On Moral Imagination

North Miami Beach, FL May 15, 2002
A.H. Schectman

THINKING ALLOWED

Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.

MORAL IMAGINATION

The speaker last night was talking about "moral imagination". He
coupled these two words with the last words heard by the passengers on the
doomed plane that plunged into the Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon
in Washington, D.C. The cries shouted by the murderers aboard the plane were
"Allah Ahkbar", "God is great." And there was the lesson for the night.
These sentiments twisted the message of monotheism.

Rabbi Talushkin, a speaker of great ability, was preaching to the
convinced. The audience was from all over the area and not just congregants
of Temple Sinai. They heard nothing that was unusual or startling. They
did hear some new stories about how people can use their imagination to
teach morality to children and how to live moral lives. He is a compelling
teacher and had new material that we could add to the body of information we
had come to cherish if - we could only put it to use.

I was one of the convinced and I welcomed the ideas (way after the
fact) about how to teach others how to change anger and frustration into
lessons that can make them better. Instead of carping continually at
children to punish them into being better and stop negative (to adults)
childish behavior, we should try to get them to think of how to make
themselves and everyone else the recipient of positive thinking. I liked
the one that addressed the thoughtfulness of people who "prayed" for the
victims that the ambulance sirens signaled they were headed for. I would
hope that the ambulance got there soon enough for it to save the hurt and
maimed. Most of the time I think; "There goes another drunk driver who is
getting his just desserts." Hope is a lot more positive than damn.

It is too bad that I hadn't heard his ideas when I was raising my
children. The habits that can be traced back to the cave make us point out
children's "bad" behavior and every break in the rituals we think are
necessary to get through life. We should praise them for acts of kindness
and thoughtfulness and just stop nagging. This whole approach reminds me of
the idea of "Positive Addiction" that was popular 20 or so years ago.

Carol's Evaluation: 9 out of 10.