A Philosophical Question — When American Politicians Evade Giving a Straight Answer about Proven Scientific Facts, Are They Contributing to the Glut of Willful Stupidity that Threatens to Drown Us? — And a Parallel with Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens’ 1865 Moral Dilemma, as Depicted in Steven Spielberg’s movie, Lincoln

© 2012 Peter Free

 

21 November 2012

 

 

This essay’s point

 

Imagining ourselves in other people’s shoes can teach us a combination of sound reason and thoughtful compassion.

 

Empathy can also (paradoxically) legitimize our critique of sub-optimal behavior.

 

 

My initial premise — empathic imagination tills the balance between compassion and criticism

 

Putting one’s self imaginatively in other people’s shoes has a way of teaching compassion and deferred judgment.

 

I am usually reluctant to criticize others under circumstances in which I might readily do the same thing they did.

 

On the other hand, if I am pretty sure that I would choose more honestly than they, I feel slightly freer to let criticism fly.

 

Sometimes, the deciding point is which behavior would more ideally benefit the whole.

 

 

Illustrating this point — examples of truth-evasion from Senator Marco Rubio and then-Senator Barack Obama

 

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is currently taking some criticism for refusing to give the planet Earth an age.

 

In a GQ interview, he reportedly said:

 

"I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States," Rubio told GQ's Michael Hainey. "I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all."

 

Rubio continued, refusing to take a stance on the planet's age, which scientists have long estimated at 4.54 billion years.

 

"Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that," he said. "It's one of the great mysteries."

 

© 2012 Michael Hainey, All Eyez on Him, GQ (December 2012)

 

Columnist Daniel Engber has pointed out that Barack Obama did essentially the same thing, for the same reason, on 13 April 2008 at Messiah College (Pennsylvania):

 

Q: Senator, if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?

 

A: What I've said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that's what I believe. I know there's always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don't, and I think it's a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I'm a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don't presume to know.

 

© 2012 Daniel Engber, Who Said It: Marco Rubio or Barack Obama?, Slate (20 November 2012) [quoting from Hobobob10 and CNN, Sen. Barack Obama at CNN Compassion Forum, YouTube (uploaded 14 April 2008)]

 

 

“Okay, Pete, so they both ducked the science question — what’s the big deal?”

 

That is the ethical question.

 

Given that the United States lags other developed nations in its knowledge of and commitment to science — does it make sense that prominent politicians pretend that the ignoramuses among us are right in their anti-scientific attitudes?

 

If willful cultural ignorance is not challenged, will it not continue its reign?  And, would not a respect-worthy leader be willing to educate Americans in the direction(s) that the nation arguably needs to go?

 

 

A parallel situation from the movie, Lincoln

 

Steven Spielberg’s film is about President Abraham Lincoln’s politicking to get the 13th Amendment passed, during the spring of 1865.  The 13th Amendment banned slavery.

 

A key political character in the Congressional fight was life-long abolitionist, Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens.

 

As the movie represents the circumstances, the Amendment’s opponents tried to trick the vehemently pro-equality Stevens into saying (on the House floor) that “negroes” are equal before God, rather than just law.

 

This distinction was politically important.  In order to pass the 13th Amendment, the President needed moderate Democrats to vote in its favor.  Many of these (white) men, as well as numerous (also white) Republicans, did not believe in equality as a spiritually valid principle.

 

Consequently, Representative Stevens had to evade the trap that the Democrats had laid by pretending to believe that the Amendment only made “negroes” equal before the law.  A position that was anathema to his soul.

 

We watch him struggle with the ethics of what to do.  Political expedience or soulful truth, which was it to be?

 

He chose the “before the law” route, so as not to condemn the Amendment to death.  He lied about what he really thought in order to placate moderate Democrats, who would vote for the 13th Amendment only if it was intended to represent a legal, rather than spiritual, truth.

 

Note

 

In the film, Stevens’ answer to his Democratic taunters is persuasively brilliant.  It comes with an unexpected twist of logic that experienced litigators will admire.

 

 

With Thaddeus Stevens’ example in mind — are Marco Rubio and Barack Obama covered by the same umbrella of the greater good?

 

Probably not — in that neither politician’s evasion was intended to achieve anything of worth, other than to get him elected.

 

Acting ignorant, in order to collect ignorant people’s votes, may not do the nation a service over the long haul.  If we do not acknowledge what we already know, how do we progress?  Knowledge builds on itself.

 

 

The moral? — At some point, greatness has to quarrel with vacuity

 

The movie, Lincoln, populated by a handful of History’s greats, highlights the poverty of our own political era.

 

See the film, and exercise your “in their shoes” imagination.  Perhaps in recognizing a higher standard of leadership, we can do better than we have been.