George's Will's Great Detachment

 

Just add people

I've been broadening my "algorithm" to include more conservative voices.  I want to be able to see both sides of issues, to avoid living in a silo where I am right all the time and never learn anything but what my own brain tells me.  So, I read George Will a bit more often than I used to.  So far so good.  Sometimes I am shocked to find myself agreeing with him.  Sometimes, it's more like "hmm, I didn't think of it that way."  

Today's opinion piece in the New York Times  was in the realm of:  "Now hold on there, George!"  Here's the trigger:

When you look at these trends through a political lens, the power of the autonomy ethos becomes clearer. In general, conservatives believe in economic freedom (low taxes, fewer regulations) but social obligations (faith, family, flag). Progressives tend to favor economic obligations to reduce inequality but more social autonomy to live whatever lifestyle you choose.

Could be a case over-simplification, could be my own over-reaction, but I was reading his discussion of the trends toward this "great detachment" that we seem to be experiencing in the US and nodding my head right up until he put the progressive label on me and then completely got it wrong.

Well, he got me wrong.  And he got Ethical Culture wrong.  That's probably because Ethical Culture is so tiny-small and more than a little bit of a hairball these days.  So let me back up to the moment before my brain heard the sound of screeching brakes.

Will is arguing---along with Curt Collier and others who pay attention to the trends of the past half century or so---that social engagement is falling in the US and that that, to a large extent, is due to the emphasis on individualism and the elevation of efficiency and wealth as the two primary goals of life.  (Neither of them have particularly emphasized the efficiency part, but it's hiding in plain sight when they talk/write about this.)  These issues were factors in American society much before either of these guys---or most social scientists---quite figured it out.  

Felix Adler spoke repeatedly about the mistake of centering one's life goals on the accumulation of wealth.  He spoke of the duties that such accumulation created and the obligation to veer away from the hoarding mindset to one of sharing and investment in a better future.  He also reminded us that, while our supreme aim is to become better, more ethical human beings, we could never do that without engaging with other human beings in relationships founded on mutual respect and concern.  Efficiency and emphasis on individualism and the accumulation of wealth for its own sake were all factors that worked against us in becoming the ethical beings that we might want to be, and his whole platform was aimed toward overcoming those factors.

Or so it seems to me.  Now I have to go back and document each point that I raise in that last paragraph, since these are impressions, the sense of Adler's writing---and my overall understanding of Ethical Culture---that have been formed in recent years by reading (and editing) some of the many lectures by Adler (and others) that have never made it very far outside of the building at 2 W. 64th Street in Manhattan.  

When I do get that documentation accomplished, I should probably explain to George Will that it is not a political thing, but a worldview thing---a religious thing, if you will.  Will is careful to note---  

I want to reiterate something. These are averages. Be careful how you apply social science data to your individual life, because your life is filled with things social science can’t see: your unique circumstances, tastes, spirit.

---to which I reply "Well done, George!"  But more love and more marriage are not necessarily the answer to our "great detachment."  And neither of those things are political and should definitely not be turned into political positions.  Indeed, I would be more pleased to have the "progressive" label a little less liberally applied to anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.  

The Progressive Movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was assisted very strongly by the Ethical Culture Movement.  No matter whether EC was in the driver's seat or part of the team pulling the wagon, Adler and his philosophy was part of the impetus to improve the community, and the focus was on creating and maintaining relationships across all of the boundaries that human biology and thought sought to create.  That, I think, is why our great detachment has occurred: When we fail to see that social good based on ethics is, after all, social, we lose both the social and the good.  

Our great detachment is accompanied by great division, as we divide ourselves into groups (conservative vs progressive!) (male vs female) (white vs non-white) (Christian vs non-Christian) (American vs non-American) (etc.) (and so on) (endlessly).  When ethics is made central in our lives (and our thoughts), then every single thing that we do---drink water, eat food, wear clothes, breathe air, vote, buy a house, read a book (and so endlessly on)---connects us to other humans.  Our awareness of that fact is the beginning of acknowleging and engaging in a relationship that links us to where the water came from, how we use it, where it goes when we are through with it, even the systems that turn hydrogen and oxygen into water.  We are never alone when we take that sip of water.  

Similarly, we are not alone when we walk through the grocery store, pushing our cart.  Nor in our car driving to work.  And so endlessly on.  Will is emphasizing romance and love for a single other human as the significant factor in the great detachment, but the detachment is more fundamental.  When we fail to see the human faces around us as persons with whom we (already!) have a connection, we fail to allow ourselves to experience the connection that we need to remain human, and we deny ourselves the opportunity to become our better selves.  

 

As Time Goes By . . .

Matthew Ies Spetter

I am working rather intently these days on assorted projects for Ethical Culture.  Most of this work is done under the auspices of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and the various programs in which I participate.  One of those programs is the Archives Committee, which I chair.  That can take up a lot of time now and then.  The other program is one which is going to take up a fair bit of time today and perhaps over the next few days.  The project of focus at the moment is writing a feature article for the new journal of the Ethical Culture Institute @ NYSEC:  The Annals.

The feature article is a "spotlight" of sorts on Matthew Ies Spetter, a leader for the second half of the last century and the first decade of this century.  My goal is to get several of his platforms, which have now been digitized, posted on the web for others to read.  I hope to do this with all of the leaders from NYSEC and from Ethical Culture in general.  The quality of the lectures, of course, varies.  Adler's own lectures were sometimes a bit of a mess, taking the long view of hindsight.  Even so, too many of our current members have little contact with people who have been trained in philosophy or the mainstream of our history of thought.  This is my effort to facilitate a little self-help.

And so I come to M. I. Spetter's platform of December 24, 1995:  "'As Time Goes By . . .':  Our Struggle to Connect."  Come September 15, it will be published online for all to read.  In the meantime, the first paragraph has already sparked my thinking about time. This post is not about Spetter, but about time.

Time is, I believe, a human construct.  Today is August 3, 2025.  We are taught where the "August" comes from (Augustus Caesar, not to be confused with Julius Caesar, who got July).  So, today we "honor" a dead emperor, who was also called Octavius.  This is the year 2025 by some accounts.  It has different numbers in other accounts.  This "year" is part of what sparked my thinking this morning:  We don't actually know how many times the earth has gone around the sun since this solar system came into being.  This could be the year 4,000,000,025 for all we know.  As for the 3, once you have the year and the month, I guess the actual day is pretty much, well, whatever.

Except.  When I typed the date, I mistakenly entered a 2 instead of a 3.  I corrected it and thought "Time really is flying."  The difference of one day, and yet I feel the pressure of the passing days.  Part of that pressure is self-imposed as I try to meet these self-imposed deadlines and goals..  Part of that pressure is the external deadlines that come from others, both near and far.  I have something to do on the 10th, so I have an obligation to others to honor my commitments to them by that date.  The State of Texas has assigned an expiration date to my drivers license, so I have to take care of that--in person--before that date.  The list seems to be quite long these days.  

Another pressure is life itself.  I'm not getting any younger.  The reality is that I am well past the halfway point in what is possible for a human lifespan.  These days the pressure that I feel from the passage of time says that I cannot waste what time I have left.  That in itself is odd.  What am I wasting?  Why not try to get the most enjoyment I can out of these last years?  Why not indulge myself in, say, the sensuous delight of vanilla ice cream with a sprinkling of crumbled Texas pecans?  

I feel this incredible pressure on my time because there is so little of it in any given day--and an unknown but definitely limited number of days left in this life.  I am performing a service for Ethical Culture in the work that I am doing.  At the same time, I am enjoying the hell out of it.  I love discovering something that has not yet been entered in the Bibliography.  I love the excitement of being able to add to that list, and I love searching the internet to try to find the book or article online so that I can see it, read it, and, very importantly, confirm its bibliographic history.  I love seeing a reference that I don't understand.  Well, of course, I want to understand it, so that means more searching and study.  I become a detective when searching for details of publication, of history, of connections to Ethical Culture, of connections among people and groups.  

At the same time, I find myself resenting interruptions.  The phone.  The door.  Even the cat.  Even my bladder.  Interruptions can interrupt my train of thought; then it might take time--even days--before I can return to the work that had me so absorbed prior to that interruption.  One consequence is a pile of "work in progress" projects that need my attention, sitting there waiting for me after that one interruption pulled me away.  It is my natural, probably human, attitude that makes me resent these interruptions, wanting to continue the pleasure of the work that I am doing.  Indeed, it might be compared to the delights of vanilla ice cream with a sprinkling of crumbled Texas pecans.  To indulge myself in that delight is to indulge in pleasure that, in some ways, will ultimately be harmful to my health (especially at this late point in my expected lifespan, given the effects of sugar and fat on my liver).  Indulging in my beloved work on the Bibliography--and the hoped for Ethical Culture Online Library--in important, not just to me, but, I believe, to others.  

Nonetheless, I can (finally) see the harm that I do to myself by spending so much of my time immersed in this work.  By resenting the interruptions, I am also resenting the intrusion of others into my life.  By "burying myself" in work, I am burying myself away from friends and family and the relationships that are key both to maintaining my humanity and to growing my sense of ethics.  Yes, I can (and do) grow in my understanding of ethics by reading and studying the work of those who have contributed to the body of thought associated with Ethical Culture.  Yes, I am performing a service for others, performing an ethical action, if you will, by doing this work.  But this work, alone, will not allow me to practice my ethics in human relationships so that I can learn from the practical experience of those relationships, putting, as they do, all that reading and studying to the test.

In his second book, To Deny the Night:  Reflections on Life and Essence, Spetter wrote:

It is quite true that we are born and that we die, alone. But as we live, we exist within the reach of one another and thus can justify hope and the enjoyment of life by our deeds. The fact of solitary emergence and exit is not what constitutes human tragedy. Tragic is that life which remains in alienated abstinence of relationship and obligation.

The need to live in relationship to others--reciprocal relationships based on mutual respect, caring, and, importantly, sharing of self--is a constant theme in Spetter's writing and lectures, extending from the earliest works to which I have access to the latest.  I want to continue with this work--truly, madly, deeply.  But I also want to try to focus less on the passing of time and more on the opportunity that these interruptions provide.  To talk about the meaning of life with my grandson.  To share memories and laughter with a girlfriend.  To listen to the caller from a non-profit who seeks my support, giving them a listening ear even if I can't give money.  To see the humanity in the young fellow who knocks on my door, offering to mow my lawn.  These interruptions take time away from the work that I want to do, but they also, I believe, keep me connected to others, keep me human--and teach me the value of patience.  Time is a human construct.  To spend it with others is not to waste it, but to use it to build relationships, to share love and kindness, to nurture the seeds of the future.

OK, Boomer!

 

King Solomon in Old Age, by Gustave Dore

One of the rewards for working on the Bibliography of Ethical Culture is exploring new ideas and meeting new (to me) authors.  Right now, the Archive Team for the New York Society for Ethical Culture (and the Ethical Culture Movement) is focusing on the Adler Study in NYSEC's building in New York City.  So far so good; we have photographed the title pages and verso for most of the books in the first bookcase (there are 10), and I have started creating a bibliographic inventory of the case.  Of course, I can't just create a bibliographic entry without looking at the book (if it has already been digitized), so I've been taking quick peeks at a number of those books.  I've never, for example, read Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln.  A quick peek resulted in reading a few paragraphs of the chapter on Lincoln's humor and his religion.  I expect I'll return to that when I have time.  I also encountered Ralph Linton, an anthropologist that I knew through other works.  However, I hadn't seen The Tree of Culture before, and I expect I'll try to read that one before too long.  It was also kinda fun to see Ida Tarbell among the authors consulted by Felix Adler--and later Ethical Culture leaders.  (According to Wikipedia, Tarbell spent some time in Chicago, meeting and working with Jane Addams.  Is there a connection to Ethical Culture???)

Today's fun comes from Ralph Barton Perry, a prolific writer, labeled "a strident moral idealist" in Wikipedia.  So far, I've seen two of his books in the Adler Study, and, given his focus on William James, there could well be more.  Part of my process in working on the Bibliography is to check for online availability, so, naturally, I checked to see if the Perry books were available online.  The Internet Archive (archive.org) is my first stop, but, if they don't have a book, I'll check Google Books (and Scholar), Hathi Trust, WorldCat, etc.  Both books--Puritanism and Democracy and In the Spirit of William James can be found in the Internet Archive.  I didn't look too closely at the former, but I did look at the contents of the latter and read a couple of pages of the first chapter.  That persuaded me to check to see if I could buy my own copy for some, more or less, entertaining reading in philosophy.

After meandering through a rather long list of Perry's publications for sale at rather high prices, I happened to notice A Plea for an Age Movement, published in 1942.  There were photographs of the covers and one or two pages inside.  This poem by James Ball Naylor ("Ancient Authors") was cited on page 5:

King David and King Solomon

    Led merry, merry lives,

With many, many lady friends

    And many, many wives;

But when old age crept over them--

    With many, many qualms,

King Solomon wrote the Proverbs

    And King David wrote the Psalms.

My first thought was:  And we live in the age of "OK, Boomer!"  I bought the book.

Adler on Purpose

Standing Up for Human Rights at the Texas Capitol

Felix Adler reported to the New York Society about what he experienced at the first [international] Congress [of Ethical Societies] held in Zurich in 1896 (Ethical Addresses, Series Three, pp. 133-150).  He detailed the activities reported by the Ethical Societies that attended from all over Europe and then he turned to the problem that he saw:

Now all this is very laudable and very interesting, but it did seem to me as if there was one thing lacking in the foreign Ethical Societies — or at least if not lacking yet not sufficiently pronounced: that is, the spiritual element. I do not mean anything mystical when I use the word spiritual. When we think of morality, if we concentrate our attention on the act, on the external part of it, then we are not spiritual; but if we care chiefly for the spirit in which the act is done, then we take the spiritual view. It seemed to me as if the spiritual side, though not wanting by any means among the leaders — in fact it was beautifully emphasized by some of the leaders — was nevertheless too much neglected; as if the drift were in an external direction, as if the feeling prevailed that the ethical society exists for the benefit of others. I have always felt that this is a wrong attitude to take. I have always felt that an ethical society should take the ground that it exists primarily for the moral benefit of its own members. It is in this way that I have distinguished in my mind between the real members and the quasi members of an ethical society. The real member of an ethical society is the person who feels that he has not yet — morally — finished his education; that he is in need of moral development, in need of help, and looks upon the society as a means of helping him in his moral development. The quasi member is the person who merely appreciates the society in so far as it is doing good for others. He is no real member, at best only an ally, an associate. Now I felt that this sort of external feeling prevails to a considerable degree in the foreign societies as it still largely exists in our own. (pp 143-144).  Emphasis added.

From another perspective, we have, in the next year’s Series (Ethical Addresses, Series 4), a report of the Congress from the new Secretary of what he called, at that point, the International Ethical Federation.  Dr. F. W. Foerster, Jr., son of the eminent astronomer, Dr. F. W. Foerster, reported on Adler’s address to the Congress thusly:

The address given the following evening by Professor Felix Adler, the founder of the Ethical Movement, on " Our Common Aims," proved to be of importance in the outlook it opened and the influence it exercised on the deliberations of the Congress. For him all merely external results achieved by the Movement are of minor significance. The true  “practice" cannot appear unless a social regeneration has previously taken place in every individual. In assigning the chief prominence to the moral renewal of the inner life, Professor Adler pointed out, at the same time, the necessary consequences which a thoroughly sincere person, who lays the principal stress on the inner side of reform, must draw, so far as the social and economic distress of the present day is concerned. This elucidation was the more timely, as many of the continental leaders were under the mistaken impression that the Ethical Movement in America has taken the shape of a sort of religious sect, and does not attempt to exert a decisive influence upon the attitude and conduct of its members with respect to social and political questions. This impression indeed seemed, for the moment, to receive additional confirmation when Professor Adler proceeded to warn against the tendency to over-emphasize activity in the external field and declared that, as members of the Ethical Societies, we are to see to it primarily that  “we save our own souls alive," that it is our own inward integrity which we must seek to rescue. But it was speedily made plain that no mere retirement into a sequestered Ethical individualism was intended, but that the position indicated contained within itself the very strongest motives to the exercise of the social energies. For, moral self-recollection, according to Professor Adler, if it be only deep enough, is sure to lead us beyond the narrow limits of individualism, sure to awaken in us not merely interest in our fellow beings and a forceless pity for their sufferings, but to fill us with a profoundly moving consciousness that we are, in part, responsible for the crimes and miseries that exist in society and will arouse us to seek expiation from the social guilt which adheres to us. And this, first of all and chiefly, by achieving our inner release from the evil powers that today devastate mankind. (Series 4, 102-103)

And he goes on from there. (And I should point out that about a year later Dr. Foerster (the younger) left the Movement and converted to Catholicism.)  What I gathered from this was that, at the very beginning of our international federation, there was concern that Ethical Culture was being distorted into a social justice or social service organization.  Adler’s repeated assertion is that our goal is our own personal moral/ethical growth and improvement – and our practice in social service and social action is how we learn and grow.  That, at least, is my understanding of what I have been seeing and reading as I do this work.  Interestingly, the tension remains in the AEU and in our local Societies – are we all about ethics or are we all about the practice of ethics?  Somehow it always seems to be either/or and not both/and.

___________________________________

The above excerpt is from an address I recently delivered to the Ethical Humanist Society of the Triangle.  The address focused on lessons gleaned from preparing the Bibliography of Ethical Culture, starting with Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record, a 21 volume serial published by the American Ethical Union from 1895 to 1914.  

The founding of an International Union of Ethical Societies was an important milestone in the history of the Ethical Culture Movement.  I found it interesting that there was some misunderstanding at the outset regarding the goal of individual improvement and the broader element of social development.  Part of that interest came from the point raised in the last sentence of this portion of my address:  History is repeating itself in our Movement.  That is, insofar as those who join us are looking to perform good works and acts of social justice, they may have failed to understand the purpose of our Ethical Societies.  Yes, we commit to doing Ethical actions.  Yes, we want to make the world a better place for all who live in it.  But we are, first of all, seeking to develop our own understanding of ethics and the right thing to do.  As we progress in our understanding of ethics, part of that understanding will be that there are those who need our help, that our voice is needed to clarify the ethics of the situation, that our time and talent can be used to improve the lives of others.  Part of that understanding will also be that our ethics are practical and applied as a way of gaining an even better understanding of the needs and suffering of those around us as we also seek ways to relieve that suffering.  It is not the application of our ethics that we seek but the understanding and knowledge and human compassion that we gain by applying them, drawing us closer to our fellow humans and more in harmony with the planet.  That ethical action is a by-product of our ethical development is not any less important than the fact that ethical action is a tool of our ethical development. 

Have a nice winter festival, Y'all!

This Happy Ethical Human will celebrate the season and 

return in the new year (with resolutions, no doubt!).

The Banality of Crazy

My dear friend, Lamar Hankins, regularly sends me news articles that he thinks might interest me, and he recently hit the nail on the head.  He sent me an article by Paul Furhi in the Washington Post:  "Trump’s violent rhetoric is getting muted coverage by the news media."  The point of the article is that, for various reasons, the increasing violence of former President Trump's public speech is receiving decreasing coverage, surprise, or outrage.  His speech is becoming banal--the banality of crazy, as Furhi reports that Brian Klaas (University College London) labels it.  

The article resonates with me at a time when I am trying to work out ways to get the rich legacy of Ethical Culture out of dusty boxes and obscure websites into places where ordinary members of the Movement have easy access and--just as importantly--have awareness of the writings and lectures that have shaped our Movement over time.  One such piece of our legacy I have never heard anyone cite, but I find it quite relevant to our present situation--and the degree to which incitement to violence has become not merely banal but increasingly normalized.

The speech to which I refer is a platform delivered by Algernon D. Black to the New York Society for Ethical Culture on October 1, 1944, entitled "The Meaning of Hitler's Defeat."  As you no doubt realize, Hitler had not yet been defeated at the time Black gave this platform.  He--and his audience--expected Hitler's defeat in a foreseeable future.  Black, however, gave his attention to the notion that simply defeating one man--or even his armies--or even his country--would not be enough.  The ideology being propagated by Hitler and his allies and his armies--fascism--would, even after Hitler's defeat, still have an insidious presence throughout the world and even on American soil.  

Just as it does today.  Black's concern is mirrored as some might seek the political defeat of Donald Trump and still miss the insidious presence of his beliefs that violence is an acceptable way to win, that othering is a desirable political strategy, that money is the primary good in society, and so on down the line to the whole package of fascistic actions, strategies, and outcomes that is part of Donald Trump's plan for the nation.  

Black's conclusion:

There are people in our country who have never voted. They are Americans but they have never bothered. It is too much trouble. They say they are individualists. They never want to join anything. They see no responsibility to give strength to anything. “I live my life, I let other people live. I do my job, make my money, have my pleasure, have my family, that's all.” I say that if America gets Fascism, we of all the countries, who have had freedom longer, who have education and political controls, who have had the chance through all these years to see what Fascism does,--if we fail, we shall deserve everything we get. And if it happens, may history write us down for what we are,--selfish and materialistic, a people without any vision, a people who fight, but do not know why.

Here then is the spiritual challenge of Hitler's defeat. Here, when the war is over, the real war will begin!

And so, let us not be fooled when the military defeat of Hitler comes. Let us make certain that it is the spiritual defeat of Hitler. Victory can only be won on the level of a new understanding and a new citizenship. It requires the reconstruction of democratic faith and the reconstruction of relationships between people, here in America and if we do not have this new life here in America, we shall never be able to help create it in Germany or anywhere else.

The "crazy" that Furhi refers to seems more likely to diminish rather than call out the very real danger posed by Trump's rhetoric--and that of those who support him.  Moreover, the "crazy" is not new. If this is not the moment when America becomes wholly Fascist in its orientation, if this tide of "crazy" recedes, if Trump is defeated, Algernon D. Black's warning of the dangers of the failure to defeat the "spirit of Fascism" will still continue to be relevant.  We grow as Ethicals by putting our values into action through our deeds.  We can only grow as Americans--living up to the ideals of democracy and freedom upon which this nation was founded--by putting our values into action through practicing the principles of democracy daily.  To me, it seems that Al Black is all but shouting that Fascism will only be defeated by Democracy, and it's time for Democracy to step up.  I concur.

A Question of Balance

William James,
American Philosopher, Historian, Psychologist

I am overcome with the beginning of William James' speech, "Is Life Worth Living?" (Ethical Addresses, 12th Series, 1905, pp. 1-29).  I hadn't half begun reading it when I had to stop and absorb all that he had thrown at me (and initially at the Young Men's Christian Association at Harvard, c. 1895) in the introduction.  

James began with Walt Whitman's ebullient praise of life, which, of course, lifted me up; then he took me down to the depths of despair with a long excerpt from James Thomson's poem:  "The City of Dreadful Night."  Two pages worth of an excerpt, with this snippet of doom and gloom:

My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus : 

This life holds nothing good for us,

But it ends soon and nevermore can be; 

And we knew nothing of it ere our birth. 

And shall know nothing when consigned to earth ;

I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me.

And then he called us back to reality, more or less, with another excerpt from an unidentified source quoting [John] Ruskin, to remind us that joy and misery yet live side by side though one be out of the sight of the other.

And, with that, I had to pause and reflect.  The emotional rollercoaster created by these references took me from high to low to a stricken realization that at no time might we be wholly comfortable in our own lives, knowing that others are themselves suffering and miserable.  What to think?

Sometimes, yes, life is so wonderful we can hardly believe that we have been privileged to experience such moments as come to us with delight and wonder and sheer pleasure.  I can remember the day I was waiting for a Senate Committee hearing to begin, intending to testify in support of some bill or other, thinking:  "I can't believe they pay me to do this."  I can remember the peace and comfort of just leaning sideways slightly to touch my late husband's shoulder and feel the solid support of his presence.  I can remember standing on the back porch of my rented home as a student in Seattle, seeing Mt. Rainer, with sunlight gleaming on its snowy top--all that beauty practically for free!  I can sit here now, in a not wholly lit room, no views to speak of, just a keyboard and monitor to face me--and remember many such moments, delighted at having been given the chance to experience them, delighted still to have the ability to remember them.  (Memory is nothing to take for granted!)

But, yes, there are moments in life where we can hardly stand to bear what we must suffer now and, sometimes, forever.  The loss of loved ones will eventually come to all of us.  I sit here, with my husband's loving glance captured in a long ago picture, knowing that I will never see those eyes looking at me again.  The pain of walking from one room to another, sometimes worse, sometimes better, always a reminder of limitations, keeps me indoors and away from direct social contact--which even an introvert will eventually miss.  The careless insults and assaults that others may fling in my direction, seeking, perhaps to awaken my awareness, not realizing the deep wounds that they re-open.  My woes are few, but sometimes they loom large.  I can find myself descending into the Slough of Despond before I realize what's happening, if I don't carefully pull myself back from the abyss.  Still, rarely, but painfully, I sometimes find myself questioning whether my life is worth continuing.

It is, however, the last of James' three quotations that strikes me the hardest.  I cannot regret my happy memories; I have learned to back away from the abyss.  But how do we live in any comfort or ease, knowing that around us people are suffering?  These walls shut me in.  Now, however, I am reminded that on the other side a good neighbor has recently suffered a stroke.  A young couple have taken in their flags and signs, any indication of their non-binary identity, being now forced to hide who they are out of fear.  Farther away, I am told, young students are facing their own struggles to find their way forward in a society that pushes them in unhealthy and unsafe directions.  And we know that poverty and disease and violence and abuse and the whole litany of horrors that humans can manage to inflict upon humans (and non-humans and the planet itself) continue.  Once we become aware--awakened, if you will--how do we survive the onslaught?

James' address to the YMCA was about suicide--and how to avoid it.  I'm not sure that I am fully aligned with his answer (religious experience will give you a reason to live), so I will have to spend more time with James' work and ideas to see why it so appealed to the editors of Ethical Addresses when they republished it 10 years after it was first delivered.  In spending that time, I am not likely to be seeking an answer to the question at the heart of his essay:  Is life worth living?  (Hell to the yes, it is.  And I'm loving the living of it, aches, pains, stress, and all.)

The question, however, that is going to stalk me for quite a while is the one that struck me so hard in reading James' introduction and is, after all, the key question that faces us in Ethical Culture.  Not "is life worth living?" but "how can we balance our need to grow and change within ourselves against the need to help the world around us develop and change?"  We seek to become better human beings, better family members, better neighbors.  We also feel pulled to help relieve the suffering we see in the world, to help others find better ways to be human.  Do we have to choose between these needs?  Or can we do both?  What is the balance?

I take this issue as a "key question," because I feel that there is an ongoing tug of war ideas within the Ethical Culture Movement right now:  Should we focus our efforts on our individual inner development and not on Ethical Action that focuses on serving the broader community external to our Ethical Culture Societies?   Should we focus on our service to the planet and its inhabitants, or should we tend first to our own need for development as Ethical humans?  Frankly, I think Felix Adler answered that question both ways in the past, and I'm not sure how other Leaders have treated the issue since those early answers.  Perhaps that is why we continue to hear passionate statements like this:  "Ethical Culture Societies, not the AEU, should engage in Ethical Actions!"  "You can't do any Ethical Actions until you have worked on your own attitudes and beliefs!"  "The AEU needs to develop national Ethical Actions that Societies can participate in!"  And on and on, back and forth, with no particular forum or venue in which to seek consensus.

Perhaps it is time to have that discussion.  In the meantime, we must agonize within ourselves, knowing that others suffer, knowing that we can (try to) help, but that we also need to maintain a commitment to ourselves and our intellectual and emotional development as Ethical Humans.  How to do that remains the question, I think.

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