editor's note:
War.. UGH...Good God, Y'all. What izzis it good for? Absolutely Nothing... UGH
But do we question the blinders we don in the name of momentum?
Consider the Heinz Dilemma: “Heinz’s wife was near to death, and her only hope was a drug that had been discovered by a pharmacist who was selling it for an exorbitant price. The drug cost $200 to make, and the pharmacist was selling it for $2000. Heinz could only raise $ 1000. He offered this to the druggist, and when his offer was rejected, Heinz said he would pay the rest later. Still the druggist refused. In desperation, Heinz considered stealing the drug. Would it be right for him to do that?”
This situation was presented by the renowned psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg to two eleven year old children. Jack mulled this over, and responded thoughtfully, Heinz would be right to steal the drug, for human life is surely worth more than money. Amy scrunched her forehead. It would not be right for him to do that, she finally said. But it is wrong of the druggist to charge so much. Surely, if he only knew the situation, he would acquiesce. Surely, there was a way for the two men to negotiate, a way to save the wife.
Kohlberg, the renowned psychologist, carefully noted observations, engaged in great thought, and within the towering caverns of his Harvard office, concluded little girls were moral imbeciles.
Aside from the fumbling, blatant chauvinism of scientists of yore, much can be said of these two approaches to the moral dilemma: our draw to analyze in the terms of sweeping, universal principles (liberty, equality, dead wives are weightier than pharmacists’ pay checks) and to that of personal engagement (dialogue, cooperation, negotiation).
These are not contrasting appeals. But they are different. We are bred in an institution of theories, fervently moulding our eyes to recognize the sublime, to claw the general from the burgeoning muck of disconnected data. There is faith that we need not find patterns, they will emerge. And we analyze, we quantify, we weigh: chaos before oppression, clamour before silence, blood before disgrace.
We like our principles thick and pulpy.
But within that same mesh is the belief in dignity, the faith in the competence of your fellow human creature. Within is respect. Somewhere behind five syllable anti war posters, is complexity, a bigger story.
It is easy to seduce ourselves with the rhetoric of revolution, become overwhelmed at the arrangement of inequity, a dire line up of perverse talk show guests. But we cannot always pay for the sweep of ages with the weight of our everyday. We cannot demand peace and compassion in distant lands, while we deftly gut each other on Sproul Plaza.
My spiel should not be confused for a hearty Fuck Principles, nor of hippie namby-pambiness. I too take up the call against blatant wrong. But I entreat my fellow revolutionaries to put down their blunt bludgeoners aimed at jugulars. The call is for hammers and nails: weapons and tools. But above all, for engagement with each other. I call for a hearty Fuck Blind Polarity.
So take these, the blistering pages of this soapbox, and of others. Feel wronged, feel the weight, the imminent danger to civil liberties, to dignity, to the very core resonance of human good. Then let us draw together, drop blinders (or at least peek out occasionally), argue, listen, compromise. And, in the spirit of the ego-maniacal fellow undergoing ethnic conversion in the name of campus media domination, underline all with the shattering force of irreverence (you fool, without All American Girl, you are nothing).
Good God y’all.
dharushana muthulingam
hb story editor
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