Ethics: The Next Generation

Ethics: The Next Generation Excerpts from a Sunday Address, October 3, 2004, Kate Lovelady

A Culture of Cheating.....
Now back to Generation Y, the youth of today. Some data say they’re taking fewer drugs than the previous generation and waiting longer to become sexually active. I suspect that, rather than being less interested in sex and drugs, they just don’t leave their computers long enough to indulge in nondigital vices.

Another book that’s come out recently is called The Culture of Cheating, and it details the context in which these kids are growing up: whatever you have to do to get rich you’d better do if you don’t want to be a “chump.” Everyone cheats: Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, the president lied about weapons in Iraq, priests are creepy, reporters make things up, executives fire people while giving themselves raises, and so on and so forth. Two million Americans now have offshore bank accounts to avoid paying taxes. So if ethics are contextual, and America has become a cheating culture, we are in trouble. If we want a more ethical culture, we have to take very seriously the challenge of creating a new context for the coming generations.

This cynical theme of Looking Out for Number One seems to run through the split between private and public ethics in our culture. We even sell our moral messages by appealing to enlightened self-interest: don’t do illegal drugs because they’ll hurt you and get you in trouble, practice moderation for your own good. What about other people’s good? What if I got up here and said, “Sure, taking care of your health has benefits for you, but the main reason you should take better care of yourselves is so that the community won’t have to spend its resources on your bypass surgeries and instead can wipe out poverty.” Would you be more motivated to eat your greens and take the stairs? That’s not how we think as Americans. We probably don’t even believe that any human beings think that way, since our individualism is so woven into the fabric of our personalities and our culture.

Three Factors that Lead to Ethical Behavior
There is a now famous study done in the 1980s by Samuel and Pearl Oliner. Samuel was a Polish Jew whose life was saved by a Christian who hid him from the Nazis. Samuel became a sociologist, and 40 years later, with his wife Pearl, he undertook the Altruistic Personality Project. Over 700 people who lived in Poland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy during the Nazi occupation were interviewed. The interviewees included those who did and those who did not rescue Jews during the Holocaust. The Oliners wanted to know what it was that had compelled some people to become rescuers—for no money (usually) and in the face of death if caught.

They found that those who became rescuers didn’t share any particular philosophy, religion, or belief or nonbelief in god or an afterlife. Rather, the Oliners found that most rescuers had been raised in a certain kind of family and community context. Part of the context included some basic values, primarily to care for and commit to actively protect and enhance the well-being of everyone, reaching far outside the individual’s family. The Oliners called these “extensive” values, and they contrasted them with what they called “constricted” values of detachment and exclusivity. Today we might say that these were not “family values,” but rather “humanity values.”

Learning to Empathize with Others
Based on their research of rescuers during the Holocaust, the Oliners described the social context that is likely to teach these humanity values and to create an altruistic person. I want to share three with you. The first is learning to empathize with others. There’s a nice summary of the Oliner rescuer study in the book Ethical People and How They Get To Be That Way by Ethical Leader Arthur Dobrin. Dobrin explains that ethical people were raised by caretakers who gave empathic reasons for rules. Their parents said don’t hit other people, not simply because it’s bad or because that’s the rule, but because hitting people causes pain and fear and unhappiness—and treating others kindly makes them happy. Several studies have shown that ethics are emotional before they are rational; that is, if the ability to empathize with others isn’t there, a million facts won’t make someone care. Ethical Societies are communities and not simply lecture series because ethics are more than words, ethics develop in a caring community that nurtures and feeds empathy as well as presenting information.

Children's Participation in Altruistic Activities
The second and perhaps most important context in creating altruistic people was participating as a child in altruistic activities with family and community. It was not specific beliefs that were taught, but actions by relatives, friends, and community groups that made the difference. Deeds above creeds. These deeds were not necessarily big. Simply watching out for neighbors, taking food to an elderly relative, pitching in with community projects, was enough to create in the children a habit of altruistic activity. It’s usually not enough to want to act ethically; humans are creatures of habit and it can be uncomfortable to try something new. At the Riverdale-Yonkers Society where I was the Leader Intern last year, they host homeless men overnight once a week. As the folks who run the shelter here know, it can be difficult to find volunteers; most people feel nervous or awkward around people who seem different, they don’t know what to expect. One of the families in Riverdale that cooks and stays over with the men once a month includes six-year-old Nicolas. And when you see Nick helping to inflate the mattresses and sitting down at the table to eat with the men, you just know how confident he’ll be as an adult in reaching out and making connections with people. He’s very inspiring. Sierra is also part of an ethically engaged family; she and her sisters take part in doing good deeds for neighbors. Sierra recently read her poetry at an antiwar rally in their hometown, and no doubt she’s going to help her dad with his next project, to build an Ethical Culture meetinghouse on their property.

Nick and Sierra have fun with their activities, but one of my favorite findings about altruistic people was that although they took part in ethical projects as children, they didn’t necessarily like it. We tend to think that requiring our kids to do things will make them hate those things, but in fact requiring altruistic behavior, as part of family and community projects, creates habits that resurface later. I emphasize family and community because children learn a lot more from watching than they do from listening. “Do as I say, not as I do” has never worked. Several Ethical Societies recently decided to accept kids into their Sunday ethics program only if the parents also agree to be an active part of the community. Of course, every once in a while there’s an emergency, and some parents work Sundays, but the point is that caretakers need to understand that children learn what we value from what we do. Some parents would rather be home reading the Times while the next generation supposedly learns to value ethical community. But kids aren’t stupid, they’ll know that to their parents ethical community isn’t really as valuable as staying home alone reading the Times. And more than likely that’s what they’ll value too when they grow up.

Values Education
The third and final context I want to mention in creating ethical people is values education. Although participation by caretakers and community in action is vital, rules and principles do have an effect, particularly if they are expressed in a variety of ways. Values are transmitted to the next generation if they’re a part of the varied fabric of a community, part of not only lessons and lectures, but also songs, plays, stories, traditions, and rituals. All the research says that if you want your values to be passed on, you have to do more than talk about them. You have to explore and celebrate them in as many ways as you can think of. And you have to act on them, visibly and continually, inside as well as outside... as a form of ethical action, building a context of a strong, vibrant, diverse ethical community.

Will the Next Generation Create an Ethical Culture?
Over the last few decades there’s been a move away from traditional religion, certainly in Europe, to a lesser extent in America. But many “unchurched” people eventually find that the lack of real community in their lives makes it harder to hang onto their ideals, and especially difficult to pass them on to their kids.