Are we living in Heaven or are we living in Hell? 

30 Oct 2025 7 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Are we living in Heaven or are we living in Hell?  There was an old Twilight Zone episode where a big-time gangster died and found himself in a room with a nerdy middle-aged man and his frumpy wife.  They were showing endless repeats of their boring vacation 8 mm film clips.  At first the gangster was polite but after a while he could not take it any longer.  He went to the door and tried to get out of the room.  A monstrous demon appeared and told him that he could never leave.  He was in hell.  The gangster said that he could understand why he would be in hell but what has this nerdy couple done to deserve it.  The demon gave an uproarious laugh and screamed at the gangster,  “They are not in hell, this is their heaven.”

Two more famous men, C.S. Lewis and William Blake wrote books with diametrically opposed views of heaven and hell.  C. S. Lewis’s book was “The Great Divorce.”  He wrote this as a rebuttal  to a book by William Blake called “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”  Here is a brief dialogue between the two men at a fictitious meeting discussing what they might have said to each other.

Blake (smiling): So—you are the Oxford don who annulled my marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Lewis (bowing): And you the engraver who dared to join fire and light in one bed.  I fear your union lacked divine sanction.

Blake: Ha!  Eternity laughs at sanction.  Heaven and Hell are not realms, but the two wings of imagination—reason and desire.  To clip one is to fall.

Lewis: Yet ungoverned desire burns the wings that bear it.  I wrote of ghosts who mistook appetite for freedom.

Blake: Then your eyes were half shut.  ‘Energy is Eternal Delight.’ You worship order; I, the creative storm.

Lewis: And I have seen storms that destroy the very life they claim to free.

My father was seldom patriarchal but often insightful.  He told me at an early age that heaven and hell were right here now on this earth.  Our choices made our lives.  We could choose to live in heaven, or we could choose to live in hell.  I often reflected on the meaning of his words.  Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”  He was noting that the judgment and objectification by others can cause torment, leading to a loss of one’s freedom and sense of self.  To lose both is to live in hell.

Another quote that I have sometimes accepted was said by Satan in John Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise Lost”. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”  This famous line is a declaration of rebellion by Satan, who prefers to rule over his fallen kingdom rather than be subservient to God in heaven.  Anarchists have a comparable thought which goes “”Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre.”  Translated this means “No Gods, No Kings.”  As an atheist, I find myself trying to live with these thoughts in a world suffused with religious fervor for a God who supposedly waits on humanity to plea for his help and guidance.  Unfortunately, it often seems that God is either deaf, dumb or blind.

For years, I saw organized religions as the Bain of humanity.  I believed that more wars had been fought over religious differences than perhaps any other reason ever known.  I wanted nothing to do with a God who belonged to any religion.  My “conversion” to Atheism was attached to a belief that humans could self-regulate their behavior.  People would naturally do what was right without the threat of hell or the promise of heaven.  Seventy-nine years on this earth has taught me the error of this thought.  It would now seem that the further we get from heaven and hell, the more chaotic our world has become.

In many religions of the world, “bad” people go to hell.  Good people go to heaven.  But thoughts and beliefs about hell have varied widely over the centuries.  Here are some of the more common thoughts about hell summarized from the world’s major religions:

What Hell Is:

  • Historically, Hell is not originally a large universal fiery lake of eternal damnation that the popular imagination may picture.
  • Hell in some traditions is temporary (in many Indian religions; in early Judaism in some texts). Hell is more of a place to get your life in order.
  • Hell is often metaphorical or theological — e.g., separation from God or loss of the ultimate good. Catholics say the best thing about Heaven is seeing God.  In their version of hell, you will never see god.
  • Hell’s imagery is heavily shaped by cultural, social, and historical contexts (prisons, mines, burial rites, afterlife beliefs).

What Hell Is Not:

  • It is not uniformly defined across religions — one model of Hell does not fit all faiths.
  • It is not always eternal or always fiery.
  • It is not always the first idea in the tradition; often developed later (Hellenistic Judaism, Christian Latin Fathers).
  • It is not only about punishment; in many traditions the emphasis is on purification, transformation, or consequence of one’s own actions (karma) rather than a punitive act by God.

What Heaven Is:

We must then contrast our ideas of hell with the ideas of heaven that many people have.  I was brought up in a Catholic tradition where heaven was this wonderful place in which we would be united with all the good people in our lives that we loved but most importantly with God and Jesus.  Heaven was a place where every wish we could ever think of would be granted and there would be no toil, no pains, no hardships, no misery.  Everything that anyone could ever want in their wildest dreams would exist in heaven.  Heaven was a very personal place since we could all find and achieve our dreams there.

Now think about this for a minute.  Does the idea of heaven that I have described seem somewhat preposterous?   How could all this be possible?  Could two realms actually exist?  One holds all the bad people that ever existed and the other all the good people.  And how does St. Peter decide who is good and who is bad?  What magical talisman could exist to objectively separate the two?  Lewis and Blake also differed greatly on their attitudes towards heaven and hell.

Lewis: If Heaven and Hell are one, where lies choice?  Good and evil must part, else neither lives.

Blake: Contraries are life itself.  ‘Without contraries there is no progression.’  The dance between them drives creation.

Lewis: Yet the dance must end in a yes or no.  The soul cannot waltz forever between God and self.

Blake: Perhaps your yes is my spectrum.  You see white; I see all colors folded in it.

Lewis: But colors fade without the light that births them.  Love orders even the rainbow.

Blake: And fear of color breeds night.  You guard truth so tightly it cannot breathe.

Lewis: You set it so free it forgets its name.

Lewis:  There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’

Blake:  To obey God is to create with Him; submission divides, imagination unites.

The difference between the moral absolutist Lewis and the Blake version of good and evil still divides us today  For Blake, “Good” is whatever springs from imaginative love, energy, and vision.  “Evil” is whatever crushes imagination through repression, hypocrisy, or self-righteousness.  For Lewis, a moral foundation is built upon objective, divine law discerned by reason and revelation.

We can discern these two opposing themes concerning morality, good and evil, heaven and hell in every fabric of life today.  Theologians, politicians, leaders from all walks of life are all divided upon the questions concerning good and evil, absolute morality and moral relativism.  Is humanity innately good and bound to follow the “right” path based on its own self-interest or is humanity a neutral vessel in need of a moral code to help guide their choices in life?

I have come to believe that this apparent dichotomy simply reflects the complex ambiguity that humanity entails.  Some people need heaven and hell to do the right thing.  They will break laws, take advantage of other people, as long as they think they can get away with it.  Taking any moral codes or fire and brimstone away from them only makes it easier for them to prey on others.

Conversely, there are many good people who do good because it is the right thing to do.  They obey laws when laws are not apparent.  They help others not because of fear but because of love.  They feed the hungry and welcome immigrants because they understand the need to have a better life.  They do not clamor about hand-ups versus hand-outs because they know that many people lack the arms and legs to climb up the proverbial ladder.  They do good not because of a fear of hell or desire to get into heaven but because they yield to a greater law.  A Law of Love and Compassion for all of humanity.

Virtues, Values, Morals and Ethics:  What are the differences and Who Cares?

24 Jul 2025 16 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The older I get, the more questions concerning virtues, values, morals and ethics concern me.  Like most people, I thought that I learned what these concepts meant through church, parents, school, books, fairy tales and movies.  What I never really learned was: 1. Why are they important?  2. What do they mean for society?  3. Why should we care about the differences?  4. How do they actually play out in real life?  Real life meaning in war, in peace, in times of societal disasters and even in everyday living.  Now with a few years left in my life, I am immensely concerned with the above questions. 

I started reading more about virtues and values and morals and ethics a few years ago and did not make even a slight dent in the literature.  Recently, I looked into YouTube to see what some videos had to say about the same questions I am concerned with.  I found more videos to watch than I could review if I lived 100 more years.  Nevertheless, I spent some time scanning a few of these videos to see what other writers had to say about virtues, values, morals and ethics.  After reviewing these videos, I decided I would just wing it from my own perspective and experience.  In this blog, I will try to answer each of the questions I posed based on my own experiences.  Before we begin, I would like to provide a very simple definition for each concept.  No ChatGPT or Google here.  This is my own simple and probably not very profound definition of each.  

Virtue:  A gift to be earned.  Examples, “Patience, Honesty, Faith”

Value:  Something we think is important or worthwhile.  Examples, “Happiness, Love, Frugality”

Moral:  A principle we want to live by.  Example, “Do unto others etc.”

Ethics:  Principles others think we should live by.  Examples, “Always respect your customers”

 1.  Why are they important?

The simplest but most compelling answer to this question is that they help you to lead a happier, more fulfilling life.  People adhering to these concepts will have character and integrity and be both respected and admired.  They may not make you rich.  They may not make you famous.  But true happiness does not come from fame and fortune.  Here are some quotes that I like on happiness:

“True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller

“Happiness is not something ready-made.  It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” – Charles M. Schulz

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” – Charles Spurgeon

You might be asking yourself “Well, do we really need to pay attention to each of these concepts?”  Why not just worry about virtues or ethics?  My answer is yes.  We need to pay attention to all four of these concepts because they work together.  Like a car needs a transmission, engine, battery and wheels to get anyplace, you cannot become the person you want to be if you ignore any of these ideas. 

You cannot be virtuous and have shallow values.  You cannot have great values but no ethics.  You cannot have ethics but no morals.  We need to understand and embrace all four of these concepts.  Values and ethics deal more with external influences on our lives while virtues and morals come more from inside us and deal with our own abilities and character.  Can you have good character and embrace “bad” actions?  Can you have “bad” character and pursue good actions?  I think the answer to both these questions is “very unlikely.”  Actions flow out of character and character is developed by actions. 

2.  What do they mean for society?

First let me ask you a few questions and see if your thinking about these questions answers my question above.  Are you happy with the way people drive on the freeways today?  Do you feel that politicians and leaders today really care about you and the country?  Do you think that poverty and homelessness are inevitable or that good leadership could help to amend these problems?  Is a good leader ethical, moral, virtuous and guided by good values?  Do you think the above problems can be taken care of simply by higher incomes and fewer taxes? 

Now, I would ask you to go back to my question number 2 and take a few minutes to think of how you would answer it.  What would it mean for society if everyone practiced good virtues, morals, ethics and values?  Would we have as much unhappiness in society as we seem to have today?  Would our crime rate be high?  Would we constantly be involved in fighting wars in other countries? 

“Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.”  – Socrates

“No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.”  – Samuel Johnson

“A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.” – Daniel Webster

“The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations.  In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.  –  Martin Luther King Jr

Once upon a time, I thought that the most important thing I could teach in schools would be critical thinking skills.  However, after having been teaching since 1975 in every class from kindergarten to Ph.D. programs, I have come to believe that the most important thing I can teach is an appreciation of these four concepts.  I have no illusions that I can or should force any particular virtue or values or ethics or morality down anyone’s throat.  I think that while each of these concepts is universal, each person must identify his/her own ideas and beliefs that are most important to them.  I have my list of virtues and morals that I try to live by.  Each day, I start out with a little prayer to remind myself to practice a particular virtue.  Today it was patience.  Tomorrow it will be kindness.  I do an inventory at the end of each day wherein I ask myself “how did I do today on my virtue.” 

As for morals, I have several principles that I try to live by.  I have listed five of my most important moral principles below.  You may have five, ten, fifteen or twenty that you believe in and not one that matches any of mine.  I think that what is important is that each of your principles is a building block for positive character.  A character that other people can admire but even more importantly, a character that you can be proud of. 

  • Do no harm to others
  • Stand up for what I believe
  • Do unto others as they would have done unto them
  • Demonstrate integrity in all I say and do
  • Do not be afraid to do what is right

 3.  Why should we care about the differences between these concepts?

Dr. Deming was famous for his quote that, “Experience without theory teaches nothing.”   I strongly support his axiom.  What it means is that if you keep doing something and it works or perhaps does not work, without an underlying theory of causality, you will never understand what factors or actions have resulted in your success or failure.  Without understanding these factors, it may be difficult to replicate your success but also likely you will not be able to improve on it. 

For instance, what if people seem to shy away from me and dislike me?  Or what if I seem to aggravate people but I cannot figure out why?  Going to school to study psychology or reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie might be just the theory that you need to better understand yourself and your behavior.  Socrates said, “Know Thyself” and also that, “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living.”  Reflection and knowledge can lead to wisdom and wisdom will help you to lead a good life.

I also support the opposite belief, that “Theory without experience teaches nothing.”  You can read all the psychology books you want but unless you act on your theories, you will also learn nothing.  You cannot understand an apple or a steak without biting into it.  We must couple action with theory in our lives, or we risk going through life with a tank ½ full.

4.  How do these concepts play out in real life? 

This is a very challenging question.  I can tell you that in my life I tended to ignore the theory part in favor of experiences.  I learned a great deal through the proverbial trial and error, but my life has been in the past like a rubrics cube that came apart and I could not put it back together again.

I did not understand the relationship between the concepts we are discussing now and how they could and should play a role in my life.  I looked for a better more meaningful life by working harder, making more money and acquiring more diplomas and certificates.  Only in the past few years have I began to understand that without a firm grounding in morality, ethics, values and virtues, I could never live a life that measured up to my goals and aspirations.  These concepts form the bedrock and foundation for a life that exemplifies integrity and character. 

“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.” – Lord Acton

“Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt” –  Felix Adler

“Moral decline has become a growing concern in many societies around the world.  As the traditional values and principles that guide human behavior weaken, we see a shift in attitudes, actions, and even societal structures.  This decline in ethical standards, often characterized by increasing selfishness, dishonesty, and a lack of accountability, has widespread implications for individual lives, families, communities, and nations.” – Virtuous Magazine, 10-9-24

“Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.” –  Nelson Mandela

Conclusions:

I wrote this blog because as many people have attested to, there is an alarming decline in morality, ethics, values and virtues in our world today.  Many people now subscribe to an opportunistic philosophy which states that “If it is not illegal, than I can do it.”  To these people, it does not matter who they will harm by their actions.  The only things that matter are their own personal wants and desires.  Some people have referred to the present generation as the “entitlement” generation.  Others call our present times a time of Amorality.  Amorality is between immorality and morality, but it does not denote a Golden Mean.  Rather it is more like a zombie state that ignores the negative effects of a lack of morality on society.  It ignores the harm that Amorality does to individuals in any society. 

Opportunism, Amorality and Entitlement have become strong values for many in American society.  In this respect, I see them as “bad” values.  The difference between Good Values and Bad Values might seem to be merely a matter of opinion but I disagree.  I have argued in my previous blog that there are Bad Laws and Good Laws.  So too there are Bad Values and Good Values.  Bad values devalue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for private profit and gain.  The opposite is true of Good values.  Good values enhance life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the greatest number.  James Madison said that a Democracy is a “Rule of the Majority with a concern for the Minority.”  What we see in America today would seem to be the rule of an Oligarchic Rich Elite exploiting minorities for their own benefit.  Perhaps more emphasis on morals, values, virtues and ethics in the media and press and less emphasis on violence and mayhem could reposition our country.  I think many of us would like to live in a nation that is based on empathy and compassion for all rather than revenge and retribution for those who are more vulnerable, poor or less powerful.

The Diagram that I used in this blog was created by Sudir Vigneshwar.  He has a very good blog on the subject of Morality and Virtue at his website.  I think the diagram depicts in a model what I have been saying in so many words.   Look for 

The Moral Alignment Scale: In Depth Conversations on Morality with an A.I.

Why, Why, Why Would Anyone Vote for Trump?

13 Jun 2022 12 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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Perhaps no question in history has spawned more theories and more books to explain the “Trump Phenomenon.”  Why would anyone with one iota of decency vote for and support someone who lacked all morality and all integrity?  Trump is certainly not the first leader to lack any semblance of morality. However, given that he was elected to what some believe is the last great hope for “Democracy,” it boggles the mind that such a person could become President of the United States of America.  Trump and his supporters stand against every principle that this nation was founded on.

1_olMzFxyjypYKzro3iFezQgI have read at least a dozen books and heard a different theory each month on why Trump was elected.  From racism, to sexism, to xenophobia, to white supremacy, to rural alienation, to immigration, to abortion, to anti-immigration, to income gaps, to blue collar woes, to anti-globalism, to Christianity, to government overreach, to tax issues, to wage gaps, to inflation, to isolationism, to lack of American jobs, to anti-education, each one of these and several more have been promoted as the “reason” for Trumps support.

You can read volumes about these reasons, and you will still be looking for a reason.  None of them seem to provide the “whole” explanation and new books are pumped out daily by Trump accusers and sycophants.  These same ass-kissing, boot licking followers who now want to throw shit on Trump while exonerating their own culpability.

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So imagine my surprise when I came across this explanation for why people followed Hitler written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He wrote this while in jail for his resistance to Hitler’s policies.   Bonhoeffer was a famous Lutheran pastor and theologian who threw caution to the wind when he decided that he had to speak out against Hitler.  He was arrested, tried, and found guilty.  He was too well known for Hitler to immediately execute.  Hitler put Bonhoeffer in prison but on April 9th, 1945 just three weeks before he died, Hitler opted for his trademark vindictiveness and cruelty.  He ordered Bonhoeffer hung along with several other conspirators.

This writing was done while Bonhoeffer was in prison.  In a very short piece,  he sums up why anyone would support someone like Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin or any other actual or would be dictator.  It explains “Why Trump” better than any of the long-winded studies I have read.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Bonhoeffer:  On Stupidity

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against stupidity we are defenseless.

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

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For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.

We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.

We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.

It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.

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It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.

The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

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Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity.

Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.

This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.

——————————————————————————————–

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You can keep looking for explanations.  I think there surely will be more raised.  However, I am content to stop here with Bonhoeffer’s explanation.  I may not agree with everything he says but he explains quite well why discussion and debate with these people are a total waste of time. 

Another Lying Statement from Donald J. Trump

07 Jan 2021 1 Comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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This morning Donald J. Trump released the following statement. This comes on the heels of spending nearly four years with the help of Republican leaders and sycophantic followers trying to destroy the democratic foundations of America and nearly succeeding. Thus, as his one time followers flee the White House, like rats leaving a sinking ship and some Republicans call for his impeachement, he issues the following statement:

“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20. I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.” — Donald J. Trump 1-7-2021

IF you believe this man who has repeatedly lied and lied and gone back on anything he has said, you are a total fool. He has only said this so he does not get removed from office and so that he can continue to try to destroy this country. Even in this statement, he is denying reality and waiting until January 20 for an “orderly” transition.

This man needs to go to jail. There have been few people I can think of who deserve to be behind bars more than Donald J. Trump.

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The following article was written several months ago. It should now include treason as well as the deaths of thousands of people due to his handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic:

The A to Z of Things Trump Could and Should Have Been Impeached For:

Here is what some of the rest of the world is saying about Trump and his supporters.

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The 3rd of Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins: Knowledge without Character.

25 Mar 2019 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Several years ago I became very interested in the question of “Character.”  What is character?  How do we develop character?  Are we losing character in our population and if so, why?  I found a number of books on the subject but the one that most impressed me was called “The Death of Character.”  It was published in 2001 and was written by James Davison Hunter.   The book description is as follows:

The Death of Character is a broad historical, sociological, and cultural inquiry into the moral life and moral education of young Americans based upon a huge empirical study of the children themselves. The children’s thoughts and concerns-expressed here in their own words-shed a whole new light on what we can expect from moral education. Targeting new theories of education and the prominence of psychology over moral instruction, Hunter analyzes the making of a new cultural narcissism.

One of the observations that I drew from reading this book is that as a nation, Americans have moved from a perspective of absolute values to a strong belief in relative values or flexible standards.  Wherein once people could be labeled as moral or immoral based on their behavior, today we have the concept of amorality which does not seem to have existed before the 20th century.   Some definitions might help here:

Moral:  Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

Immoral:  Violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.

Amoral:  Being neither moral nor immoral; specifically: lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply.

Character:  The aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person.

According to Hunter’s research, the American population has moved from a bipartite arrangement in which people fell between the poles of moral or immoral to a tripartite arrangement in which most people would be classified as amoral, immoral or moral.  The percentage of people in the amoral area has steadily increased while the percentage in the moral area has steadily declined since the early 1900s.

I was teaching in higher education from 1999 to 2015 and one question I  routinely asked my MBA and BA students is “What would you do if you were driving down a lonely dirt road and saw a Wells Fargo money bag lying on the side of the road?  Would you return it?”  I suspect that you would be surprised if I told you that less than 3 students in 30 say they would return it.

However, if I ask them the following question, the numbers change dramatically.  “What would you do if you noticed that upon leaving the classroom, Mary had dropped a twenty dollar bill?  You are the only one who has noticed it. Would you return it?”  The replies are unanimous in that all students say they would return it.  Students regard hurting another person that they know as wrong or immoral, but stealing from Wells Fargo is not considered immoral but is rather considered as amoral.  My own teaching experiences over the years confirm much of what Hunter says in his book.  Amorality is rampant among business students.

So we come to an important question.  Can we have an educated and intelligent population (more people getting degrees and going to school) and less morality?  What if more people are becoming amoral and we have less moral people?  What are the implications?  Well, I think the answer is clear here.  Look at corporate behavior.  You have only to read the story of Enron “The Smartest Men in the Room” to see concrete examples of intelligent behavior without a sense of morality or character.   When we look at amoral behavior in people and organizations, a primary question is how long before the amoral behavior becomes immoral and crosses the line to illegal – as it did with Enron, Worldcom, and Global Crossing.

Gandhi says this about his 3rd Social sin: 

“Our obsession with materialism tends to make us more concerned about acquiring knowledge so that we can get a better job and make more money. A lucrative career is preferred to an illustrious character. Our educational centers emphasize career-building and not character-building. Gandhi believed if one is not able to understand one’s self, how can one understand the philosophy of life. He used to tell me the story of a young man who was an outstanding student throughout his scholastic career. He scored “A’s” in every subject and strove harder and harder to maintain his grades. He became a bookworm. However, when he passed with distinction and got a lucrative job, he could not deal with people nor could he build relationships. He had no time to learn these important aspects of life. Consequently, he could not live with his wife and children nor work with his colleagues. His life ended up being a misery. All those years of study and excellent grades did not bring him happiness. Therefore, it is not true that a person who is successful in amassing wealth is necessarily happy. An education that ignores character- building is an incomplete education.”

In my book, “The New Business Values” one of my chapters was on Information.  I outlined a hierarchy of information as follows: Data>Information>Knowledge>Wisdom.   I described knowledge as a set of beliefs, facts or ideas that contained relevance to some goal, need or desire.  In my model, knowledge cannot become wisdom until it is linked to emotions and feelings for others.  I think Gandhi’s ideas of linking knowledge to character probably hits the mark more accurately.  It was my understanding that knowledge without empathy and compassion for others could never be wisdom.

The world is full of knowledge today since scientific belief has replaced religious belief.   However, science can never develop the sense of empathy and compassion as a central part of character development.  Furthermore, character development even more than knowledge, stands alone as a primary developmental need for any civilized society.  Gandhi wisely noted that we have let our passion for commerce and money outrun our passion for purpose and character.

The famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in his book Economics and the Public Purpose (1973, Houghton Mifflin) that:

“The contribution of economics to the exercise of power may be called its instrumental function… Part of this function consists in instructing several hundred thousand students each year… They are led to accept what they might otherwise criticize; critical inclinations which might be brought to bear on economic life are diverted to other and more benign fields.” 

Galbreath observed over 35 years ago that we are educating MBA students who have become mindless automatons in a corporate system without a conscience.  Having no conscience is one aspect of amoral behavior.  In today’s society and schools such behavior has become the accepted norm.  It’s the “go along” to “get along” mentality that accepts corporate decisions regardless of their impact on people, the environment or even our nation.  The “diversion” that Galbraith speaks of is easily recognized as sports and media entertainment.  Sports and news create 24/7 hours if mostly inane and benign diversions that keep the public’s mind off of character or moral development.  Indeed watching sports figures and media figures today is evidence of a “vast wasteland” in terms of character development.

So where do we go from here?  The picture appears bleak.  We now accept amorality as a legitimate position on the map of character development.  We ignore the development of true character in our schools and churches; in fact, we supplant the development of character with the requisite amorality needed to get ahead in the business world.  The values of the corporation have supplanted the values needed for a kind and compassionate civilization.  Our schools have become prisons and our prisons overflow.  The USA has some of the highest amounts of incarceration in the world.  Our courts have become three ring media circuses designed to show an endless succession of trials whose main points seem to be to titillate and entertain the masses.  Can we escape from this cycle of destruction that we have built for ourselves?

Time for Questions:

Am I too bleak?  Do you think there is more morality in society than I describe? What do you do to develop your own character?  Do you feel that there is enough emphasis on character development in our churches and schools?  What do you think can be done about it?  How do we start?

Life is just beginning.

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”  ― Arthur Schopenhauer

New Revelations from a Senior Trump Aide: The Man has no Morality!

06 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is an op-ed piece from the NY Times written by an anonymous senior aide inside the White House.  Never before has anyone written anything about a President like this.  This clearly shows the incompetence of the man who is President of the United States of America. 

Please share, post, retweet this to everyone you can.  We need to show the world that there are millions of us who do not support this man or his policies.  We need to either impeach him or indict him.  He can and has done real damage to the United States of America.  The longer he remains in office, the more damage he will do.

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

I work for the president, but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

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“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.

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