[Vision2020] Karma and Character

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

I want to thank Tom, Joan, Rose, Saundra, and all the other members of the 
gang for organizing the Anti-Inaugural Today.  My favorite and subtlest 
sign was "Inaugurate This."  Here is the text of my speech given in my 
Chinese character "Victory" hat, and today it was Victory for Values.

KARMA AND CHARACTER

By Nick  Gier
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
University of Idaho

In a recent column entitled "Character is Destiny," William Safire claims 
that the Republicans won the election because they embodied the true spirit 
of America's national character.  The GOP, says Safire, demonstrates a 
"sharply defined character" in its "mission to defeat terror while 
exporting freedom abroad, and a policy to restrain taxes while increasing 
social spending at home" (New York Times, 1-12-05).  (Was there a misprint 
in the last six words?!)
Paragons of virtue are widely and indisputably admired.  No reasonable 
person, for example, would doubt the impeccable character of Jesus or the 
Buddha, or, on a more mundane level, Jimmy Carter.  The problem with 
America's national character is that we have, since the end of World War 
II, have gradually lost the universal recognition that good character requires.
Nations are of course not persons, and they can be just as conflicted and 
full of vice as any individual can be.  Our principal failing in the Cold 
War was the vice of hypocrisy.  We usually had no compunction in supporting 
oppressive, undemocratic regimes if they joined us against the 
Soviets.  The most cynical example of this was our support for the Contras 
against a democratically elected government in Nicaragua.  Remember Ollie 
North, who sold missiles to Iran to finance the Contras, even though we 
were supporting Saddam Hussein at the same time?  And why do the Iranians 
dislike us? Because in 1953 the CIA overthrew an Iranian Social Democrat 
whom they thought would be friendly to the Russians.
In the good old days American character, at least in my family, was defined 
as hard work, thrift, pay as you go, and above all, and fulfilling basic 
needs rather than frivolous desires.  When I was a kid, my brother and I 
did not get to eat watermelon until it was one cents a pound!
Once praised for their fiscal conservatism, Republicans have done nothing 
to reverse our private savings rate, the lowest in the industrialized 
world, and our ballooning trade and budget deficits.  Individual Americans 
who do not save, neglect their basic needs, and live beyond their means are 
obviously not persons of good character, and neither is a nation that 
develops these vices.
I would like to offer the following playground analogy.  The bad guys and 
their biker chicks are well contained in one corner of playground.  The 
good students, inspired by European exchange students, do a good job, with 
the help of their vice principle, of disciplining them when they act up.
But there is one student who can't contain himself.  His religion requires 
that he must smite the evil doers. So he goes over and picks a fight with 
one of the bad guys, and all Hell breaks loose.  Now I ask you: would you 
say that this guy had good character and judgment?
The motto "character is destiny" is based on the simple moral rule that 
"you reap what you sow." Buddhists and Hindus call this karma, and karma is 
nothing but the law of causality applied to the moral realm.  The Buddha 
once said that "they who know causality know the Dharma."  What this means 
is that if you are mindful of how your actions affect yourself and others, 
then you will know what you ought to do.  It also means that you develop 
the virtues at an early age, your good character will destine you to a good 
life.
Democrats lost the election in part because they were perceived to be less 
supportive of moral values.   And if liberals continue to claim that values 
do not matter, and that all we need to talk about is economic and social 
issues, we will continue to lose elections.
I believe it is a great shame that we have let the conservatives take the 
character education issue as their own.  I'm now beginning to work with the 
Kellogg School District on a virtues curriculum, one that will teach our 
children that integrity, compassion, justice, and courage do not belong to 
political parties, but to all human beings.

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