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Chafe 3 and Learning from Greensboro

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Reading the last part of Chafe’s book made me think about the ways in which racism is still institutionalized. We are so much better at camouflaging now than we were then but racism still exists in the form of economic disenfranchisement and an education gap. No one can underestimate the roll of the sit-ins, the rallies, and general desegregation.The last part of Chafe’s book serves as a reminder that racism has changed and the ways in which we address racism must also change. The sit-ins no longer take place at lunch counters. In order to achieve an end to racism, sit-ins must take place in HR departments, real estate development meetings, and school board meetings.Several times, I have denied the existence of a “post-racial” society. That is to say, I have denied an end to racism. However, if “post-racial” is defined being “what comes after the end of legal, institutionalized, on-display discrimination,” then we do live in a post-racial America. In many ways, fighting racism in this post-racial period is harder than fighting it during the 1950s and 1960s. During that period, and what Chafe so eloquently describes, is a society where racism is “seen.” You can confront it head on. It is tangible.In our post-racial world, discrimination comes in the form of job discrimination. “No, we’re not racist. Look at how many black people we employ and read our equal opportunity statement.” What is harder to address in this post-racial world is why there are no black people sitting on the senior staff of a company. During the 1950s and 1960s, one could point to poorer black parts of the city and say, “Look at what we have to fight. They are redlining us.” In post-racial America, we say, “Of course you as a black person can live wherever you want. As a black person you can live wherever you want. It certainly is not our fault that you do not have a good job. You have the same rights that we as whites have. You are either lazy or you simply would rather not move.”Fighting racism is like war. In World War II, there was a clear enemy who was clearly evil and clearly on display. The war on terror is different. The enemy is not clearly defined. He hides. He is disguised.I do not know what to take away from the Greensboro massacre of 1979. It is so sad. Truthfully, I know (and have known) a lot more about the Greensboro massacre than I know (and have known) about desegregation. Still, I cannot rap my head around it. What part of any of it makes sense? Segregation and desegregation reads like a history: Cause and effect. The Greensboro massacre reads like a novel: What great story telling and how profoundly absurd.If I have learned anything in this class, it is this: the city that I love, the city that my grandfather and Starmount Development built sits on a restless foundation of racism that is hidden behind the veneer of progressiveness. I do not love this city any less than I ever have but for the first time, I see the red line that cuts through our city dividing the races. I see, for the first time, that many citizens are not a mobile and free as I once thought.I think that is why Chafe wrote Civilities and Civil Rights. He knew so many people like me. He heard people like my grandmother say, “Greens-berrrrrr-uh, is a very, very progressive town. We are cradle of the civil rights movement. Everyone who lives in Greens-berrrrrrr-uh has so very many opportunities and access to such wonderful education.”Chafe peals away the veneer that people like my grandparents have spent so long tending. To people like my grandparents, the Greensboro massacre did not occur because of institutionalized fear and racism. It was an anomaly that, like so many things Southern, had to be whitewashed and hidden. How powerful are the stories our city has to tell.

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Chafe 1

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

First Takes On Chafe’s Book

The first part of Cafe’s book was especially eye opening for me. I think there are few who love the state of NC more than my family and me. We have been settled between Durham and Asheville since the Civil War. We have seen the rise and decline of the textile and tobacco industries. Despite this intimate relationship with North Carolina, I never viewed North Carolina as being especially racist or my benefitting from white privilege.

The community has always existed apart from me. Decisions are made at the state and local levels but I never paid attention to what they were. I would not say that I grew up in a utopian world but I do feel that I was raised to think of my world as being post-racial. Racism existed but far away from me.

When I look back, I realize that the reason that racism seemed so far away is because there are no black people in my life. I went to a private school and during my 8^th grade year, we had 8 black students out of a 1200-member student body. Our neighborhood is (and was then) all white. The clubs we belonged to were all white. Because we were Catholic, we were taught that our faith was the universal faith and therefore more diverse than say Lutherans or Episcopalians. We are also taught that in virtue of being Catholic, we were not privileged…the Catholic Church is the church of Mother Theresa and the poor. It never struck me to look around and notice that there wasn’t a single person of color in the pews or that the families behind and in front of me were well-educated and pretty well off. I lived in a bubble even when I came to UNCG. Because A&T and Bennett College are in the city, there seem to be fewer black students at UNCG than at other colleges.

It never struck me that NC and Greensboro was divided down racial lines. While I was growing up, I didn’t think of it in terms of the “New South.” Instead, Greensboro was simply known as “progressive.” I never thought twice about shopping in the same store as a black person, eating dinner at a table next to a black family, or walking down the street next to a black person. This was enough for me to say, “what a world of racial harmony!”

This class and the recent elections have opened my eyes to the fact that I live in a white world. I believed by world was integrated. Just now I am starting to realize that Greensboro is a city that masquerades as progressive but has an ugly diagonal line drawn through the city that separates whites from blacks. Of course I never have to think of racism when everyone around me looks just like me and we are not “actively” imposing segregation. “They,” meaning blacks, chose not to be over here with us. I now see that they don’t have the ability to move around the city like I can and that this has resulted from years of oppression and economic disenfranchisement.

From the Book

As I read the first few pages of the book concerning the Brown decision and its impact on public schools, I was reminded of a similar situation. Once The Court handed down the decision, Greensboro agreed that Brown was the law of the land. To use a cliché that I hate, they said, “It is what it is.” At the time that the school board agreed to support this new law they didn’t realize the impact and the complicated nature of desegregating the schools. How many whites would agree with the school board’s resolution? How many blacks really wanted to move to new schools? These and many other questions made the desegregation difficult and dirty; not as easy as the school board’s resolution made it seem.

While I was reading this, I was reminded of the Second Vatican Council that was convened in 1962. Sweeping reforms were made that affected every Catholic. These were reforms that come along once every 500 years. When the last session closed in 1965, massive changes were handed down from the Vatican. Bishops had to immediately inform priests and priests had to implement them in their parishes. Some of the biggest changes were pulling the altar from the wall and having the priest face the people. Women no longer had to wear veils in the church, the mass no longer had to be said in Latin, and communion could be received in the hand while standing instead of kneeling. My parents told me that many churches refused to go along with Vatican II. Parishes demanded that mass continue to be red in Latin. Priests refused to face the people during mass. My mom said of her own church that the bishop had to come into the church with a construction crew and tear the altar off the wall and replace it with a table.

This reminded me of the implementation of desegregation. So the court handed a ruling down in the Brown case but the implementing the changes implied by the ruling weren’t so easy to affect on the local level. The same is true of Vatican II, the Council decided on changes at the Vatican level that were not so easy to affect at the parish level.

Finally, Chafe’s book struck me with something else that I had never considered in my life: white paternalism. Growing up, A&T was a historically black college with good engineering program and a good marching band. Never once did it occur to me that leaders of the college might have approached powerful whites, hat in hand, saying, “Mr White Man, can we please have some money to keep our college going?” These things are “other-worldly” to me. Because A&T is a historically black college, I just assumed, as I’m sure many white people do, that the school just took care of itself.

The first part of Chafe’s book reinforced the things that I have recently learned about my city and myself. I live a far more insulated life than I once thought. The city of Greensboro is divided because of decades of economic oppression in the black community. The implementation of desegregation was not as cut and dry as just handing down the Brown ruling. Finally, Chafe makes me realize that the impact of the civil rights movement is something that is still in flux today. I can no longer talk about desegregation and civil rights in some distant and abstract manner like I would talk about the crusades or the fall of the Roman Empire. It is real and it is in “the now.”

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Challenged to Think

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

I think the first article we had to read this week would’ve have been paired better with last week’s Friedman article to show the repercussions of a capitalistic viewpoint. A lot of Barber’s quotations and points made throughout his article really hit home with me as I see the consequences of constantly focusing on competition in our society. While I understood the huge focus on materialism and competition, I did not realize this focus was also an “all or nothing” or “zero-sum” type mentality, meaning that cooperation and compromise are non-negotiable. The privatization of almost everything in our society can be seen as a result of this competitive attitude sweeping our country.

The most striking point of this article was that “our modern neoliberal ideology contends that competition and a culture of winners and losers assures us all our freedom” (Barber 59). This makes no sense to me because are the losers really free to choose if they want to be losers? And more importantly, what or who are losers? Are they those that don’t “work hard enough” or don’t “deserve to win or deserve their freedom”? Furthermore, who really are the winners? Barber states about the capitalist/competitive viewpoint’s image of these winners as making themselves winners and being “the very essence of life and liberty” (Barber 59). However, is this really true or did the person’s status, background, or plenty of other factors that could have influenced the “win” of that person? From the competitive perspective, people seem to become disposable materials, which correlates perfectly with their sole focus on their material possessions. Barber states, “Clearly we are more than economic beings, if only because we are more than merely material beings” (Barber 60).

The counter to this mentality then is cooperation and seeing freedom as something that can be shared through democratic practice. I really liked Barber’s idea of democracy as seeing it as a means to obtain freedom. He states, “In this view, democracy is not a product of freedom, freedom is a product of democracy. Democratic societies do not secure cooperation by sacrificing freedom, they create conditions for freedom by associating us in cooperative communities” (Barber 60). This mentality allows for people to see one another as more than a mark, or something to use to get ahead, but see each other as viable and crucial partners in attaining what we all want and need.

The second article seemed a little out of place and I didn’t really agree with the thesis and main point of the article. Minnich talked about how the act of thinking directly corresponds to morality and openness of diversity. Minnich states, “The activity of thinking prefigures, prepares for, and lets us practice the freedom of mind we require to exercise discerning judgment while living among people who differ from us” (Minnich 20). I found this argument a bit loose in that she needed to clarify specifically what kind of thinking. I think that thinking alone does not do all those things, but more so it is being challenged to think in a new way. The latter argument seems to be proven in her later example with asking students challenging questions that require them to think in a new way. When she talked about wanting students to “emerge as more thoughtful people who will continue to seek meaningful lives” (Minnich 20), I thought she could have better stated this by saying she wants students who are critical thinking people or critical thinkers, versus thoughtful because thoughtful can be understood in many different facets. Overall, I was a little dismayed by the second article, but still intrigued by its argument.

Katie

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I Should Be Allowed to Think

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Minnich’s Teaching Thinking: Moral and Political Considerations is just as helpful to students as to teachers. I have encountered the (rare) classroom or individual who encourages thinking as something “exploratory, suggestive; it does not prove anything, or finally arrive anywhere” (Minnich 20). These classrooms or individuals also understand the important concept that to engage in “thinking” in this manner is indeed to “do something” (Minnich 20). However, I have never experienced such an upfront approach to this kind of thinking. It was encouraging to sort of have it laid out to me – some suggestions on how to think, and why it is important. I think this would be really helpful to show students at the beginning of the class next time it happens. It has helped me understand a bit more the purpose of the blogs – whether that was the intention or not.The pairing of these two readings was rather fascinating to me, mostly because I did not expect them to complement each other so well from the start. I first read Benjamin Barber’s The Lost Art of Cooperation, which asserted that America’s emphasis on competition impedes cooperation and, thus, work for the greater good. I appreciated many of the ideas set forth by Barber, particularly his connections between America’s favoring competition as a means to justify economic injustices. He says on page 58, “We are a nation of gamblers willing to tolerate radical income inequality and a large class of losers (into which we willingly risk being shunted) for the chance to win.” Barber also sings to the tune of American dominant culture on pages 58 and 59 by contrasting cooperation and competition: “…an ideology of privatization and anti-government animus that characterizes the cooperation as only an excuse for paternalistic bureaucracy and public corruption, while market competition, which strips government of its powers, putatively guarantees transparency and freedom.”After finishing this reading and moving on to the next, I read the title, Teaching Thinking, and was a little confused. (In fact, I got back on the website to make sure I had printed out the correct thing.) Almost immediately, however, the correlation in the readings became clear to me when Minnich defines the type of thinking she is not talking about. She says, “Thinking differs from all these uses of cognitive capacities that follow prescribed rules and conventions which, if used well with others who have assented (or been submitted) to the same rules and/or conventions, can coercively prove a conclusion to be correct” (Minnich 20). In other words, these other “uses of cognitive capacities” are all about being right - winning – competition. This other form of thinking, however, is naturally more inclusive. In fact, Minnich spends a great deal of words on talking about the importance of conversation in thinking – it is a collaborative or cooperative effort.If students (and others – not just college students!!!) were engaged in the kind of thinking that Minnich describes, competition as the only means to a seemingly not-so-great end would diminish as understanding and collective efforts would ensue.Sara O’Brien

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Balance! Perception! The underlying truth lies a bit more under then we might like.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Benjamin R. Barber’s article, The Lost Art of Cooperation looks into how America, a country with a deep tradition of competition and individualism, requires cooperation (as part of the democratic tradition) in balance with liberalism to create the freedom we treasure so dearly. While it’s important to balance the two, I think on a local level the sort of democracy one practices should reflect their surroundings. It would be very difficult to effectively practice cooperative democracy in a pastoral, rural part of America, just as rugged individualism is not a good attitude for a large city. Having a stronger localized power would allow regional governments to practice this much better, catering to the sort of region it’s in, but because we have such a strong federal government a difficulty arises in which form of democracy we should practice, collective or individual. Traditionally as a nation of farmers and settlers, individualism, as Barber points out, has been the democratic leaning of America. This was also heavily influenced by 18^th century Liberal thinkers. However as we urbanize and move away from our pastoral past, and move towards a more urban future, we must begin to seek this sort of balance. I think our nations rugged individualism and DIY attitude is what made life so difficult for earlier immigrant generations living in big cities, and by seeking that democratic balance, we can ease the burden for modern immigrants, without betraying our traditional values.

Elizabeth Kamarck in her article Teaching Thinking: Moral and Political Considerations advocates teaching the process of thinking in colleges, rather than teaching information. I quite like this idea, because information can only produce knowledge, which is of very limited use to anyone. When I speak of knowledge I mean as opposed to wisdom, which I see as being able to perceive connections that make up existence. Knowledge is the micro, wisdom is the macro. Whereas knowledge can be taught however, I’ve always seen wisdom as something that comes more with age and experience than anything else. Teaching thinking however, will definitely foster wisdom over knowledge, and perhaps even elevate the university standing from a place someone goes to earn a degree to something a bit more sacred.

-Hunter

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thinking + cooperation

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

In “Teaching Thinking” Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich emphasizes thinking, a process by which we explore and question rather than repeat and conclude. She states that “[t]he activity of thinking prefigures, prepares for, and lets us practice the freedom of mind we require to exercise discerning judgment while living among people who differ from us” (20). Throughout she demonstrates herself thinking and tries to establish loose criteria from which thinking can be more or less evaluated. She stresses avoiding the “cookie cutter” knowledge that represents the status quo.

I agree with Minnich’s assertions to the extent that I understand them. I want to be an autonomous free thinker while recognizing that and probing the way I think and why I think this way. Furthermore, I would like to do so with others so that there can be more understanding. I agree completely that to have a full-functioning democracy people need to think in the way Minnich defines it. An un-uniform uniformity in which we accept and explore each others ideas and beings so that we may grow. I think one of the main problems is the notion of eduction as “training.” We go to school to “learn.” School is not the real world and while much can be and is achieved there, the notion that learning only occurs there is misguided. I appreciate that in this class we try to go beyond that and question and incorporate the reality that surrounds and is us.

In “The Lost Art of Cooperation” Benjamin Barber describes the dominance of liberalism and individualism over republicanism and cooperation. The competition and individualism that has come to represent the United States has been manipulated and taken to an extreme that does a great disservice to the people and democracy. Barber asserts that “behind the facade of boastful competition lies a world of inequality and domination” (61). Individualism is so valued that anything remotely communal is distrusted and regarded as “totalitarian” (60). The worst aspect of this individualism is that it is used to deny our democracy by connecting freedom “with privacy and… freedom from democratic governance, whereas it is democratic governance that actually enforces the variety and pluralism the market putatively reflects and reinforces.” Barber claims that without government we are not really free because a democratic government exists to protect our freedom. An assumption here is that freedom can only be exercised in relation to power. The government is the power that enables our freedom to be exercised.
I take this to mean that the government might protect us from corporations that have the profit motive in mind while disregarding our well-being. Alone, we get squashed, together, we can define our needs and work cooperatively to achieve them. This sounds good to me, although not particularly new.

Barber mentions that ” It [competition] manages to twist our social interactions and pervert our sense of commonality” (61). This got me thinking how does this value permeate my being? One thing I find is that I often am looking for special recognition, not that I seek it but when I feel that I have done something, I want it to get noticed. And while perhaps not unusual, it definitely feels competitive when the comparisons begin in my head: “Well I’m doing this and they are doing…”

Taking these articles together, it seems to me that we are taught to be competitive as our default and that only by digging deep and exploring our values, asking probing questions that seek understanding rather than finite answer, can we truly seek to transform ourselves to be fully representative of our values. Our democracy can be better realized when our values can be more our own as oppose to inherited like the wealth. We want to shape our democracy comparatively to how it shapes us.

Damian

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Cooperation is working together..

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich’s piece Teaching Thinking and Benjamin Barber’s The Lost Art of Cooperation both highlighted key issues that I believe can explain a huge chunk of the inequality and ineffectiveness of today’s society. Minnich begins by explaining how thinking is breaking the rules of learning by suggesting “open-minded, reflective, challenging” questioning of everything (p 20). This questioning is something I was raised to value and have seen the benefits of over the years. My questioning and curiosity is what I believe has given me a well-rounded, open-minded, thorough perspective on issues, situations, others, the world - everything! (obviously, as as Minnich discusses, thinking has no finite end point so I still have much more to think about in my life… but at this point I’m pretty pleased with where I am at- especially when I compare myself to some of the people in my classes/that I come in contact with… but as Barber discusses we need to stop comparing ourselves and try to work together… what a cycle..) Having to explain your thought process is something that forces one to dig deeper and really get down to the core of what they are trying to do, explain, or understand. I always find that working through something, whether in conversation as Minnich discusses, or through writing, drawing, graphing, maping, some type of thoughtful examination to really get my head on straight and figure out what I need or want or are trying to do.

One thing I felt Minnich did not explore was the benefits of deductive reasoning in society and in survival. There are certain things that I feel are able to be understood without thinking about them (i.e. do not touch the stove when it is on because it is hot and it will burn you) and it makes more sense (and is safer) to just follow that previously constructed pattern. But on the other hand you learn the most from trying and doing, making mistakes and reflecting on what went wrong- aka thinking.

I was really intrigued with Minnich’s connection between thinking and morality and how the act of thinking leads to the appropriate mindset for relating to others (p 20). But I did see the validity in the concern that this could allow people to chose their own reality which although I would hope that people would ebb towards the positive, social justice side, it would not always be the case (p 21). But this concern also assumes that there is a conclusion to the reality, like it is created and then finalized like a pot in a kiln when really thinking implies there is an openness that comes with all mindsets.

Barber ties in this idea of individualized realities through competition. In our American mentality of winners and losers it is all about individual gain, success, reality. So much of our attention is focused on outward qualities rather than inward reflection and thinking (p 56/57). We are so individualized that we want freedom FROM democracy rather than through it (p 61). Our biggest and most public winners believe they are above the law, as Barber explores, and I can think of hundreds of examples right off the bat. Politicians and their sex scandals, Michael Phelps and his DUI and marijuana use, Michael Vick’s dog fighting (as Barber mentions), Madonna’s attempt to subvert all international adoption laws, the list goes on forever! Because they are winners, the rules do not apply, they have gained freedom from the law.

At this point, Barber’s idea that competition versus compromise is the basis of conflict in American ideology is right on point. Ideas of helping others and the common good are attributed to the “no one wins until all wins” of socialism therefore they are immediately dismissed by mainstream America (p 58). There must always be a winner and a loser in order for the winners to feel good about themselves and to remind the losers of their place in the food chain. And we wonder why poverty, outrageous numbers African American males in prisons, homelessness, violence against women, hunger, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and hundreds of other social ills still exist in the world… someone has to lose right? What a terribly low point in our development as a species, a nation, and a world.

But my real question is how did we get here?

Avra Stackpole

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Cooperation and Compromise

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Barber

I know that in the class, I come across as slightly right of the writers we study. However, in the case of Barber, I have to agree that we as a nation are obsessed with competition (pg 56). I hate national sports leagues, especially American football. I hate cheering, the kind that scantily clad pole dancers like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders do. I hate the back and forth between Sarah Palin and the camp of John McCain (actually, I enjoy that a bit). But I have to say that in general, I am not a big fan of competition.

Barber also talks about reality TV shows. I am no hypocrite and I will admit to watching some of these shows. One that always strikes me as odd is “So You Think You Can Dance.” I hate when the judges tells the competitors that they must “dance for their lives…” It’s an actual segment of the show. Really? Do they really have to dance for their lives?

On page 58, Barber says, “Contrast electoral politics in our representative democracy with citizen politics in participatory democracy.” Here is where Barber loses me. He is willing to throw US democracy under the bus but doesn’t provide an alternative model. My problem with this part of Barber’s essay is that given all possible forms of government isn’t American democracy the best of all possible alternatives.? I believe so. It’s not perfect. I am not arguing for that…but can Barber or anyone else point to a better system that exists…not an ethereal one.

I do agree with Barber that we live in a time of “excess.” I argue that many things are better than they once were. We don’t live in a post-racial America but we don’t live in one where blacks have to move to the back of the bus. On the whole, I think things are better. However, the left/right divide is massive and one that seems impossible to bridge.

Barber’s argument is essentially this: Competition dominates American cultural life. Competition takes the form of relentless rhetoric from both the left and right. This relentlessness is what manipulates our views. Because we are not seeing the “real deal,” we are not engaged in true democracy.

Since 1994 and the Republican Revolution, our nation’s legislative system has been in a state of impasse. Consider the gay rights and marriage equality issue. While courts continue to rule in favor of Gays, 31 states in a row have managed to defeat gay marriage equality by popular vote. The vote is always split at near 51/49.

Minnich

I think Minnich’s essay was written just for me at times. At one point (pg. 2) she says, “[By getting students to think] we have then laid down some fresh paths through the woods – paths that may not go anywhere but do something nonetheless.”

This class has been made me follow some paths that have taken me nowhere but have done something. In many cases, these paths have taught me the art, nay, the grace of patience.

I though Minnich’s discussion of the thinking paper was very interesting (pg 4). I am very much a cynic and will roll my eyes just thinking of an assignment such as this. I go one step further and become angry but eventually find myself being the one that is sharing and crying.

On the last page, Minnich says, “Will we differ? Yes. But if we talk together about what we are doing, share our questions, examples, and stories, we can develop a communal sense of what we are doing that will help us as we make judgments.”

That has been my own experience in this class. I have checked out at time but by talking, sharing, asking questions, and telling stories, I believe I have learned a lot about myself. Wow…who would have thought back when I was rolling my eyes when the “Thinking Paper” was first assigned.

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Learning to Think

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Minnich’s main argument is that students need to be taught not only knowledge, but how to think for themselves and develop the ability to reason. I agree with her! Minnich writes, “I am advocating practicing thinking that can hold knowledge open, rather than locking it in as unquestionable” (Minnich 21). This type of teaching would allow students to embrace diversity and be “radically open,” as we have discussed earlier in class. One reason why I love the Reclaiming Democracy course is because of this teaching style; questioning the “truths,” providing a variety of perspectives, and equal acceptance of different opinions. Minnich also believes that “in school, [it] is our primary obligation to conserve and pass on knowledge” and that “we teach knowledge…to conserve our world by preparing newcomers to join and continually revitalize it” (Minnich 21). This is how we teach community. This is what is referred to in the reading as “world-building.” It is so true. We need knowledge of the past, for instance, to prevent similar acts from happening (e.g. Greensboro Massacre) or use what has worked for us in the past (e.g. warfare strategies). We need the knowledge of our environment and our relationship with nature so that we may save our earth for future generations.

Barber writes about how in a capitalist society, competition threatens the foundation of freedom. “Today competition dominates our ideaology, shapes our cultureal attitudes, and sanctifies our market economy as never before” (Barber 56). This reminds me of a book, by the way, ”Hope For the Flowers,” a cute caterpillar story that portrays the problems with competition. All the caterpillars are fighting to reach the top of a pillar, some of them killing others so that they will no longer be an obstacle in the climb to the top. Yet when they start to reach the top, they realize there is nothing there, except more caterpillars trying to get higher. It is not worth wasting their lives for this competitive ”climb to the top” because the caterpillars were made to become butterflies, which have a different, more important purpose. (Sorry, it is a good little book!)

Our attitudes about our lives are directly formed from the way our society functions. Houses, cars, everything is bigger and more flashy. We are a nation of consumers. We own more than we did fifty years ago, yet we are significantly less happy (Dr. Bracci, lecture). As for the economy, American corporations sacrifice the environment and move jobs overseas to produce cheaper, not to mention crappier, products in order to blow smaller, locally-owned businesses out of the water and ultimately fatten the wallets of the corporations’ CEOs. Meanwhile, the economy suffers because no jobs are available here at home and money is being sent overseas. The environment suffers because of pollution from shipping products overseas and due to the fact that most American corporations run a linear operation; there is nothing sustainable about them (http://www.storyofstuff.com/).

Barber also says that “competition skews the balance, and threatens real democracy” (Barber 59). “Cooperation has long been a complementary principle of community and civic living” (Barber 60). If we are told to look out for “me” and beat everyone else at the game of life, how will we ever work together towards a common goal? Of course, we can change these things. Businesses can change the way they do business, even if it means a smaller profit. We can support American companies. We can work together instead of constantly trying to push others down in our “climb to the top.” But will our society’s ideals of capitalism allow us?

Heather Blackwood

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Friedman and Almeder Post

Monday, November 16th, 2009

In his essay “The Social Responsibility of Business Is toIncrease Its Profits,” Milton Friedman argues that the rules of business socialresponsibility are too vague and that a CEO is merely an employee who mustanswer to shareholders just as a janitor might answer to a foreman. Friedman sets up his argument as such:

· Only people can have social responsibilities

· Businesses are not people

· Therefore, businesses do not have socialresponsibilities (pg. 4)

He goes on to argue that a CEO “is an agent of theindividuals who own the cooperation.” That is to say that a CEO has a responsibility to the shareholders ofhis company, not to society. (pg. 5)

I think what Friedman is doing is setting up an argumentsimilar to “Is it ever right to kill someone?” Everyone immediately says, “NO! – Its never right tokill.” Of course, when a secondquestion is posed, “Is it right to kill Hitler if you had prior knowledge thathe is going to kill 6MM Jews?” studentsstart to get muddled …they flounder and say, “Well, in that case it may be okto kill.”

Friedman is saying to us, “Does a CEO have a moralresponsibility to do his job (which is to increase profits)?” Everyone says, “Yes!” The follow up question is, “Is itmorally right for that CEO to act socially responsible even if profitssuffer?” Again, everyone says,“Yes!” But the yes is a littleless resounding than the previous one and students are starting to suggest tothemselves that this question may not be as cut and dry as they first thought. What Freidman is saying is that youcan’t have it both ways.

He picks a side and argues for it. For Friedman, “There is one and only one socialresponsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activitiesdesigned to increase its profits.”

I disagree with Friedman. Granted, I am only reading one essay and I am not familiarwith the man’s complete body of work. However, it seems that Friedman is setting up an argument that hedoesn’t really believe in. I don’tthink that he honestly believes that “social responsibility is a ‘fundamentally subversive doctrine’.” I think Freidman is engaging in thekind of mind games that philosophers often play. He is picking a side an arguing for it…even if it isprovocative.

I believe the easiest way for a student to attack Friedman’sargument is to examine his belief that “There is one and only one socialresponsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activitiesdesigned to increase its profits….staying within the rules of the game.” (pg.9)

Like morality in general, who sets up these rules? Are theyabsolute? Are they intrinsic andobjective?” If the rules of thegame are flawed, then Friedman’s argument fails. If a CEO is acting within the law but the law is flawed, theCEO’s actions are morally wrong.

Almeder couches his arguments in similar prescriptivefashion to Freidman using terms like “immoral,” “ought to,” and “ought notto…” The problems with Almeder’sargument are similar to Friedman’s. He discusses morality as if it was some object “thing” that was given tomankind….a knowable axiom like the laws of math and science.

I contend that morality is not knowable in an objectivesense. Neither Friedman norAlmeder present a strong enough case to do away with or even change profitdriven capitalism – something I think many in the class were looking for in thereadings. To be fair, neitherFriedman nor Almeder are arguing for the dismissal of profit driven capitalism. However, they are suggestingthat a right and wrong way to do things. The problem is how do they know what is right and what is wrong?

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