Worldview – Page 14 – Gregory Scott Blog

Boethius On Congressman Rangel

Anicius Boethius (A.D. 480-524) was a Roman Christian philosopher who lived just after its last emperor was deposed. He had progressed to the highest of political offices in Rome before being accused (falsley, he contended) of a conspiracy against the government.

While in prison awaiting his death, he wrote his classic, The Consolation of Philosophy. In discussing those things men seek to make them happy, but which are unable to confer true happiness, he comes to political office.

Boethius writes: “But it is said, when a man comes to high office, that makes him worthy of honour and respect. Surely such offices don’t have the power of planting virtue in the minds of those who hold them, do they? Or of removing vices? No: the opposite is true. More often than removing wickedness, high office brings it to light, and this is the reason why we are angry at seeing how often high office has devolved upon the most wicked of men…”

Yesterday a panel of eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives found Congressman Charles Rangel guilty on 11 counts of ethical wrongdoing. Tomorrow the full Ethics Committee will determine his punishment.

Earlier this year former representative, Eric Messa, who had resigned from Congress amid sexual harassment allegations, admitted to groping a male staffer. (The rumor is he has now applied for a job with the TSA). Before that former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards had a love child with a female staffer while his wife was battling cancer, lied to the nation about it, and then finally came clean when the National Inquirer produced pictures.

We watch this perverse play and it is tempting to say, “All politicians are scoundrels and liars.” But as Boethius correctly noted 1,500 years ago, it’s not that all politicians are that, but that men are that, and high political office exposes them for what they are. The problem is not with politicians but with men. And only Jesus can make better men. GS

Moral Incompetence

A story ran on the internet last week about Amazon.com offering for sale an eBook called The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct.

Amazon originally defended the decision to sell the book claiming they weren’t into censorship: “Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable…”

Later, as the outrage of its customers mounted, Amazon relented and decided the prudent–or profitable–thing to do was to engage in censorship.

Amazon’s dilemma is typical of so many post-moderns who believe no one is competent to morally judge any conduct. But what is that based upon?

It’s not based on instinct or conscience because neither suggests such an imperative; in fact they suggest the opposite. Both repeatedly make moral judgments about ourselves and others.

Amazon assumes man is morally incompetent to say, “This is right and this is wrong” about anything. And if that is the case, how do they know it is wrong for them to engage in censorship?

If you don’t affirm anything, you must accept everything, and this is the problem at Amazon. Because they apparently endorse no ethos, they are unable to make a judgment call about any moral issue, and that does make them moral incompetents. GS

Muslims On Planes

Like me, you probably saw last week that NPR fired Juan Williams for stating on Fox he gets nervous when he’s flying and sees Muslims on the plane. The story was hard to miss. Even NPR, not wanting to be left out of the news bonanza they created, covered the story.

I like Juan Williams. He’s always seemed to me an intellectually honest man who would concede another’s argument when correct, even if it didn’t line up with Williams’s political affiliations. That’s more than I can say for most of what I see from the talking heads on Fox, CNN and the other networks. And I think that’s part of what gets me about Williams’s sacking at NPR.

If you’ve not seen the entire segment from The O’Reilly Factor, I encourage you to watch it because you will see that, while Williams did make the statement attributed to him, the context of the statement is almost the exact opposite of what is being portrayed by the media and implied by NPR through it’s decision to fire Williams.

In the segment, Williams makes his candid admission as a predicate to his argument that people should be careful about making sweeping generalizations about Muslims. It’s O’Reilly who takes the reactionary position, which Williams tried to counter when O’Reilly allowed him to talk (which, as usual, wasn’t much).

Williams’s take, if you can piece it together with O’Reilly’s interruptions, is the right one. Even though people may may be concerned about getting on a plane with Muslims–and as Williams seems to suggest, there is nothing unreasonable about that fear given the multitude of Islamic terrorist acts directed at Americans–we must be careful about painting Muslims with a broad brush.

That is the right take. It’s not the politically correct take, which would insist on telling Williams he should not be concerned when getting on a plane with Muslims; nor is it the reactionary take that would label all Muslims latent terrorists. The tragedy here is not Williams’s statement but that he got fired for it.

The termination reflects poorly on NPR, and its CEO, Vivian Schiller, who compounded the blunder with a gaffe that was offensive. Schiller said Williams should have kept remarks about Muslims between himself and “his psychiatrist and publicist.”

I don’t know if Williams sees a psychiatrist. If he doesn’t Schiller’s remark is slanderous. If he does, the remark may be a HIPAA violation. Either way the remark displays a maturity better suited for talk radio than National Public Radio.

Schiller, to her credit, apparently realized this and quickly apologized to Williams publicly. But I’m still waiting to see if she will commit the self-sacking necessary to effectuate the consistent application of NPR company policy. I’m not holding my breath though because I suspect she values self-preservation over fairness (which, in fairness to her, makes her no different from most of us).

So, there you have it: another injustice in a fallen world that needs more of Jesus. GS

Why Words Matter

CNN’s Anderson Cooper is worked up because in the trailer for Vince Vaughn’s new movie, The Dilemma, Vaughn’s character refers to a car as being “gay.”

Cooper said, “We gotta do something to make those words…unacceptable, cause those words are hurting kids.”

I guess Cooper is referring to homosexual kids who might take Vaughn’s character’s use of the word “gay” in a negative context and therefore as a moral judgment of their sexual conduct.

To the extent Cooper is condemning the bullying of homosexuals I agree with him 100%, and citizens of the kingdom of God should be the first to condemn such conduct. The problem is I think Cooper is saying more. I think he’s concerned the word “gay” may take on a negative connotation.

If you’ve seen the clip from the trailer you know Vaughn’s character is not referring to a person but a car. He uses the word “gay” negatively, implying the car is effeminate, not the kind of car the average guy wants.

The irony is the homosexual community has already taken the word “gay,” a perfectly good and positive word, and, by using it synonymously with the word “homosexual,” given it a negative connotation.

Think about it. Do you ever use the word “gay” in a positive context any more? Do you ever say, “I felt so gay today,” or “I was in a such a gay mood”? The only time you see “gay” used in a positive light is in old movies, before the word was hijacked by an interest group with a public relations problem.

My point is not to pick on homosexuals. It’s not just homosexuals who have indulged in this wordplay. Heterosexuals who call adultery an “affair” are replacing a negative word with a positive one and impliedly redefining the morality of their conduct.

Anyway, that’s the point I wanted to make, you know, the irony. . . oh, and also, that words matter. Be careful how you use them. GS

Worldviews In The Jury Room

Yesterday I was in a CLE (Continuing Legal Education) course. CLE is how lawyers keep their skills honed and keep up on this latest changes in the law. Today was a day long mock trial conducted by some of the best trial lawyers in the country, complete with a jury who deliberated at the end of the day in the adjacent room while I and 200 trial lawyers watched via live video.

While the jury ultimately reached the right verdict (juries usually do), how they got there was a bit surprising to me. From the beginning I saw the jury divide in their deliberations according to worldview.

The conservative jurors were obvious and their remarks quickly revealed their inherent trust of companies and distrust of plaintiffs and lawsuits. On the other side were the liberal jurors, who have an inherent distrust for corporations and tend to side with individuals in such disputes. They all heard the same evidence, but they interpreted it very differently, not because of the quality of the evidence but the prism of their worldview.

This shouldn’t have surprised me. I’ve been picking juries for twenty years and have always conducted voir dire based on this assumption. I guess what surprised me was how blatant and conspicuous it was.

Now, here’s where I’m going with all this. There was an objective truth about the evidence, but that truth was distorted by the opposing worldviews through which the jurors viewed it. The key in reaching a true verdict was as much about having the correct worldview as it was about reason. Truth was as much about how they saw as what they saw.

In this respect, what’s true of juries is true of life in general. That’s why I write so much about worldview. If Christians want to see things the way they really are, they don’t need a conservative worldview or a liberal worldview but a Kingdom worldview. That worldview comes first from being obedient to Jesus, which enables one to have the proper worldview, to know Truth. (John 8:32-22).

If you can do that, you are ready to serve on a jury and in life. GS