iBlog 2.0

If I were launching a new version of an iconic australian spread, I would recognise the impossibility of a “this is a good product” style of campaign, and instead give it a comically bad name, generating interest (and sales) with very little advertising outlay

morality and mocking

I  was driving down the beautiful Mt Ousley road the other night when I switched my radio to Triple J’s Hack program. The topic for the night was explicit text messaging and MMSing, and the legal ramifications for the youth engaging in it.

One of the discussants (I surmised him to be a teenager from one of the catholic youth organisations) said something to the effect of

“What our youth need is not more laws, but greater discernment and moral fibre”

At which point one of the other experts (who sounded much older) began openly mocking, interrupting the young speaker. “Moral FIBRE,” he  scoffed.

The presenter handled the situation well, but when given the chance to speak, the older speaker said

“I do not believe in any such thing as a lack of moral fibre. As a humanist I believe it is inherent”

This gobsmacked me.

It seems self evident to me that, even if humans do possess the ability to make moral decisions, we choose not to exercise it most of the time – which says very little of our inherent “moral fibre”.

Humanist interventions for social problems tend to revolve around harm-minimisation, education, and legal liberalisation. I do not deny there is a place for these things. However, the perspective from which they proceed is an incomplete one.

The dogmatic denial of the inherent corruptness of human nature can only lead to well-intentioned adjustment of social facade. If indeed the very human-ness of humanity is corrupt, this presents a much deeper problem to address when we see social brokenness.

supererogation and Jesus

I’ve just started reading Principles of Biomedical Ethics, by Beauchamp and Childress,  and have been introduced to the ethical concept of supererogation. A rough definition might be “exceeding one’s obligations”. [Be warned: it's not a word to use in conversation.]

I’ve been reflecting on the place of supererogation in christian thinking. As our example is God Himself, and as we are called to “Be holy, as I am holy”, it seems that supererogation is irrelevant for the christian.

But then we think about Jesus’ words (Matt 5:47):

And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,^* what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

He’s clearly applying a supererogation-like idea here, but there is a difference.  Jesus invites his disciples to supererogate the common morality, using the comparison with the unspiritual to show the insufficiency of meeting an imagined minimum.

We are called to “Be holy, as I am holy”. This clearly precludes supererogation of the true moral standard, but mandates the supererogation of every other.

Elevating Discourse – AIDS and Abstinence

On the subject of useless arguments:

I am sick of hearing about the Pope and AIDS.

This came up on the previously-mentioned episode of Q&A I watched tonight. Again the discussion went approximately along the lines of:

Step 1: 98% of the group jeer at the remarks of the Pope

Step 2: Someone from the crowd stands up and gives a short speech criticising the Pope’s actions, to loud applause.

Step 3: A question is almost jokingly referred to a Catholic member of the panel (no Christian thinkers, just a pollie and a rogue priest), who makes a further joke to show they “get” it, and then offers half an answer, almost tongue in cheek itself.

All of this is clearly worse than useless, and extremely unenlightening.

I don’t want to talk about the Pope. I want to talk about AIDS. How do we fight it, and who is doing the fighting?

If the Catholic church refuses to participate in public education programs, that is their prerogative.

Why are we angry? Do we wish to use the Catholic infrastructure for public health education? If so, arguments convincing to Catholics need to be made. It’s not hard to see that pure utility isn’t going to work as an argument to an organisation with a clear moral mandate. Arguments which address Catholic sensibilities and reflect Catholic internal politics are needed if Rome is to be convinced.

Do we wish the Catholic church to stop encouraging abstinence? encourage away, but why is it our right to tell them what to teach? Since when have we developed a monopoly on truth? I agree that the scientific claims made by the Pope are clearly wrong, but when has the Catholic church been behelden to preach Science’s dogma?

Beyond all this- is the utilisation of Catholic infrastructure, or even the impact of contrary Catholic teaching on more mainstram public health education, worth spending so much time on in addressing the AIDS epidemic? I would guess not.

I think the real problem here is that we tend to  look for “bad guys”. If we can find people with power who believe differently to us about addressing the issue, solutions all of a sudden seem political. “If we could only stop the course of the disease!” becomes “If only those Catholics would get on board with our programs!”

Why don’t we accept that the Catholic church will take a different opinion to the broader public-health community, and leave it at that. Their mandate is the spiritual health of the people under their care. Like me, you may disagree with some or all of their teaching, but you cannot expect across-the-board subscription to some sort of humanist/rationalist approach to the world and its problems. 

However rational and humane it may seem.

Am I making sense? Please comment it up – I want to hear your thoughts on this.

ANB

Check out Erin’s excellent post. I watched Q&A tonight because a friend was on, and was overwhelmed with frustration at the lack of thoughtful and engaging debate.

The producers seemed to have invited cranks and politicos on in an attempt to “make good television”, which is not what such shows should be about. It was  a live forum, and with an articulate and interested audience and excellent live web integration.  

Every opportunity for interesting discussion was then squandered on obfuscatory political non-answers, low-quality humour, and the voicing of the kind of uninformed, sound-bitey arguments that are new to almost no-one.

We have a publicly-funded, tightly-regulated national broadcaster and still we cannot get a good issue-discussion program on television. The best at the moment is SBS’s Insight,  which itself suffers from lack of focus and the tendency to give polemics too much airtime.

The future is clearly with the bloggers. That is why Erin’s post is so important.

democratic guts

This is what guts looks like!

UPDATE: Seems Ezra Klein may be backing a different horse. It’s on.

what the world wants

The world wants something which it is dimly aware could exist, but cannot accurately define – George Orwell

I really think George hits this one on the head. The above quote is from an essay in which Orwell describes the inability of mankind to describe utopias in which anyone would want to live. His account of the descriptions of Heaven is, I think, pretty fair. I wonder why it is that our imaginations cannot stretch to the conception of a perfect world.

pollack on public health

Pollack, guesting for my blogger-in-law Ezra Klein, makes an excellent point about prisons as an asset for public health. Anyone know about the state of prison health in Australia? (it’s getting formulaic- but today is Australia Day!)

enough on chad

Don’t Leave Chad Hanging | Enough

The enough project is a worthwhile blog to follow for those interested in humanitarian lobbying. Anyone know if we have something similar in Aus?

Hey Kevin, let’s go for 0.7%

…of our GNI given to foreign aid as we agreed in order to meet the Millenium Development Goals.

Now I couldn’t find GNI stats, but our GDP (PPP) is north of Illinois and south of Florida (figure that one out). My point is that while the gesture is meaningful, the impact is limited of any extra spending Australia does.

I’d prefer it if K-Rudd took his 0.4% GNI (that we have promised, but not spent) and instead paid for large numbers of experimental poverty-fighting programs. Make Australia the brains of the poverty fight, and then convince Obama to employ the United States’ muscle once we’ve come up with some extremely effective and voter-inspiring approaches. I’ve got no doubt that current approaches are sufficient to save and improve lives, but they clearly don’t inspire. Solutions have to be politically acceptable at home as well as effective abroad.

Then the Aussies will get all the Peace Prizes too!