Doing the right thing is rarely easy. In the modern world, there are usually so many alternatives that doing the right thing is challenging for two primary reasons: first, that there are so many choices; and second, that there is a growing area of gray.
Years ago when my parents were raising me, doing the right thing was pretty easy, or so it seemed. Right and wrong were more clearly marked in the simpler society of the time. Even though there were a number of questionable features of our society then, there was at least a dialogue in the body politic that sought to work through these major issues. Granted, this dialogue was often contentious or tortured, but it happened nonetheless. The 1960s can seem today to be a decade of contentious and unending (and in many ways unresolved) debate. And yet so many good things resulted, including a civil rights revolution that brought many more of us, especially African-Americans and other people of color (and, eventually, women) more fully into our society.
And yet, maybe things weren’t quite as simple as we now remember them to be. Actually, the civil rights movement flourished from the mid-‘50s to the mid-‘60s. In the latter half of the ‘60s, the civil rights coalition splintered, in part due to its successes and in part due to its failures. Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech (which many consider to be the emotional and moral pinnacle of the movement) occurred in 1963. We remember less well (or, perhaps, choose not to remember at all) that less than five years later when he was assassinated King was a much diminished icon, his standing reduced by his early and vocal resistance to the Vietnam War and by his shift in focus to the economic aspects of the push for equality and inclusion.
We also have to doubt that the MLK of the ‘50s and ‘60s could make it in today’s far more intrusive, media-saturated world. King was a powerful and effective public leader who, like so many before him and since, had private challenges that would not be (as) concealable today. One has to think that, despite the moral force of his arguments, King would likely have been disgraced by his personal peccadilloes. The same logic applies to another of the era’s icons taken from us far too early, President John F. Kennedy. Do any of us believe that such prominent men with such pervasive personal failings would be able to maintain their positions of trust in today’s 24/7, internet-based world? Certainly we have leaders today who have skeletons yet to be revealed, but we also now have a long list of former ones who have been deposed once they are exposed. Does anyone remember the name of the southern gentleman who was almost Speaker of the House of Representatives for that oh so brief period during the impeachment proceedings of a dozen years ago? (The answer is Robert Livingston of Louisiana). It is perhaps ironic then that President William J. Clinton seems to be the most notable exception in this regard, as he survived his many, well-documented peccadilloes.
Years ago when my parents were raising me, doing the right thing was pretty easy, or so it seemed. Right and wrong were more clearly marked in the simpler society of the time. Even though there were a number of questionable features of our society then, there was at least a dialogue in the body politic that sought to work through these major issues. Granted, this dialogue was often contentious or tortured, but it happened nonetheless. The 1960s can seem today to be a decade of contentious and unending (and in many ways unresolved) debate. And yet so many good things resulted, including a civil rights revolution that brought many more of us, especially African-Americans and other people of color (and, eventually, women) more fully into our society.
And yet, maybe things weren’t quite as simple as we now remember them to be. Actually, the civil rights movement flourished from the mid-‘50s to the mid-‘60s. In the latter half of the ‘60s, the civil rights coalition splintered, in part due to its successes and in part due to its failures. Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech (which many consider to be the emotional and moral pinnacle of the movement) occurred in 1963. We remember less well (or, perhaps, choose not to remember at all) that less than five years later when he was assassinated King was a much diminished icon, his standing reduced by his early and vocal resistance to the Vietnam War and by his shift in focus to the economic aspects of the push for equality and inclusion.
We also have to doubt that the MLK of the ‘50s and ‘60s could make it in today’s far more intrusive, media-saturated world. King was a powerful and effective public leader who, like so many before him and since, had private challenges that would not be (as) concealable today. One has to think that, despite the moral force of his arguments, King would likely have been disgraced by his personal peccadilloes. The same logic applies to another of the era’s icons taken from us far too early, President John F. Kennedy. Do any of us believe that such prominent men with such pervasive personal failings would be able to maintain their positions of trust in today’s 24/7, internet-based world? Certainly we have leaders today who have skeletons yet to be revealed, but we also now have a long list of former ones who have been deposed once they are exposed. Does anyone remember the name of the southern gentleman who was almost Speaker of the House of Representatives for that oh so brief period during the impeachment proceedings of a dozen years ago? (The answer is Robert Livingston of Louisiana). It is perhaps ironic then that President William J. Clinton seems to be the most notable exception in this regard, as he survived his many, well-documented peccadilloes.
In addition to the higher level of scrutiny that we all face (and especially those in the public domain), there are also far more alternatives that we have to consider in doing the right thing. There are so many more options between which to choose, often resulting in a situation where there is no one right answer but several that are acceptable. Parental supervision and discipline is an illustrative domain here: almost daily, I am confronted by situations with my children that would have drawn a far different response from my own parents. I perceive my children to be very good kids actually, but they often do things that I would never have even conceived when I was their age. And my reactions are far more measured and verbal than those to which I was subject. And yet I worry that I am too permissive even though they perceive me to be relatively strict (especially in comparison to their friends’ parents).
And hasn’t the gray area in between right and wrong grown? Among the many examples in this regard, I am reminded here of former President George W. Bush. I can’t help thinking that a number of the wiretapping and other supposed counter-terrorist activities that his administration had undertaken are, if not illegal, extralegal, calculatingly crafted to seem within the letter of the law if not its spirit. I think that we all agree that increased surveillance of suspected terrorists is a great thing, but just who gets lumped into that category and why and how we then watch them matter. It’s here that we can get into a heated debate about the legality of a number of the methods used (at least about those about which we know – does anyone doubt that there may be others of which we are not yet aware?). My suspicion is that part of the credibility challenge that our national leadership must overcome is that so much of their energy in recent decades seems to be invested in inhabiting the proverbial gray area.
So what are we to do? We have so many more choices as well as options that can be right or wrong depending upon one’s perspective. An answer (among many, I believe) is to abide by “the New York Times test”: would you be willing to be judged as if your actions were printed on the front page of the Times for your mother, wife, kids, family and friends to read? This isn’t a perfect solution, of course, but it is a start. At a minimum, it will force you to get beyond your own perspective and consider those of others, which is almost always a good thing. Further, it will encourage you to be able to explain your behavior to yourself and others to an extent that we usually don’t.
In this spirit, then, as you navigate the challenging choices of the day, remember to ask yourself what headline you want for your life story tomorrow….
