'Tornadoes' are brewing; we all need discernmentOne day in 1965, while driving north to visit relatives in South Bend, Ind., we reached Kokomo and saw that a tornado had virtually leveled a Chrysler factory.
It seemed tragic. How could Kokomo survive without Chrysler?
Although Kokomo dodged that bullet, it might not escape today's overlapping "tornadoes": sea changes in global trade and finance, an accumulation of bad business decisions in Detroit, and greedy behavior at every level.
Chrysler's trip into bankruptcy court could presage the downfall of General Motors. We could be witnessing the collapse of the industry that built and defined America.
Observers informed by Westerns called Chrysler's demise a double-feature showdown between Washington and Detroit, or perhaps between Washington and Wall Street.
But this isn't the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz., where in 30 seconds of shooting in 1881, the Earp brothers (the "good guys") outfought the Cowboys (the "bad guys") in a burst of moral clarity.
In real life, the Earps and Cowboys were simply competing powers -- bullying badge-wearers versus likable scoundrels -- and the Earps won.
Hidden motives But political showdowns like the Chrysler collapse aren't that easy to chart. Their origins are obscure, their turning points difficult to define, their key players often unknown. Competing forces are strong of voice but hidden of motive.
Moreover, political dramas have little to do with morality. One person's righteous cause is another person's terrorism; one nation's just claim is another's aggression.
And although partisans usually cite higher authority, all the way up to God, most moral showdowns turn on self-interest. The "good," by this logic, is whatever benefits oneself or one's tribe.
Self-interest provides shaky moral ground, of course. For one thing, as behaviorist economists remind us, people are remarkably obtuse about pursuing their actual self-interest.
The quandary is that partisans have learned to wage every conflict with the take-no-prisoners zeal of ideology, exuberant waving of Bibles and dire warnings of impending disaster. Just watch the moral indignation flow when President Obama nominates a Supreme Court justice.
When so many "cry wolf" to gain an edge, reasonable people might conclude that the good is whatever works; forget the harrumphs of ideology and religion. Or maybe the good is whatever stirs the inner partisan; bring on the scorecards and dragon slaying.
Ethical issues come into focus I discover two things.
First, if you work at becoming informed, ethical issues do come into focus. Sure, disagreements will persist, but extremes and ideological fulmination will emerge as fraudulent, and resolution will be found in the middle, in compromise.
Second, religion is of surprisingly little help. I know we consider ethics our province. But in fact, most ethical issues don't yield to Bible-quoting, systematic theology, or Sunday preaching. Ethical dilemmas respond to faith-driven thinking and the commandment to love, but the emphasis is on the thinking and the loving, not on the granular proofs of religion.
We Christians have been among the worst offenders in demonizing those who disagree with us, denouncing as moral lepers those who simply control the sandbox that we want to control, and parading our self-interest as the revealed will of God.
Important storms are brewing. We need to equip ourselves with a mind for discernment and a heart for compromise.
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