The myths of modern motherhood
It seems as if three successive waves of feminism haven’t resolved the chronic mismatch between the ideal of the ‘good’ and ‘happy’ mother and the realities of women’s lives.
Even if you consciously reject them, ideas about what a mother ought to be and ought to feel are probably there from the minute you wake up until you go to bed at night. Even in our age of increased gender equality it seems as if the culture loves nothing more than to dish out the myths about how to be a better mother (or a thinner, more fashionable, or better-looking one).
It’s not just the celebrity mums pushing their prams on magazine covers, or the continuing dearth of mothers on TV who are less than exceptionally good-looking, or that mothers in advertising remain ubiquitously obsessed with cleaning products and alpine-fresh scents. While TV dramas have pleasingly increased the handful of roles that feature working mothers, most are unduly punished in the twists of the melodramatic plot. They have wimpy husbands or damaged children, and of course TV’s bad characters are inevitably bad due to the shortcomings of their mothers (serial killers, for example, invariably have overbearing mothers or alcoholic mothers, or have never really separated from their mothers).
It seems we are living in an age of overzealous motherhood. Indeed, in a world in which the demands of the workplace have increased, so too the ideals of motherhood have become paradoxically more – not less – demanding. In recent years, commonly accepted ideas about what constitutes a barely adequate level of mothering have dramatically expanded to include extraordinary sacrifices of time, money, feelings, brains, social relationships, and indeed sleep.
In Australia, most mothers work. But recent studies show that working mothers now spend more time with their children than their non-working mothers did in 1975. Working mothers achieve this extraordinary feat by sacrificing leisure, mental health, and even personal hygiene to spend more time with their kids.
This is coupled with a new kind of anxious sermonising that is having a profound impact on mothers, especially among the middle class. In Elisabeth Badinter’s book The Conflict, she argues that an ideology of ‘Naturalism’ has given rise to an industry of experts advocating increasingly pristine forms of natural birth and natural pregnancy, as well as an ever-expanding list of increasingly time-intensive child rearing duties that are deemed to fall to the mother alone. These duties include most of the classic practices of 21st century child rearing, including such nostrums as co-sleeping, babywearing and breastfeeding-on-demand until the age of two.
It seems we are living in an age of overzealous motherhood.
Whether it is called Intensive Mothering or Natural Parenting, these new credos of motherhood are wholly taken up with the idea that there is a narrowly prescribed way of doing things. In the West, 21st century child rearing is becoming increasingly time-consuming, expert-guided, emotionally draining, and incredibly expensive. In historical terms, I would be willing to hazard a guess that never before has motherhood been so heavily scrutinised. It is no longer just a question of whether you should or should not eat strawberries or prawns or soft cheese, or, heaven forbid, junk food, while you are pregnant, but so too, the issue of what you should or should not feel has come under intense scrutiny.
Never before has there been such a microscopic investigation of a pregnant woman’s emotional state, before, during and after birth. Indeed, the construction of new psychological disorders for mothers appears to have become something of a psychological pastime, with the old list of mental disorders expanding beyond prenatal anxiety, postnatal depression, postpartum psychosis and the baby blues, to include the baby pinks (a label for a woman who is illogically and inappropriately happy to be a mother), as well as Prenatal and Postnatal Stress Disorder, Maternal Anxiety and Mood Imbalance and Tokophobia—the latter being coined at the start of this millennium as a diagnosis for an unreasonable fear of giving birth.
The problem with the way in which this pop psychology is played out in the media is that it performs an endless re-inscription of the ideologies of mothering. These ideologies are often illogical, contradictory and – one suspects – more often dictated by what is convenient for society and not what is actually good for the children and parents involved. Above all else, mothers should be ecstatically happy mothers, because sad mothers are failed mothers. Indeed, according to the prevailing wisdom, unhappy mothers are downright unnatural, if not certifiably insane.
Never before has motherhood been so heavily scrutinised.
Little wonder there has been an outcry against such miserable standards of perfection. The same decade that saw the seeming triumph of the ideologies of Intensive and Natural mothering, also saw the rise of what has been called the ‘Parenting Hate Read’ — a popular outpouring of books and blogs written by mothers (and even a few fathers) who frankly confess that they are depressed about having children for no better reason than it is often mind-numbing, exhausting and dreadful. Mothers love their children, say the ‘Parenting Hate Reads’, but they do not like what is happening to their lives.
The problem is perhaps only partly about the disparity between media images of ecstatically happy mummies and the reality of women’s lives. It is also because our ideas about happiness have grown impoverished. Happiness, as it is commonly understood in the western world, is made up of continuous moments of pleasure and the absence of pain.
These popular assumptions about happiness are of comparatively recent origin, emerging in the works of philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, who argued in the 18th century that people act purely in their self-interest and the goal to which self-interest aspires is happiness. Ethical conduct, according to Bentham and James Mill (father to John Stuart), should therefore aspire to maximise pleasure and minimise pain.
Our ideas about happiness have grown impoverished.
This ready equation of goodness, pleasure and happiness flew in the face of ideas that had been of concern to philosophers since Aristotle argued that a person is not made happy by fleeting pleasures, but by fulfilment stemming from meaning and purpose. Or, as Nietzsche, the whirling dervish of 19th century philosophy, put it, “Man does not strive for happiness – only the Englishman does”.
Nevertheless, Western assumptions about happiness have remained broadly utilitarian, giving rise to the culturally constructed notion of happiness we see in TV commercials, showing families becoming happier with every purchase. Or by life coaches peddling the dubious hypothesis that self-belief can overcome the odds, whatever your social or economic circumstance.
Unless you are Mother Teresa, you have probably been spending your life up until the time you have children in a reasonably independent and even self-indulgent way. You work hard through the week but sleep in on the weekend. You go to parties. You come home drunk. You see your friends when you want. Babies have different ideas. They stick forks in electric sockets, go berserk in the car seat, and throw up on your work clothes. They want to be carried around in the day and wake in the night.
If society can solve its social problems then maybe parenting will cease to be a misery competition. Mothers might not be happy in a utilitarian or hedonistic sense but will lead rich and satisfying lives. Then maybe a stay-at-home dad can change a nappy without a choir of angels descending from heaven singing ‘Hallelujah’.
This is an edited extract from “On Happiness: New Ideas for The 21st Century” UWA Publishing.
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BY Dr Camilla Nelson
Dr Camilla Nelson is a Senior Lecturer in Writing at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Ending workplace bullying demands courage
Despite increasing measures to combat workplace harassment, bullies remain entrenched in organisations. Changes made to laws and regulations in order to stamp out bullying have instead transformed it into an underground set of behaviours. Now hidden, these behaviours often remain unaddressed.
In other cases, anti-bullying policies can actually work to support perpetrators. Where regulations specify what bullying is, some people will cleverly use those rules as a guide to work around. Although these people are no longer bullying in the narrow sense outlined by policies or regulations, their acts of shunning, scapegoating and ostracism have the same effect. Rules that explicitly define bullying create exemptions, or even permissions, for behaviours that do not meet the formal standard.
Because they are more difficult to notice or prove, these insidious behaviours can remain undetected for long periods. As Kipling Williams and Steve Nida argued in a 2011 research paper, “being excluded or ostracized is an invisible form of bullying that doesn’t leave bruises, and therefore we often underestimate its impact”.
The bruises, cuts and blows are less evident but the internal bleeding is real. This new, psychological violence can have severe, long-term effects. According to Williams, “Ostracism or exclusion may not leave external scars, but it can cause pain that often is deeper and lasts longer than a physical injury”.
Bullies tend to be very good at office politics and working upwards, and attack those they consider rivals through innuendo and social networks.
This is a costly issue for both individuals and organisations. No-one wins. Individuals can suffer symptoms akin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Organisations in which harassment occurs must endure lost time, absences, workers’ compensation claims, employee turnover, lack of productivity, the risk of costly and lengthy lawsuits, as well as a poor reputation.
So why does it continue?
First, bullies tend to be very good at office politics and working upwards, and attack those they consider rivals through innuendo and social networks. Bullies are often socially savvy, even charming. Because of this, they are able to strategically abuse co-workers while receiving positive work evaluations from managers.
In addition, anti-bullying policies aren’t the panacea they are sometimes painted to be. If they exist at all they are often ignored or ineffective. A 2014 report by corporate training company VitalSmarts showed that 96 percent of the 2283 people it surveyed had experienced workplace bullying. But only 7 percent knew someone who had used a workplace anti-bullying policy – the majority didn’t see it as an option. Plus, we now know some bullies use such policies as a base to craft new means of enacting their power – ones that aren’t yet defined as bullying behaviour by these policies.
Finally, cases often go unreported, undetected and unchallenged. This inaction rewards perpetrators and empowers them to continue behaving in the same way. This is confusing for the victim, who is stressed, unsure, and can feel isolated in the workplace. This undermines the confidence they need to report the bullying. Because of this, many opt for a less confrontational path – hoping it will go away in time. It usually doesn’t.
Cases often go unreported, undetected and unchallenged. This inaction rewards perpetrators and empowers them to continue behaving in the same way.
What can you do if a colleague is being shunned or ostracised by peers or managers? The first step is not to participate. However, most people are already likely to be aware of this. More relevant for most people is to not become complicit by remaining silent. As 2016 Australian of the Year David Morrison famously said, “The standard you walk by is the standard you accept.”
The onus is on you to take positive steps against harassment where you witness it. By doing nothing you allow psychological attacks to continue. In this way, silent witnesses bear partial responsibility for the consequences of bullying. Moreover, unless the toxic culture that enables bullying is undone, logic says you could be the next victim.
However, merely standing up to harassment isn’t likely to be a cure-all. Tackling workplace bullying is a shared responsibility. It takes regulators, managers and individuals in cooperation with law, policy and healthy organisational culture.
The onus is on you to take positive steps against harassment where you witness it. By doing nothing you allow psychological attacks to continue.
Organisational leaders in particular need to express public and ongoing support for clearly worded policies. In doing so, policies begin to shape and inform the culture of an organisation rather than serving as standalone documents. It is critical that managers understand the impacts of bullying on culture, employee wellbeing, and their own personal liability.
When regulation fails – the dilemma most frequently seen today – we need to depend on individual moral character. Herein lies the ethical challenge. ‘Character’ is an underappreciated ethical trait in many executive education programs, but the moral virtues that form a person’s character are the foundation of ethical leadership.
A return to character might diminish the need for articles like this. In the meantime, workplace bullying provides us all with the opportunity to practise courage.
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BY Petrina Coventry
Petrina Coventry is Industry Professor and Director of Development with the University of Adelaide Faculty of the Professions and the Business School. She previously held global vice president roles with the General Electric Company and The Coca Cola Company in the United States and Asia and was most recently CHRO with Santos Ltd.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
What your email signature says about you
Getting too many unethical business requests? Sreedhari Desai’s research suggests a quote in your email signature may be the answer to your woes.
In a recent study Desai enrolled subjects to participate in a virtual game to earn money. The subjects were told they’d earn more money if they could convince their fellow players to spread a lie without knowing about it. Basically, subjects had to trick their fellow players into believing a lie, and then get those other players to spread the lie around the game.
What subjects didn’t know is that all their fellow ‘players’ were in fact researchers studying how they would go about their deception. Subjects communicated with the researchers by email. Some researchers had a virtuous quote underneath their email – “Success without honor is worse than fraud”. Others had a neutral quote in their email signature – “Success and luck go hand in hand”. Others had no quote at all.
And wouldn’t you know it? Subjects were less likely to try to recruit people with a virtuous quote in their email. The quote served as a “moral symbol”, shielding the person from receiving unethical requests from other players. In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Desai outlines what’s happening in these situations:
When someone is in a position to request an unethical thing, they may not consciously be thinking, “I won’t ask that person.” Instead, they may perceive a person as morally “pure” and feel that asking them to get “dirty” makes an ethical transgression even worse. Or they may be concerned that someone with moral character will just refuse the request.
So, if you want to keep your hands clean it may be as simple as updating your email signature. It won’t guarantee you’ll do the right thing when you’re tempted (there’s more to ethics than pretty words!) but it will ensure you’re tempted less.
There are other, more expensive ways to avoid unethical approaches via email.
And in case you’re looking for a virtuous quote for your email signature, we surveyed some of our staff for their favourite virtuous quotes. Here’s a sample:
- “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates
- “No man wishes to possess the whole world if he must first become someone else” – Aristotle
- “Protect me from what I want” – Jenny Holzer
- “A true man goes on to the end of his endurance and then goes twice as far again” – Norwegian proverb
- “Knowledge is no guarantee of good behaviour, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behaviour” – Martha Nussbaum
A small disclaimer to all of this – it might not work if you work with Australians. Apparently our propensity to cut down tall poppies and our discomfort for authority extend to moral postulations in email signatures. Instead of sanctimony, Aussies are likely to protect people with fun or playful quotes in their emails. Desai explains:
“We’re studying how people react to moral symbols in Australia. Our preliminary study showed that people there were sceptical of moral displays. They seemed to think the bloke with the quote was being ‘holier than thou’ and probably had something to hide.”
So, as well as your favourite virtuous quote, you might want to bung a joke on the bottom of your emails to please your sceptical Antipodean colleagues, lest they lead you into temptation.
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What comes after Stan Grant’s speech?
Stan Grant’s speech broke your heart – five views on what to do about it.
1) Tanya Denning-Orman say’s It’s not hard to capitalise on Grant’s momentum.
Last year Stan Grant delivered an address that left a crowd of hundreds speechless. This week, those same words jumped out of computer screens and into the hands of ordinary Australians and polarised millions of lounge room commentators. When this happened, he forced an entire nation to confront a history that no one wants to talk about.
He made you uncomfortable because he put a human face to the stats and figures that so commonly define First Nations peoples. Stan reminded you that we are people of law, lore, music, art and politics, and he inspired you to reimagine who we all are as Australians.
Yesterday, commentators described the impact of this speech as a “Martin Luther King moment”. Today, those of us who live it know that it’s all come and gone before. Noel Pearson delivered a speech that commentators said would be spoken about for years. In the months that followed, there was silence. With just a few words Charlie Perkins could mobilise crowds to take to the streets. Is it that easy to forget?
Knowing this, tomorrow the challenge will be that this momentum, created by a Wiradjuri man, doesn’t drown in a sea of barbecues and beers that is ‘Australia Day’. Just as Stan Grant said, we are better than this.
This time let the power of the word inspire you to make a change beyond ‘a thumbs up’ on a post and clicking the share button. We can insist that schools teach Australia’s silenced history. We can hold our governments to account. We can be empowered by our shared story.
Never before have we been so connected – we can create a global movement through our fingertips.
And I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s not that hard to do.
Tanya Denning-Orman is the Channel Manager for NITV. Follow her on Twitter @Tanyadenning.
2) Luke Pearson argues that sentiment isn’t social justice. Now is the time to do something
The worry with making white people ‘feel all the feels’ as we sometimes say online, is that it won’t lead to any change in thought, behaviour or actual contributions to the work that needs to be done. Worse, it can actually do the opposite.
White people’s emotional experiences are all too often used to validate privilege and identify themselves as ‘one of the good ones’. This shifts the responsibility to act away from them and onto ‘those other people’.
Novelist Teju Cole labelled this phenomenon the ‘White Saviour Industrial Complex’, saying “The White Saviour Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”
This response gives people the moral authority to continue to justify racist responses that make them feel good about their privilege and direct and indirect contributions to racism and oppression. This attitude is what all too often justifies brutal government responses to complex problems.
In Australia this takes the form of punitive approaches to an endless list of humanitarian issues. The NT Intervention, offshore detention, military action overseas, Aboriginal deaths in custody, and increased rates of Indigenous child removal and incarceration whilst simultaneously defunding strategies to reduce these numbers…
This attitude leads people to get upset or feel attacked whenever white privilege is mentioned. They remove themselves from any responsibility purely by virtue of their emotional experiences, not recognising they are the ones who benefit most from their emotional experiences.
The very same people who claim to be our biggest supporters still argue that “we need to stop talking about race” rather than arguing “we need to stop racism”. They say “we are all Australians” without seeing the irony – erasing the identity of others was the outcome intended by culture genocide and assimilationist ideals. They feel betrayed when this is challenged because they feel they are owed for the emotional experiences they have felt.
If your response to videos like Stan Grant’s speech is to pat yourself on the back for a job well done without actually considering your place in the status quo and whether or not your ideas are just rebranded versions of the racism people have been fighting against for centuries, you are a part of the problem.
The same goes if you recognise the above but don’t actually do anything to change things. If you sit silently when you see racism within your own family, your workplace, your social group… If you don’t support those who work at the coalface, addressing the ongoing impacts of colonialism or who work at the highest levels trying to prevent it from continuing…
You are part of the problem.
“I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly”, writes Teju Cole.
Ditto for Australia.
Luke Pearson is the Founder of IndigenousX, indigenousx.com.au. Follow them on Twitter @IndigenousX.
3) Anita Heiss anticipates that the real power of Stan’s speech is yet to come
As part of the debate, Stan Grant’s words were powerful. They were honest. They came from the heart and they were passionate. Unfortunately, for many of us they were not something new. They were words we had said ourselves in vain, similar to words we had heard from our parents and our peers. And so, we watched and sat in pain yet again at the reality of what is our great Australian nightmare.
For me the importance of Stan’s speech is that it has managed to reach a global audience. It has been heard by some who, for whatever reason, knew nothing about the facts Stan, a strong Wiradjuri man, was sharing as part of a debate that, in all honesty, was not much of a debate.
Words can be powerful. They can make us change the way we think. They can help us understand and feel empathy, but what are words without actions? I think the real power will come now, post Stan’s speech in a call to action to all those tweeting and facebooking to actually do something!
Teachers, watch the entire debate with your students. Get them to discuss, debate and talk about the issues raised. Parents, do the above also!
Corporates, politicians, policy makers, what are you doing in your worlds to address the inequities Stan mentioned? Immortality rates, incarceration rates, the ongoing removal of children?
Re-tweeting is not enough! You cannot claim to want equality for Indigenous Australians if you are not prepared to participate in the change – the actions – required to make that happen.
Build partnerships with Indigenous organisations that are already working in the areas you have influence in. Form lasting strategies to create the change this country needs. But please know, it’s not going to be easy, or going to be fixed overnight. Over 200 years of damage needs to be repaired to make the nightmare a dream.
Dr Anita Heiss is a proud member of the Wiradjuri nation. She is an author and Manager of the Epic Good Foundation. Follow her on Twitter @AnitaHeiss.
4) Kelly Briggs feels that we’ve had ‘Stan Grant moments’ before
I am confounded that some are comparing Stan Grant’s much admired speech from the IQ2 debate last year on Australia’s racism to Martin Luther King. Doing so erases Aboriginal activists who have come before us, including Dr Charlie Perkins.
Perkins headed what is now known as the ‘Freedom Rides’ – a busload of Sydney University students who toured particularly racist northern New South Wales towns to shine a spotlight on the heinous racism and segregation between blacks and whites in 1965. His passionate activism in towns, pubs, RSLs, swimming pools and the like saw changes to many rules and regulations.
Now that Stan Grant’s speech has gone ‘viral’, will it engender any changes to current governmental policies? Put back any of the money ripped out of the budget allocated to Aboriginal programs and issues? Create a much needed conversation about Australia’s ongoing overt and casual racism?
I don’t think it will. Stan Grant, while passionate, has not added anything new to what Aboriginal people have been saying in blogs, news articles and on social media for the better part of a decade. So, while I admire Stan’s stance, I do not hold out any hope that it will not be forgotten in a week, or that it will make a difference.
Kelly Briggs blogs at thekooriwoman.wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter @TheKooriWoman.
5) Siv Parker on why we haven’t done this before
We haven’t had enough feel-good moments cast around Aboriginal Australia for this nation to be in a position to waste one. So where to from here?
An icebreaker may help to shake off a few nerves. It would be easier on all of us if we took a breath and agreed that we haven’t done this before.
Bridge walks, town meetings, community events, the apology and the land help to give us all our bearings.
But a digital world makes it easier to satisfy a yearning for substance, to extend ourselves beyond fleeting online interactions.
The anticipated referendum around constitutional reform is a hook on which to hang our shared history. I have no doubt we can agree to include Indigenous Australians in the constitution. I am not the only one willing to make a start on talking about what that could look like.
We won’t need to invoke great moments from foreign countries to define us, we can create our own. Indigenous people are on the crest of a wave in asserting ourselves in words, art, performances and knowledge systems that has been decades in the making. This nation can do better. That is the promise within our ancient storytelling tradition. A story is not a one-sided affair. We don’t listen to a story, we become a part of it. In years to come, they will continue to tell stories that includes us all.
Siv Parker is an award-winning writer and blogger. Follow her on Twitter @SivParker.
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Your donation is only as good as the charity you give it to
It’s admirable, perhaps even required, for those of us living comfortable lives in the developed world to give some time or money to ‘good causes’. We recognise fortune has smiled upon us and have a desire to ‘give back’ in some way – we have so much and others have so little, we seek to redress it.
But while there is strong agreement the fortunate have an opportunity – some would say an obligation – to use their resources to make life better for the less well-off, the discussion often ends here. That is, we think people should do something but we’re often not concerned with exactly what that something is. Should you donate to a local homeless shelter, a national medical research charity or a big international NGO? For many people, it’s unclear there’s any difference between these actions – surely they all make the world a better place?
Let’s think about that.
Say there were only two charities in the world, The Cupcake Foundation and the Real Actual Medicines Trust. The Cupcake Foundation distributes delicious cupcakes to people in hospital. The Real Actual Medicines Trust distributes medicines that will completely cure a patient’s disease. Both charities are undeniably making the world a better place but it’s pretty clear that one is doing much more good than the other. I think most people would choose to donate their money to The Real Actual Medicines Trust.
Asking these questions gets to the heart of why it is we help people. Are we altruistic because we think that making others better off is good in and of itself? Or do we just do it to stave off our middle-class guilt?
Take a different example. Let’s say that a third charity, Medicines ’R Us, is also distributing medicines, but they use generic medicines that cost half as much to produce as the on-brand medicines distributed by The Real Actual Medicines Trust. This means that a $20 donation to the Medicines ‘R Us will cure twice as many people as a $20 donation to the Real Actual Medicines Trust. Surely – given we can do twice as much good donating to the former than the latter – we should give our money to Medicines ‘R Us, thus doubling our impact.
These seem like contrived examples, but in reality, the differences between charities are astounding – not just a factor of two or three times, as in the example above, but some are ten, or even 100 times more effective than others!
Asking these questions gets to the heart of why it is we help people. Are we altruistic because we think that making others better off is good in and of itself? Or do we just do it to stave off our middle-class guilt? To impress other people? To show off?
Undoubtedly many good works are motivated by these latter factors. But are they really good reasons? Are they the reasons we’d choose? I’d certainly like to think that when I donate to charity I’m doing it for the benefit of other people. The sense of wellbeing that I get afterwards is nice but ultimately not morally important.
If it’s really other people’s benefit we care about, we need to think hard about how we choose where we spend our time and money on good causes. We don’t have infinite time and money. Every choice to donate something to one cause is an implicit choice not to donate it to another.
It might seem harsh to judge any charity less effective than any other another. Doesn’t that mean that the people served by the less-effective charity lose out? It does. But not making comparisons doesn’t mean everyone gets the help they need. It means that people who would be helped by the more effective charities lose out. More people are becoming sick, even dying, because people are choosing not to donate more effectively.
In the long run, hopefully we’ll be in a position to eradicate extreme poverty and disease from the world and we’ll have enough resources to fund all good causes. In the meantime, we should surely help as many people as we can.
Effective Altruism, a new social and philosophical movement is emerging to try to answer a fundamental question – “what is the most good that we can do?”
Effective altruism is about using evidence and reason to find ways to make the world as good a place as it can be. It tries to view all people – wherever they are in the world, even those not yet born – as being equally deserving of living happy, healthy, dignified, flourishing lives. Its proponents try to focus on the best ways of doing good. It’s just like regular altruism in that it seeks to do good for others. However, by focusing on effectiveness, it seeks to do the most good possible.
This manifests in different ways. Some people try to find the most effective charities to donate to, others try to work out which career you should choose if you want to have the biggest impact. Others think about the long-run future of humanity, reasoning that if there’s even a small chance that humans could wipe ourselves out (say, in a nuclear winter, or a deadly engineered disease escaping a laboratory), avoiding such an outcome would be a huge benefit.
It’s just like regular altruism in that it seeks to do good for others. However, by focusing on effectiveness, it seeks to do the most good possible.
Many also take a pledge to give a fixed portion of their income to effective charities – often 10 percent – because it increases the chance that they’ll actually donate, rather than putting it off for another day. In all these cases people are motivated by their sense of empathy but guided by scientific evidence and reason.
It may seem strange to think we might have an obligation to donate to one set of charities rather than others. After all, surely if someone wants to donate their money to a charity that focuses on people in their local community or on a cause that’s particularly important to them, they have that right. Of course, donation – unlike taxes – is an individual choice, not a legal obligation. But when faced with a choice of whether to help 100 people or just one, is it really a difficult decision?
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To live well, make peace with death
“What do we say to the god of death?” swordsman Syrio Forel asks Arya Stark in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (and in HBO’s TV series). “Not today.”
This short refrain marks the beginning of a sustained exploration of humanity’s relationship with death told through Arya’s experiences. She becomes a murderer and later, in ‘The House of the Undying’ where death is seen as a god to be worshipped, an assassin and servant to that god.
Watching Arya’s story unfold, it seemed to me she’d never forgotten her former (you guessed it, now dead) teacher’s lesson – the only response to death is denial.
According to many thinkers, this isn’t surprising at all. Arya isn’t alone in running from death. Denying the reality of human mortality is a near universal behaviour. In The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking, Oliver Burkeman considers the writing of Ernest Becker, whose arguments Burkeman surmises. “Your life is one relentless attempt to avoid [thinking about death] – a struggle so elemental that … for much of the time you succeed.”
Becker believed to avoid confronting our mortality people invest in “immortality projects”. Art, family, business, nations, war, charity, and so on… Immortality projects aim to overcome physical death by ensuring our continued existence through symbols or ideas.
The late David Bowie promised “We can be heroes”, and that’s precisely Becker’s point. Immortality projects are attempts to become heroes, thereby avoiding the emptiness of death.
But research suggests the common instinct to avoid thinking about our mortality might be worth pushing against. In a paper entitled ‘Deliver us from Evil’, researchers found that mortality avoidance can cloud our judgements about life and death issues, leading to unreflective decisions in high-stakes situations.
The study asked two groups of people to undertake a long and generally dull questionnaire and then to read a short essay and tell researchers how strongly they agreed with it. The essay was a strong statement of support for the controversial policies of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. It included lines like “It annoys me when I hear other people complain that President Bush is using his war against terrorism as a cover for instituting policies that, in the long run, will be detrimental to this country … Mr. Bush has been a source of strength and inspiration to us all. God bless him and God bless America”.
The only difference between the two groups was that one questionnaire forced subjects to consider their own mortality. The “mortality salience” group were asked to “briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and to “jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die, and once you are physically dead”.
For some, even the idea of answering these questions might feel uncomfortable, as it did for the subjects in the experiment. Researchers found the “mortality salient” subjects invested more strongly in the nearest immortality project to hand – the war in Iraq. Subjects from the mortality salience group agreed strongly with the essay. By contrast, the control group generally disagreed with the essay’s sentiments.
When we’re forced to confront our own mortality, our default reaction may not be the product of rational thinking but an impulsive rejection of death.
This tells us something important – especially in a time when we are continually confronted with the threat and reality of terrorism and domestic violence nearly every day. When we’re forced to confront our own mortality our default reaction may not be the product of rational thinking but an impulsive rejection of death. The researchers argued similarly:
The fact that reminders of death and the events of 9/11 enhanced support for President Bush in the present studies may not bode well for the philosophical democratic ideal that political preferences are the result of rational choice based on an informed understanding of the relevant issues.
This poses a challenge for ethical behaviour – some of the most serious ethical decisions people face are made when they are confronted with death. Most obviously these include healthcare and political decisions with serious implications for the general populous. Is it possible to overcome mortality avoidance and make decisions based on moral values and principles instead?
Researchers weren’t optimistic on this point, but Burkeman indirectly suggests a way forward. His interest lay in whether thinking about death might enable us to live a happier life. He presents evidence that regular contemplation of death can enable us to avoid horror and shock when it ultimately arrives. “The more you become aware of life’s finitude, the more you will cherish it and the less likely you will be to fritter it away on distraction”.
The same might be true for our mortality avoidance in decision making. If regular acquaintance with death can remove some of its shocking strangeness, perhaps we will be less likely to invest in immortality projects as a way to distract ourselves from its reality. By making our peace with the fact we are all going to die, we will be less likely to make decisions based in our fear of death. If ‘Deliver us from Evil’ is any indication, this might also save lives in the long run by ensuring serious decisions are made reasonably and not from fear.
Plus, doing so might also make you happier.
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BY Matthew Beard
Matt is a moral philosopher with a background in applied and military ethics. In 2016, Matt won the Australasian Association of Philosophy prize for media engagement. Formerly a fellow at The Ethics Centre, Matt is currently host on ABC’s Short & Curly podcast and the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship Program Director.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Should parents tell kids the truth about Santa?
Kids, stop reading now – Santa’s watching!
Most adults know Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Yet most parents try to convince their children he does and try to keep them believing for as long as they can. They use bad evidence and ridiculous explanations to encourage kids to believe because it’s comforting or fun.
Is the Santa lie immoral? Does it teach poor critical thinking skills? Perhaps, but let’s put the philosophical questions aside.
As a parent, I have other concerns. Is the fact that children thank Santa and not their parents for their gifts problematic? Should Santa be used as a disciplinary threat? Does it really encourage imagination? Does lying to my child about Santa threaten my child’s view of how trustworthy I am? All in all, is lying to children about Santa good parenting practice?
I don’t think it is. It’s not that I’d be a bad parent if I did lie to my children about Santa. I’d be a better parent if I didn’t. Here’s why.
Children who believe in Santa thank him for their presents instead of their parents. It might seem selfish for a parent to desire such appreciation, but children need to learn to give it. What’s more, making your child believe the gifts you buy them come from someone else defeats the primary function of gift giving. As a theologian recently reminded me, gifts are the giver’s way of showing the recipient that he or she has worth and is loved. Children need assurance their parents see them as worthwhile and valuable – not Santa Claus.
And as even defenders of the Santa lie agree, Santa shouldn’t be used as a disciplinary threat. “Though lying [about Santa] can be an awfully convenient parenting crutch… it’s generally best to keep it to a minimum.” Yet that’s exactly how many parents use the Santa lie.
I don’t give out bonus points to my students for attending class. Why should we reward children for a mere lack of misbehaviour?
It’s perfectly acceptable to train children to do the right thing by rewarding good behaviour and punishing the bad – but the Santa lie doesn’t do this. It promises lavish reward for a simple lack of misbehaviour.
“Stop hitting your sister or Santa won’t bring you anything.”
I don’t give out bonus points to my students for attending class. Why should we reward children for a mere lack of misbehaviour?
In addition, lying about Santa doesn’t encourage imagination – it stifles it. You can’t pretend something is true if you already believe it is. As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry puts it, “If believing in Santa was an exercise in imagination, every kid would believe in a different Santa.” By tricking children into actually believing Santa exists we rob them of the opportunity to imagine he does.
Consider how one mother who emailed me approaches Christmas with her children:
“We have ‘played the Christmas game’ with [our children] every year. My husband and I purchase the gifts and wrap them in secret, and we place them under the tree on Christmas Eve when the kids are asleep. We talk about Santa coming and what he’ll bring… Heck, we even have an Elf on the Shelf that the kids adore. We try to think of different (crazy!) ways that Santa and the Elf come into the house, or cover the whole world in one night.
Maybe they have a spaceship? Maybe Santa multiplies? … We visit Santa at malls and the kids just LOVE telling him what they want for Christmas. But the kids know the truth 100%. That is very important for us. They know it just like my husband and I do, they just enjoy PRETENDING that they don’t. As my daughter, who’s 7, said “I know Santa isn’t real but I like believing in him.”
To encourage imagination, we should pretend along with them – suspending our disbelief while also being aware the story we’re telling is imaginary. It is possible to merge both truth and storytelling as a parent.
My final worry is simple – trust. Finding out their parents have lied to them about Santa Claus can cause children to think their parents are lying to them about a great many other things. Not always, of course, but some children are more susceptible than others. It’s perhaps even more of a risk than many parents realise.
I’ve collected countless stories about the moment children learn the truth. Many were not only embarrassed or outright livid, but actually began to distrust their parents. Recently, one man told me the moment he realised his parents had lied about Santa was also the moment he concluded they must have been lying to him about Jesus and God. He’s an atheist still today.
To encourage imagination, we should pretend along with them. It is possible to merge both truth and storytelling as a parent.
In reality, the tradition of tricking children into believing Santa literally exists is only about 200 years old. It was popularised after the idea that St Nicholas breaks into the house while the children are asleep to deliver presents was invented by Clement Clarke Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas in 1823. It did not describe an already existing tradition.
The idea was sold to us by rich New Yorkers and business for various reasons – mainly financial – but I think it’s high time that we gave it up. It’s not that we should eliminate the Santa myth from our Christmas traditions entirely, but tricking our children into literally believing Santa actually exists needs to stop. Not only is it bad parenting, but as many parents who avoid the lie have made clear to me, it is in no way necessary for holiday fun or Christmas magic.
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BY David Kyle Johnson
David Kyle Johnson is an associate professor of philosophy at King’s College, Pennsylvania. He is author of The Myths that Stole Christmas: Seven Misconceptions that Hijacked the Holiday (and How We Can Take It Back).
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Feminist porn stars debunked
So-called feminist porn star James Deen has faced shocking accusations of rape from numerous women, including several female porn actors.
If true, it’s crucial Deen and men like him are held to account. But it’s also vital that porn producers, wholesalers, web hosts, and investors are not given a free pass. The porn industry deserves critique for feigning interest in respectful consensual sex while creating and profiting from its opposite – and doing so under the banner of feminism and ethics.
The porn industry is starting to brand itself as educational and ethical. The likes of Playboy are dedicating column inches to feminism, porn sites are handing out college scholarships and entire genres of porn are being dedicated to feminism.
“Feminist porn” is frequently cited as a solution, despite its limited popularity. Should it give us hope for a future of ethical porn? Recent events suggest not.
Deen’s ex-partner Stoya says he coerced her and pinned her down despite her pleas to stop. Her claims were followed by those of several other women alleging Deen had punched, injured, assaulted or anally raped them either on or off set. According to one:
He starts going crazy … extreme, brutally … He just starts shoving things in to the point where he ripped it [her rectum] and I bled everywhere. There was so much blood I couldn’t finish the scene.
Deen brands himself “a guy who bangs chicks for a living”. He features in numerous titles such as Teenaged Whores 5 and Triple Penetrated in Brutal Gangbang. Deen frequently appears on rough sex sites. He is also viewed as a “male feminist” by supporters.
But the accusations paint a different picture – of dangerous, misogynist ideals that hardly seem out of place in the thinly veiled “ethical” porn industry.
The popular notion that porn is mere fantasy with no link to real-world behaviour is challenged by the suggestion some of Deen’s ‘frape’ (fantasy rape) scenes may have been genuine rape on film. Moreover, it is alleged many of the porn crew were aware these acts were rape and congratulated Deen for getting anal scenes when they hadn’t been consented to.
These rape accusations make it clear pornography is not mere fantasy. Some may be footage of sexual violence and it has real negative effects for producers and consumers.
Yet, those harms are frequently denied. Such was the case when the ABC aired Australians on Porn. A Gold Coast Sexual Assault Centre Director was quoted on porn’s link to sexual violence:
“The biggest common denominator of the increase of intimate partner rape of women between 14 and 80 is the consumption of porn by the offender … We have seen a huge increase in deprivation of liberty, physical injuries, torture, drugging, sharing photos and film without consent and deprivation of liberty.”
This evidence was dismissed as “irrelevant” by some on the panel – the majority of whom were porn users and supporters. Porn, they suggested, isn’t to blame for negatively shaping behaviours. Rather, it opens minds and provides new ideas for the bedroom.
This argument sharply contrasts with police views and consistent research regarding the harmful effects of pornography. Studies backed by numerous meta-analysis show attitudes toward gender equality, sexual aggression and rape acceptance are worse for viewers of pornography.
The question is not whether a man can be feminist and a porn actor, but why an industry that promotes sexual violence and rape porn is regarded as ethical at all.
Young women are increasingly at risk. Forty percent of UK teenage girls report experiencing coerced sex acts and 25 percent report pressure to send pornographic texts. The ABC’s panel failed to include any person who could speak to the effect of porn in normalising harassing behaviours, sexual coercion, non-consensual filming or sexual violence. Nor did the panel give a flicker of thought to those harmed in production, or the girls, women and men who have quit on account of physical or emotional injury due to trends toward rough sex, choking and facial abuse.
After dismissing concerns about porn, the panel swiftly refocused on the positive effects of ethical and feminist porn before cutting to air a porn scene.
The ABC panel exemplified the dismissal of social harms with tokenistic stories of good. Those invested in porn are not unique from other industries in derailing critical dialogue with a perfunctory nod toward ethics.
These cynical displays of ethics are also used to gain greater political reach. Porn as sex education was recommended by some among the panel. James Deen regularly penned sex advice columns for mainstream feminist publications.
The question is not whether a man can be feminist and a porn actor, but why an industry that promotes sexual violence and rape porn is regarded as ethical at all. What of the ethical considerations stemming from the millions masturbating to scenes of sexual violence on film?
An industry that contributes to and profits from rape culture is an unlikely ally for gender equality.
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BY Laura McNally
Laura McNally is a psychologist, author and PhD candidate researching the political implications of corporate social responsibility. She is the chair of the Australian branch of Endangered Bodies.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Stopping domestic violence means rethinking masculinity
What does it mean to be a non-violent male in Australia?
If we were honest, we would admit that it means being a ‘wimp’ – or worse, a ‘poofter’. For many young Australian boys, that’s what you get called if you don’t punch the guy that punched you, or if you don’t want to spend your Saturdays tackling others into muddy grass.
Boys and men are expected to show some capacity for violence. Aggression is understood to be part of what makes us male, and we celebrate it as a matter of national pride in both sport and war. Eschewing violence calls our masculinity into question. In some contexts, it’s downright dangerous to be non-violent since it signals weakness and invites retaliation from others.
To prevent violence against women, authorities have been anxious to assure us we can be “real men” without hitting women. Prevention campaigns present us with men defined by the stereotypically masculine attributes of success (strength, money, power) who say they don’t hit women.
The message is clear. Keep our tough, competitive masculinity but abandon gendered violence.
By characterising non-violence as the mere absence of violence, prevention campaigns struggle to articulate a constructive agenda that provides men and boys with strategies they can use to actually prevent violence.
We are regularly called on to “stand up”, “man up” or “speak out” against sexism and misogyny. In practice, it’s not clear what this actually means or how it is going to reduce endemic levels of violence against women. At its worst, it sounds like grandstanding.
The call to “take the oath” not to commit violence against women is largely a symbolic stand. Almost every man that abuses his spouse has at some time promised to stop.
But if that promise had the power to prevent violence against women, we wouldn’t have this problem.
Non-violence is not simply the absence of violence. Non-violence is the presence of characteristics that oppose violence, such as care, patience or compassion. Just as violence expresses a failure of empathy, non-violence involves a wealth of practices that reflect the views of others as deeply important and valuable.
We don’t need to compensate men and boys for the “loss” of violence with reassurances about their masculinity. Instead we need to validate non-violence as a legitimate choice for men and boys and demonstrate how it can be enacted in everyday life.
This framing of non-violence as an active accomplishment is drawn from the pacifist philosophies evident in strains of Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian thought, for example. It is exemplified by the figures of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. In these traditions non-violence is a skill developed over time. It actively builds relations and communities founded on mutual care in which violence cannot take root.
Rather than idolising “real men” who don’t hit women, prevention campaigns could be valuing the other kinds of choices boys and men make, such as caring for others, supporting those in need and working for the collective good. These actions not only oppose violence but they repair the damage that violence causes and transform social conditions to make violence less likely.
Non-violence offers men and boys what they are really looking for – a sense of purpose and a place in communities they have worked to build and foster. By contrast, those men who have pursued aggression to its inevitable end are often left grieving for the loss of relationships with their children, partners and families. In this way, violence harms those who commit it as well as those it is directed against.
The wish to care and be cared for is the very foundation of non-violence and, potentially, the beginning of a different way for violent men. We can show them how to put that wish into practice until they too can experience genuine mutuality and connection with others rather than shaming them as “unmanly” or irrevocably tainted. Care, patience and compassion are modes of being that can be taught and nurtured over time. Practically, we may need to restrain violent men to protect others but that doesn’t abrogate their potential for change.
Non-violence is not passivity or inaction. It’s the choice to oppose violence by engaging with others and working towards their wellbeing and safety. There are countless men living dignified and non-violent lives all around Australia in many different ways. Through their care for others and their preparedness to put this care into practice, non-violent men generate rewarding relationships and contexts of non-violence, usually in close partnership with women. They don’t need or demand their masculinity to be validated in the process. A non-violent life is a meaningful one and its own reward.
The question is whether we as a society really value these men or the path of non-violence they have followed. If we do, then it’s about time we map that path out and show other men and boys how to follow it.
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BY Michael Salter
Scientia Fellow and Associate Professor of Criminology UNSW. Board of Directors ISSTD. Specialises in complex trauma & organisedabuse.com
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Is your workplace turning into a cult?
If every culture has a little bit of cult in it, how do we know when there is risk of the line being crossed? There are a few signals worth keeping an eye on.
Good news cultures
Does everything seem a little bit too wonderful? Do you feel as though people are insisting that you accept how wonderful the organisation is? Good news culture can sometimes hide behind the guise of good PR – a glossy front, shiny happy people adorned in corporately branded t-shirts and caps.
If you sense that questioning, doubt, or dissent is discouraged or even punished for fear of undermining the morale or image of the organisation, a good news culture could be at play.
Dominant logic
Ever heard of groupthink? Cults and organisations alike can generate a uniform way of thinking and communicating featuring jargon and particular decision-making processes. If your organisation’s meetings and strategic documents are full of jargon, or alternative approaches from employees are rejected with statements like, “it’s not the way we do things here”, you might be crossing the line into cultish culture.
Elitism
Organisations that claim special, exalted status can generate polarising us-versus-them thinking. This in turn can pit the organisation against the wider community and divorce organisational values from those of the broader community. Many organisations claim to “only recruit the best”, but when “the best” happen to emulate and follow the rules or standards of the group it should be considered a warning sign.
‘Dear Leader’ syndrome
‘Dear Leaders’ can create elitism and intimacy among followers, allowing access only to those with unquestioning commitment to their belief system and ideology. Ask yourself who has access to the leader – are dissenting voices allowed, or only ‘yes’ men and women?
They often hold conflicting standards – the rules for followers do not apply to the leader.
When the polished charismatic face of an organisation has an internal following full of devotion to their ideas or ideology, it may be time to be concerned.
These leaders may claim new methods of wealth creation, life success or social influence. Their new solutions or ideology may appear able to solve serious and previously insurmountable problems.
They direct attention towards themselves while feigning humility. In doing so, they create dependency and obedience within an organisation by ensuring the wellbeing of the members is tied to their own wellbeing.
When the polished charismatic face of an organisation has an internal following full of devotion to their ideas or ideology, it may be time to be concerned. They can make it impossible to build a consistent ethical culture within the organisation.
Devotional blindness
Do your colleagues seem unusually committed to their ‘Dear Leader’, their ideology, role, status or wealth? Is worship or adoration being generated for the leader and close followers? Does the organisation seem to be venerated in an unusually fervent way? Devotion and adoration can override decisions people would otherwise make in their life. Blind subservience to the leader, group or ideology in cults can radically alter personal goals and commitments an individual had before joining.
Cults expect members to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities at the expense of self-identify or ties with family and friends. They forget their non-group identity and may fear reprisals if they consider leaving the group.
Ideology and exalted ends
When zealous attainment of what seems like an extraordinary goal seems prevalent, be concerned. Zeal for greater profit margins and work success can lead leaders and employees alike to rationalise unethical or ill-considered methods.
Zeal for greater profit margins and work success can lead leaders and employees alike to rationalise unethical or ill-considered methods.
Be sceptical of work cultures that drive debilitating schedules or tolerate sleep deprivation and employee burnout. Exaggerated ambitions or an exclusively achievement-oriented culture should also be viewed carefully. Do not tolerate leaders who justify the means only by whether they achieve stipulated goals.
Scapegoating and marginalisation
Most cults rely on intimidation to maintain their organisational identity. They use humiliation and blame to control their members, often through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. When dissent or criticism is not permitted and individuals are marginalised or excluded from decision-making, you have problems.
Fortressing
Be concerned when transparency is admonished or there is widespread fear that rival people or groups are aiming to undermine the organisation. A simple measure of this is the overuse or abuse of confidentiality agreements. The ability for individuals to discuss their business should only be restricted with good reason. Paranoia and secrecy should not undermine professional transparency.
Does any of this sound familiar? You can find examples of any of these situations in organisations at any time. The real danger is when you find recurring clusters of the signals. If you do spot clusters, don’t despair – many organisational cultures have been redeemed by taking a few simple steps.
Click here to learn about the steps you can take to improve your business culture.
Are you currently dealing with an ethical dilemma? A conversation with an objective, independent person can really help. Call Ethi-call, our confidential ethics helpline, on 1800 672 303 for free anywhere in Australia.
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BY Petrina Coventry
Petrina Coventry is Industry Professor and Director of Development with the University of Adelaide Faculty of the Professions and the Business School. She previously held global vice president roles with the General Electric Company and The Coca Cola Company in the United States and Asia and was most recently CHRO with Santos Ltd.