Honor Reading Packet

Are You a Moral Whimp?

You let a coworker make a racist remark. You laugh along at a friend's offensive joke. Not speaking up may be easy and safe, but there is a price to pay for your silence.

BY JUDITH VIORST

We want to be ethical people. We want to have the courage of our convictions. We want, quite simply, to do the right thing. But our sense of right and wrong is constantly being battered these days by what seems to be a world-wide collapse of values.

Watch it on C-Span or Nightline or Today. Read all about it in the morning papers:

-Wall Street Trader Convicted of Securities Fraud
-Judge Convicted of Abusing Women
-Government Official Caught Taking Bribes

Even if we exclude the random violence that strikes on the streets, even if we exclude ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, even if we exclude such horrors as rape and murder and hostage taking and torture, we are confronted every day with savage stories of greed, deceit, and oppression, and stories of the betrayal of public trust.
Sometimes it's hard not to feel that the message out there is "everyone's doing it" or "just don't get caught." Sometimes it's hard not to feel that the message is "only fools play by the rules," that dishonesty not only pays but is richly rewarded. And sometimes--when we read about people who stand by in silence while others engage in wrong-doing--the message seems to be a spineless "don't make waves" and "go along to get along."
Ask us, and we'll say it's wrong to lie and cheat and steal; it's offensive to denigrate others because of their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation; it's evil to seek to do injury to another's body or soul; it's bad to abuse either public or private trust. But face it--in our personal, small-scale, non-headline-making way, we too sometimes grievously fail to do the right thing.

OUR EVERYDAY MORAL FAILURES aren't limited to the actions we choose to take--like cheating on our mates or on our expense accounts. They also include those actions that we consciously choose not to take, even when inaction betrays our own principles or could cause someone harm. These belong to that category calls "sins of omission."
Have you ever sat in silence while somebody at a social gathering used the word "nigger" or "kike" or "dyke" or "wop"? Okay, perhaps you've never heard anyone use them. But what about those times when you've listened as someone made a demeaningremark or told an unfunny joke about blacks or Jews or lesbians or Italians? And youdidn't object because (says Ann), "everyone else was laughing, and I didn't want to come off like Little Miss Prim." Or you didn't protest because (says Dale), "I was worried I'd sound obnoxiously self-righteous." Or you didn't speak up because (says Elaine), "it would have embarrassed the person telling the story." Or you didn't say a word because (says Lisa), "you have to pick your fights. You just can't go around correcting everybody all the time."
You didn't--but you had this awful feeling in your gut that matched the shameful knowledge your head: that by sitting there in silence while someone spoke in a way you found morally unacceptable, you had failed--by your own standards--to do the right thing.
"Whenever you don't speak out against a gay-bashing crack," a young gay man observes, "you ally yourself with those guys who literally bash us. Of course you wouldn't beat us up, but you make it easier for the people who do."
I believe what he's saying is true. I would like to add, however, that we need to find our own style of speaking out--loudly or softly, angrily or cajolingly, intending to crush or intending to reform. We also may need different styles for different occasions. For even if we are comfortable shrieking, "You stupid ass! You're wrong!" and even if the person we're addressing royally deserves to be addressed this way, there are many circumstances under which those words and those shrieks would be most inappropriate and maybe even counterproductive. The alternative, however, is not to keep quiet. It is to find a way--as Jan did--to civilly but unequivocally disagree.
Jan was at an anniversary party where everyone was filled with goodwill and warm feelings. This was not the time or place to get into a major political row. But the man who sat beside her had just expressed a racist view that he seemed to believe she'd approve of (maybe because of her southern accent?), but which she found not merely offensive but reprehensible. "So what do you think?" he asked her at the end of his nasty spiel, clearly expecting words of support and agreement. Combining tact and integrity, Jan put her hands on his shoulders and smiled insincerely. "What I think," she replied in a firm voice, looking him straight in the eye, "is that I totally hate what you are saying."
Without disrupting the celebration, Jan found a way to stand up for what she believed and, she says, make sure that this man might at least think twice before announcing his foul observations in public again.


OF COURSE, NONE OF US WANT TO turn into the thought police, becoming so politically correct that we take offense if we hear someone saying "short" instead of "vertically challenged," or "pet" instead of "non-human companion." But I believe most people are smart enough to distinguish fanaticism from the kind of sensitivity that tells us when we ought to take a stand, when it's morally imperative to say or do something.
Take the case of Patty and Paul. They were driving home late one evening through a rather rough neighborhood. In the next lane, a teenage girl, driving by herself, was (accidentally?) bumped from behind by a carful of rowdy-looking guys. The girl appeared to be slowing down.
"Oh, God," Patty said to Paul, "I hope she isn't getting out. I hope she knows it isn't safe to get out." Still, Patty and Paul continued driving home.
"We ought to go back and check," said Paul.
"We really should," said Patty.
"She's just a kid," said Paul. "All by herself."
"That's right," Patty said. "We ought to go back and check that she's okay." But Patty and Paul continued driving home.
In telling the story later, Patty said, "If that had been my child out there, I'd have wanted us to make sure she wasn't in trouble. Look, I'm not saying lay down our lives--I don't expect us to be martyrs--but if she had been in danger, we could have honked or yelled or called the police or something. We should have gone back to check. I'm ashamed that we didn't."
Feeling sleepy and eager for bed, feeling a bit apprehensive, feeling "this girl in the car isn't really our problem," Patty and Paul refrained from doing what both of them believed to be the right thing.
Why? Because it's awfully tempting not to get involved, especially if nobody is asking. But it really can be inspiring to see--as I recently did--someone going out of his way to offer a helping hand, prompted by nothing more than his own human decency.
I was standing behind the driver of a jam-packed New York City bus as it moved through rush hour traffic during a rainstorm. Across the street a man unexpectedly darted into the path of an oncoming car and was hit. Our bus driver, using a mobile phone, instantly called for an ambulance. But as he continued driving west through the pouring rain and dense traffic, I could hear him talking out loud to himself.
"They're going to nail that poor guy for hitting that man, and it wasn't his fault. He couldn't have seen him--he ran right in front of the car. I should stop and give my name as a witness because it isn't fair--they'll blame him, and it really wasn't his fault."
I felt privileged to hear this bus driver as he wrestled aloud with his conscience, and touched beyond words as he finally made his decision, pulling that jam-packed bus to the curb, and saying, "Folks, I'll be back in a couple of minutes." He then ran a block and a half in the rain to give his name as a witness--to do the right thing.

BEAR IN MIND THAT SOMETIMES when we endeavor to do the right thing, we will encounter ingratitude--or worse. Early in our marriage, Milton and I lived in an apartment building directly below a couple in which the husband beat up his wife all the time. When we couldn't bear it another minute, Milton went upstairs and made a heroic effort to break up the fight. At which point the husband and wife disengaged from each other, joined forces, and started beating up on helpful Milton. On a far less dramatic note, I encountered extreme annoyance when I called up a specialty-food shop to say I'd accidentally failed to pay for two items. "My tote was in the basket, and by mistake the olives and berries wound up in my tote, so they weren't rung up," I told the manager. "If you'll just tell me what they cost, I'll mail you a check."
The manager responded that this was impossible, that their system didn't work that way, that I couldn't pay for the items until I had brought them back to the store so they could be scanned. And when I explained that (a) I'd be unable to come back that day, and that (b) we'd be eating the olives and berries that night, and that (c) all I wanted to do was mail them a check for the proper amount, she repeated, most unpleasantly, "Impossible."
"You make it hard for a person to be honest," I told the manager, who seemed eager for me to forget the whole thing. Which maybe I should have done, except that I couldn't. So the next time I shopped at that store, I picked up a jar of olives and a box of berries, brought them to the cashier to be scanned and rung up, paid my bill, and told the cashier, who clearly thought I was nuts, "You don't have to bag them. I'm leaving them here. I owe you for them."

WE ALL NEED TO FIGURE OUT FOR ourselves how far we're willing to go on behalf of our principles. How we can be civil, mannerly people and still display the courage of our convictions. Where to draw the sometimes tricky line between good citizen and pest. But although we may differ in our approaches, we all have clear-cut notions of right and wrong.
That's why if we keep failing to do the right thing--because it's hard, inconvenient, or possibly risky--we chip away at our moral core, corrode our self-respect, become smaller people. No one may ever know that we've remained silent or held ourselves back when we should have acted. But we will know, and that knowledge will shame and diminish us.
On the other hand, if most of the time we choose to do the right thing, we do something not just for others but for ourselves. Our private moral choices may not make the headlines, but they will indeed make a difference. And we'll know, we'll feel, the difference. And our soul, or whatever we wish to call it, will sing.

Judith Viorst is a poet, playwright, and a children's book author. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Milton, a political writer.

Redbook, September 1993, pp. 72-74

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