Character and Ethics
Items on personal character and public action
The Elusive Goal of Mastery
Tue 11 Dec 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Wilfred M. McClay
The Shadow Side of Technological Control
Senior Fellow Wilfred M. McClay recently had a friend die of cancer. It got him to pondering again about the implications of our ever-expanding control of our bodies and our world. In this essay, originally presented at an October meeting of the Trinity Forum’s Senior Fellows, he looks at the inescapable ironies of our quest for control. Progress is good, right? Longer lives and less suffering is good, right? Sure. But all treatments have side effects and every advance has unintended consequences.
Attention Deficit Disorder
Wed 21 Nov 2007 • Responses: 10 • by Fred Harburg
The blinding pace of our world makes it tempting to split the signal rather than to give our full attention to the people with whom we are engaged at any given moment.
Increasingly common stories of traffic accidents involving people “texting” while driving add poignancy to the epidemic of fractured attention in our world. There is a presumption that multitasking is a necessary, even admirable skill in our hyper-speed age, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
As an Air Force instructor pilot one of the first myths I had to dispel for aspiring young pilot candidates was the idea that good pilots are multitaskers. Research supports a different conclusion. The best pilots are excellent at rapid sequencing. They give full and complete attention to a visual indication, an aural signal, or a kinesthetic sensation, interpret it accurately, act on it effectively, and then move to the next appropriate point of focus. Scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center conclude that attempting to split attention is deadly for a pilot.
What Fear Does
Fri 28 Sep 2007 by Jo Kadlecek
an excerpt from Fear: A Spiritual Navigation
Jo Kadlecek takes a look at what fear does to us—and what we can learn from it.
In the Interest of Character
Fri 28 Sep 2007 by Gary Moore
I was as surprised as others by the recent larger-than-expected reduction in short-term interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Frankly, about the only good I can see in it is that it was an admirable attempt on the part of the new chairman, Ben Bernanke, to bail-out Alan Greenspan’s sinking reputation among even those speculators he’s encouraged during recent years.
Who Are We Today?
Wed 12 Sep 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Wilfred M. McClay
The Mystery of Personal—and National—Character
Senior Fellow Bill McClay reflects on the American national character, both historically and at the present moment. We can guess at, but we cannot really know, a person’s—or a nation’s—character until it is put to a real test. What will emerge may surprise us.
Believing at Work
Tue 10 Jul 2007 • Responses: 3 • by Stefan G. Lanfer
Three Models for Integrating Religious Faith and Business
Analyst Stefan Lanfer looks at the ways people integrate their faith with their work and draws on original research from his recent MBA work to suggest the consequences of different ways of thinking about belief in a professional setting.
The Judgment of Paris
Fri 15 Jun 2007 • Responses: 1 • by John C. Wright
Popular and Classic Literature
As the summer reading season approaches, popular novelist John C. Wright addresses the limits of the popular novel, defends literary elitism against populist arrogance, and suggests reasons to read Homer or Melville or some other “boring” book along with your own favorites.
Dialogue in an Age of Narcissism
Wed 06 Jun 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Fred Harburg
Advice to a graduate on moving from preoccupation with self to a healthy and enriched perspective.
A graduating senior recently asked me, “How can I develop character in my life?” I think I mumbled something about the importance of reflection and living an examined life. I even gave him an empty leather-bound journal with the advice to be attentive to capture his observations, feelings, and questions.
With the benefit of greater reflection, I realize that my answer was a half-truth. What I left out was the practice of dialogue that can move one from preoccupation with self to a healthy enrichment of perspective.
Jesus Christ: Not Your Typical Company Man
Mon 07 May 2007 • Responses: 3 • by Gary Moore
On Reintegrating Business and the Christian Ethic
Investment counselor Gary Moore addresses the issue of church leaders more concerned for their institutions than helping lay Christians integrate the teachings of Jesus with their workplace occupations. By contrast, he looks at the concept of our responsibility to rightly apply our own expertise.
Beyond Moral Bewilderment
Tue 06 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Dallas Willard
Where is Moral Knowledge?
Senior Fellow Dallas Willard says that moral knowledge is no longer readily available to most people in the normal course of our lives. He shows why this has happened and explains by contrast how the enduring influence of Jesus on the world is due to his sound, intelligent, and testable answers to the basic questions of human life. His life and teaching is real knowledge, by which we can and should live.
