[Dialogue] About David Brooks's Moral Individualism Rant

[steve har]

Retorts to David Brooks's recent rant about the emerging generation's
alleged  lack of moral sensitivity spotted by Randy Williams

>From Valarie Kaur's letter to the NYTimes editor today

David Brooks cites a Notre Dame study of 230 young Americans to indict
an entire generation’s moral sensibility, warning that our “erosion of
shared moral frameworks” gives rise to “moral individualism.”

I think the researchers got it wrong. It’s not that we don’t have a
shared vocabulary to address moral issues — we just don’t have theirs.
My generation is the most open-minded in history. Nearly half of us
are nonwhite or multiracial; most of us support interracial dating;
and the majority of us, including conservatives, accept gays and
lesbians.

We don’t frame our moral commitments in the black-and-white language
of previous generations, because we’ve inherited the damage that comes
from absolutes, whether partisan politics or fundamentalisms.

We’d rather channel our diverse moral stirrings into meaningful
action. In fact, a group of us lead a multifaith initiative for
justice anchored in exactly what Mr. Brooks says we lack: moral
vision. It’s time for a closer look.
VALARIE KAUR New Haven, Sept. 13, 2011 The writer is the director of
Groundswell, a social action initiative of Auburn Seminary in NYC
http://www.groundswell-movement.org/

Paul Krugman today in part...
I’m referring, as you might guess, to what happened during Monday’s
G.O.P. presidential debate. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Representative
Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to
purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months
of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about
— taking your own risks.” Mr. Blitzer pressed him again, asking
whether “society should just let him die.”

And the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”

The incident highlighted something that I don’t think most political
commentators have fully absorbed: at this point, American politics is
fundamentally about different moral visions.

Now, there are two things you should know about the Blitzer-Paul
exchange. The first is that after the crowd weighed in, Mr. Paul
basically tried to evade the question, asserting that warm-hearted
doctors and charitable individuals would always make sure that people
received the care they needed — or at least they would if they hadn’t
been corrupted by the welfare state. Sorry, but that’s a fantasy.
People who can’t afford essential medical care often fail to get it,
and always have — and sometimes they die as a result.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/opinion/krugman-free-to-die.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

And Unitarian-Buddhist minister James Ishmael Ford,  in a Boston labor
day sermon: Hanging Separately Hanging Together
By the middle of the twentieth century, pretty much anyone willing to
work could expect to own a car and a house and to send their children
to college. It felt. It seemed. Well, here’s the bad news. Perhaps
you’ve noticed. Things are going wrong. It looks like after near a
century of social advance where each generation could, it seemed, hope
to do better than their parents, unless you were an African American
or a Native American, it has come to a screeching halt for everyone.
Today nearly half the American people are too poor to pay income
taxes. In fact the poor pay taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, sales
taxes, state income taxes, and sometimes property taxes. It's just
that our progressive income tax system at its best protects the poor.
As it should. http://monkeymindonline.blogspot.com/2011/09/hanging-separately-hanging-together.html

When the students are ready, let real teachers appear not David Brooks please
--
Steve Harrington