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insession-io · 5 years

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Tainted By Association, What Does This Tell Us About Ethics?

When I first heard the allegations of serial sexual misconduct against the American folk-rock singer Ryan Adams earlier this year – that he had emotionally and psychologically abused several women and underage girls, using his status in the music industry as leverage – I didn’t want to believe it. Yet this desire to not-believe strongly preceded any acquaintance I had with the actual facts. Indeed – and as I am now ashamed to admit – I initially read the facts with great skepticism, hoping that they were wrong. Only with effort have I forced myself to put aside my initial disbelief, and consider things impartially, making a more balanced assessment. Why?

One answer comes from feminist theory. As a man who has been raised in a male-dominated society, one that tends to privilege the status and testimony of men, and to cast aspersions on those of women – most especially when it comes to issues of sex – I am ideologically conditioned to react this way. Sadly, I suspect there is much truth in this. But it is not the only explanation in play. Another consideration is that I didn’t want Adams to be guilty because I like his music. And the worry that I had – initially, without even realising it – was that, if Adams is indeed guilty, then I won’t be able to enjoy his music any more. And I don’t want that to be the case. Hence, I initially read the accusations against Adams with skepticism, precisely because I (subconsciously) wanted to protect my future enjoyment of his records.

It is not uncommon to find that one’s enjoyment of something is irrevocably damaged if that thing turns out to be closely connected to somebody who has committed serious wrongs. Many people will now feel deeply uncomfortable watching films associated with Harvey Weinstein. Similarly, critically acclaimed movies starring Kevin Spacey – even if made long before any accusation of wrongdoing was levelled against him – will no longer seem the obvious choices for Saturday night viewing that they once were. And this is not simply because we want to take a moral stand against Weinstein or Spacey (though that might certainly be true). It is because we feel that the films themselves are tainted.

But this is odd. A film or TV show, after all, is a thing ultimately independent of the private actions of the actors or producers who happened to help make it. And yet one seems to bleed inexorably into the other. Once you know the charges levelled against Weinstein, you can’t simply carry on watching his films as you did before. The same, I fear, will be true of Adams’s music if it turns out that he is as bad as they say. Many people are currently experiencing precisely such anxiety regarding the music of Michael Jackson, given the latest and most distressing of the allegations made against him.

What is going on here? It is not simply the old, harsh truth that good things can come from bad people. By all accounts, the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a pretty unpleasant character. He fell out with everybody, let down most of those who trusted him, and thought it fit to write a book on education despite abandoning many of his own children to orphanages. On the other hand, he was the author of some of the greatest works of philosophy ever written. Similarly, according to the Pulitzer-winning biography The Years of Lyndon Johnson (1982) by Robert A Caro, the 36th president of the United States was a bullying, lying, power-crazed sociopath, who literally stole a Senate election on his way to the highest office. Then again, Johnson also passed the Civil Rights Act.

Life is complicated; not all good things harmonise.

The fact that good things can come from bad people is a separate issue from the fact that knowledge of somebody – or something – having done a bad thing can deeply affect how we view the status of the thing itself. Take a simple but effective example, borrowed from the philosopher Simon Blackburn’s recent paper on this topic. Imagine I invite you over to dinner and, while carving the roast, I casually mention that this is the very knife that the assassin used to murder my wife and children. Would you still be comfortable eating the slice of beef I’ve just plopped on to your plate? And it can work in the other direction, too. Imagine I have a room filled with 20 Fender guitars. I tell you that you can have any of them you like – but one of them was the very guitar that Jimi Hendrix used during his last performance! I bet I know which one you’ll pick, whether you want to keep it for yourself or quickly take it to auction.

Sometimes our feelings over these matters can run very high indeed, becoming full-blown moral sentiments. Imagine a sailor who, shipwrecked and clinging to a plank for three days, finally washes up on shore. Yet the first thing he does is burn the plank that saved his life. Does he not seem to do something wrong? Or consider the case of a man whose son is killed by a motorcyclist, who is sent to jail but remains in possession of the motorbike. After being released, the motorcyclist begins riding the bike again. But the father, outraged, takes a sledgehammer to the vehicle. Prosecuted for criminal damage, the father is given only a negligible sentence by the judge. We all understand why – and we approve.

Indeed, for many centuries, English common law recognised the category of the ‘deodand’, or an object that was implicated in a human death, such as a cart, a boat, a stone or a tree. The deodand had to be forfeited to the authorities, and its value would then equal the compensation awarded by the courts to the victims’ families. But this practice was abolished in the 1840s, when railway companies lobbied hard to stop their expensive steam trains being used to set the value of awards in the growing number of train-fatality cases. Although this particular compensation mechanism is no longer legal practice, the basic idea of the deodand still makes sense to us.

The assassin’s knife is still perfectly good as a knife. Why be so upset about my using it tonight?

Yet, when you think about it, this is rather strange. After all, it is simply a matter of luck that these particular objects have these particular histories. The assassin could well have used her own knife, or picked a different knife from the drawer. But she picked this knife – and so this knife is now the one that disturbs us. Hendrix (let us suppose) could have picked any of the available Fenders in the shop that day, he just happened to favour that one – and so now that one is special. The examples of Adams, Spacey and Weinstein fit the pattern, too. How come we extend our discomfort backwards, to cover artistic products associated with them from a time when they themselves were not (let us suppose) morally compromised? Weinstein is only one producer among many in Hollywood. Why is his financing of a film once upon a time – when it could easily have been someone else – enough to make us dislike that film today?

This is genuinely puzzling. After all, the job of a knife is simply to cut things. The knife that the assassin used is still perfectly good as a knife. So why be so upset about my using it tonight? Likewise, The Usual Suspects (1995) did not suddenly become a worse film – indeed, it didn’t change at all – the moment the accusations against Spacey were made public. So why not re-watch that old DVD when you get home? The Hendrix guitar is (let us suppose) no better as a guitar than any other that Fender produced that year; they all sound roughly the same when played well. So why is Hendrix’s guitar special? It seems rather mysterious.

Why does bare luck make such a difference to how we feel? Are we simply irrational when it comes to such matters? Perhaps not – and perhaps because asking about whether it is rational for us to have these luck-dependent aversions and attractions is not the right way to think about what is going on.

The best discussion of why we react in these varying – and perplexing – ways comes from the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith. Nowadays much more likely to be known (somewhat misleadingly) as the ‘father of economics’, Smith was employed as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow for around 12 years, and hence spent much of his time teaching and writing on such matters. Indeed, his first book – The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) – puts forward not just the earliest sustained discussion of the issue of what philosophers now call ‘moral luck’, but one of its most compelling evaluations.

Smith’s discussion didn’t just cover objects or people, and the taint that can be associated with them because of their good or bad histories. It also covered the irregularity of our responses to outcomes that are heavily affected by luck. Imagine the following case: I carelessly throw a brick off the top of a building, but fortunately it doesn’t hit anybody, and shatters harmlessly on the pavement below. You’re likely to think that I’m a bad and irresponsible person, and deserve to be admonished accordingly. But you’ll probably also think that the matter should end there. Now vary the scenario: imagine that the brick does hit somebody, and kills them. The likelihood is that you will now think that I deserve much more in the way of blame, and indeed of punishment. (Prison seems a perhaps not unreasonable response.)

Let us suppose that my motivations – eg, sheer indifference to the safety of others – and my actions – chucking a brick without looking – are identical in both cases. Why, Smith asked, do we feel that the latter is so much worse than the former? It was, after all, simply a matter of luck that somebody walked along at that precise moment, got hit by the brick, and died. (It works in the other direction, too: we would surely feel it too harsh to send a person to prison simply because the brick might have hit a passerby, when in fact it didn’t.)

The underlying intention determines whether we approve of an act, not its consequences alone.

Yet this kind of scenario led to a puzzle. Smith thought it undeniable that we assess the morality of actions not by their actual consequences, but by the intentions of the agent who brings them about. To see that this is indeed true, consider the following example. Imagine that you see me rescue a cat from a tree. When I get to the ground, the cat wriggles free and scurries away. Assuming that my intention was to save the cat, you’ll likely think that I did a good thing. But what if you now find out that my intention was to barbeque the cat for dinner? In both cases, the consequences are the same – the cat is brought down from the tree, wriggles free, and runs away. Yet your evaluation of the morality of the act will shift markedly once you learn of my culinary intentions. Try any example you like, and you’ll get the same result: it’s the underlying intention that determines whether or not we approve of an act, not the consequences of the act alone.

For Smith, it is a truism that we assign different moral weight to intentions, not to consequences, and one that nobody will deny, at least when it comes to philosophical theory. Nonetheless, in practice, we often find ourselves heavily swayed by consequences even when, on the face of it, those consequences shouldn’t matter. Take the brick-throwing example again. In both cases, my intention was bad, because in throwing the brick I showed callous disregard for the safety of others. In theory, then, I am equally culpable whatever the outcome, at least if intentions are supposed to be what counts. But, in practice, we feel far more strongly in the case where the brick does hit somebody. So consequences do matter after all – even though moral philosophers tend to think that it’s only intentions that should matter.

For this reason, Smith thought that our moral sentiments in such cases were ‘irregular’. Why do we respond so differently to consequences that have bad outcomes, when those outcomes are purely a matter of luck? Smith confessed that he did not know why we are psychologically rigged up this way. Here he hit what he took to be explanatory bedrock, and simply assigned this ‘irregularity’ to the workings of ‘nature’, for which he could give no further explanation. (We, living after Charles Darwin, might want to posit an evolutionary story – but that was something Smith had no access to.) Nonetheless, Smith was confident that, although he could not explain why we are like this, on balance we should nonetheless be grateful that we are indeed rigged up this way.

The first reason Smith gave for why it is good that we are this way is that if, in practice, we really did go around judging everybody solely by their intentions, and not by the actual consequence of their actions, life would be unliveable. We would spend all our time prying into people’s secret motivations, fearing that others were prying into ours, and finding ourselves literally on trial for committing thought crimes. This, Smith thought, might be appropriate for God at the final judgment – but it would be hell on Earth if applied to mortal justice.

Second, it is quite useful that we generally tend to be bothered about actual consequences, rather than just underlying intentions. It’s all very well and good if you intended to get me a birthday present – but if you didn’t actually manage to do so, my gratitude is markedly lessened. This will seem somewhat unfair if the reason you didn’t get me a present is because you fell grievously ill. Your intention, after all, was good. It will seem much less unfair, however, if the reason is simply that your desire to sit around watching Netflix in your underpants was stronger than your desire to go to the shops. We tend to be both more grateful for good consequences and more resentful about bad ones, which is clearly socially useful. On account of the fact that you have to actually do the good thing to get the praise – and equally, you have to actually do the bad thing to get the punishment – people are more likely to follow through on their good, and not act upon their bad, intentions. This is a highly welcome feature of social existence, all things considered.

The ‘irregularity’ of our sentiments encourages us to respect the sanctity of other persons.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly of all, Smith thought that there was a special effect of the ‘irregularity’ of our sentiments: it predisposed us to be careful around other people. One last example: imagine you are walking along a path above a cliff, and you accidentally dislodge a boulder, which crashes down and kills the rock-climber below. You didn’t mean to do this – it was an accident! But the fact that you did do it matters enormously. You will be blamed by others, and will likely blame yourself too. (‘Why didn’t I look where I was going?!’) But the fact that we feel ourselves responsible even for the things that we didn’t mean to do is, Smith thinks, a very useful and desirable state of affairs, insofar as it encourages us to take care when we are acting in ways that could (inadvertently) harm others. Precisely because you know you’ll rightly be held responsible for the death of people below you, even if you only accidentally knock a rock onto them, you’re more inclined to take care where you tread when you go for a clifftop stroll. As Smith put it, the ‘irregularity’ of our sentiments in this regard encourages us to respect the sanctity of other persons:

The happiness of every innocent man is, in the same manner, rendered holy, consecrated, and hedged round against the approach of every other man; not to be wantonly trod upon, not even to be, in any respect, ignorantly and involuntarily violated, without requiring some expiation, some atonement in proportion to the greatness of such undesigned violation.

What has this got to do with the assassin’s knife, the guitar used by Hendrix, or the films that Spacey starred in? Like Smith, I cannot explain why our psychologies tend to transfer the guilt of an agent, or the history of what an object was used for, on to the past or future status of a thing itself. They apparently just do. But following Smith, this seems to be a very desirable state of affairs, one that we should not want to do without. It is good that we feel aversion to artifacts (be they physical objects, films, records or whatever) associated with sex crimes, murders and other horrors – even if this is a matter of sheer luck or coincidence – because this fosters in us not only an aversion to those sorts of crimes, but an affirmation of the sanctity of the individuals who are the victims of them. In turn, that makes most of us less likely to engage in evil acts ourselves. Perhaps even more importantly, it makes us less likely to remain indifferent even when we are not ourselves directly affected by injustices perpetrated against others. Instead, we come to see innocent people as sacred, and to be protected from the predations and depredations of those who would harm them. In this way, our moral world is more tightly knitted together.

As Smith was at pains to point out, we are psychologically complex creatures, capable of sharing each other’s emotions, and forming intricate moral bonds accordingly. Sometimes that process can get messed up, working itself out back to front – as, for example, when I reflexively take the side of Ryan Adams because I like his music and want to protect my future enjoyment of it. (Fortunately, this sort of back-to-front reaction can be corrected by reflection, at least by those willing to undertake it.) But, typically, the process works for the greater good. A world in which people did not recoil in horror at my use of the assassin’s knife to carve dinner, or in which watching The Usual Suspects was not considered a suspect choice in light of the allegations against Spacey – such a world would certainly be a worse place.

In all of this, there is an important lesson for moral philosophy. For some time now, ethical theory has been dominated by two rival camps. Consequentialists, who think that morality is primarily about maximising some approved set of outcomes, and deontologists, who think that morality is primarily about rules, duties and obligations. These two opposed outlooks, with all their innumerable variations, have been duking it out for well over a century. But neither can make much sense of the importance of anything that has been written above. And yet, the cases of ‘moral luck’ that I have discussed are not minor side issues, or trivial diversions, but go to the heart of our everyday, as well as some of our deepest moral experiences. Adam Smith saw this very well. We stand to learn a great deal from his emphasis not on calculating consequences or fulfilling obligations, but on human psychology and the moral sentiments that structure our ethical lives.

Paul Sagar is a lecturer in political theory in the department of political economy, King’s College London. He is the author of The Opinion of Mankind: Sociability and the Theory of the State from Hobbes to Smith (2018).

Kathryn McNeer, LPC specializes in Couples Counseling Dallas with her sound, practical and sincere advice. Kathryn's areas of focus include individual counseling, relationship and couples counseling Dallas. Kathryn has helped countless individuals find their way through life's inevitable transitions; especially that tricky patch of life known as "the mid life crisis." Kathryn's solution-focused, no- nonsense counseling works wonders for men and women in the midst of feeling, "stuck," or "unhappy." Kathryn believes her fresh perspective allows her clients find the better days that are ahead. When working with couples, it is Kathryn's direct yet non-judgmental approach that helps determine which patterns are holding them back and then helps them establish new, more productive patterns. Kathryn draws from Gottman and Cognitive behavioral therapy. When appropriate Kathryn works with couples on trust, intimacy, forgiveness, and communication.

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oleach9-blog · 5 years

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8 Informal Writing Pieces

January 3rd:

One thing that I found important was Callicles' belief that everyone must take responsibility for their own actions. He believes that nature or natural justice is favorable compared to social justice, this idea that everyone has the right to be heard and to be given the chance to right their wrongs. Having self-knowledge to be aware of which actions you make are going to be right or wrong and the choices you make throughout life are always your own responsibility. This made me think of how I strive to always be responsible for all of my actions, especially when something I do is wrong and ends up having repercussions. This, for me is a part of having morals. I believe that it is important that everyone does this for themselves so that someone who has no sense of self responsibility can learn to become responsible.

February 19th:

To a certain degree, I think that civility requires an understanding of empathy. To be civil, you also need to know where lines and boundaries are crossed. This is when a once civil situation can turn uncivil. I believe that civility has to do with behavior as well as what one ethically believes in. An example I can think of is when 2 friends try to have a conversation about something that they don't agree with that then turns into an uncivil situation. One person will say something that crosses a line for the other person, and this is when the situation turns uncivil. Fortunately, I have not experienced or witnessed many situations to turn uncivil, but I can see how easily the line between civility and incivility can be crossed.

February 21st:

One instance where I felt that civility was transgressed was during the 2016 election. This election will go down in history as the most controversial election. I believe that the basic moral standards of a presidential election were broken numerous times by Donald Trump. The rhetorical expectations in any election are about winning. Win rhetoric is what is used by these politicians running for office. Nominees are competing to win the election by giving speeches about their views, hiring campaigning committees to spread information on the nominee and why they are the best candidate, and using other personal campaigning fit for their ideals. This is my view on what happens during presidential campaigns. A civil environment between all nominees is what is expected. The presidential elections are a serious, but sophisticated matter. In my eyes, Trump was not sophisticated in how he approached winning this election. I personally am not very involved in politics, but I do have a basic understanding due to my educational experiences. I have only been able to vote for a few years now. I couldn’t vote until the year of 2016, which in my opinion, was the one of the worst presidential campaigns. What I was hearing and seeing on the news completely shocked me. I never thought that Donald Trump would actually win, and the theories that the Russians had something to do with changing the voting results seems more believable than people actually believing in Trump’s ideals. Advanced political knowledge is not needed to know that the 2016 election was uncivil and unethical. His viewpoints were appalling. Donald Trump did everything in his power to bash his rival, Hillary Clinton. The news was constantly buzzing with new stories about Hillary and Trump. Trump constantly publicly criticized his runner-up and did everything in his power to make her look like a worse candidate. Politicians and people running for office need to be civil and ethical in what they do and say for the reputation of this country. Donald Trump is not a civil or ethical person but was voted to be the president of the United States, making me believe that civility and ethics need to be taught even more to these people that voted for him to run this country. How he behaves towards other people in this government shows how he upholds this lack of civility as well. Trump only listens to what he wants and dismisses anything he doesn’t agree with. Our government must be run in a manner where conversations and agreements are made within a large group, not just by Trump. Agnew touches on this idea that "civility is a social agreement" and that it is "co-constructed". This is the key to Donald Trump's lack of civil behavior; he does not co-construct with anyone and only wants what he views is the best for the country. Many would agree that his view points and ideas are detrimental. Luckily, there are other people within the government who are civil and ethical, and whom also "co-construct" with one another to make a civil environment.

February 26th:

An example of disruptive rhetoric that comes to mind is the incident that recently happened with Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart was supposed to host the Oscars which occurred just last week. Tweets that were deemed homophobic resurfaced and caused for an uproar within the media around Hart being allowed to host the Oscars with these tweets re-exposed to the public. Tweets from 2009-2011 were found to have homophobic references which upset members of the LGTBQ community and others and put his position to host this majorly publicized event up to question. Observers believed that since these tweets were old and have been addressed by Hart throughout the years in his stand-up acts, that Hart should apologize to the public and move forward with hosting this event. For Hart, this drove him to tweet about how he would resign from this opportunity to host and did not feel it was appropriate for him to apologize about this when he has already addressed it in the past. Hart viewed this as a platform for internet trolls and he did not want to feed into what they want. Internet trolls have become a huge part of disruptive rhetoric. Trolls feed off finding things on celebrities and influencer's social media that could potentially ruin their career or overall image. What makes this disruptive rhetoric is how these trolls brought these tweets back from the past to cause disruption within the media with the purpose to argue that Hart is homophobic and unfit to host the Oscars. Although it is not uncivil to call someone out for past homophobic tweets, I find that this disruptive rhetoric was used in an uncivil manner. What makes this disruptive is how these tweets are being used against Hart for the sole reason that he wanted the position as host of the Oscars. These rhetorical means for this was to ruin this platform that Hart has made for himself. There have been other instances of other celebrities’ tweets being surfaced by the media for being racist, homophobic, sexist etc. This example is disruptive and unethical because Hart had already brought light to these tweets and now was having them used against him. I believe that this was uncivil. People rhetorically had the right to be upset by these tweets, but I do not think it is civil for Hart to be reprimanded when he had already addressed this issue. Trolls are becoming notorious for using disruptive rhetoric in civil and uncivil manners. It is important to understand the difference of how this rhetoric can be used civilly and uncivilly. MLK’s Civil Disobedience parallels this idea of how to keep disruptive rhetoric within civil means. King was a believer in eliciting change by being “civilly disobedient”, which is by causing disruption but having the rhetorical view of doing this in a civil and legal manner. King would allow for himself to be thrown in jail if what he was doing was civil. Trolls comment and resurface old posts in an uncivil, hateful manner. Although the ideas around outing these people who post content and viewpoints that could upset is civil, there is a specific way to do this to avoid this line between being civil and uncivil.

March 5th:

Rhetorical listening related to this reading in the way that audiences of these blogs are reading with the intent on learning about the often glorified reality of study abroad. Although I never personally studied abroad, I have traveled to Europe since I was 9 months old. The lives of Europeans compared to mine, even though my father is British and I have spent a lot of time there, if vastly different. Students abroad will be faced to this reality for the months they spend studying in a new country and may be placed in uncomfortable situations. The point of study abroad is to challenge students in these new environments. The difficult moments students face will not usually be written about in these types of blogs. What is the rhetorical purpose of this? There is always a rhetorical reason for why one is listening or in this case, reading. Others are often reading about these positive stories to gain insight on what it is like studying or living abroad when these blogs should be focusing on the empathy and identity searching that Gindlesparger addresses in her article as the purpose of study abroad.

March 19th:

I was nervous before meeting with the ELI group not knowing what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised with how well we were able to communicate with each member of our group. Every single one of them participated in our conversation and was engaged in what we all had to say. They had a lot more questions than us and it was fun to take turns asking what we had both come up with. Our first discussion about ethics brought up a conversation about how different cultures view stealing and lying. One member of our group from Saudi Arabia brought up white lies and how these may be ethical in certain instances, but throughout different cultures lying is viewed as a bad thing. This led into a discussion about plagiarism, where one member of our group brought up the question of, "if it's by accident or you didn't know that you were copying someone else's work, is that still plagiarizing?". I was impressed with how well our group was able to connect and keep a continuous conversation flowing. I was nervous about awkward silence, but we didn't have any instances of this. I really enjoyed doing this during class time and would love to do it again later in the semester. The ELI kids have voices that aren't being heard within their small program and deserve to have more opportunities to talk and connect to other people within the Syracuse community.

April 9th:

On the top of page 5, Roy goes on to say that "there are no rules" and that the second rule is "there is no bad art". This struck me as saying that there really are no rules to writing, because it is your own creativity. There are no rules within creativity, which goes along with her saying that there "is no bad art". Roy does back up what she said by specifying that although there are no rules, good writers should take responsibility for what they’re saying along with their morality. She says that refuting responsibility for your morality is where "bad" art came come into play. After reading all of this, my idea of what she means for taking ethical responsibility is that writers must be responsible for their own morals and view-points that they put into their work.

April 11th:

Socrates and Plato

Coles

MLK Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience

MLK Showdown for Nonviolence

Ratcliffe

I believe that the Coles reading: “Disparity between Intellect and Character” is one of the most important readings that we have read this far. It calls to question if intellect makes one moral, or if morality is separate from how smart someone is. Coles is visited by a distressed student who tells him a story about a boy in one of her classes. This boy was known for being very smart and receiving high grades, but he was also one of the rudest boys she had ever witnessed. The girl cried to Coles about surprised she was that people at Harvard would behave in this way. This reading resonated with me because I think it is important to address this question. Coles’ passage demonstrates how morality and ethics need to be taught. Many school curriculums don’t include these types of lessons when everyone should be introduced to these concepts at young ages. Coles’ is using this writing platform to address how even a top school like Harvard has students who demonstrate a lack of ethics and morality. He is also addressing how other professors and teachers must be tedious in how they deal with these situations, since they are often difficult and hard to answer. The link between moral reasoning and action is what he stresses as what needs to be made more known in students and teachers lives. I do agree that people need to be more cautious about this connection and think more before doing or saying something that could be viewed as unethical to others.

Another reading that I believe is important is MLK’s “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience”. In this reading, an important concept that is pulled are the idea of “means and ends”. What King is saying in the passage is that you must have reasoning with what you want the result to be of something. If the result is going to be ethical, then the motive to begin with should be with moral and ethical reasoning as well. King is talking to the Southern Regional Council, a council that is all white. During this time, African Americans were still being oppressed and King was trying to spread his views and elicit a change. King brings up “means and ends” to show how there is room for change within America in a moral and ethical manner. He demonstrates civil disobedience often, his way of making peace without any violence. This idea of means and ends along with the whole purpose of this reading is important because it highlights how civil actions will bring civil outcomes. This whole idea that King had preached throughout this time helped to change America forever, which is also why I think this reading is so important.

There are many other terms within these two readings that are equally as important to the ones I touched on. I chose to talk about important readings than terms since I think that every terms we have learned this far are just as valuable.

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nsorchidsociety · 6 years

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Satanic Pedophilia Inside Our Society

As the headlines are teeming with such tales since the Harvey Weinstein scandal and admissions of participation in sexual misconduct from the infamous out of Justin Beiber into Kevin Spacey, it’s an important time for people to look deeper into what’s really happening in our world today!

This is not limited to those Hollywood actors and musicians that are notorious and isn’t some new phenomenon, but rather, permeates every corner of people in power in our society and has done for decades.

Is this some disposition for sex with children which is shared with these culprits, or is it some thing that they have been made to engage in to secure their places in society? I have found myself forced to explore this issue more fully, even though the cognitive dissonance that I possess has made it difficult to evaluate the enormity of the outbreak. What I have found will shock every person of morality into a state of disbelief!

As a man of Christian faith who was born into a contemporary (non-religious) family, I was raised with certain values which have helped me to stick to a sort of morality that conforms with my peers. I have learned to know right from wrong and have had great joy when commended for “doing the ideal thing” as well as feeling guilt and guilt for any transgressions that I have made. I learned that lying and cheating were not appropriate behaviors. I discovered that honesty and ethics were honored values. I discovered that gender was a joy to be shared between a girl and a man, but was to be a yet romantic experience. I learned to be compassionate and polite and to have respect for my fellows.

Naturally, my Euro-centric upbringing slightly defined my morality and, being a child, I expected everyone else to stick to a benchmark. When they did not, I was offended, and I’d report that the offender into an adult, who would then leave consequences to help keep them in line. In actuality, if behavior was engaged in by another person regularly, they would be chastised and ostracized by their own fellows and Social Conformity is attained. So as to keep a society that is peaceful, I believe we could all agree that conformity is a necessary ingredient. We, as a society, you need to know what’s okay, and what isn’t.

What is considered acceptable in some societies may not be okay in others. In certain African cultures, the girls wear abundant “bracelets” that slowly extend the length of their neck before the start to look like a person giraffe. This is considered appealing to their men. Other tribes have organized marriages of girls. To them, this is standard. Other variations arise within our own culture such as religious practices that are different. As will be the baptism of a baby to another the circumcision of a baby may be abhorrent to your. However, I believe we could all agree that there is an morality within our society now which precludes the concept of adults.

So, why does it appear to be such a common occurrence among one section of the society? Is it because after someone is wealthy enough to afford anything luxury they desire that they seek from the “forbidden fruit”? Imagine that you have enough money and enough to look after everyone that matters to you personally in your life! Now imagine that you have access to every simple pleasure such as the best food and drink, the best entertainment, the best medication, the many beautiful places possible. What is there left to enhance your enjoyment? The best?

Initially inspection that is what I had regarded as the root cause! However, as I researched the phenomenon further, I didn’t trust that may be putting the “cart before the horse” as it was their affinity for sexual deviance that resulted in their powerful positions in society!

What’s especially shocking to someone such as myself is that it’s not the only compulsion of sexual desire that leads to their own position of prominence, however their participation in something deviant, therefore disgusting and disgusting, that the normal person will immediately dismiss it as being “hopeless’! In actuality, despite overwhelming, indisputable elucidations of the occurrence of the phenomenon, it appears too unbelievable to digest!

Are a few antiquated obsession with devil worship and the witch burnings of Salem, while I think. Maybe a more contemporary variant includes the likes of Anton Lavey, the creator of the Church of Satan, or Wicca, that will be a contemporary cult of witchcraft believers. An lesser known proponent of Satanic worship is Michael Aquino, a former Military Officer who specialized in mental warfare and founded the Church of Set, which is an offshoot of Lavey’s Church of Satan.

It must come as no real surprise that in 1987, Michael Aquino was convicted of Satanic Ritual Abuse of a 3 year-old child but was exonerated after police “could find no evidence linking him to the crime”.

What is the connection between pedophilia and Satanism? I had believed pedophilia as some type of illness. I thought that pedophiles had transfixed on some period of adolescence and never fully matured into adulthood. Those suffering endured such insecurity that was immense as to be incapable of having intimate relationships with different adults. Or perhaps they were infatuated with the characteristics of pre-pubescence. I really could not fully comprehend something that I have never experienced myself but I had the belief that it was a psychological illness that resulted in behavior that has been unforgivable in my view.

I actually had no idea that individuals might be indoctrinated into this deviant practice by using their very own family. Regrettably, that rude awakening finally became what I hold to be truthful.

So as to understand Satanic Ritual Abuse, we must first recognize that there is a clear pattern of repeatedly exposed techniques which are utilised to indoctrinate individuals into this cult. These reports come from hundreds of “victims” who were kidnapped and made to execute despicable tasks, including murdering infants, to be able to support their captors. These children have been in care for their own parents or in certain instances kidnapped into these Satanic cults where they’re subsequently made to participate in the sacrifice of a baby by being made to carry a knife in their hands as their parent assists them in the beheading, mutilation and cannibalization of their baby!

This ritual has been explained in detail, with hundreds of survivors that were whistle-blowing. It sometimes gains some traction, but necessarily loses momentum as the cognitive dissonance of the general public, coupled with the press’s joint efforts to dismiss the tales, helps them slowly fade off.

Stories such as the McMartin Trials were disregarded as Satanic Panic although 360 children had confirmed that they had been sexually assaulted!

On March 22, 1984, Virginia McMartin, Peggy McMartin Buckey, Ray Buckey, Ray’s sister Peggy Ann Buckey, also educators Mary Ann Jackson, Betty Raidor, along with Babette Spitler of their McMartin School were charged using 115 counts of child abuse, after enlarged to 321 counts of child abuse between 48 children! Eventually all charges have been dropped due to “lack of evidence”. This is the court systems are, and are, as these pedophiles infiltrate them.

The Franklin Cover-Up, written by former U.S. Senator John DeCamp, specifics the kidnapping of John Gosch and Paul Bonacci and their indoctrination into Satanic Ritual Abuse that directed them into a life of prostituting themselves into wealthy politicians. Their story took them from catering to the influential politicians in Nebraska most of the way about servicing the Bush Family occupied White House!

These boys also recant the rituals of human sacrifice and drinking the blood of a baby.

DeCamp’s book inspired the documentary “Conspiracy of Silence“, which had been made to be aired on the Discovery Channel on May 3, 1994. It was canceled only 24 hours for undisclosed factors. Of course, the majority of folks assume that it was because of political pressure from the Satanists who didn’t need the exposure, however, to the day, the Discovery Channel has never stated why it was scrubbed. You can still see it here:

Then there is the story of Vicki Polin, a lady who seemed on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1989 and, once again, described in detail how she was made to participate in her family tradition of Satanic Ritual Abuse by killing and raping babies. She also revealed that not only includes her been doing this for many generations (dating back to the 1700’s), however that there are many Jewish families throughout the USA who also regularly practiced these rituals!

, although these practices aren’t limited to the usa are a worldwide outbreak. “Theresa” from Australia describes in detail the way her family also raped her and forced her to participate in the specific same rituals described by all these other outspoken sufferers! Traumatized by the participation in the murder and cannibalization of sexual torture and infants beyond remedy!

Possibly the most troubling words of Theresa are when she explains the feeling of helplessness. She compares it to having to “eat your veggies” as a child — you do not really need to get it done, but you know that it’s something that you must do.

More recently, the instance of the Hampstead Cover Up has come to light, in which Alisa and Gabriel Dearman have spoken out regarding the Satanic Ritual Abuse in their school in England. The 9 year-old girl and 8 year-old boy, once again, described in detail the way they were made to maintain a knife in their hands and decapitate a baby and drink it’s blood. They’re entire school engaged in this “black mass” on a weekly basis. These children are completely comfortable as they describe, in detail, the sexual abuse that they have endured when questioned on multiple occasions and yet, somehow they’re taken from their family and remanded to State Custody, never to be seen again! Many of the concerned parties advocating for these children claim that their dad Ricky Dearman (an actor), along with the entire personnel of the faculty as well as the local police division are all involved in this Satanic Ritual Abuse!

Of course, the mainstream press aids in the denial of atrocities! See, by Way of Example, this article in the .

There’s absolutely no way in hell that these children were making the EXACT SAME SCENARIOS which were detailed the aforementioned victims by all unless they’d experienced it themselves !! For more information please Google hunt “The Hampstead Cover Up”.

The fact that their dad is an actor should not be so easily cut off. We are being fed tiny morsels of all allegations of misconduct from Hollywood actors, producers and representatives, every day. Television personalities are suddenly being discharged for even the smallest transgressions! But why?

I’d suggest that this is some serious maneuvering and “damage control” since the public has become more and more mindful of pedophilia in Hollywood. Whistle-blowers such as the Corey Haim and Corey Feldman are garnering attention as their tales get more widely distributed. Documentaries are produced exposing Producers and Hollywood Agents with ties into the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and other popular children’s TV shows which expose exactly how predatory these men in power act. Are you currently Satanists? It appears improbable that pedophilia is a prerequisite for their positions, although it is difficult to know. They end up in those places because of their affiliations with those societies.

In actuality, I believe it has become evident in our society that the more likely someone would be to corrupt their morality, the more likely they are supposed to collect personal wealth! What I mean with that is that are much better designed to become Politicians or CEO’s. Bill Gates stole the idea for Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook. They’re highly admired because of their large wealth and “charitable” jobs, but make no mistake about it, they corrupted their own morality to get where they were going.

I am really not sure HOW these people today end up in places of power, however, it is that they do. They end up in government and in politics! In 2010 it was found that (including Department of Defense) had been purchasing and downloading child porn! More than 5,000 suspects were accused, but gradually drifted off and a few, if any, arrests were made.

The entire Political System is infiltrated with these pedophiles!! How can this be? Perhaps one of the prerequisites to progress your career is to become “among them”. It appears hopeless to me to clarify the overwhelming number of sexual deviants in the Federal and Local Authorities. has completed exhaustive research and found tens of thousands of government workers are detained and charged for committing sexual offenses (such as rape and rape), pedophilia and possession of child porn in agencies such as the DOJ, FBI, CIA, Pentagon, DHS, DOT, TSA, ICE, along with almost each and every arm of the government which you may imagine! These are the men and women who were CAUGHT!! It’s possible to imagine that this is simply the tip of the iceberg as for every 1 person exposed there are most likely dozens who remain

So there you have it! An inexplicable outbreak of sexual deviancy permeating the government! The accusations go all of the way to the very best! Maybe that’s the reason “Pizzagate” was thoroughly ridiculed from the MSM, even though there was substantial evidence to call for an independent investigation. Why did GQ Magazine list the owner (James Alefantis) of Comet Pizza as one of the very 50 influential folks in Washington D.C.? Since when can a pizza parlor’s owner, allegedly for children, have some impact anyplace? And did his site for your “pizza parlor” host pictures of children posed in precarious, sensual, and inappropriate settings?

I’d suppose that it was PizzaGate itself which contributed to Hillary Clinton’s conquer! Hillary had been dressed for her entire life to become the “First Woman President”. I really don’t feel that voting ever mattered as we saw by the defeat of the people’s candidate (Bernie Sanders). Exit surveys were disregarded and in certain states eliminated that they would show the vote counting has become! In certain nations, the outcomes of the exit surveys were the opposite of the outcomes of the election. Naturally, Mainstream Media consistently tows the line which is aptly demonstrated by which only explains the value of the exit surveys!

The only people who ever wanted to see Hillary as President were people who had dressed her and people who had their heads buried that they could not see exactly how evil and corrupt the Clinton regime was. I think that the only reason Donald Trump was introduced as a candidate would be the fact that it might justify, in the heads of any rational American voter, which “no miracle Clinton won — she was up from Donald Trump!”

Trump himself was not surprised to have won the Presidency! He went the time in a President-Elect’s background without holding a Press Conference, probably because he didn’t have any idea what to say! This isn’t some man who is adept at balancing a nation’s funding and comprehending Foreign Affairs. That is a man that was heavily in debt, that he explained to his daughter that a ass on the corner needed more cash than him.

“How can that be ?” , she inquired.

“Well, he can not have any cash, but he also does not have any debt. I’ve more than $90,000,000 in debt!”

How can a man so profoundly in debt ever recover to be a billionaire unless some back room deals were created with his or her creditors? Was his soul sold by Donald Trump? Was his involvement in the 2016 election that a contingency of his debt forgiveness? I mean, though Trump had been vocal regarding the Presidency early in his career, why in the world would a man who had gathered enough of a chance to last 3 lifetimes wish to take on a job which needs his whole attention 24/7, opens his personal life to intense examination, takes off from his ability to enjoy the advantages of his own prosperity and loved ones, and leads to a man to age at twice the normal rate?

However, I digress — the purpose is that no matter how much the general public despised Hillary, she had been pre-selected and dressed her entire life. Unfortunately for Hillary, the PizzaGate story broke just weeks ahead of the election, along with also the elitists had to scramble to protect themselves! These cockroaches scatter when the light is polished in their direction and crisis measures were enacted! Independent investigators had connected John Podesta (Hillary’s campaign manager) into the pedophile ring run from James Alefantis also there wasn’t any way out!

Videos were flooding YouTube describing how code words which were utilized in used terminology that had been identified by the FBI as pedophiles’ means of communicating with each other! Connections were made between Marina Abramovic along with her festivals which had been appreciated by Podesta and his brother! Suddenly it became evident that this was not just sexual deviancy and about pedophilia, however more about Occult and Satanism rituals!

There’s no way that Washington can allow this public investigation to continue! Eliminate any further public scrutiny and they needed to act! Because if she had been chosen, the Public Stress to expose this action would have been enormous to restrain eliminating Hillary was their only option!

Mainstream media created a strategy to demonize those intent on exposing Hillary and acted to discredit media investigators. They immediately discredited any talk of PizzaGate as “fake news” and arranged for a deranged lunatic to visit Comet Ping Pong (James Alefanitis’s location) and shoot at AR-15 rifle, so casting an overall look of “barbarous conspiracy theorists” on those exploring and, once again, utilizing the “sufferer” model of Alefantis to protect themselves from further scrutiny!

The notion that a Pizza Place is a heart for child trafficking was a ridiculous notion! Easily dismissed from the average American who’d have enough cognitive dissonance to avoid even the slightest tendency to investigate. However, to anybody who looked at the signs uncovered, it became incontrovertible that Comet Ping Pong Pizza had catered to the elite pedophiles of Washington DC and amused dignitaries who indulged in clinics that were pedophilic and these Satanic Rituals!

PizzaGate is actual. It isn’t some lunatic fringe conspiracy theory. These folks in Washington D.C. engage in Satanic Ritual Abuse. This isn’t about a few perverts looking at porn onto their own computers, though that’s a common complication of ritual abuse, it’s around the purchase of endurance and power during Lucifer. Because this is such a foreign concept to many people (like me), our very own cognitive dissonance will maintain us unclear.

“Surely this can not be true”, we think!

The perpetrators have been shielded by us by trusting that they share our morality. These actions are so dreadful that we do not think different humans could manage such matters — not on such a scale as we’re advised. However, as a growing number of evidence is introduced, it will become evident that these cults usually exist. They are widespread, secretive, and also also have secured the very prominent places of power in our government, amusement industry, food distribution, and every other establishment that is critical which we rely for sustenance!

As George Carlin once said, “It’s a huge CLUB and you also ain’t inside!”

from Society http://www.nsorchidsociety.com/satanic-pedophilia-inside-our-society/

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