Tag: virtue

Passionately Moderate In Print

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

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

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

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. ..