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“The awakening of a
nation’s sense of honor” By Dave Andrusko I will talk about this at length tomorrow, but I wanted to give you a heads up. We’ve written a lot today—I mean, a LOT-- about various polls. One we haven’t dealt with was a recent Pew Forum Survey. The numbers are skewed because the sample was off (to be accurate you must have the right mix of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents).
For our purposes what’s interesting is the question that ran like a thread through many comments: how and why people change their minds on high-powered issues that are infused with a moral component, such as abortion. (Another prominent question—and an important one—is when you read survey results, how do you determine in intensity?) One contributor offered a quote from what appears to be a snippet from a review of a book I’ve meant to read: “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen” by Kwame Anthony Appiah. “Whatever happened when these immoral practices ceased, it wasn’t, so it seemed to me, that people were bowled over by new moral arguments … Dueling was always murderous and irrational; foot binding was always painfully crippling; slavery was always an assault on the humanity of the slave.” What was needed in each of those cases, he suggests, was the awakening of a nation’s sense of honor, an awakening that caused people actually to act.” I’ll talk about that tomorrow in the context of abortion. I need your feedback on both Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha |
There
was a discussion posted at the Commonweal magazine site, which
started from that survey and then wound its way hither and yon.