-of-the-old-gods, Greed, Discord, Indulgence, Wrath, and Pride.  Not exactly the same, but there is overlap.

Now for Mangasarian’s sins.  He lists eight:  Impertinent Curiosity, Rudeness, Ostentation, Envy, Pride, Flattery, Evil Speaking, and Anger.  In a simple comparison, all three lists include Pride and Anger/Wrath.  The Capital Sins omits Envy and Sloth from the Deadly Sins list and adds Worship-of-the-old-gods and Discord.  Mangasarian brings back Envy in his list, but adds five new sins, dropping Lust, Gluttony, and Greed.

Each of Mangasarian’s sins is considered in multiple variations along with some reflection on causes and sources as well as effect(s) on those who are on the receiving end of such sinful behavior.  In several cases, Mangasarian is careful to distinguish the sinful version of a behavior (anger) and its more virtuous relative (righteous indignation).  In all cases, Mangasarian’s language is eloquent, descriptive, and, at times, poetic.  The “standard” sins--Pride, Envy, Anger--are thoroughly discussed and revealed to be damaging both to oneself and to relationships.  The effects that behaviors driven by these sins have on relationships is well within the realm of Ethical Culture’s concern.  The emphasis that Ethical Culture places on community, on working together toward common goals, and on individual worth can be buttressed by discussion of excesses and selfish intentions driven by these sins of emotion and attitude.  (However, I note here that Mangasarian’s discussion did not extend to such emphases as would now be more commonly be addressed.  More on this below.)

Mangasarian’s more modern sins focus more directly on social relationships and how they are damaged by social aggressions and displays.  At the top of Mangasarian’s list is impertinent curiosity, which he describes as a pushy intrusion into someone’s personal affairs, without legitimate reason, and often with the result of spreading that personal information about.  While this sin seems similar to a later item on the list, evil speaking, Mangasarian deems the latter to be much more serious.  He distinguishes it from impertinent curiosity and the careless spreading of personal information by clarifying that the more evil version may contain no fact at all, consisting often of mere innuendo and suggestion.  The former might be inadvertent with no planned ill effect; the latter often is initiated with the intention of discrediting those who are the object of such evil speech.  He condemns also those who tolerate this sort of speech as being equally sinful and finds the frequent insistence on anonymity (“Don’t tell anyone I said this.”) both evil and cowardly.  

Following impertinent curiosity, Mangasarian adds rudeness, which he mostly describes as unkind words stemming from thoughtless lack of consideration of the feelings of the object of one’s speech.  In particular, he abhors the joke that makes one’s companion its butt, disguising insults and hurt with a thin veil of humor. Ostentation is next on the list, referring to excessive display of possessions.  He condemns the showy displays of ostentation as superficial, with nothing of substance to back them up for worth or merit.  Ostentation may be intended to instill envy, which is another sin, borne of fear and jealousy.  Finally, flattery, not a well-deserved compliment, but the excessive praise given without cause or merit for the sake of one’s own purposes or gain, rounds out Mangasarian’s sins.  Both the flatterer and the willing recipient of flattery are called out for the hollowed out accolades that are no more than sycophantic blarney aimed toward personal gain.

All five of these “new” sins are likely to diminish or even damage the community that is important to Ethical Culture, although Mangasarian does not present them in these terms.  Instead he views them as human flaws to which we are all vulnerable.  We may at any time succumb to one or the other of these sins, much to our shame and chagrin, but, he notes, we can always aspire to improve our behavior.  Such improvement leads one toward a more ideal behavior, which is more refined, more controlled, more self-aware, more considerate than the careless or devious communication that reflects these modern sins.  In doing so, Mangasarian seems to reflect his personal views without apparent reference to the broader thought of Ethical Culture.  Mangasarian focuses on individual relationships and the harm caused by these sins to the doer and those individuals who are directly affected by the bad behavior rather than looking at the community to be found in the Ethical Society or in the Ethical Culture Movement as a whole.  He bypasses a chance to emphasize the worth of the individual within and to the community and the damage that poor relationships and a fragmented community can have on the ability to work together toward common goals or progressive change.

I find that last sentence to be not a criticism of Mangasarian’s sins nor of his analysis of them, but a reflection of reconsideration conducted with the perspective that the passing of an entire century can provide.  Mangasarian wrote at the end of the 19th century.  I write in the first quarter of the 21st century.  In that time, Ethical Culture, as a movement, has decreased its focus on the ideal and increased its focus on the material.  If we are able to speak in terms of sin in this century, we would, I believe, do so within an entirely different framework, looking more at dysfunction, dysphoria, and division and ignore ideals altogether as impossible to achieve.  What, I now wonder, would we in Ethical Culture consider to be a sin in this day and age?

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Work Cited

Mangasarian, M. M. “"Our Besetting Sins."” Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record, vol. 2, S. Burns Weston, 1896, pp. 31-48. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/ethicaladdresses02ameruoft/page/n9/mode/2up. Accessed 6 September 2021.

On Adler's "Religion" (Part III)

 (Continuing commentary on quotations taken from Felix Adler, Life and Destiny, "Religion", 1908)

Part III

¶ It is the moral element contained in it that alone gives value and dignity to a religion, and only in so far as its teachings serve to stimulate and purify our moral aspirations does it deserve to retain its ascendency over mankind.

 “There is a time to act for the Lord by breaking his commandments” was a saying current among the ancient Hebrews. This means there is a time to act for religion by protesting against what passes for religion; there is a time to prepare the way for a larger morality by shattering the narrow forms of dogma whereby the progress of morality is hindered.

I disagree with the first statement in this section.  Functionally, religion is a form of social control.  Moral schmoral.  In any society, the system of religious belief buttresses the status quo by motivating conformity to norms of behavior within the system.  Law, when it exists outside of religion, is also a form of social control.  In contemporary industrialized societies, we often recognize law as the greater and more direct form of social control, but religion supports that law by providing the ethical and moral basis for its tenets and by supporting behavior that conforms to its general trend.  Gossip is another form of social control (“What would the neighbors think?”).  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is not about medicine; it’s about behavior.  Religion does have other functions to perform--see the earlier discussion of hope--but its essential function is to make sure that people act in ways that support the dominant social structure and institutions of political and economic power. 

On the other hand, I see the final statement in this section as central to Adler’s purpose:  To aim for what he saw as a higher morality, better ethics, by breaking free of dogmas and strictures that had become ineffective in his time.  In my mind, this is another way of saying that religion cannot be static because society is not static.  As knowledge grows, as social practices change, religious explanations for knowledge and behavior need to accommodate the new information, the new norms that grow out of that new information.

Adler died before World War II, but that global cataclysm brought two new sets of demands on American society at war’s end.  Black Americans who had served their country in the military returned home with new skills and knowledge and also with a new understanding of their rightful position in society.  American women who had served their country by taking on many jobs formerly (and normally) held by men saw the return of the nation’s military men as a force returning them to their former inferior and disadvantaged position in society.  They, too, had a new understanding of their rightful position in society.  In both cases, however, Adler’s vision was accurate in predicting that new knowledge would demand changes in old beliefs.

A religion that justifies slavery, as Christianity once did, does not function positively as a matter of course for those who are held in slavery.  When that religion shifts, however begrudgingly, to disavow slavery, but still supports segregation and discrimination and inequality, it still does not function positively for the whole community.  Either version might have sufficed for a society that was homogeneous in “race” (a human construct), but it was doomed to fail its practitioners once the society became mixed (by whatever means).  Black Americans returned to a post war America with new insight and new determination to claim the rights of citizenship and humanity.  Their religious beliefs had already shifted to include them in the larger society.  Today’s religious communities become less and less relevant to the people they wish to serve because people have moved on while their religious institutions have not.  Science discounts the old beliefs in “race,” racial “inferiority,” racial traits, and so on.  History shows the bias of Western “civilizations” when ancient remains show cities and trade routes and scientific advances in places far away from the northern climates once believed to foster innovation and progress.  Racism has no place in modern society—nor, I would argue, in the religious thought that supports such a society.  Racist beliefs, even those wrapped in religious justifications, are relics of the past unsuited to support contemporary social and economic institutions.

A religion that justifies sexism, as Christianity still seems to do, does not function positively as a matter of course for those who are relegated to socially inferior positions.  When that religion shifts, however begrudgingly, to allow for more physical safety for women, but still discounts the value of their work, bars them from meaningful roles in their community, and subjugates them to male domination, it still does not function positively for half of the planet’s adult population.  To be fair, many of the older religions hold similar views of women and their value to society, so Christianity must be considered an example, noting, nonetheless, that it is still the dominant religion in America.  American women left the factories and offices and schools in which they had served during the war, returning to their homes to serve, as their mothers had done, as homemakers and participants in producing the postwar baby boom.  However, they did not forget the independence and satisfaction of their work during the war; many became determined to claim their rights of citizenship and humanity, and they taught their daughters to do the same.  Today’s religious communities become less and less relevant to the people they wish to serve--even though women still participate more than men in religious activities--because women have moved on while their religious institutions have not.  Science and history have both shown that women can perform anywhere they are physically capable of serving--and they are more physically capable than social prejudices permit.  Still American women earn less than men for doing the same work.  Still American women are denied, in the old religions, equal access to positions of leadership and authority.  Sexism has no place in modern society—nor, I would argue, in the religious thought that supports such a society.  Sexist beliefs, even those wrapped in religious justifications, are relics of the past unsuited to support contemporary social and economic institutions.

Ethical Culture has its own checkered past to reckon with.  There have been some periods and some Leaders who have treated the matters of racism with no more than “benign neglect.”  Men, as one lay leader commented not too long ago, still “take up a lot of space” in Ethical Culture.  The diversity of our community demands more openness to a “progress of morality” that grants dignity, recognition, equality, respect, space for people of all colors, nations of origin, sexual orientation and gender identity, talents, interests, and personalities.

The good news for Ethical Culture and its participants is that Adler laid an excellent foundation when he insisted that religion itself must progress with the society that it serves.  Good, that is, for those of us who feel that we do not have to be bound by the errors of our past, that we can change and grow and be better today than we were before. Whether Adler or any other individual within the Movement changed enough or fast enough or in any particularly desirable direction is irrelevant in the broader context of a Movement which can honestly evaluate its flaws and weaknesses and also honestly seek to become more Ethical, more capable of meeting the needs of the contemporary society in which it exists, not that of some mythical past.

First Commitment: Ethics Is Central

 

ETHICS IS CENTRAL.

The most central human issue in our lives involves creating a more humane environment.

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At first glance, one can see that there are two crucial elements to the first commitment (to Ethical Humanism), and how one understands those elements will determine how one understands the commitment.  Almost immediately, however, I find that a dissonant note is sounded by the subtext regarding “the most central human issue.”  The subtext seems to override and obviate the need to examine the commitment itself in any broader terms.  I challenge that.  I am willing to consider that creating a more humane environment, broadly defined, is an important, probably even a central issue in our lives, but I cannot, without more thought, agree that it is the most central of all issues.  In any case, I cannot agree that “ethics” and “creating a more humane environment” are sufficiently equivalent to make the latter the definition of the former, i.e., that “ethics” equals “creating a more humane environment.”

Beginning again, the two crucial elements of the commitment are “ethics” and “central.”  While whole books have been written to explore the nature of ethics and much ink has been spilled to argue the difference between “morality” and “ethics,” I am content that Oxford Languages’ (OL) online definition of “ethics'' is sufficient:  “moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity.”  For my own practical purposes and general understandings, I actually prefer the OL second definition given for “moral” (as a noun)--“a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do”--and will use that as my own definition of “ethics.”  Either way, we are looking at principles and standards for behavior.  

Ethics as a standard for my behavior must come, I believe, from my own experience, knowledge, and reason.  What I learn from experience will serve me as practical knowledge that has revealed both positive and negative results.  I can--and do--learn from both my successes and my mistakes.  I also learn from the experience and knowledge of others.  In some cases, they may tell me--personally or through books and articles--the positive and negative results of various behaviors.  In other cases, I may make my own observations of behaviors and interpret the results as positive or negative.

One of my earliest memories of learning from others’ mistakes came when I was just barely a teen.  The debate in our family was whether I could wear short shorts.  Nice girls didn’t, but I certainly wanted to.  Resentment festered as I looked for ways to push back against the parental edict until one evening we went to the drive-in theater for a family evening.  In those days, parental negotiations ran to the sort of horse-trading that included a Paul Newman movie for Mama and a John Wayne movie for Daddy.  If the double feature included both, it was a win-win.  If not, promises for the future would balance things out.  For me, the excitement was in getting to the concession stand. The rewards might be popcorn, a soda, or even a little bit of boy watching.  On one occasion, there was the need to stand in line to use the facilities.  I happened to see a teenage girl, not so much older than I, with her hair in pin curls, covered by a long pink chiffon scarf.  She wore short shorts.  Really short shorts that had ridden up above her thighs and settled in a manner that revealed more than, perhaps, originally intended.  The image has stuck with me for more than 60 years, likely because it shocked me in my sheltered existence, but also, I think, because it was a moment when my own ethical thinking kicked in.  I reasoned, quite simply, that I did not want to look like that, did not want to show myself in those ways, that wearing short shorts was not going to be “acceptable for me to do.”  

What is also telling about that moment is that it was not my parents’ will that drove the decision.  Nor was it the values of my then affiliation with Christianity coming to the fore.  Had I made the decision not to wear short shorts at any point prior to that trip to the concession stand, I would have to think that I was bowing to the authority and moral dictates of either parents or church or both.  At that moment, however, it was my own observation and reason that said “not me.”  I made the choice for myself, just to be clear, not for Daddy and not for Jesus. That my decision reflected the conservative values of the community in which I was raised made the decision, I believe, no less my own.

I think that my personal experience, while likely unique in content and context, is not all that different from what others have done/are doing as they develop their own standards for what is acceptable for them to do.  They--we--observe.  We read.  We learn.  We analyze.  We reason and decide.  We combine experience and knowledge with reason to exercise our capacity to distinguish right from wrong in ways that include the whys and why nots of how we choose to behave.  In this way we create our own ethics as we live our lives.

There is more to be said regarding the process of creating our own ethical principles and standards for thought and action, but one point should be emphasized at the outset:  We are capable of forming ethical principles through our own human capacities and do not, therefore, require any outside force or authority for our choices.  Laws may compel our action in specific ways, but it is up to our own conscious awareness of right and wrong to decide whether the law is just and whether we will obey it.  Belief in a god may provide a whole list of general principles and specific rules for our behavior; absent such belief we still have the capacity to establish for ourselves a distinction between right and wrong through our own experience, knowledge, and reason.

Take the potato.  As an example of an object in need of the application of ethical principles, the potato is, one would think, a much simpler target than, say, abortion.  And yet the potato is rich with ethical dilemmas and choices well beyond any question of whether to bake or boil.  Seeing a potato on the kitchen counter, one must, for example, decide:  To peel or not to peel.  There is an abundance of tools available for the specific purpose of peeling potatoes, pointing to a strong preference among home cooks to peel.  Indeed, there are largish machines for industrial scale potato peeling pointing to a social and cultural bias in favor of peeled potatoes.  Certainly there are a number of lovely things that one can do with a peeled potato.

The problem, aside from any considerations of the nutritional value locked in the potato’s skin, is, of course, what to do with the peeling.  The potato peel can be considered garbage which, of course, should be disposed of in a sanitary manner lest it become rotting garbage and so attract flies, cockroaches, and other undesirable visitors.  On the other hand, that peeling could be labeled as food waste, a loaded term is ever there was one (food = good; waste of good things = bad; food waste = ethical minefield).

Food waste does not have to be an ethical concern.  Indeed it is not for most Americans.  Our nation wastes as much as a third of all the food it produces.  (Imagine going to the grocery store, buying three bags full of groceries, and tossing one of them into the trash can before you take the rest into your house.  Imagine doing that every time you go to the grocery store.)  For most home cooks, standing at the sink with a handful of potato peelings, the next step is automatic:  Toss them in the garbage can (or the sink disposer if available).  There is no ethical concern if we are unaware of (or uninterested in) what happens to those potato peelings next.  Nor is there an ethical concern about the role of those potato peelings in relation to our community.  There’s not much a few potato peelings can do for food insecurity; one potato’s peelings really won’t add a significant amount to our community landfill.  Any potential for ethical concern is also eliminated if we have already accepted a philosophical orientation to the planet as our gift from a deity so that the earth and its resources are ours to do with as we wish, without consequence or blame for simple waste, which may be the deity’s own will anyway.  Either way, it is not our concern or responsibility.

There is, however, for some of us, that moment when we stand at the sink, potato in hand, and see it as part of something larger.  That potato had a history, a journey, before it came into our hand.  While it may yet have its moment of glory as it is served on our table, there may be within us a degree of concern for what that past history was and how it connects to us through the potato.  There may also be a moment of concern whether we should feel any connection to those parts of the potato that did not make it to our table.  Could we have used the entire potato?  Are we disposing of the remains of the potato in a way that does no harm to us or our community?  What about all those leftovers?

This may, however, be the point at which we should consider the second component of the first commitment:  Central.  

For ethics to be central in one’s life and, therefore, in one’s behavior it must be at the core, the focus, the pervasive and unifying orientation for thought and deed.  If ethics is my standard of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for me to do, then whatever I do, no matter how insignificant or small, needs to be considered in terms of whether it is acceptable according to those standards, whether it is, in a word, ethical.  I have said “Food waste does not have to be an ethical concern,” and offered various reasons why someone might view ethics as irrelevant in a given situation.  Once, however, we make ethics central, everything becomes subject to consideration of what the appropriate--and ethical--behavior might be in relation to it.

In this sense, we fail to behave ethically if we do not bother to learn about the effect of food waste on the environment.  Our waste can only be ethical if we learn that food waste is not an issue for global warming.  Once we know that food waste can produce greenhouse (heat trapping) gases, we become ethically obligated to see what we can do to avoid or mitigate the waste of food.  We fail to behave ethically if we see ourselves as individuals, not connected to others of our humankind, not connected to the planet from which we sprang (some long time ago), not connected to the star stuff from which our planet came (even longer ago).  To behave ethically, we must seek the knowledge that reveals our origins and our connections and then act as the individual part of the whole system/entity which we are.  Inevitably, that will lead us to proactively shape our actions to sustain ourselves, our community, and the planet of our origins.  We fail to behave ethically when we delegate our responsibility for making decisions about our own standards for what is acceptable to unseen and unverifiable sources.  When such magical thinking allows one to do as one wishes without regard for the consequences, those consequences, if based in the nature of the planet, will nonetheless occur, often to ill effect for the planet, the community, and ourselves. 

So then does making ethics central also make “creating a more humane environment” central?  In Ethical Culture we often say “deed before creed.”  That’s a call to action, saying basically that we should not worry about the ideology when there is work that we can be doing.  It becomes, however, a means of avoiding the question of what the ethical principles are that will guide our deeds.  How do we choose the deeds that we should be doing without some understanding that what we do is, in a word, ethical?  It becomes, moreover, a means to avoid looking at the central transformation that we seek in Ethical Culture, which is to become more ethical in both thought and deed.  We avoid “creed,” and we focus on “deed,” but, if ethics is central, it may well be that we should turn our focus to ethics and the principles that will guide our deeds.

To return to the example of food waste, we realize that there are many reasons why someone would decide that wasting food is a “bad” thing to do.  It may be a matter of thrift.  If money to buy food is in short supply, one would not want to waste any of what can be purchased with those limited funds. Or food itself may be in short supply as we have now seen with broken and slowed supply chains during a pandemic.  We would want to protect our limited resources for the duration, being less wasteful so that our supplies will last.  This seems less a matter of ethics than of necessity, but it may also be that food waste could be viewed as part of a larger concept of waste that is to be avoided (“waste not, want not” is a prudent philosophy).  Not wasting food could also be part of a larger sense that the food on our plate is part of a long chain of supply, with many resources and many hands needed to get it to our plate.  Simply recognizing that long chain connects us to the various points on the food’s journey from seed to supper.  As we are mindful of that connection, we can see the potato on our plate and consider its growth in soil, with the sun and rain to nourish it, with hands that probably belong to a migrant worker earning less than a living wage lifting it from that soil to begin its journey to our table.  Despite the abundance of our circumstances that does not itself require that we conserve food because of scarcity of food or funds, if we are mindful, we know that sun and rain are now subject to the forces of climate change.  Too much sun, too little rain, and the growing of our food becomes less certain, more costly.  The potato becomes part of our connection to the earth:  Whether the soil can sustain growth, whether the climate will be stable enough to provide both sun and rain in appropriate amounts and thus provide the nutrients that we will then take into our body become now a more prominent element of our concern for that connection..  And the migrant worker?  How she lives, where he sleeps, how their children are cared for are also connected to us through the potato.  This connection is not some mystical thread of spirit extending from one person to another; this is no matter of unseen outside forces holding us together as humankind.  It might be the star stuff from which our planet and we are made that connects us in a literal sense, but it is also, I believe, our own reason and awareness that allows us to observe and create/construct those connections.  Once seen, my ethics lead me to believe that I need to respect these connections, not take them for granted, not waste them.

To make ethics central is to make ourselves aware and accept that there is nothing we can touch in our world that is not also bound up with the questions of how we are connected to it and how we should treat it.  From the humble potato to our dearest friend to the stranger at our border, we are connected in multiple and varying ways.  Each of those connections place burdens and constraints upon us as we seek to act in ways that we can believe are acceptable by our own standards of behaviors and beliefs.  This requires, I believe, a continuing process of awareness, analysis, and revision of connections, standards, and principles.

Indeed we may from our experiences, knowledge, and reason derive certain principles related to food waste, such as:

• We are connected to each other through our origins on this earth.

• We are connected through our dependence on each other for survival and community.

• Our connections provide valuable contributions to our personal well being and that of our community.

• Any product of these connections should be respected for its source, for its value to our well being and community, and for the processes of connection in the long chain from its origin to its final destination.

These principles may apply to other matters aside from food waste.  They may hold for a period of time, providing us with guidance for how we approach the situations in which we find ourselves.  As our experience grows, our knowledge increases, our reason leads us, we may find that new principles may be derived, and these may be revised.  

For ethics to be central in our lives, the only requirement is that we make ethics central.  We begin with a consideration of what our standards and principles may be for what we think is acceptable thought and action.  These may take time to develop; they may change.  We succeed as we manage to remove the distracting needs and drives that push against our wish to focus on ethics as our guide for living.  As we find our connection to the earth and to our fellow humans, we also find ourselves seeking to find ways to protect and nurture those connections as a means to fulfill our own needs and expand our sense of well-being.  In all of these steps, however, what is needed is the intention to focus on ethics and make that the pervasive and unifying orientation for our thought and deed.  Only with the intention to make ethics central can we do so.  As a commitment to Ethical Humanism, we are committing to that intention, to that making, so that in all we do we consider whether what we do is acceptable to our own standards, which are derived from our experience, our knowledge, and our reason.

Carolyn A. Parker

Boycott Coca-Cola?

 In a fit of pique, those who decry cancel culture now want to cancel Coca-Cola for taking a public stance against voter suppression in Georgia.  Other business entities have done the same for Georgia (all after the suppressive laws were passed), but others are taking a similar stand against similar laws still in the consideration stage for Texas.  It's an odd situation for Republicans who ordinarily rant against such practices when coming from the Left (while hypocritically practicing them right along themselves), is it not?  As for the media, it's almost as if a news reporter hears someone say "cancel" and thinks that that's actually news.

I don't buy Coca-Cola products and haven't for some time.  Well, there was that one six pack a couple of weeks ago, but more on that in a moment.  I don't buy Coca-Cola because the sugar content in their soft drinks is lethal for me.  Sugared soft drinks are driving an obesity epidemic in the US (and, increasingly, overseas, wherever they have penetrated the market).  Once obesity and diabetes are achieved, one Coke is an invitation to a diabetic coma.  

My family history with Coke is long and loving.  Daddy was a Coke drinker.  Mama was a sipper.  Daddy would get a Co'Cola (as we sometimes called it) in one of those small green glass bottles and Mama would take "just a sip."  We kept Cokes in the refrigerator when I was a kid, and I was strictly limited to one per day.  That was not for my health.  It was to make sure there were Cokes in the fridge when Daddy came in from work and wanted one.  Woe betide the beloved only daughter who drank the last Coke.

We drank Coke in the small bottles.  We drank it in the tall bottles.  We drank it in cans.  We went through some hard times when the Coca-Cola Company introduced New Coke and took Coke Classic (as it was later called) off the market.  When Coke Classic was (re)introduced, we drank even more Coke.

I did eventually switch to Diet Coke on my dentist's advice.  (Dental decay and destruction would be one more strike against drinking Coke.)  I drank that in cans and then in plastic bottles.  As diabetes was diagnosed, my thirst was increasing.  I loved it when Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke in 1.5 liter bottles.  I carried them around and chugged away.  And kept gaining weight.  Eventually I learned that artificially sweetened beverages (not just Coke) tend to cause drinkers to consume more calories.  There is something about the body's expectation of calories being thwarted by the diet beverages and a need to get those calories elsewhere--about 30% more calories than non-drinkers of diet beverages.  

The weight gain didn't stop me from drinking Diet Coke, but the plastic bottle finally did.  My recycling bin was filling with all those 1.5 liter bottles.  I was drinking more than one a day.  Indeed, it was difficult to push my grocery cart when it was lined with all those bottles and exhausting to carry into the house to store away.  Recognizing, however, that the US was doing a poor job of recycling plastics and that I was part of the problem, I had a choice--drink my Diet Coke from the cans which had become inadequate for my thirst or switch to iced tea.  

It was a struggle, but I made it.  I did miss the carbonation, so I now have a SodaStream for sparkling water (no flavors!).  

So that six-pack.  When I got my second COVID vaccination, I wanted to celebrate.  I decided that potato chips and Diet Coke--a long time celebration treat--would be just the thing.  I hadn't had either in quite a long time.  To reduce my footprint for the celebration, I bought the tiny little cans that Coca-Cola is now selling--for the sippers, I guess.  Mama would have loved them.  What a shock to find out that I no longer liked the taste!

My ethical dilemma now is whether to continue not drinking Coca-Cola products for health reasons or to show my support for the Coco-Cola Company's stance on voter suppression by buying their products.  This, however, is not really about marketing, and I don't think that self-destruction is the way to show my support.  So I'm saying here:

Thank you, Coca-Cola!

Thank you, Delta Airlines!

Thank you, Dell Computers!

Thank you, American Airlines!

Thank you, AT&T (I never expected to say that)!

I hope other companies join you.  I hope that those who insist on anti-democratic, anti-American practices of voter suppression can learn that what they are doing is wrong.  

In the meantime, freedom isn't free, is it?  Welcome to the fight.

What I took from Christianity

 A couple of incidents have occurred lately, bringing me back to thoughts about Christianity.  

One was a death more or less "in the family" of someone that I have described as "the most toxic Christian that I have ever met."  She caused emotional pain in the family.  Being around her was emotionally painful.  When she died I didn't feel any satisfaction, but I didn't feel any grief.  A couple of days later, however, I realized that I was reliving some very bitter moments and becoming very angry with her for the pain she had caused.  

I wasn't particularly pleased with that reaction.  Part of my concern is that the woman is dead, unable to cause any more pain, and, anyway, the pain she caused was long in the past.  I walked away from the relationship--one that started when I was born--three or four years ago, and never looked back.  She hadn't hurt me or anyone I loved for a very long time.  Part of my concern is that I generalize more than I want to from the actions of one Christian to all Christians.  Tharling Air Conditioning advertised with a fish on their business sign, and I flat out see that fish as a license to cheat--because Tharling cheated my mother.  The Toxic Christian was a gossip, a character assassin, a bully.  But I know other Christians who, while misguided, are not that consistently hateful.  What concerned me was that generalization, tarring all with the same brush, when I know that each of us is different.  I also believe, as an Ethical Humanist, that each of us deserves respect for ourselves as we are.  My reaction to this woman, in her death, demonstrated my own failure to live up to what I consider to be a standard for Ethical Culture.

The other event was the mass murder of (mostly) Asian women at massage parlors in Georgia.  There has been a wave of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for months now.  A wave, I say, because the frequency of these acts has risen lately, but there has always been some level of hate or discrimination or dehumanization or exploitation (etc.) of these people by Americans.  We are, if nothing else, very practiced in creating our own myth of what it is to be an American and then "othering" everyone who doesn't fit the (current) myth.  

What concerns me about this event is the killer's confession that he has a sex-addiction and was trying to get rid of "temptation."  The news reports link him to a comparatively recent baptism in a local Baptist church.  Well, I do know the sermons he will have heard, the feelings of self-loathing that they will have engendered.  Even if his only experience with the massage parlors was to get a nice relaxing massage, the thoughts that would have come, the very natural reactions of his body, would have caused him hours of humiliation and suffering as he would hate himself for even being tempted, much less acting in any way (including self-gratification) on those feelings.  

I can set aside the debate that is now going on whether this was a hate crime.  It was.  It comes from the intersection of several phenomena in our country.  Lax gun laws.  The sexualization of Asian women.  The cultural permission that allows men to act out their rages with guns.  Etcetera all day long.  One intersection that alarms me is that in which fundamentalist religion played a role in this tragedy.  Indeed, thinking about that intersection triggered my own memories of self-loathing and feelings of degradation as I entered puberty and had no guidance except fiery sermons to help me understand what was happening.  In general, the understanding that I came to was that I was a worthless, degraded person, unworthy of respect or care or happiness.  I didn't have any guns (although my father did), but I blamed myself rather than any of the boys that might have offered me temptations. That, too, is part of Christianity--blame the woman, not the man.

Don't think that these are the memories of a fallen woman who actually fell.  One fellow and I did try to fall, but we didn't know how and scared ourselves with trying.  But trying or even thinking about trying is enough:  Hell is very close for Southern Baptists.  

No, this is not about the debate about someone's hate crime.  It is about my own triggered response to the faith of my youth--and my whole family--and what it did to me.  What I want to do is get past that triggered response, which is both grief and anger, to a remembrance of what I took from Christianity when I left that community and that faith.  These are positives, and they are reminders that there are a few good things about Christianity and many good things about some Christians.

One is love.  I took from Christianity the notion of Christian love, the feeling of deep affection and desire to care for others.  I believe that my parents certainly contributed to my capacity to love others, but the admonition to "Love ye one another" carries a message that extends to Ethical Humanism quite well.  We, each of us unique, all carry inherent worth which requires respect.  I think that that respect can (and should) be extended to include love.  We should cherish one another for our worth and dignity and unique ways of thinking and being.  By loving one another, we take on a need to protect, to promote well being, to help each other over the rough spots.  By loving one another, we add dimension to our congregating together in community.  That dimension places us in each other's world as positive beacons of belonging.  The world is an ugly place without love, so I consider this an important part of my role as an Ethical Humanist--that I go beyond respecting others to caring for them, taking an active role where I can, to give them my best.

The second thing I took from Christianity is forgiveness.  A central tenet of Christianity is that all sin is forgiven by God through the blood sacrifice of his Son.  Another element of forgiveness practiced in Christianity is to "forgive those who trespass against us."  The problem for the individual is that there is no forgiving the self.  God can forgive us.  Others can forgive us.  We, however, cannot forgive ourselves.  If, however, there is no god, we have to give up all hope of ever being forgiven for the least mistake--or we get over it and forgive ourselves.  Forgiveness, I decided, was a good thing for those times when we screw up, no matter whether the screw up is a small one or the biggest (however we define it).  Forgiving myself, I decided was necessary, because, sad to say, I am not perfect.  No matter how well I may conform to the expectations of others, I often fail my own expectations.  I can wallow in the degradation of failure, even wish to die.  Been there, done that.  But that is not a productive way to exist, and I choose not to live that way.  Not for very long anyway.  Indeed, I will work very hard to understand my failures and forgive them as I then work not to repeat them.  

As an Ethical Humanist, I think it's reasonable to forgive ourselves for failure, mistakes, errors whether in judgment or behavior or thought.  We learn from our mistakes and do better.  Whatever we have done, we can always, I believe, do better, and forgiveness is the starting point for that.  I think, too, that the willingness to forgive must be extended to others.  When others fail to live up to our expectations, we have an obligation to pull out our forgiveness toolbox and go to work on an attitude shift.  This is not to say we should condone bad or inadequate behavior.  No, we need to stop the bad behavior, correct the inadequate behavior.  This is not to say that we should remove all consequences from wrong-doing.  Sometimes those consequences are necessary for learning and change to begin.  Forgiveness is not eliminating consequence or the need for change.  It is the extension of love that allows ourselves and others to be better, to seek the desirable paths for change and growth that would be closed if the entirety of our response was condemnation and judgment.  Failure to forgive is a form of othering, of dehumanizing.  I think it is an important part of my role as an Ethical Humanist to forgive myself and do better just as it is to forgive others so that they may do better.

The final take away from Christianity is my continued loathing for hypocrisy.  Indeed, I left the church because of my recognition of my own hypocrisy followed by my desire to eliminate that behavior in myself.  I don't know that there is any particular role for this loathing in Ethical Humanism, but I have seen a lot of hypocrisy among Christians.  And I loathe it.  

I guess I'll have to work on loving some hypocrites and forgiving their hypocrisy, but since I still loathe the deed, I guess I'll have to continue calling it out.  I'm looking at you, Ted Cruz!