Tag: virtue

What are your ‘isms?”

~ purplesage41 ~ 4 Comments

When I was in college, back in ancient times (the early 1960s), I was an economics major.  One of the most popular courses was called comparative economic systems—communism, socialism, capitalism. Despite the then-recent history of World War II, we did not discuss fascism, which is another form of economic governance, a governing structure based on an alliance of industry and authoritarian control.  Today capitalism seems to have triumphed, although triumph always reveals the greatest flaws of the victor. Socialism, communism, and fascism are thrown around indiscriminately in public dialogue as objects of scorn.

There are lot of other kinds of isms out there, some not as easily adopted or hurled as identifiers. Schools of art—-Cubism, impressionism, romanticism.  Prejudice also has isms—racism, sexism, ableism, and to borrow an “ism “from Spanish, machismo. But the ones that I am focused on here are those that reflect a positive world view, The way we  choose to experience, process, and participate in the world around us.  Those ”isms”  come from religion, philosophy, and personal experience.

Most but not all religions end in ism, from paganism to Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and animism.  (Look that one up if you need to.)  Exceptions are two of the world’s most popular religions, Islam and Christianity. Although some of their subsets are described is isms. (Sufism, Wahhabism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Methodism, etc.). This usage of “ism” is more what I have come to think of as a category, a set of shared beliefs or values as well as rituals, holidays, and practices. My own chosen faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism (at one time before merging, Unitarianism and Universalism) is grounded in shared values and rituals. I started down that path by embracing the heresy of Arianism, the early Christian doctrine denying the trinity.

After much soul searching, I have concluded that my values and my actions, my vocation and my worldview partake of three positive isms. (Meaning that they would always be used, at least by me, and an affirmation or compliment and never as an insult or criticism.)

The first one that entered my life, as It does for many of us, was mysticism—a sense of reverence, awe and wonder, of the presence of the holy in and around us. That experience can come through traditional religion, private spirituality, or the natural world. Of my three, this one is probably the most universal.

The second “ism” began to form in late adolescence as I rejected the standard options for careers for women–ideally, a homemaker and mother, but possibly a nurse, teacher, or secretary. My feminist self took shape and form as new options opened up with Sputnik, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem. As I left my home town, intending never to return, I echoed the words of Miranda in The Tempest, “Oh, breve new world, that has such people in it!.” College was an invitation to rethink everything I believed, thought, or was taught.  I became a Democrat, an economist, and an academic. When my beloved husband (also a feminist) and I were blessed with three girls we had a good opportunity to pass on our feminist values, which they have lived with far more sense o discovery than I did. Also became deeply involved in the League of Women Voters, found feminist heroines to admire (including a great-grandmother who marched for women’s suffrage).  Over time, I built friendships and communities among women that have sustained me over my very long life as a feminist.  Feminism is not sexism, which would discriminate against men as a class. It is an affirmation of both quality and uniqueness, and a commitment to support future generations to preserve, protect and defend our equality and our specialness..

When I went off to college, having begun my long embrace of feminism, I intended to be an engineer.  There I discovered a third -ism, utilitarianism.  Utilitarianism is one several ethical schools in philosophy, one that is easily summed up as “the greatest good for the greatest number.” It is the foundation of economics as an academic and policy discipline, and it was there that I found my vocational home as a mystic feminist utilitarian. I caution that in my view and that of many of my fellow economists, utilitarianism is more suited to be a guide to how to govern a city, state country, or community than for individual and household/family behavior. In the family I tried to be a good Marxist– ’’from each according to her abilities, to each according to her needs.”

In my retirement years, I discovered that I had over the years adopted without realizing it a personal philosophy of stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy that is often lightly summarized by the prayer associated with Alcoholics Anonymous—the courage to change the things you can change the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. Stoicism requires daily practice and reflection on your interactions with others  It is well worth the effort.

I am ready to order my customized T-shirt, regretfully leaving off my beloved utilitarianism as a public and not a private ism. Here is what it says:

I believe in

Mysticism

Feminism

Stoicism

How about you?

ESG and Me

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments

A few days ago, I was in a gathering of some of my fellow retired academic colleagues from a variety of disciplines. Most if not all of the ten or so present seem to share my center-left politics—up to a point.  One of them asked me about Milton Friedman and his famous assertion that the sole responsibility of a corporation’s board of directors is to maximize shareholder wealth.  I gave my fairly standard economist reply, pointing to an erroneous interpretation of the Ford/Dodge Supreme Court decision in the 1930s and the more general historical meaning and purpose of a corporation charter in which they had certain public obligations in return for the opportunity for limited liability and eternal life (which definitely does not square with making them persons, as our current Supreme Court appears to believe). Two of my colleagues replied, isn’t that what you want them to do when you invest in a corporation—maximize your returns? No, I said, I want them to earn a fair return while acting like responsible corporate citizens, which is my reason for using ESG as a guideline in investing. At least two of them expressed surprise and perhaps even dismay at my response.

ESG as a criterion for investment decisions  has taken a lot of flak lately. Those three letters stand for environment (business practices that minimize environmental harm done in the process of producing a product or service), social (treating suppliers, employees, customers and communities as you would like to be treated in a role reversal), and governance (transparency and accountability).  Except in some  red states, where thanks to generations of underperforming public schools, people believe that these three letters spell WOKE.

There is some debate in the business literature about the relative performance of companies that Try to honor ESG in their corporate practices.  That’s a reasonable question to ask, but is it even relevant? If a company is destroying the environment, shortchanging its suppliers, extracting tax breaks from desperate local communities, exploiting its workers and deceiving its stockholders, but turning a nice profit, do you really want to encourage that kind of behavior? I will eventually get to the second in my three-part series on virtue. But don’t wait for that installment to think now about practicing virtue in your roles as stockholders, directors, management, customers, or board members. As a shareholder, you ae an owner, and as an owner, you are morally liable for the actions of that corporation, even if you aren’t legally liable.

I know that all of us are trying to swim to shore in a raging sea of information (and misinformation ) overload.  So I look for shortcuts.  ESG is one shortcut for at least increasing the likelihood of morally acceptable behavior.  Shopping with or working for B-corporations, who have accountability not just to shareholders but also  to workers, suppliers, customers and the surrounding  community spelled out in their corporate charters.

How and with whom we spend or invest our money is a measure of our values.  ESG makes the job of informed moral decision-making in the market easier for me. How about you?

Habits of the Heart

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The title comes from a book by Sociologist Robert Bellah.  It is a good description of virtues. I am starting a new blog series about virtues, which will be interspersed with my more usual focus on holidays and culture and occasionally even economics.  I discovered virtue ethics in seminary, and it helped me understand the limited focus of traditional ethics, which is how to determine what is the right thing to do. Utilitarians want us to do what offers the greatest good for the greatest number.  Kantians urge us to follow an ethic of duty, which my ethics students reduced to the question, ”But what if everybody did it?”  (lied, stole, littered…). Armed with these two tools, ethics challenges people to make decisions that honor one or both of these principles.

But something was missing.  It was the question, “What makes people want to do the right thing?” The answer to that question lies in virtue ethics.  Or as Alfred B. Newman might have said, “Why be good?” And the answer from virtue ethics is, because you will be happier, have more friends and better relations, and the world will be a better place—especially if everybody did it.

The Greek word that Aristotle used, arete, is sometimes translated as virtue, but a more accurate translation is excellence. He believed that every virtue/excellence lies at a golden mean between its opposite and its extreme.  Courage, for example, lies between cowardice (its opposite) and foolhardiness (its extreme).  He also believed that the cultivation and exercise of virtue should lead to a richer and more meaningful life for the individual, the community, and society at large. 

There are lots and lots of virtues.  Auguste Comte-Sponville, a French ethicist, listed seventeen.  Aristotle had at least that many. But Aristotle focused on four that he considered primary, two for private life, two for public life. I’m pretty sure I’m not as smart as Aristotle, but I do have several millennia more of human experience to draw on in expanding his brilliant insight. Three spheres, not two—the individual, the community, the world..  And the virtues we require are, as Aristotle observed, different for those three sphere’s:  personal virtues, relational virtues, and civic virtues. 

Personal virtues are those qualities of character that make it easier to live with ourselves. Aristotle offered only two that were primary for our personal lives: prudence (wise management of resources) and temperance or moderation.  I would add diligence, patience, mindfulness. and self-awareness. Unlike relational or civic virtues, these six qualities of character primarily benefit us personally and directly in living richer, more meaningful and satisfying lives.

A prudent person is neither careless nor obsessive in the use of money and other resources, but gives it due attention, rather than hoarding or extravagance. A moderate or temperate person avoids the extremes of self-indulgence and asceticism. A diligent person is neither a goof-off nor a workaholic. A patient person avoids both endless procrastination and obsessive insistence on doing it NOW. A mindful person pays close attention to what she is doing in the moment, rather than focusing on the future or the past or being easily distracted. A self-aware person is cognizant of his gifts and strengths, limitations, and weaknesses, avoiding the extremes of pride and self-abasement. 

That’s a pretty comprehensive list.  I tend to be both impatient and easily distracted, so I have work on patience and mindfulness. I also need to work at self-awareness. On the other hand, I am reasonably prudent, moderate in most things, and generally diligent at carrying out my personal responsibilities.  At least, that’s what I think I am.  Periodically I need to check with friends and family members to see if they affirm or question my self-assessment!

Having identified my areas that need improvement, I am working on mindful eating, avoiding multi-tasking, and meditation to become more mindful. I have been keeping a journal for at least 25 years, and I have a friend whose task it is to find them and burn them when I die, because they are a tool for my self-awareness, not a record for future generations. As for patience, other people are pretty good at reminding me to slow down and let things unfold at their own pace.

How about you? That’s your ‘homework” for this week.  Which of these six personal virtues are your firmly established good habits of the heart and which ones could stand some work?

Sometime in the near future, expect Installment #2, when we will take a look at virtues that matter in relationships. (Patience gets a second chance there!)

Women’s Work

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I have been thinking about who are the people working to bring about the financial and political downfall of Trump. There is a panthean (note feminist spelling) of women. Liz Cheney. E. Jean Carroll. Letitia James. Fanni Willis. Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. Nancy  Pelosi. Nikki Haley. Judge Chutkin. Cassidy Hutchinson.

The Latin word virtus (virtue) literally means manliness. (The made-up feminist equivalent, muliertus, doesn’t resonate very well!) Aristotle argued that there are four primary virtues, the private virtues of prudence and temperance or moderation, and the public virtues of courage and justice. (His Greek equivalent of virtus was arḗte, which translates as excellence, not manliness.)  A list of men possessing and exercising the primary public virtue of moral courage with respect to Trump would be a lot shorter. (Judge Erdogan. Jack Smith. Brad Raffensberger. Adam Kinzinger.)

Additional nominations welcome for both genders.

Our task as the middle and beyond generations is to encourage GenZ and millennials to show up at the polls, because in an era of toxic masculinity, they don’t vote like our generations do. I am working as a poll worker (6 am to 8 pm) in the South Carolina presidential on February 3rd and 24th, so it will be interesting to see who shows up.  My assignment is in a working class community, where I expect that African Americans will turn out to some degree in the Democratic primary while the numerous Trump-supporting evangelical “Christian” white angry aging folks will show up for the Republican primary.  I have to vote early 20 miles from home since I am not working in my own polling place, so in a few weeks I will be off to vote for Nikki, encouraging her to keep being a thorn in the flesh of the Donald.

My friends and blog followers, do what you can to mobilize what truly is the silent majority of our generation. My life at age 82 is much more past than future. On a personal level, I am trying to minimize any burden I leave for my daughters and grandchildren. On a communal/national/global level, I am trying to do what little I can to leave our children and heirs a safer, healthier, more livable world. Join me in trying to convince them to get engaged in the process of making that happen.

.

Passionately Moderate In Print

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Almost three years ago I posted this blog about my book in process. The title is Passionately Moderate: Civic Virtue and Democracy. Now it’s in print, available in paperback or digital form from amazon. I hope you will buy a copy and urge your friends to do likewise. For those of you who are more recent subscribers, here is the original blog from 2020.

“How can you call yourself passionately moderate? I thought you were a liberal, ” my oldest daughter asks.  Yes, I answered, my personal preferences are liberal. Universal health care, a woman’s right to reproductive choice, a tax system that doesn’t favor the wealthy, affordable college and affordable housing…the list goes on. But I realize that a sizeable chunk of my city, state and nation subscribes to a different set of priorities and preferences, overlapping in some cases and diametrically opposite in others.  And even if my views were those of the majority, which they are in some cases, I don’t want to impose them on a frustrated and probably angry minority.  I am willing to compromise, to settle for the pretty good or even the good enough for now rather than holding out for the very best. I am passionate about openness to compromise, the give and take that means none of us get exactly what we want personally but what may be good enough, at least for now.  That makes me a liberal in theory and a moderate in practice.

Moderation lies at the core of the two academic disciplines I love the most and have taught to several generations of college students   I have a Ph.D. in economics from my early days and worked as an academic economist for 30 years.  Then I went to seminary and got a master’s degrees in theology with a concentration in ethics, which helped me to get my economic head and my theological heart on the same page. It also gave me the opportunity to teach ethics and public policy for 15 years to graduate students in policy studies because I was able to bring these two  disciplines together.

As both an economist and a theologian, I was interested in very practical questions about how we live our lives, and in particular, how we live in community.  For an economist, that means a focus on policy—making and implemented decisions that affect our material well-being in our common life.  For theology, my focus has been ethics, which was my concentration in seminary.  Theological ethics explores how our faith understanding guides our participation in governance in a democratic society. In the process of studying ethics, I fell in love with virtue ethics, which is not tied to any particular faith tradition but infuses all of them.

 The heart of Aristotelian virtue ethics, incorporated into late medieval scholasticism by Thomas Aquinas,  is moderation.  Moderation is fulcrum on which Aristotle’s golden mean rests. The golden mean, which we will explore further in later chapters, contends that each virtue lies at the midpoint between two vices (or sins, in Christian/Jewish language).  One vice is the virtue’s extreme, the other its opposite.  Aristotle’s notion of the golden mean fit perfectly into the decision processes of my economist mind and my progressive heart.

Thirty years ago, economist Alan Blinder wrote a book called Hard Heads, Soft Hearts, arguing that the Republicans were the party of hard heads, hard hearts, while the Democrats were the party of soft heads, soft hearts. What we needed, he argued, was hard heads and soft hearts–rational decision processes combined with compassion and empathy.The same dichotomy exists between economists and theologians—and in my head and heart.  It is in the middle meeting point that we engage both head and heart in dialogue with each other.

 The core of economic decision-making is also a balancing act, weighing costs and benefit, pain and pleasure, and steering a middle course rather than going to the extremes.  In fact, economics embodies utilitarian ethics, the greatest good for the greatest number.  It’s all about getting to get good outcomes.

Barry Goldwater got it wrong when, running for president in 1964, he said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue..” He lost in a landslide. Mderation, along with patience, is a more likely path to human flourishing than extremism. In political economy (the old name of economics, it is economics as a guide to public policy), moderation is not just a principle, it’s a survival strategy. The successful candidate is ever in search of the median voter, constantly resisting the pull of the extremes where few voters reside.  Yes, there is lure of standing tall for what you believe, whether it’s an extreme version of the second amendment or free college for all;  rigid and unyielding in the face of pressure to compromise. It’s high drama, and it was Bernie Sanders’ strategy in both 2016 and 2020 when he failed to get the Democratic nomination But it doesn’t create or sustain communities in which we can dwell together in peace and enable humans to be nurtured and flourish.   So if you value a healthy and sustainable human community, please consider join me in declaring yourself a passionate moderate. With this qualification from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Moderation in all things, including moderation.”

The golden mean applies not just to virtue, but to other qualities of being.  I have friends who are perfectionists, which is frustrating for them because it is impossible to always be perfect, and so often the perfect keeps us from getting to the good enough. Perfection is the opposite of moderation.  Carelessness, indifference, apatheia represent its extreme.  Most of us invest our perfectionism—if we have any—in just one or a few areas of life. W vacillate between appreciating the gift that perfectionists bring and exasperation at the lack of big picture, the delays while everything is revisited one more time.  I have worked with perfectionists, and it has never been easy for either of us.

My passion for moderation is a passion for process, not outcomes.  In order to practice moderation as a commitment to good process, you have to let your inner Buddha guide you in letting go of attachment to outcomes. I do believe that in most cases that good processes are more likely to lead to good outcomes. Not best outcomes. Not perfect outcomes.  But again, outcomes that are steps in the right direction, or good enough for now. 

Note: This blog is an excerpt from the opening chapter of a book in progress.

Wholesale and Retail

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Most of us affirm abstract virtues and values like justice, freedom, respect, hope, trust,, sutainability, and gratitude. But we often neglect to practice them in the concrete instance involving one or more particular people, places and things Our actions have to embody our abstract virtues and values in order to be a virtuous person who puts time, money, and attention into living them in daily life.

Consider the minister who loves to preach but refuses to do pastoral care. Preaching that engages both head and heart must flow from directd personal experience, and pastoral care is an important form of that learning experience, Or the teacher who lecdtures but does not engage in answerubg questions or one on one help with students who are having trouble learning. In those one-on-one sessions the student is teaching the teacher how to be more effective in guidingthe learning process and keeping students engaged. Or t he supervisor who assigns work but is quick to punish or even fire but slow to affirm or help a struggline employee. Empasthetic and respectiful support and ennouragement is not only virtuous, it is also profitable, because high employee turnover is expensive to the firm.

It is those one on one acts that embody and feed the abstract understanding of how we should be with one another. It is good to seize the moment. I was at dinner with friends the other night when we realized that the woman ast the next table did not have any cash and the restaurant did not take credit cards. We came to her rescue with a $23 loan, trusting that she woujld payus back. When she was able to access cash and came to repay us, we were rewarded with a delightful evening of conv ersationwith our new fried.

Seizing the moment is ngood, but not enough. WE need to seek the moments as well. That ;m;ay mean getting out of our comfort zone, but the rewa rds as almost always bilateral I remember volunteering to teach English as a second language to three wives of grad students, all Muslims from different countries. I learned as much as I taught about their history, theiir cultures, their hopes and dreams.

So pick a value or two today to try to practice on friends or strangers, those with reandom encounters like our restuarant friend and those you seek out intentionally. Ast the end of the day, ask yourself how you practiced justice, or trust, or respect, and how it enriched your understanding of what that virtue means in practce and how that encounter strenftgthened your commitment to being a just or trusting of resepctful person.

You and the world will be better for the effort.

.

The Turning of the Year: The First Virtue Resolution

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I think of these winter holidays—solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Day—as one long celebration of  the turning of the year and a fresh start.  Like many Americans, I am more than ready to turn the page on a very difficult and challenging year. At this time of year starting again has always meant New year’s resolutions. 

My mother introduced me to this practice.  I remember that when I was ten, I resolved to learn to light the gas kitchen range, which did not have  pilot light. Pretty scary.  I did.  But after a year when we were on sabbatical and had a similar situation, with every lighting of the broiler threatening to burn down the house.  I made a lifelong commitment to electric cooking stoves.   

I have just finished the draft of a new book called Passionately Moderate: Democracy and Civic Virtue. Working on that book, I have been thinking a lot about virtue this year, and I decided to resolve, not so much as to do in 2021, as to be. I picked three virtues that I wanted to make into habits of the heart that guided my actions.  They are prudence, temperance, and simplicity. Each one gets a blog—one today, one next week, and one on New Year’s day.  Today’s reflection is on prudence.

Prudence was one of Aristotle’s private virtues, along with temperance. (His public virtues were courage and justice.) Prudence the quintessential economist’s virtue, wise use of resources and especially money, but also time and attention. So how do I want to use those resources in 2021 in ways that are wiser and more intentional?

I started with money, and I settled on the magic number three (since I started with three virtues).  What are the three most important things I want to do with my money in 2021? I divided this virtue also into three parts, body, mind, and spirit. For the body,  I want to save more, because I am approaching my 80th birthday and watching my friends experience the challenges of aging—even myself, although on a slower track so far.  I want to be sure that I have enough resources to ensure that I don’t burden my children with the cost of my long-term care should that become necessary.  I set a target figure for annual saving.

 Second, I want to travel again—I missed it so much last year. Travel is a treat for all three aspects of being, but especially the mind. I learn so much about other places and other cultures when I travel.

Third, I want to ensure that ten percent of my income goes to charity, an act of compassion that is an expression of spirit.  Most of it goes to organizations that help those in need and to my religious community, with a scattering of supporting the arts (like ETV) and, in even-numbered years, political candidates.  

With those three numbers engraved in stone, the rest of the budget, from electric bills and dog grooming to food and taxes—had to divvy up what was left. I know that as I get older, I will probably travel less and spend more on services that enable me to live at home as long as possible, but I’m not there yet, so this resolution will get an annual review.

What about the other resources of time and attention? Again, I want to spend my time on caring for body, mind and spirit  Each day has to satisfy three priorities—exercise and healthy eating for the body, reading and learning for the mind, contemplation and mindfulness for the spirit. Like the budget, the to-do list has to make those three items priorities.

British writer E.B. White once said that when he woke up in the morning, he couldn’t decide whether to enjoy the world or improve the world.  It made it hard to plan his day. It’s not either/or, it is both/and.  Some of that time and attention needs to be directed toward improving the world, making it more peaceful, compassionate, just, and sustainable.  The content of those improvements depends on making habits of  the other two virtues, temperance and simplicity.  To be continued. ..