Why @ MindSay 
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I don’t know why so many children are so thoughtless and so cruel to other creatures and so indifferent to their suffering. When I was still too young to leave our yard by myself I remember that as my mother worked in the garden I entertained myself by chasing butterflies and batting them out of the air with a board I swung like a paddle. When they fell stunned, crippled, or dead, I collected them in canning jars and thought nothing of it—until years later at Iowa State in my required course in Shakespeare I read this passage in Coriolanus and remembered my childhood:
I saw him run after a gilded butterfly: and when he caught it, he let it go again; and after it again; and over and over he comes, and again; catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it; o, I warrant it, how he mammocked it!To this day I can recall with disgust the repulsive, distinctive sour smell of the colorful corpses at the bottom of the canning jars I had forgotten to empty after my innocent morning amusement of a day or two earlier.
As far back as I can remember on my strolls to school or to the home of a friend I seldom failed to kick to dust and destroy any ant hill I might discover raised up from the crack between two slabs of concrete sidewalk and to mash with my sneaker any ants that tried to scurry away. Many years later, out for a summer walk with my grandchildren, just toddlers, no older than three or four, their soft, precious, tiny hands in mine, we’d stumble across a colony of ants just as I had. First, Dylan or Katy would hunker down, curious, and peer at them, then with a kind of scientific detachment they’d perhaps dare to touch one or two, maybe poke at them, and then finally with a shudder, real or pretended, they’d move to destroy them. Though I always tried, rarely could I deter them from doing just as I had done as a child.
“Ants can’t hurt you—just let them be.”
“No!”
One morning less than half a block from home on my way to school when I was just eight or nine years old I came across a fat squirrel stopped and alert six feet up the trunk of a huge tree maybe ten feet away from me. I stopped too. The squirrel and I looked at one another, silent and still. I decided to throw something at it, I don’t know why, and I looked around me for a suitable projectile.
Aha!
Right beside me, just off the sidewalk, lay a discarded, heavy, red paving brick. At best, I thought, I might startle the squirrel and scare it on up the tree. I could only heave the brick—with a grunt—from my shoulder as a shot putter might.
Thud.
To my complete astonishment the brick hit the squirrel flush in the back. It did not fall, it did not move—nor did I. Guilty now, sorry for what I had done, I just stood and watched to see what would happen. Stunned, hurt, perhaps seriously injured, the squirrel appeared to rest and to collect itself and then slowly, ever so slowly, it climbed, just one slow tentative step at a time up the tree and—contemplative, sad—I resumed my own slow stroll to school. In my classes I have told this story many times. When the paving brick struck my target, an indelible image of my own thoughtless cruelty was imprinted upon my memory, and for over fifty years, for almost sixty, every time the subject has come up I have told this story. Like D.H. Lawrence in his poem “Snake,” I have something to expiate.
A pettiness.
In the intervening years I’ve read and heard many anecdotes and tales much worse. Mike Parsons, a young student of mine at Upper Iowa College in the mid-70s, included one such short story in his collection of anecdotes about acts of violence he either witnessed or committed himself in his own nineteen years of life. Ten years old, because of trouble at home, Mike spent the summer on a friend’s farm. The first morning there he was up at 5:00 to help milk the cows, and his friend’s father told his son they had too many cats on the farm and that he’d have to get rid of the kittens again. Larry, Mike’s friend, gathered the kittens in a burlap bag he carried along with a baseball bat to the barnyard. Mike writes:
Larry took out one of the kittens, tossed it into the air, and smashed it with the bat. I heard bones snap, bouncing off the bat.Though it has been thirty years since Mike wrote down this story in his freshman English class with me, I still use it and others from his collection in my classes. It has caused young men to curse, young women to cry, several, disgusted, sickened, to excuse themselves and to leave the room. I no longer read this story aloud in class. Instead I make copies and warn readers that some previous students have found this particular anecdote intolerable. Yet from students who do read it the incident invariably evokes similar stories of cruelty to animals, a few even worse.
“Home run!” laughed Larry. “Want to get your licks in, Mike?”
I looked at the half-dead kitten pawing the dirt. I could not speak. I looked away. He pulled out another kitten and smashed it with the bat. He continued this slaughter until all of the kittens had been batted over the barnyard. A full-grown cat lurked around the corner. I asked Larry if it was the mother.
It was.
The mother cat sniffed at her tortured babies and seemed to look up at me.
“I want to go inside,” I told Larry.
Together we remember, we tell, we listen, we confess, we groan, we laugh, yes, confused, nervous, feeling guilty, we laugh.
We think.
Puffy and swollen eyes later, a stomache full of crabs and a glass of wine or two I can at least breathe when I thought I lost my breathe for good. I don't know why I do the things I do, I just do. Today was supposed to be rest day, I took off I was supposed to chill and just be, but nope I can't do that. Instead of finishing up in the yard or playing with the kids I decided to drop off a window screen Nina Simone shredded last year. I put the screen in the back of the car and headed off to the post office. Today was the first day it had not rain in over a week, a little in the low 70s but I love that temp. I breathed in the air and just as I was about to leave something said "yo let the top down" Can you recall the sound you heard the first time you broke a bone or the loud beating of your heart during your first kiss? Thats what the damn glass sounded like as everything fell apart. I screamed and the tears came along with the snott and why me and you gotta be freekin kidden me.
Hours later I can once again try to be grateful that it is just a window. I can try to be grateful that it will just be 499.00. I can be grateful that I have my car and as annoying and painful as this has been I will come through and out. Only God knows how much I was hurting today, lonely and wishing I had that "him" to hod and kiss away the hurt. Only God knows what my tomorrow will be but if nothing else he has to have something greater planned than both my today and yesterday.
It stinks but yes I am grateful.
If you ever take an Ethical Reasoning class, basically through EVERYTHING you believe in as ethical and moral and throw it out the door! And I am not shittin you!
Now granted the ethical reasoning class I went to is a class of 6 total classes to become a drug/alchol counslor in the state of NE, so we had to learn a couple of laws that are used as a drug and alchol clients and counselors. And half of us were either just starting the classes and the other half were working LDACs or Social Workers who work with addicts. What just boggles those of us new to these classes is the fact counselors have to juggle not just the federal law on confidentiality but also the State Law of reporting abuse of any kind! Thus why you take the Ethical Reasoning class and find out that everything you normally would think and do is WRONG!!!!!!!
When a counselor deals with issues we have 4 main choices to choose from after we do our ethical reasoning and decision:
1. Legal and ethical, or
2. Legal and unethical, or
3. Illegal and ethical, or
4. illegal and unethical
Out of our four choices, we were told that we really do NOT ever want to choose #4 but that we would choose #s 1-3 all the time in our wide range of issues and decisions. Amazing huh? That we would choose illegal and ethical or legal and unethical but trust me after dealing with some secenarios that actual counselors had to deal with, you would be amazed at how many times you would choose illegal and ethical or legal and unethical! We were also told and it made total sense that when laws are in conflict with this profession, the bigger wins except when smaller is tougher!
Then we got a very brief introduction into the Stages of Ethical/Moral Reasoning. Which made EVERYONE's brains go to mush! We were taught that Lawrence Kohlberg is the champion of research in the area of moral development and if you are going to buy any books (modern) to make sure you look in the back to make sure that Kohlberg is listed as a source. Paiget took a lot of works include Freud's (which was pointed out that Freud may have been wrong on a lot of things in a lot of ppl's views but he was right on a lot of things that are used across the board by many ppl!) and even though Paiget is now dismissed with a lot of his research in moral reasoning, he is credited with having accelerated the effer to understand psychology of moral reasoning which includes Kohlberg's stages of of Moral/Ethical Reasoning that we use today.
LDACs and other counselors always look at their final decision they make for a client and then look at what stage of Moral/Ethical REason they are using. And what is so upsetting but not suprising is that once a person starts working as any form of counselor, their Moral/Ethical Reason goes from what they dub a Jr. High level after a few years working back down to an Infant level. Because they start out with good intentions and follow through with them, they get in trouble either via their organization or the law for being a truely ethical and moral counselor! So after that, they revert back to the infant level to cover their butts because they have been burned!
There are three main catagories of Moral/Ethical Reasoning that are then broken into 6 stages that we use today: (I am going to use an example from our ethics manual)
Stage 1: If I don't take the course I'll get in trouble. (Infant-Concerned with self)
Stage 2: I need the CEU's, so I'll take the course. (Toddler-Concerned with self)
These two stages fall into the Preconventional Level of Reasoning that the majority of ppl revert back to once working in a counseling and other profession after a few years.
Stage 3: I'll take the course because I know the presenters are truly wonderful human beings and I want them to like me. (Jr. High-Social/Group Concern)
Stage 4: I'll go because my boss told me to and thus it's my duty. (Law & Order-Social/Group Concern)
These two stages fall into the Conventional Level of Reasoning that the majority of ppl who do NOT work in counseling professions funtion at (before they become counselors!) and the level that the majority of those ppl in professoins as Police Officers, Medical professions, Judiciary professions, and the Military function at.
Stage 5: I'll go because I have accepted a job as a counselor, and have thus also accepted the responsibility to discharge my duties in an ethical manner. (Negotiation to find balance)
Stage 6: I'll take the course out of respect for dignity of my clients, who deserve, simple by virtue of being a human, to be treated in accordance with the highest possible ethical standards. (Individal vs. Social)
These two stages fall into the Postconventional, Autonomous, or Principled Level of Reasoning that very few ppl ever fall into. What is so suprising is that the US Constitution was written to these two levels by 30-45 year old White men who were slave owners and they thought and wrote like this when the Constitution was being constructed. The same with the Magna Carta. Any Country that has been through a lot and still flurised and wrote laws and other things at this level have flurished and have functioned orginally at this level of Reasoning!
Amazing isn't it. And I am not done with the things I have learned! We also had to learn about putting 4 factors into play after we came to our Decision and our Rational of why we got there. Those Rules as they were dubbed in our class are:
Beneficence--the duty to promote welfar of, and prevent harm to, all persons we serve. Whic extendes to the community and is a must for all counselors to pursue.
Nonmaleficence--the duty to do no harm Sounds Wiccany to me if you ask me! This actual principle is traceable back to Hippocrates. In other words, we have a duty to avoid potential harmful multiple relationships with not only our clients but their families.
I was very happy to hear in this class, that I and my friend that went to this class who are Pagans, were NOT the only ones that had a HUGE problem with Nonmaleficence. In reality there is NO such thing as doing NO HARM to ANYONE! And when a few of us brought this up to the Ethics Presentors, it was explained to us that we are correct, somone is ALWAYS going to get harmed in what ever decsioin we make and our job is to ethical come to a decision as to who is going to get the least amount of harm presented to them!
Rspect for Client Autonomy--duty to recognize the client's right to make her/his own decisios, at the same time the substantial influence we have over those decisions and the potential conflict between duty to respect client autonomy and the duty to prevent harm
Justice-- the duty to treat individuals fairly, provide equal access to services regardless of race, disability, appearance religion age gender ethnicity intelligence, sexual orientation, national ancestory, martial economic educational or social status
Then after learning all about these lovely things, we got told there is of course no book that we can resort to when we have delimias. Suprise Suprise!:P
Anyway, I got a lot out of the class even if I didn't agree with some of the decisions that were eventually made by unknown counselors scenarios that we were presented and had to make our own decisions over! But that is why in the Ethical/Moral Reasoning class there is truely no right or wrong answer to any of your decisions! This class was to help you think in an ethical manner and then be able to explain your decision and WHY! We learned to always ask WHY we came to any decision in anything more than 5 times because then and only then would we come to the true understand at what is at the core of our ethical reasoning!
The Paradox of Our Age
by By Dr. Bob Moorehead (corrected)
We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom and lie too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less.
We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; more food but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort but less success.
We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes.
These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window, and nothing in the stockroom.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
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