Environmental Impact: Was it worth it?

The environment has emerged from the subconscious of America and busted onto the main stage of debate and policy in local, state, ad federal politics. This emergence over the last several years has brought to light a myriad of negative environmental facts, such as: Every day in the U.S., we produce enough trash to equal the weight of the Empire State Building. We throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, produce enough Styrofoam cups annually to circle the earth 436 times and trash enough office paper to build a 12-foot wall form Los Angeles to New York City. Along with these comparatively lesser facts, a greater importance has been placed on environmental disasters like the BP oil spill in 2010, which was one of the worst man-made disasters ever. Through history industrialization has produced an incredible environmental impact, such as: dumping waste products into the water supply, as we saw in Flint, Michigan, or dumping trash into oceans; there are countless examples I could cover, but I have already strayed too far from my topic, but all in an effort to show that despite all these negatives industrialization has been more beneficial to human society as a whole than it has been detrimental.
Industrialization sparked an incredible technological revolution that changed the world forever. Inventions like the steam boat, phone, air plane, etc., made the world smaller and more accessible. We’ve been able to elevate the standard of living across the world by providing food, sustainable energy solutions, and health care and schooling to those who haven’t been able to do it for themselves yet. Even though the process to get to this point, and even beyond, hasn’t been easy or necessarily clean the humanitarian work that we’re able to do for others makes it worth it.
These advances in technology and environmental awareness is spawned from a few people brave enough to act in a manner not consistent with the status quo. For the majority, no one bothered to think twice about effects on the environment. Thoreau is credited with being one of the first; he also was openly critical of slavery in a time when slavery was the norm. Changing people’s minds about slavery was a social battle that didn’t end even after the Civil War. But sometimes it only takes one loud voice to bring awareness and show people that is another way to think. After the Civil War in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of State laws based on the idea of “separate but equal.” There was one dissent in that case, Justice Harlan, The Great Dissenter as he is known. He argued that the Constitution is color blind; this wasn’t a popular opinion to have, but he did it anyways. It has taken over a century to get to where we are now with that issue, and like slavery I believe changing the way we think and behave about the environment will be similar.
Colin Beavan has been compared to Thoreau for his yearlong environmental experiment. And both were heavily criticized for not doing enough or not doing it the right way, whatever that means. Elizabeth Kolbert, self-described as a “critic at large,” blatantly and satirically criticizes Beavan and claims that what he does is a stunt, is disingenuous in his efforts, and that he isn’t a real environmentalist. Her criticism here, I think, is unjust and ill placed. She focuses too much on what he’s doing wrong and that how he goes about it is a poor way. But what she doesn’t do in her article is give him credit where it’s due. Beavan did something that most people wouldn’t do, even for a day. While he himself even said that what he did is unrealistic for most people, at least he tried something that now is very popular and sheds light on alternative means of living. Sometimes all it takes is one person to show that something is possible and people will follow suit. Before 1954 it was the universal belief that a human being could not run a mile in under four minutes, until in May of that year Roger Bannister stepped onto the track and broke the four-minute barrier for the first time ever. Since then tens of thousands of people have done it including high school kids.
The technological advancements we have made have allowed us, as a society, to explore options for improving the environment and standard of living globally that we never would have been able to do if we had similar regulations that we have today. I believe that these regulations are now necessary and don’t, at least not in a major way, inhibit the progress we will continue to make in the future. Progress wouldn’t be possible without mistakes, unfortunately. They are a price that we must make to improve. So we have to ask ourselves, what kind of world do we want to live in? I Thoreauly believe that the journey the industrialized world has taken has been worth it. While it’s so easy to look back and criticize and say “what if they did this,” or “they should’ve done it this way,” we need to understand that making mistakes is how people and society learn and change, and only by making and learning from them can we better prepare ourselves and our posterity for a better future.

The Slippery Slope Fallacy

The writings of Jonathan Safran Foer were quite foreign, and quite extreme for most first-time readers, many of whom had never even thought to question of whether consuming meat was right or wrong. It can be tempting to dismiss his argument as “extreme,” “myopic,” or “articial.” But we must turn from these temptations, for they often signal that we are either uncomfortable with the argument at hand, or that we are having an emotional reaction, both of which cloud our judgement and lead to ethical indiscretions. Thus, our lack of consideration ought not to dictate our contemplation of the question posed. Indeed, in Foer’s searing critique of the factory farming industry we are exposed to a litany of uncomfortable narratives, concepts, and characters. We witness the alleged hypocrisy of our actions as omnivores, and worse still, the needless and immense suffering those actions cause. Faced with these repulsive realities, Foer asks that we first and foremost forgo meat produced by factory farms as a matter of practicality, and then proceeds to ask secondarily that we commit to vegetarianism as a matter of morality. I posit that we have an obligation to address such serious questions seriously.

And these serious questions are vigorously described and addressed in Kolbert’s article in which she summarizes and critiques Foer’s piece. While packed with nuance and important conceptual propositions, I wish to address a particular argument made towards the closing of Kolbert’s article that relates to the aforementioned temptation to dismiss Foer’s argument. The concept I am referencing is that of “the slippery slope to the moral abyss,” as I will call it. To quote Kolbert directly:

“-death and destruction are embedded in them all. It is hard to think at all rigorously about our impact on other organisms without being sickened.”

Kolbert is lamenting the fact that in a consumer society all choices are connected to the death and destruction of other organisms, directly or indirectly. This reality is what can be defined as the moral abyss, a sea of unsavory choices, but choose we must. Faced with this dilemma, this moral abyss, all goods appear to be tainted and a moral citizen is paralyzed into inaction to avoid invoking suffering. The implicit argument here is representative of the slippery slope and it seems to be say that ‘if we have to kill and destroy to survive, does it really matter that I choose this death product over that death product; therefore I must either disregard the suffering behind the products, or I must refrain from consuming altogether.’ Essentially, we are helpless to draw a line when to do so is arbitrary, and in attempting to draw a line only further confounds our values and pulls us closer to the abyss.

I see a problem in the reasoning of this argument. The first is that it does not account for severity of the evils behind a product. There is a wisdom to the old adage “choosing the lesser of two evils,” and its’ wisdom is not lost simply because we face more than two options. Perhaps, for our purposes, the phrase ought to be “choose the lesser of all available evils.”

When we consider this “moral abyss,” then perhaps it may be useful to acknowledge  there is an assumption of depth to an abyss, and some evils are far further down than others, but their relative impact needs to be considered. However, we then face the argument that a great many ethical choices exist for us to make every day, and with limited attention, we can only apply this saying to so many areas of our lives. So does the area of meat merit our precious attention; and more broadly how do we prioritize ethical dilemmas (how do we avoid the slippery slope to meaninglessness)? I would contend that it does, for two reasons that I will describe in anecdotal and conceptual form. The first is that this ethical dilemma is so explicitly clear cut; animals now exist in perpetual suffering by merit of their very existence (thanks to intensive breeding practices), and are murdered for the sake of a palate preferences. While I understand some argument weighs in on whether an animal merits compassion, I consider that outside the scope of this post. Thus, with the stakes so high, the suffering so immense and ubiquitous, and the reason for all of it so pithy, this is an ethical dilemma ripe for correction; conceptually this would mean we ought to act when stakes are high and the reasons for the unethical action are arbitrary or low. The second is the fact that what is asked of us is not to DO something, but instead NOT do something, that is to say, not eat meat. The ease with which we can change this behavior is quite easy practically speaking (perhaps not in terms of willpower, but this is also outside the scope). Thus, the ease with which an action may be taken obligates us to act as well; if there is a high moral return for a low cost.

Thus we resolve the “moral abyss” problem, and address the “slippery slope,” by dismissing the hopelessness of the former, and providing a rough framework to navigate the latter. As a last point, however, I wish to be more candid and insert some of my own unsubstantiated, but logical thoughts. A slippery slope of moral obligation assumes that people will actually fully consider the implications of every decision they make which they will not do. They simply will not. So to argue we ought not to illuminate the darkness surrounding a major national moral crisis because it is overwhelming, is honestly a quite underwhelming proposition. Secondly, this “moral abyss” seems to imply that once exposed, all of our double standards and hypocrisy will melt away and leave us moral husks which is again silly. The human mind proves stubborn as ever at hiding such hypocrisies and any chance to expose them ought to be welcomed. Indeed, I can attest to this principle, for after reading Foer’s book I went to dinner and ordered a burger without thinking. This supposed moral abyss kept me away from meat for less than 10 minutes. Point made.

Do someone else’s dirty hands make mine dirty, too?

The question on my mind derives both from personal experiences and also from some of our texts. Waltzer’s last few lines of his ‘Dirty Hands’ writing indicate that everyone has dirty hands, and that dirty hands end up being necessary for society to continue in some ways. Dovi’s depiction of Addams appears to be compelling reason to understand that making a far-reaching difference for the poor may mean accepting the unjust benefits of one’s own wealth. In seeking to hold others accountable around me, I’ve almost felt that my hands are dirty because of my dedication to upholding the institutions with which I work. But my own experience has been that, in light of my idealism, I try to have clean hands. But here is my question: do someone else’s dirty hands make mine dirty, too?

Now before I admit to having dirty hands of my own, I need to clarify how far-reaching I want to frame my use of ‘dirty hands,’ and I want to restrain Waltzer’s use thereof. Waltzer’s depiction of necessary ruthlessness or corruption during a campaign is absurd to me. He brings up an example of someone having an obligation to engage in corruption to win in a campaign. And he seems to conclude that whoever refrains from corruption in a campaign does not deserve to be in the position for which she is campaigning. But my personal experience has been entirely to the contrary: choosing corruption would have disqualified me from the campaign for which I was running. In running for my current role, my team and I were offered dirty campaign money to purchase extra marketing materials. We also were offered a copy of confidential documents that were not ours to have. Had we accepted the campaign money, we would have been restrained for the rest of the year in opposing a group that was not within the interests of our organization. Had we accepted the confidential documents, our competitors would have used such an acceptance to disqualify us. But we followed moral and legal principles (at least to some degree) in our campaign, and that is what strengthened and qualified us as candidates. So Waltzer’s argument for corruption in campaigns fails. But from Waltzer’s failure, that all instances of ‘dirty hands’ are illegitimate does not follow.

            Dovi’s dirty hands with Addams appears compelling to me in a way that Waltzer’s doesn’t, for Addams’ using her (perhaps) inequitably-inherited wealth uses moral principles to benefit those who need the help. Waltzer advocates for the creation of inequity to accomplish one’s goals, where my experience has been that preventing such creation proves to protect one’s efforts. But Dovi’s example of Addams gives me the impression that Addams would use the already existing wealth that she has—even if others engaged in corruption in order for her to acquire the wealth—for the advancement of her moral principles of helping the poor. But Addams was still haunted by Tolstoy’s commitment to principles by his avoiding the already existing inequities of wealth and power, and if Addams has dirty hands, then she has them as a result of this haunting of her conscience. So it is not Waltzer’s dirty hands with which I identify, but instead with those of Addams.

I ratted out a guy I’ve known for most of my life and allowed for a different investigation to happen to a very close friend whom I deeply enjoy, each for basically one reason—they broke the rules. They got their hands dirty, so to keep mine clean, I reported them, and I have no intention of stopping any administrative investigations into either case. But does that make my hands dirty? To parallel Addams, my existing conditions were that I had relevant information to motivate their investigation. I have good reason to believe they’ve broken the rules in ways that would compromise the integrity of the overall institution that is investigating them if their violations were unreported. Another existing condition was that I had the power to report the information very easily. And I did. Further, I think the overall institution is better off for my reporting these people—students are safer, students’ advocacy with administrators is more secure, and those two young men are facing accountability for their actions. But because those guys’ hands are dirty, my idealism ended up preserving my clean hands in a way, but got my hands a little dirty because I regarded my principles and the institutional laws as more important than how those two guys would view their friendships with me.

In light of Easter weekend, I’d like to bring up an example that ties into my experience: Pontius Pilate. For those who may not be familiar, Pilate was a Roman governor who oversaw the province of Judea in the early first century. What he thought was someone else’s decision to authorize Jesus’ brutal torture and execution became his decision. As a few eyewitnesses and a quasi-reporter at the time relate, religious officials with an angry crowd demanded to execute Jesus, but they wanted the Romans to do it. Pilate took a few steps to prevent this execution. He offered the absurd release of a convicted murderer in exchange for Jesus and he questioned of the legitimacy of Jesus’ alleged guilt. But Pontius Pilate had an obligation to Caesar to make sure that Judea did not become too unruly, and he appeared to be concerned that failure to authorize Jesus’ death could result in an uprising from this angry crowd. Faced with all of these things, he confirmed multiple times how sure the religious officials were that they wanted to kill Jesus. They expressed unanimous consent, despite Pilate’s apprehensions. Pilate deliberated in front of the demanding crowd by giving them what they wanted—a convicted criminal to go free in place of Jesus and an order for Christs’ crucifixion.

Then Pilate asked for a bowl of water.

‘I wash my hands of this.’

He tried to preserve the institutional integrity of the Judean province, articulated what he thought was right, and allowed for the already existing conditions of an angry populace to guide his decision in giving his constituents what they wanted. But do his constituents’ dirty hands of demanding for blood make Pilate’s hands dirty as well? Based on my experience: yes in a way, and no in another.

Perhaps I’m stretching Pilate’s innocence, and he’s more culpable than I’d like to believe.  I’m sure I’d have a far worse view of him if he were only part of a narrative that ended in the death of Jesus. But the Resurrection of Christ puts Pilate’s actions into context, such that his hands are a little cleaner because he plays a part in a story that far supersedes his quelling of an insurrection in his province. It seems that he is culpable insofar as he meant to kill Jesus, so his hands could be cleaner the less he has a choice in the matter–a fact confirmed by the earlier viewing him as a part of this greater narrative of the Jesus story.

Let me know if you figure out how to get Pilate’s hands—and mine—completely clean in a way that doesn’t involve Christ’s Resurrection.

The Reality of Factory Farms

The book Eating Animals is like a new turn of the century version of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. It brings to light the incredibly large Factory Farm industry into the public eye and makes the average consumer contemplate where their meat comes from. Many of the arguments in Eating Animals revolve around the Meat producing industry puts Animal welfare behind Profits and consumer demand. The book goes on to criticizes the entire industry for knowingly and purposely subjecting animals to poor condition and manipulating law sole for the purpose of profit. The authors stance is that the current meat producing system is unethical and ill-moral machine that operates under no moral pretext; the blame is solely put on the farmer and the industry as a whole. However, how i see it the industry itself is not to blame, but the consumer is.

What drives the Food Farming Industry? Consumer demand drives the industry, and consumers want cheap,reliable,healthy,natural,and of course tasty farm products. To produce such a product Animals have to be raised in purpose designed farms and have every aspect from light expose to genes controlled by the farmer. This is where Eating Animals comes in. In the book Safran brings up the moral dilemma caused by the high demand for meat products, in animal cultivation the moral dilemma is placed on the industry itself. I think the moral dilemma is poorly placed as the agriculture industry responses directly to consumer demand. The food industry doesn’t simply produce food for sake of it, the food industry produce food to feed our demand for it, and as humans we demand large quantities of meat per person. How can we place the moral dilemma on the food industry when they are just adapting to the consumer demand.

Due to the demand for meat, every animal that is consumed regularly raised with maximum efficiently, animals are contained in high density enclosures where each animal is given about space of a standard piece of printer paper. Both animal activist and consumer demand for more natural methods of producing meat, however the question is raised is it possible to produce a significant amount of meat to fulfill demand while increasing animal welfare. Fulfilling this wish is proving to be a difficult task, as any increase in animal welfare has a direct effect on cost. Consumers become hesitant when the cost of increasing animal welfare is passed onto the consumer. This is where i think one of  the moral dilemmas comes into play, we can do  what is the “moral” move and increase animal welfare and simply pay the increase prices, or we come to the realization that in order to provide cheap meat to the public, animal welfare suffers.

Lastly, what would we do with out the current meat producing system, simply put fulfilling the demand for meat without the Factory Farm system we would not be able to support the current population and would real only be able to support a fraction of the worlds current population. So the Final moral dilemma on us the consumer is if we truly want to look at the Factory Farm system, we would have to consider how such decision would effect our ability to support our ever increasing population.

 

 

Antonin Scalia and “Morals Legislation”

Although so far in the course we have been focusing primarily on the morality of politicians and leaders, we have also been exploring, as Professor Kirkpatrick outlined last week, several other themes in morality and politics.  One of these themes is the relation between morality and law or legislation.  To what extant should law be informed by morality?  Or, should morality and law be kept wholly separate?  According to former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away only recently, these questions have already been answered in the court’s decision in Lawrence V Texas in 2003.  In this landmark case, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute which prohibited homosexual sodomy.  Specifically, the court ruled that the statute violated the due process clause of the constitution on the grounds that there was no rational basis for the law.  Scalia, who dissented from the Court’s decision, argued that the Texas statute which prohibited homosexual sodomy did not restrict a fundamental liberty.  A fundamental liberty, as established by the court in previous decisions, is one which is either implicit in the constitution or deeply rooted in the nation’s history and/or traditions.  Because the freedom to engage in homosexual sodomy satisfies neither of these two requirements, according to Scalia, it is not a fundamental liberty.  Consequently, in order for the statute to be constitutional, it only requires a rational basis.  Scalia argued that the fact that the court thinks that homosexual activity is wrong is a rational basis for maintaining the law and therefore the Texas statute was not unconstitutional.

After the court’s decision struck down the statute, Scalia proclaimed that the decision “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.”  By morals legislation, Scalia is referring to legislation which prohibits actions, not on the basis of whether there is any identifiable harm, but according to the moral judgments of those enacting the legislation which deem the actions wrong or immoral.  Because the court rejected the use of moral judgments serving as a rational basis, Scalia argued that the laws prohibiting bigamy, adult incest, prostitution, adultery, obscenity, bestiality, and other activities would also have to be repealed.  One could argue against Scalia that these laws, or at least some of them, would not have to be repealed because they could be sustained by other rational bases independent of moral judgments.  For example, laws against incest could be sustained on the grounds that they prevent harmful pathological relationships.  Other similar arguments based on the harm the prohibited action causes could presumably be made for many of the other activities Scalia lists according to this objection.  I find Scalia’s point interesting because it raises broader questions about how we conceive of the relationship between law and morality.  First, is it inappropriate to enact legislation which prohibit actions on the basis of moral judgments even when the actions do not pose any easily identifiable harm?  Second, we may be eager to repeal legislation prohibiting homosexuality and especially bans on same-sex marriage, but what about prostitution, incest, bestiality, bigamy, and obscenity?  Can we, in each of these cases, offer a rational basis by identifying a harm caused by the action or are we truly left with only our moral judgments as Scalia claims?

Dirty Hands, or Moral Exemplar

So, the last time I referred to morality, it was in video games. Most people don’t regard them as an art form, and honestly, it’s even harder to see potential for moral choices in that media. Understandable, but today, I want to bring attention to moral choices people make in another form of media: television.

Recently, the rise of television dramas and television adaptations of popular movies and books has become a new phenomenon in exploring television in its deepest form. But, today’s question will be of dirty hands, and who, if not everyone, has it, and to what extreme must one go in order to accomplish cleansing the dirt from one’s hands.

The show in question: The 100. The 100 is a television adaption of a book trilogy by the same name, created by writer Cass Morgan. It’s a series about a group of one hundred (wow, definitely not expected at all) juvinile detainees, originally sent to jail in a space station that was their home originally and… you know, if you really are interested in the background of the sci-fi show that this is, check it out here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2661044/. Long story short, they have to survive on the earth, which is now inhabited by Grounders, otherwise known as the people that survived the nuclear fallout that ensued after World War 3.

However, some people managed to survive in something called Mount Weather, a pivotal location, which served as a massive nuclear bunker. The inhabitants inside are extremely technologically advanced, and have survived years behind the doors. But, when our main cast comes across them, they find out they’ve been capturing Grounders, and members of the fallen ship (the 100) to use their bone marrow to finally be able to survive the radiation outside. In essence, they’ve been trapped for ages, underground, basically doomed to die down there, generation after generation. All the president of their mountain wants, is to be able to set his people free. So, a few hundred juvenile delinquents sacrifice their lives for the sake of thousands trapped underground, greater good right? My real question is, did he have dirty hands, truly? He was willing to sacrifice his own personal morals (killing young teens is a real problem in this show just fyi) for the sake of the generations to come. And, on top of that, he was willing to stay behind in the mountain, alone, just so he could be redeemed for his shortcomings morally. It’s heartbreaking, honestly. But, it’s a positively wonderful example of a morally difficult question, answered by a president willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. But, and just to throw in a curve ball for thought, was he really a man with dirty hands, or was his dedication to his moral choices something of a moral exemplar for his people? The show certainly points out that it is possible, as his people under the mountain hoped he would come with them, but he refused.

Tolstoy vs. Addams

In Dovi’s article, we read about the interaction between Jane Addams and Leo Tolstoy. I found it to be a representation of an argument about absolutism or idealism versus pragmatism.

Dovi mentions that Tolstoy served as a reminder for, and “haunted,” Jane Addams. He gave up everything to live in the shoes of peasants. While this may be a morally applaudable thing to do, it serves little in the way of pragmatism. Tolstoy did very little to actually help the poor. What good does giving up everything you could use to help people do? Tolstoy abandoned his family as well for his beliefs. Is that to be commended? Tolstoy may have set a larger moral example, but the tangible effects of his actions are small.

Jane Addams, in contrast, lived in sheer opulence compared to the people she helped. However, she was able to reach out and help many more than Tolstoy ever could have. She founded organizations and worked with people. She used the wealth she had and gave it back, instead of just throwing it away. Tolstoy told Addams she should be baking bread for people. If she had simply “baked bread,” she would not have affected as many lives as she did through her organizations and political activism. Her organizations today continue to aid people and further the causes Jane fought for in her time.

There is something to be said for the example Tolstoy set. He inspired many people, from Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, to Jane Addams herself. The argument could be made that by inspiring these people through his works and deeds, he had a hand in the more tangible and pragmatic works that they accomplished. In the grand moral scheme, he had good effects on the world. As Dovi mentioned, “First, they (absolutists) serve as moral exemplars who, by living out their commitment to moral principles, strengthen other citizens’ commitment to their moral beliefs.” (Dovi, pg 132)

We can also look at Addams’s lasting legacy, however. Tolstoy’s works continue to inspire, but Addams’s organizations continue her work. She co-founded the ACLU, which is a very prominent organization today. Not only that, but she also was able to set a moral example for people. She may have been a “Walzerian Compromiser,” but in doing so she was able to affect large scale change and reform.

So, the issue is pragmatism against idealism. Can we have pragmatists that do not go too far, and continue to do good, without idealists to remind them of their moral commitments? Can we all be idealists, and follow our morals perfectly? I agree with Dovi’s assertion that idealists are helpful, and even necessary. But I think that we need more pragmatists that can affect large scale, tangible change in the world while remaining true to, even if somewhat compromising, their morals.

Dirty Hands in Cinema

Since reading Walzer my mind has been racing.  I see themes from his readings in the most random of places ranging from major league baseball to modern movies.  The idea of dirty hands can be seen in any organization that offers the people within to gain power and is large enough to have an impact on many people.  Walzer ended his writing with this sentence “We won’t be able to do that, however, without getting our own hands dirty, and then we must find some way of paying the price ourselves. “(Walzer, 180).  This sentence struck a chord with me, and I realized that the struggle for power and dirty hands is cyclical.  After this realization, I became aware that this theme has been used in modern day cinema.

In Christopher Nolan’s, The Dark Knight, Nolan invokes this idea of dirty hands in politics and power throughout all three of the Dark Knight trilogy.  In The Dark Knight, Nolan uses both Bruce Wayne/Batman and Harvey Dent as his two vehicles to discuss this idea of dirty hands.  Bruce Wayne/Batman believes they are above certain portions of the law, usually involving himself in high speed chases, assaulting criminals, breaking into buildings, and stealing security data.  Batman does have his limits, such as not believing in guns or killing others, but many people believe he is acting above the law.  Where as Harvey Dent is the District Attorney in Gotham City, he believes the law is the highest power, only believes in vigilantism as a last resort, and is scene as the last good politician in Gotham City.  Both of these men are perfect characters to showcase this idea that power and dirty hands is cyclical.

In one scene, Harvey Dent describes The Romans and how they appoint one man to protect the city in times of need, which turns out to be Caesar.  Harvey Dent then says “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”  This phrasing struck a chord in me.

Listen to the scene here .

This quote is foreshadowing for later in the movie.  In the movie, Harvey Dent sees his morality questioned by The Joker.  The Joker is an anarchist with no regard for human life or order.  Harvey Dent and Batman decide to work together, but the Joker kills Harvey’s girlfriend and scars Harvey’s face.  This causes Harvey to go slightly psychotic, but  leads to Harvey’s transformation.

I believe that Harvey is the hero who lives long enough to see himself become the villain.  In this movie, he is the main character in the cycle from morale leader who wants to take down the corrupt power.  As District Attorney, he aims to rid the street of gangs and corrupt politicians, but has to do so through the law.  Once Harvey is injured he realizes that his old tactics would never work.  In order to bring true peace to Gotham he must take the law into his own hands.  He transforms from a moral leader to someone who will kill and lie to bring peace to a city that destroyed him.  Though he is acting out of rage, Harvey goes through a spree of scaring and killing people in the movie.  He attacks the gang members who run the city and bribe the politicians, while also visiting the corrupt police force that he was trying to clean legally.  In the end, Harvey could not reach his goal.  He was killed by Batman, but in a surprising turn of events, the morale person he was before the injures was memorialized.  The lies he told were forgiven by the few who knew what he was doing in order to preserve the city.

Harvey completed the cycle from morale leader who wants to change society to the dirty hands politician.  He was taken out of power by Batman, but Batman to some is not scene as a corrupt leader.  Some think his tactics are out of line, but he is acting morally.  In the end, Batman can be seen as the dirty hands politician.  He is willing to go above normal law to keep the people of Gotham safe.  Walzer believes that new politicians must be able to compete with the veteran politicians, and Batman does this. He is going up against people in power who are willing to kill, lie, cheat, and steal in order to keep the power.  He takes them out and he takes on the mantle of leader, but I think he does not become corrupt because he tries to shun the power and he has boundaries he refuses to pass.  This keeps Batman a somewhat moral leader.

 

 

Brothel or Orphanage?

Brothel or Orphanage, strange question right? Well, in the context I’m about to share, this question actually stood as a question of life or death, in a matter of speaking. Firstly, let me address the obvious question, no, this is not a real life decision, and I doubt this will ever be a real issue. Also, I want to point out that this issue is a very obvious metaphor for which I will discuss later. So, let’s begin shall we? Fable 3 (a video game), the third in the Fable series, is a series that has been known for its crucial decision making between good and bad. Most decisions are normally pretty obvious that they will be bad, or good. Kill a random civilian, bad; kill a bad guy, good; obvious right? However, the third game asked questions that blurred moral lines. What would you do if a dark force was bound to come in and kill your entire kingdom, and the only solution was to raise a military to fight it? Now, how do you make that money to fund it? The solutions are simple, get rid of the nice things your population wants, and exchange it for the cold hard reality of how to make money. The decisions begin early on, right after you de-throne your own brother for his own wrong doings… and you know what, instead of summarizing the plot of the game, here’s a link if you’re curious.

https://www.lionhead.com/games/fable-iii/

Anyway, long story short, decisions are either for the benefit of the people in the short term, or for their benefit in the long term. However, the decisions that are in favor of the money to fund the military are often… less desirable. For instance, remember the question I asked earlier? Well, here’s the math. You need 100 million dollars to save everyone, and this orphanage costs 10 million to run. The brothel however will be state run, and you’ll get a cut for the treasury. That’s approximately 10 million that you’ll gain. If you look at the cold hard facts, sometimes the seemingly cruel decisions can be in fact the most reasonable ones. Save everyone, and let them suffer a little, or try your best to please them, but in a few months they’ll all be dead. In Machiavelli’s terms, this would be the most reasonable path for a prince, and in this case, your character is one, so why not choose the utilitarian path? I can’t say that every ruler would make the hard choices for the sake of everyone (I’m sure some would simply build the brothel for their own amusement) but let’s look at this in comparison to Creon from the play Antigone. Creon makes a decision void of morals in some sense, for what he deemed was to prevent further war. What he did was viewed as an ungodly decision by some, but without the intervention of Antigone, it could have worked to ensure the future of Thebes. The reasonable thing here is to compare the logic behind the decision. Yes, he played the role of god by suspending one of her brother’s own burial in order to bring peace to his people. His decision was utilitarian, and not one of pure power lust. He decided to assure the end of the civil war by outright declaring a winner, and a loser. I mean, in real life context, haven’t we done the same thing to essentially every loser of every war imaginable? We don’t often try to appease the losers of a war simply to make peace with them. But, that’s something for another topic. So, now the question passes to you, Brothel or Orphanage?

My Transformation from being a Machiavellian Leader to an Antigone Leader

Learning, integrity, leadership, benefit, excellence, and value, these are the values of my Fraternity.  As a member of my Fraternity we are expected to live by these values every single day, but sometimes these values fall by the wayside when it comes to Fraternity politics and elections for new leaders.  When people think of politics, I am fairly sure that people will not think of Fraternities and the internal issues that prelude elections.  In order to fully understand Fraternities and how they work they should understand how Fraternities build leadership,  the article “4 Ways Fraternities Foster Leadership Skills For a Lifetime” helps describe this.

As I went on through my journey in the chapter, I did not know if I wanted to be President of my Chapter.  One day I realized that me being President was the difference between my chapter moving forward and succeeding or failing and getting kicked off campus.  In September of 2014, I made an agreement with my friend that I would run for Vice President and he would run for President, but I knew this was not the best decision.  In this time I realized that I was having a dilemma, and I decided to take on the role of the moral politician.  I was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that my chapter could thrive.  At this moment I started to devise a plan to win the Presidency and to ensure that my chapter would turn around.  I started to engage in what some would think of as dirty politics.  I convinced our closest friends to all support me for President, and convincing my friend to run for the Vice President spot.  In the end, my friend did not really have the choice, I would be able to win no matter what, but I wanted to avoid as much conflict as possible.  The whole time I had an internal dilemma about if i was being a bad person or if I was being a good person.  I was able to sleep at night because I told myself because I was doing what was best for my chapter, just like how Machiavelli thought that a Prince should do what is best for his people no matter how bad the actions to get there are.

I won the election and became President.  I did not feel bad at this point and I was willing to do whatever else it took to ensure my Chapter’s success.  We were on probation, so we had to turn ourselves around.  First, I made an example of certain members to prove that I was not going to be taking this year lightly.  Within the first two weeks I kicked two men out in order to show that certain actions would not be tolerated, and this started with people being mad at me, but then led to them respecting me and fearing me.  I took another Machiavellian principle and realized that being fear was far better than being loved.  My chapter shaped up, and some of my tactics for kicking the men out of my chapter were not necessarily the best ways, but they had to be done.  Finally,  I cared about my people.  I sought out the guys in my chapter that could be great leaders, and I empowered them.  This gave me the best support network to be able to have loyal followers.  I began to love my time as chapter President, and I felt that I was actually making a difference.

A few months into it, I began to feel empty as Chapter President.  I did not feel happy with my choices and I went to a National Leadership Conference for my Fraternity and realized that I was not living by my Chapter’s principles.  I was not valuing my brothers, I was not acting with integrity, and I am not completely sure I was acting with integrity.  I started to realize that I have to live by the ideals of my Fraternity in order to best serve my Chapter.  This led to me changing the ways in how I acted in my chapter, how I interacted with my fellow executive board, and how I made decisions.  I started to go against many of the people I worked with because I did not think what we were doing were within our values.  I started to have some people turn against me and I started to become more isolated.  In the end, I think I started to prove Machiavelli’s point.  I began to act like Antigone and followed our principles so closely that I started to become negatively affected.  I began to lose my power within the chapter, so me acting within our principles and following a morale code made me lose power.  In the end, I had to step down from the Presidency because i did not make grades.  There was not a rule at the time about a President and his grades, but I felt that I was doing my chapter a disservice.  I knew that I was not representing my Chapter’s principles in the best way and I knew that as President I had to exceed these principles.  In the end of the day, I chose to step down.  I lived so closely to principles and this caused me to lose my power.  I did not mind this though, just like how Antigone did not care that she would die in the end for following her principles, I did not mind stepping down.  I was proud of my actions and I knew that I was making the best choice.

So in the end, I am not sure what is better.  Being a Machiavellian leader ensured that I got a lot done, but being a leader like Antigone made me feel better at the end of the day.  I felt that I was a better person, and I still made a huge difference in my chapter.  Neither is wrong, but I think I prefer living by my values and leading by those also.