Show Page 2 April 28 1994 Tradition is no substitute for change y Let the truth be told ethics are not a street Many of y our leaders and former leaders pretend that they are streets “my way or the highway" As a society or a country we may not choose nor change our ethics at will They do and have changed But the change is a continual process that began the day humyns inhabited the Earth Today's level of morality is much different than it was 200 years ago It is different than it was five years ago But merely one-wa- one-wa- Joshua Ullbarri viewpoint editor it is different docs not mean that they are less nor worse It simply means that they are different and evolved Former secretary of education and drug czar William Bennett has recently released a book on ethics His claim is that the United States has hist its moral foundation He is not the only Dan person to make this popular claim Former this Both claim election also reiterated '92 men during Quaylc believe that a major concent confronting the country is single-parehomes Most of these homes are headed by womyn homes are any worse Independently 1 do not think single-parehome raised by than other homes I grew up in a single-pare1 on and have never been to mother went college graduated my in legal trouble Not having a father since the age of seven has not been a handicap for me Times arc different now Fifty years ago careers were community based There was very little travel involved Husbands did not leave wives for long periods of time Today's society is different Parents grow apart and families break-u- p Womyn are as capable as men at instilling values and morals in vice-preside- nt nt nt children There is no gene that gives the advantage to men Independently then a decrease in the traditional family cannot be singled out for blame What is to blame then for the rise in crime the increase in youths involved with gangs and the outrageous number of teenagers having babies? I do not know If I knew I would bottle it and sell it for millions (would that be ethical?) I can only speculate I think maybe the First step should do as Michael Jackson and “start with the man in the minor” William Bennett for example wrote his book on ethics Maybe he would have been better served if he looked at himself and his level of morality This is the same man who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations Obviously he did not learn his ethics from his employers He also refers to Rush Limbaugh as the “legend” Limbaugh refers to feminists as “feminazis” and environmentalists as “environmental whackos” Hardly ethical is it? Our current president is no better He continues to cry that we need higher ethics in our society This is the same man who has granted “Most Favored Nation" status to China Why? Because of the impact China has on the American economy I suppose he forgot about China's humyn rights abuses Hardly an ethical decision was it? Consider the way our leaders have handled the Bosnian crisis If the Serbians had attacked Jews or Christians they surely would have been stopped months and millions of murders ago I don't think they employ double standards do they? Personally though I do not believe that our elected officials should be held to higher standards We employ them we endorse them and we them at alarming rates We as a populous should be held accountable We should be the example Unfortunately we arc We lie cheat steal and pillage We continue to use personal double standards in our every day life If you need proof consider a study done by James Patterson and Peter Kim released in their book “The Day America told the Truth" Seventy-fou- r percent of the S7()0 people polled slated ct they would steal from people who wouldn't miss it Sixty-si- x percent could not name their congressional representative Eighty-on- e percent claimed to lie about their true feelings and 25 abandon their entire family for S10 million would percent Bennett makes the claim that Americans have nothing to believe in Truthfully he is right Forty-eigpercent answered for worth beliefs If that there arc no you thought America dying was sensitive think again Forty-on- e percent answered that is the to trade secrets Japanese worthy of the death selling ht penalty Many people would argue that the study was not realistic Yeah right I believe it 100 percent I live it every day I see it every day Why hasn't anything been done? The answer to that question is simple There is no popular consensus or political movement that knows exactly what to do All there is is plenty of rhetoric with no action Apathy I believe is the real problem People simply do not care anymore A study done by Alexander Astin found that only 23 people had concern for percent of high school and college-ag- e their community When you consider the converse of that number you sec that 77 people out oflOO have no concern for our society If the community docs not care then why should we expect our politicians to? We shouldn't It seems to me that the problem could easily be solved if everyone started playing a part Bennett is right we need ethics That ethic though is not defined by our religious leaders nor by our politicians It is defined by you and I We decide what is right and wrong When we sec a crime being committed and we do not call an authority we are saying that crime is all right When we elect officials who bounce checks sexually harass womyn or endorse abusive governments we arc saying that is all right When we allow people to censor what books or magazines we may read and we do nothing we say it is all right By not acting and by not taking responsibility we allow others to dictate what will happen My point is this: no ethic is right or (see Ulibarrl page 8) When we do not like the image staring back through the global mirror Steven Spiclburg's new film Schindler's List is a graphic depiction of the monstrosities that occurcd in the Nazi death camps of the second World War in which six million individuals lost their livcssix million While one is trying to fathom such a Livt Ryan Hoglund viewpoint writer AmcricanAmcrican (what docs it mean to be American) or how about I destroy your heritage your home your hope and your family just because you are not like myself OK my friends what is going on? It can no longer be called racism that term is too light to describe the horror involved when individuals or organizations use mere classifications as justification for negative action We are killing each other because “they” are not “us” Psychologists believe that inherent to all humans is a need to compare ourselves to others in order to arrive at a of who “we” are Granted we are a diverse There are as many diverse cultures on the planet as organism there are written words but the problems arise when the leap is made from comparison to feelings of superiority and to e differences being justification for negative action I would strongly argue that this classification syndrome is at the root but not sold cause of many of the evils facing the world today From the northern hemisphere exploiting the resources of lesser developed countries in the southern hemisphere to urban violence between gang members According to the April 22 issue of the Salt Lake Tribune stale demographic analysts sadly predict that even in the year 2020 Utah's Caucasian population will consist of 909 percent of the overall population (currently it is 952 percent) While I do not think ethnic individuals should be shipped to Utah to balance the population I find it incredibly disturbing that our posterity will e not be in contact or influenced by a rich on-fac- detrimental blow that Adolf Hitler's Third Reich was responsible for commiling against the Jewish population they should not forget the equally horrible if not worse situation that occurcd in this country around the same n time In America during the 1940s our white countless in segregating population saw themselves justified on the soul premise that their color of skin was different But it seems the era of segregation and Nazi death camps was through and forgotten with the fall of Hitler and Brown vs Topeka Board of Education or is it? This very instant in Yugoslavia the Muslim city of Gorazde is being shelled by Serb gunners and in the Central African halfcountry of Rwanda 100000 people are believed dead and a million homeless in just two weeks of political strife between the warring Hutus and Tutsis tribes From the Irish Republican Army to the African National Congress to the Kurdish Haitian Anglo-Saxo- African-America- and Turkish refugeesand the resurgent nco-Nazist- he “how about I just bash you for the fun of it and because I can” movcmenisbecause you are an African-AmcricanAsia- n- cultural-divers- population Most of the time when individuals or organizations react negatively to other cultures it is usually out of paranoia or ignorance American history is filled with accounts of being perceived as savages and being exploited on those grounds by sealers the US military and modem civilization I would not be surprised that if in our lifetime we will Native-America- ns witness the cultural assimilation of the American Indian s population During the second World War were confined to relocation camps one of which was in Utah by paranoid-drive- n officials and citizens The frightening realization is the question so when is a race war going to grip the United Stales? The Los Angeles riots of 1992 and the 1993 incidents in which a group assassinate to the Black of planned key figures community by blowing up a Los Angeles church house expresses the frustration and hate felt by members of different cultures in the United Slates— cultures with the potential of using violence as means to their own ends The ultimate product of this classification mind set is the modem nation-stat- e As nationalities strive to expand their borders the tides of nationalism stir and further entrench feelings of superiority This serves to create a vicious circle of g behavior begeuing g behavior It is that war that has been argued every fought throughout history can be liked in some respect to the conceptualization of the nation-statefrom the Persian Gulf War to the Yugoslavian conflict As long as we think in terms of nations and states and north and south instead of as a community a global will continue to be approached as “their village problems problem not mine” and those problems will continue to escalate and effect us adversely The time for a paradigm shift has come one that will include grassroot mobilization from below and mobilization by governments toward common ideals We are a diverse organism a global tossed salad and until we overcome trivial perception differences we will continue to see women in India burned because their husbands think they have the right to do so terrorists attacking US buildings to combat Western impcrialismand fathers beating children because they cannot hit back Japanese-American- white-separti- st power-seekin- power-seekin- one-wor- ld top-dow- n |