Tag Archives: ethics

The Nice Manifesto

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By Jeffrey the Barak

In the story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, adults are persuaded to accept a false reality, which is eventually shattered by one little boy, who voices  a true observation that instantly makes the adults realize they were following a false path.

I too have my little boy, the eternally young Lamb Borghini, who although tiny and innocent, has a great skill  for pointing out the obvious when I am being silly, or when I am wrong. His often repeated mottos include “world peace”, “civil liberties” and “stop global warming”.

His words of course come straight from my wife, a person of great wisdom, and someone who is simply unable to chose to not do the right thing, or not be nice.

But regardless of the true source, Lamb’s philosophy is simple, true and correct, and it can be applied to very much more complicated behavior in world politics. In world politics, leaders are all too often driven by greed, Sadism, spite, hatred, ignorance, fear, aggression and other ugly aspects of human behavior, and the result is, in a word, unfairness.

It is unfair to exploit a person or entity for the gain of another, and it is certainly unfair to hurt or kill others. I mean this is just plain logical common sense. It cannot be justified by observing non-human animals in the competition to survive. Because we humans can conceptualize good and bad, we are then responsible to choose to be good.

Being bad can be mildly harmful, as in the case of the school bully, or very harmful as in the case of the national leader who practices genocide, or anything in-between.

So when looking at the behavior that gives us the most trouble today, I wonder why Lamb’s simple philosophy cannot be applied.

Why would someone use, for example, a religion, to come up with a plan to misinform gullible children and adults about the true reality, and end up making them think that conducting a suicide bombing, can be good, as opposed to bad?

In Africa, generations of normal kids are transformed into fighters who go on rampages, dismembering, raping and murdering other people just like them. Why does any one of them think that this could be anything other than completely wrong?  Who is responsible for making this their reality?

It’s too easy to blame religion for everything, although on a broad scale it is hard to find a common violent or dishonest act that is not tied into a certain brand of a particular religion or political movement. But religion is one of the easiest ways to make normal people into evil ones. You see, in order to have religion, you have to have faith, which is essentially a suspension of disbelief. If you can be taught to believe that the approximately three centuries old idea of a magic man who made everything is real, you can apparently also be taught to believe that you should run out and murder all redheads called Joe, because your structure of belief has strayed too far from the path of logic and reality.

And so even leaders of very small groups of people, for example the infamous Charles Manson, can lead hereto normal people into evil acts and cause terrible outcomes.

And yet even people who understand that religion is just a new idea that started a micro-billionth of a moment back in the history of time, can still be murderers, if they do not follow the path of good, which is independent of any movement such as religion etc.

If Lamb’s principals were followed by everyone, there would not be war, murder, gangster violence, racial hatred, repression of female people, or any of the other ugliness that we see around us.

Even if we focus, not on murder and war, but on social and economic issues of everyday government, we see blatantly dishonest people getting their way. A good party with all good intentions cannot make progress in government because an opposition party blocks all their ideas in order to try to get themselves back into power, and this is driven by greed. And this is at government level.

The same philosophy extends down to the mundane. It extends to households, relationships and to a sole individual’s own choices that barely affect anyone else.

If everyone knew Lamb, or if everyone could learn ethics from the purely good kids in the kindergartens, all our evil would pass into history. We would all be….  nice.

Cruelty

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By Mark Bernstein

Children can be cruel. Adults can be cruel. And I’m not talking about torture, or rape, or child abuse. I’m talking about everyday acts of cruelty which almost go unnoticed. I can remember most of the mean and cruel acts I have done in my life and those done to me, all with vivid detail.

It starts early. I remember at our little summer cottage an older boy (BC) took me under his wing and taught me cruelty. He schooled me in the art of fellatio and then used to make me give him blow jobs in the big white canvas tent between our cottages. While I did it he would tell me stories about girls he had made out with, or felt up, or fucked. After all these years I can still remember the name of one of the girls (CH) and the exotic image of her I had conjured up in my mind as I listened spellbound and a little frightened to his erotic tale. I was too dumb or vulnerable to ever question what I was being made to do.

One summer while bicycling on a country road near our cottages he and I met up with a teenage boy who seemed rather slow and had a large head. We used call him “blockhead”. Later of course I realize he had suffered from hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) as an infant resulting in his large head and mild mental retardation.

Another summer we walked around with long metal nails which we would throw end over end like knives at frogs, trying to kill them where they sat. Fortunately our aim was very poor and I don’t remember ever hitting the mark, but the intent was there. We also had a bow and arrow and shot a crow that was attacking the nest of a robin in a haw tree in front of his cottage. But we killed the robin by mistake. We both cried. I guess BC wasn’t such a tough guy after all. I like to think that much of my bad behavior with him was due to huge influence from an older person but I guess I’ll never know. I have not seen him since I was about 14 but I have heard he became a police officer.

In public school there was an unattractive and rather slow girl from a poor family who amused us. She had a funny and unbecoming mannerism of scraping one of her oversized front teeth with the nail of her curled little finger. We used to walk around doing that and calling her “dumb H……” (we actually said her last name). I have thought of her often. To NH, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry for being the insecure, pathetic little boy who apparently had to hurt you to feel better about himself.

I remember one of the first girls I had a crush on in public school (DB). She was quiet, gentle, ladylike, and beautiful. She was one of those girls who could walk almost without moving her legs. I loved her so much that my friends (supporting me I guess) and I used to throw stuff at her from a distance because we were such cowards. I guess it was the only way we knew of showing any feelings. One day one of our twigs cut her under the eye and the principal, who seemed seven feet tall and had eyes of steel, collected all of us together and verbally undressed us.

In high school I had a group of male friends who were apparently all as insecure and pathetic as I was. We played mean games on each other, usually using words as our weapons. I haven’t seen many of them since I left high school, wanting to put that part of my life behind me, but I did have a warm reunion with one of them a few years ago.

That same friend and I were beaten up for no reason while walking on the street in the evening as boys. We were about 13 and both small and our assailants were five or six big teenagers. Today it would have been called a swarming. They smoked, and smelled of liquor, and swore, and beat the living crap out of us. Fortunately we only got broken noses, black eyes, and loose teeth but I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness, violation, and raw fear at being attacked for no reason.

In university one year I shared a slummy apartment with two other science geeks like me. One night we had a party and a poor social misfit we had invited left a Pink Floyd album on top of a radiator and it heated up and started to melt and was destroyed. I remember it was Pink Floyd because they’re one of my all-time favorite bands who I’ve seen live a bunch of times and own most of their CD’s. I can still remember blurting out in a loud voice to all and sundry: “Look at what R did”. He must have been mortified but I only thought about it that way sometime later. If you’re out there RS, I’m sorry. I was probably pretty wasted but that’s no excuse for gratuitous meanness.

After my B.Sc. degree I went to medical school and I don’t remember doing any cruel or mean acts since then. But I’m sure I’ve done them – I just don’t remember them. And I vividly remember some perpetrated on me. In the late 1970′s my first wife said something to me in a matter of fact way which I will always remember for how much it hurt me. And she was a gentle, kind person. I’m pretty sure it was an innocent moment of thoughtlessness. About 15 years ago I was at a Conference in a far away city and had a reunion with one of my dearest friends from medical school – we hadn’t seen each other in about 10 years. He said something cruel to me about a secret we shared in medical school – he said it as matter-of-factly as if he were talking about the weather. I guess he also meant no malice. But I was crushed and still remember the moment as if it was yesterday.

Why do we do these things to each other and why do I recall all these episodes so vividly? I do not feel I am unique in having been involved in these little acts and/or remembering them so clearly. And I challenge every reader to not remember at least one act of cruelty they did or was done to them that they would do anything to erase. I guess as we evolve we are mostly taught good values but feel the need to explore the dark side of our nature, or are too weak to fight the peer-pressure of others. Or maybe we simply feel better about ourselves by diminishing others. Or maybe we explore this behavior to learn firsthand how awful it is so we don’t make a lifelong pattern of it. I hope it’s the latter.

Mark Bernstein is a neurosurgeon at the Toronto Western Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He and his wife Lee (a native Los Angelina) have three daughters and two pet Labradors. He has written extensively in the medical literature for over 20 years and for the last few years has been trying his hand at non-medical writing. He is the world’s second worst saxophone player.

My Unfulfilled (and Unfulfillable?) Fantasy

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By Mark Bernstein

Last Fall I spent a month as a volunteer neurosurgeon and teacher in Indonesia. I went alone; my wife and three daughters remained in Canada. It was a fabulous experience to leave my privileged world in Toronto and do some philanthropic work with those less fortunate and I will be doing it on a yearly basis. I didn’t have a lot of time to do much sightseeing but my hosts took me on some short excursions. One turned into a memorable event.

One weekend one of the senior residents, “L”, took me to his family’s country home – a simple but lovely bamboo home in west central Java, nestled in rice fields and small mountains near a town called Garut. On the way we stopped at a hot swimming pool fed naturally by a hot spring. On the way out of there, L chatted up a fellow in the parking lot and then whispered to me: “We’ll get a massage”. I love massages but my initial suspicions quickly turned into worry as we followed the man down long narrow alleys. I felt like I was in a “B” movie, and one that might end badly for the protagonist. I whispered nervously to L: “This is just a massage right?” and he waved off my concerns. The man eventually led us to an open-air room crudely furnished with an old couch and a television. It gave onto two small rooms each with a bed and a bath. We were handed off to another young man who made a call on a cell phone and beckoned us to sit down.

Three minutes later two attractive and seductively clad young ladies appeared. I asked L to explain to them that a regular massage was the order of the day and I added a few graphic hand gestures to clarify for good measure. L went into one room with one young lady and left me with the more exotic and beautiful of the two. She called herself Mickie and I found out she was 24 – the age of my oldest daughter. That’s about all the verbal communicating we could do.

Mickie was quite gorgeous. She had a tight little body, a very beautiful face somewhere between Chinese and Philippina, and mid-length black hair. I found myself tantalized and drawn by her enigmatic beauty and it reminded me that I have always been more than a little fascinated by Asian women. My first wife was the middle daughter of a Japanese father and Irish mother and her delicate elegance and beautiful but understated sexuality was a magnet, along with her gracious personality. My many travels to the Orient and India in the last 20 years have reaffirmed my attraction for Asian women. And every day in my hospital I work in intimate life and death situations with a large number of skilful, compassionate, and ineffably sexy women who have emigrated from the Philippines and China. So the sexual tension was already high when I walked into the little room with Mickie and the door closed behind us. I was both nervous and excited but I knew the only outcome there could be.

The room had peeling paint and was about 95 degrees Fahrenheit with no air movement. I asked for a towel and she giggled as she handed me a washcloth and closed the door. I carefully undressed in front of her and flopped onto the bed on my front with the tiny towel on my buttocks. I heard a belt buckle rattling. I peeked over and saw her shedding her clothes to reveal a skimpy translucent black bikini-style bra and panties.

She poured herself onto the bed and gave me a body rub with a cheap cream. But it was clear this was not her primary area of expertise. When she did my legs she sat between them and the leg she worked on was supported on her thighs as she was in a sitting crouch. The small towel over my genitals slid around precariously. When she did my back she crouched facing my feet so her tight little bum was six inches from my face. Once or twice she made suggestive glances and gestures and almost touches but when I waved my hand “No” she respectfully complied. Being disloyal to my commitment to my wife has never been an option for me, and that combined with the fear of communicable disease shoved any thoughts of “I wonder what it would be like?” out of my mind. But I certainly wondered for a brief moment and I enjoyed every second of the delicious sexual tension that filled the room like the hot humid air.

But besides these good reasons for not having sex with Mickie there was another important reason. I would have had performance anxiety. I was alone with a beautiful young Indonesian woman less than half my age that had been with countless men and I was afraid I could not measure up to her expectations. Here I was a 53-year-old uptight Canadian neurosurgeon with all kinds of insecurities about myself and even if I had been an unfaithful type, I probably could not have gotten it on with Mickie if I had tried. In fact, while I was incredibly turned on during our entire time together (and still get turned on just thinking about it again), not once did even the beginnings of an erection try to emerge.

After about 30 minutes of what was supposed to be a one hour session, I thanked her awkwardly in Indonesian and after I declined an invitation into a bath, she got dressed, then left me alone to do so. Afterwards I joined her on the couch to wait. Every so often she smiled at me and sweetly caressed my thigh or arm as if to say: “Thanks for not being another one”. It was quite touching because instead of seeing her as an experienced prostitute, I saw a vulnerable young woman, someone who could have been my daughter. I thought of the numerous physical and psychological violations she had suffered by strange men entering her body, using her only as a means to an end.

L eventually came out and we paid the bill. Both girls giggled and Mickie hugged me warmly and kissed me gently on the cheek. As we walked to the car, I did not ask L what sort of “massage” he had received. I did not want to know the answer. Many people had told me that marital infidelity by males is extremely common in Indonesia, especially among members of the medical profession.

That day I felt happy to escape but now I can say something that many men may secretly fantasize about: “I’ve been in the company of a prostitute”. But the afternoon graphically reminded me of my fascination with Asian women and it also made me confront my sexual inadequacies and even cowardice. I can tell myself and others that I didn’t fuck Mickie for fidelity reasons and health reasons till the cows come home (and its absolutely true!) but in the final analysis I couldn’t have fucked her even if I had wanted to. Is that pathetic or is it a good thing? I think I’ve figured out the answer to that question but I’ll never be sure.

Mark Bernstein is a neurosurgeon at the Toronto Western Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He and his wife Lee (a native Los Angelina) have three daughters and two pet labradors. He has written extensively in the medical literature for over 20 years and for the last few years has been trying his hand at non-medical writing. He is the world’s second worst saxophone player.

Curbside ethics around an injured skunk

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Curbside ethics around an injured skunk: what would you have done?
By Mark Bernstein

Recently one beautiful late spring morning I turned south off a side street onto a busier street which takes me right downtown to my hospital. Even though it was 5:00 a.m. I had to wait for about five cars to whiz by me before I could turn right. After I had completed the turn and was headed south I immediately noticed the car 100 yards in front of me suddenly swerve sharply to the left as if it were avoiding something in the road. I slowed down as there was no-one behind me and there in the middle of the road was an injured animal. It stunk to high Hell and I immediately recognized in the luminescence of early dawn that it was a badly injured skunk. It was squirming around without making any forward progress flopping pathetically from side to side with each effort to move. It had presumably had an encounter with a car in the dark. I parked by the curb 10 yards away from it with my hazard lights flashing, staring at the poor beast, and contemplated my options.

I figured I had four: 1) I could stop and pick it up and drive to an all-hours veterinary clinic (I knew the whereabouts of one due to a recent illness in one of my two Labradors); 2) I could keep driving and forget about it; 3) I could call 911 or information to get a number for the Humane Society (assuming they have an after-hours number); and 4) I could try to somehow put the poor thing out of its misery.

Number 1 didn’t seem doable or safe as skunks have sharp teeth and claws and are carriers of rabies. Furthermore its pungent scent would ruin my nice suit of clothes and the inside of my car and I had no blanket or box anyway. And was I prepared to pay a ridiculous amount of money (trust me, I’ve been to that clinic) to help a feral skunk? Number 2 crossed my mind (as it obviously had for other motorists before me) and was certainly the easiest, but it just didn’t sit right with me. Number 3 seemed impractical. What could the police do? And the animal was likely fatally injured so I strongly doubted the Humane Society would be interested in spending time or resources on it. So I chose number 4 and decided to end the animal’s suffering quickly using my car as a lethal weapon.

I put the car in drive and slowly drove over the poor beast in my heavy Toyota Four-runner truck. I felt the front wheel roll over the animal and a second later the back wheel. I stopped a few yards away and stared back for a good five seconds and it remained motionless. I was satisfied I had done the job. I proceeded down to work, driving slower than usual, deep in thought and feeling a little nauseated but convinced I had done the right and kind thing.

I parked my car in the underground lot at The Toronto Western Hospital. When I got out I immediately noticed the uniquely unpleasant odor the deceased animal had left on the car  embedded in the rubber of the tires. Later in the morning I had to give a lecture on bioethics which had been scheduled for months. At the teaching session at the Joint Center for Bioethics of the university of Toronto, I decided to start my session by engaging the audience with my dilemma, citing it as a real-life example of ethical decision making: trying to do the right thing in a given situation given a few options, none of which is great. The same options I had considered were offered and none of the class of about 40 mature learners (e.g.. other physicians and surgeons, nurses, administrators, clinical bioethicists, etc.) showed any revulsion when I disclosed what I had done. In fact, many nodded their approval.

A lovely woman, a bioethicist who I knew, remarked that she took the same route to work a few hours after me and she had actually seen the very skunk I had put out of its misery. Another person applauded my courage. Another woman was matter-of-fact but sympathetic to my situation and added irreverently that at least no-one would likely steal my car because of its new repellent smell. That might be an upside for me, but certainly not for the skunk. I guess it was an attempt to lighten the moment with a little humor, or she didn’t worry too much about the welfare of animals. Later in the day I consulted my best ethics advisor, my wife, and she thought I did the right thing although she confessed that she probably would not have been able to do what I had done.

Sometimes in life we have to do unpleasant things but must take comfort in knowing we felt it was the right thing. Exercising tough love with a child with major problems such as drug abuse would be one example. Another would be kicking a child out of the house when you feel they have overstayed their welcome and their life is not going forward because of their desire to stay in the protection of their parents’ womb. Another would be a doctor reporting to a family an error done in the course of caring for a patient. Another would be breaking the heart of a 29 year old woman, wife, and mother by having to inform her that the brain tumor you have just removed is highly malignant. Maybe these aren’t exactly analogous but you get the idea. Sometimes you need to do something difficult but carry on and go forward knowing you did your best under the circumstances. There are countless examples in our everyday lives. We can go through life hoping we never encounter such dilemmas but we’re kidding ourselves if we believe we will be that lucky.

Mark Bernstein is a neurosurgeon at the Toronto Western Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He and his wife Lee (a native Los Angelina) have three daughters and two pet labradors. He has written extensively in the medical literature for over 20 years and for the last few years has been trying his hand at non-medical writing. He is the world’s second worst saxophone player.