{"id":337,"date":"2020-07-12T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/?p=337"},"modified":"2020-07-12T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T16:20:09","slug":"but-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/2020\/07\/12\/but-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"But, is it…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ethical?<\/em><\/strong> by Barbara Helvey-Hughes
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Peter and I have been watching a television series called \u2018Madam Secretary\u2019, which I was not aware of, before our isolation. In the series, Madam Secretary\u2019s husband, Henry teaches ethics and often quotes Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, as well as many other philosophers and teachers, now thrust into a completely new era, but retaining, still, the immense measure they possessed when they originally wrote their thoughts.
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The series has led me and Peter into some illuminating discussions about our ability, or lack of it, to admit to misspoken words, inappropriate comments, and misdirected action.\u00a0 The question which begs to be asked: \u00a0are these shortcomings directly tied to, and influenced by, our \u2018on-line\u2019 technologically impacted lives?\u00a0
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This question leads to us to consider that human behaviour might be fairly consistent throughout the ages and we just think<\/u><\/strong> we\u2019re smarter, braver, more just, more insightful, more everything, when in fact we have lost an appreciable amount of compassion, intuition and courage because, really, how much courage does it take to look a person in the eye and kill them during on-ground war battles, versus sitting in a staging room and firing a drone \u2013 as if playing a video game?
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ETHICS?
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The word ethics has several dictionary definitions, but I like ~ behaviours based on \u2018right\u2019 action ~ even though many of us would challenge the word \u2018right\u2019, I think we all have a pretty good idea of what it indicates.
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In any given situation, \u2018right\u2019 action can mean various things to various people: is it right to allow one person to die, in order to save hundreds? Is it right to chase sound economic policies in one country despite the possibility of causing great harm to another country?\u00a0 Is it right to suggest, ask or even demand your congregation show up in person, during a pandemic (something we have all witnessed, recently) or be required to return to school or work, despite suggestions, requirements or orders to stay home? \u00a0And, despite knowing that \u201cshowing up\u201d will, inevitably, hurt others and possibly ourselves? These are questions which try our Souls.
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One\u2019s unique place and perspective spins everything.\u00a0 We, very often, learn from the situations we find ourselves within.\u00a0 Looking to our past can help us align our present in a more mindful way.
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Are we, then, truly our \u201cbrother\u2019s keepers\u201d or are these merely quotes mouthed by the self-righteous, when it suits their private or personal goals? \u00a0I don\u2019t know.
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Greed \u2013 the insidious motivator.
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We are ONE species inside a variety of ethnicities, races, religions, genders (yes, you read that correctly), philosophies, ideologies, territories etc., etc.: many tribes, inside ONE ~ HUMAN.
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At times, it\u2019s evident we\u2019ve really become a fractured community of self-righteous Bible\/Koran\/Torah\/religious text spewing hypocrites who simply can\u2019t admit our shortcomings, failures and greed-based assessments of the nationalism, which lurks just there at the fringes of our thoughts, words and actions.
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The deep, intuitive reasoning behind our Forefathers insistence upon including the separation of Church and State in the founding of our country was a wise decision, because so often one can often be utilized to manipulate the other. It\u2019s that simple.
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Is such manipulation honourable?
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The larger question?
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IS IT ETHICAL?
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Especially during crises times we need to rely upon our leaders: in government, in religion, in our communities, neighborhoods to act in our (as much as possible, everyone\u2019s) best interest \u2013 to have an IQ high enough to make pertinent decisions, BEFORE tragedy strikes ~ to be aware and to have enough forethought to be able to enact already devised plans into action, so lives might be saved and disaster thwarted: those, my Friends, are our genuine leaders and they need not brag about themselves. We know and recognize them.\u00a0 Remember when we were kids and an \u2018old saying\u2019 was tossed around: \u2018actions speak louder than words\u2019?\u00a0
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It is true, during emergencies, there is no room for finger-pointing, blaming, and passing the buck. \u00a0But, at what point do we as members of a community, a city, state, country and so on REQUIRE right action, ethical action to protect the greater good?\u00a0
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Connecting dots is paramount, always, to the best of our abilities.
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In the end, it\u2019s about RESPECT, plain and simple: them for us and us for them.
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Love spoken here
4-4-2020
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Road goes ever on and on”, as JRR Tolkien wrote. Where will The Road lead you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}