Hudson River Valley
Ethics Forum

Responses

HUDSON RIVER VALLEY ETHICS FORUM
Issue Number 1, August, 2003

" Too bad the most important issues on the planet are left to committed volunteers and not-for-profits to attend to"
- Manna Jo Greene

Many thanks to Manna Jo Greene for the above! A statement about the "bad"makes a wonderful starting point in our efforts to elucidate the"good. ". I'll initiate the conversation by sharing some thoughts of mine on the subject. I look forward to your thoughts on the same.

"MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES"

From a purely human perspective, all issues central to the continuance of human life
would be " the most important issues on the planet. "

However, a person struggling to make this month's rent might have another view.
" The most important issues on the planet " could easily refer to the basic elements essential to life in a civil society, including food, water, shelter, clothing, education, health care; in total, the elements needed to maintain a safe and sustainable environment.

Of course, no government can provide all this alone. No government
ever has. The " most important issues " require the cooperation of most individual citizens. But at the same time, government at very least has a responsibility to establish policies to insure all its citizens have access to basic necessities.

Let's reframe Manna's statement as a question (two questions really) for a slightly different perspective:

"Are the most important issues on the planet left to committed volunteers and not-for-profits, and if so, is that bad?"

It seems reasonable to assume that volunteers and not-for-profits
undertake what they consider to be important issues. From a human
perspective, all issues essential to the continuance of human life on the planet and the continuance of life in general would be important.

Setting aside for a moment the question as to whether or not these are the " most important issues on the planet", I think most would grant issues undertaken by volunteers and not-for-profits are issues of significance to most citizens.

"THE QUESTION REFRAMED:"

Have issues of significance that are possibly " the most important issues on the planet "been" left " by anyone to committed volunteers and not-for-profits and if so, who has left these issues and why?

In 1831 Alexis De Toqueville visited America from his native France and recorded his observations:

" I met with several kinds of associations in America of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of many men, and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it".

( 1835, De Toqueville, "Democracy In America", A Mentor Book, Heffner, editor, 1984 edition, Part II, Book Two, 29., pg. 198-202)

Toqueville notes: " in aristocratic societies, men do not need to combine to act. " The wealthy and powerful simply tell the men in their employ what to do and it is done.

"Amongst democratic nations, ...all the citizens are dependent and feeble; they can hardly do anything by themselves and none of them can oblige his fellow man to lend him assistance. They all, therefore, become powerless, if they do not learn to voluntarily help each other."

De Toqueville was observing the United States during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, when the spirit of equality was taken very seriously by a nation that was still exploring what it meant to be equal.

We in the United States continue as a nation that forms voluntary associations.

In 1990, Peter F. Drucker estimated non-profits were the largest employer in the United States, "With every second American adult serving as a volunteer in the non-profit sector and spending at least three hours a week in non-profit work..."

(Drucker" Managing The Non-Profit Organization", Harper Collins, Preface, pp.xii-xiv )

He went on to note that while a government has done its job when its policies are effective and a business has done its job when a customer buys the product or service and is satisfied with it, the non-profit institution also has a product. " Its product is a changed human being. "

Drucker gives examples: "a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether".

The environmental movement within the Hudson River Valley also has a product:
changed human beings who think and act differently in regard to our environment.

"THE CIVIL SOCIETY "

The civil society is composed of associations, organizations, businesses, and institutions that together make up our community, our region, our state, our nation, and so on. They include our family, our baseball team, our volunteer organizations, our hospital, our school, our workplace, and our government, both local and federal.

Each of these has a role to play in the address of important issues.

It seems likely a significant number of those "committed volunteers" and "not-for-profits " Manna mentions are working from an even more holistic point of view: to produce changed human beings who think and act differently inregard to the issues that effect our lives on this planet.

Is this someone else's job? Are there others who should be addressing these issues?

Perhaps. But before that can happen, many individuals who are members of families, churches, businesses and the like must become aware of the problem and able to identify it. They then must become familiar with the options for its prevention or resolution.

Sometimes a politician is much better informed than her constituency and knows the right thing to do to avoid or to solve the problem. However, if the politician takes a stand contrary to public opinion on an unpopular issue, she will be voted right out of office, regardless of how " right" she is.

" A politician can't be right too early"-Governor George Romney (during an interview, 1990)

For example, most would agree we were right to withdraw from the war in Viet Nam. But in the 1960s, when only a few opposed the war, they were vilified as traitors and cowards. Politicians who wanted to be re elected avoided the issue entirely, if they could.

Under such circumstances, it's the job of the activist to present the issues and take
the public abuse. Activists can weather abuse, because they're not running for anything. No one elects them, although they may hold elections among themselves. Many are self appointed.

Together they bring the issue to public attention. As the public moves from raw opinion to informed opinion, the issue becomes less polarized. When a significant portion of the public shares an informed opinion, it's time for the politician to help organize the people as a political force. If the politician enters the debate too early, she'll be voted out of office and finish the game sitting on the sidelines, unable to act in this or any other cause.

This brings us to another problem. Activists are often slow, disorganized, lacking in basic skills, supervision, and training. Their groups often have few financial resources. Nevertheless, the job they do is essential. Answering to no one but themselves, activists are free to openly express unpopular facts and opinions.

As activist groups become "successful ", things don't always work out the way you'd imagine. Transitions aren't always easy.

Suppose an activist group decides to do things in a more organized way. Let's say the group we imagine first acquires paid professional staff. Things become more professional all around. Now large corporate donors will trust the group to manage money responsibly and in consequence, will make more money available. A physical plant and equipment are acquired along with the attendant expenses and responsibilities. The newsletter sheet that used to call them together for weekly meetings has become a quarterly magazine with it's own staff. Government is inviting them to assist in the formulation of policy. Scruffy young people with new ideas about opposing a new war don't fit in and go off to join the activists, or worse still, just go off. Who remains in our hypothetical scenario to identify new problems and present new ideas? Power quickly shifts from those who act from the principle that " freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose"(Janis Joplin) and returns to the people with the money.

"REASON versus AUTHORITY"

Not-for-profits and volunteers need to stay alert to the delicate balance between activism that informs opinion on the one side and policy making on the other.

Politicians can't do their jobs without activists going in advance to prepare the way.

And activists are not nearly so well connected or prepared as politicians to create policy. Here's one reason why:

In general, activists employ the arts of reason and politicians employ the arts of authority.

" Reason leaves almost everything unsettled, and so only traditional pressures can give us a stable and habitable world"

(Ernest Gelllner, 1994, "Conditions of Liberty " ISBN: 0-7139-9114-3)

To the person open to reason, there's always the possibility of finding a better way.

Each new idea is given a serious hearing. Nothing is ever finally resolved until it
absolutely has to be. The results are often unsatisfying for that reason. Nothing
delights the right-wing talk radio host more than the perceived "indecision" of "liberals". The combination of a disdainful sneer and the voice of authority is hard to beat on the airwaves. To the authoritarian, this is it! Our minds are made up and this is the policy! Such results are often very reassuring, especially in insecure times.

Activists and politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship that's poorly understood, even by them. The activists come forward with reason as opposed to authority. They are mocked and attacked by everyone who has a stake in "things as they are" as opposed to "things as they might be improved ". Because issues arefirst undertaken by the activists, including volunteers and not-for-profits, it may
seem that they have total responsibility; but politicians take the issue to the next level, organizing the public, but not until the public is ready for that step.

" IS IT TOO BAD"
It certainly is too bad when politicians and government look to volunteers and not-for-profits to take on the entire job of addressing important issues. In fact, everyone has a role. Various aspects of this job belong to each part of the entire civil society.

At this moment, the present administration is openly working to dismantle public policies intended to protect the environment, including a rollback to the status quo as it existed during the McKinley administration. Is it "too bad " that volunteers and not-for-profits are the first line of response when social and environmental problems arise? My guess is that it is the primary mission of the not-for-profit and our committed volunteers to be that first line of response. And I think that is good!

But the"good " I identify may only be nothing more than my opinion.

"Emotivisim is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in Character"
-Alasdair MacIntyre, 1981,'After Virtue", pgs 11-12,ISBN:0-268-00610-5

Especially note MacIntyre's words:"nothing but". It brings us back to Mammy Yokum's explanation of why "good" is better than evil. She says good is better than evil, because,
"good's nicer".

What do you think?

- Anthony Henry Smith, August, 2003

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Railroad bridge over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, NY, August 2003