Tom DeGeorges

Why and how should individuals effectively organize for political change?  These were the central questions at the center of a discussion led by renowned labor organizer, Gerald Taylor, Tuesday in the beautiful York Chapel at Duke’s Divinity School.  The event, hosted by the faculty working group on race, religion, and politics (supported by an Intellectual Community Planning Grant from the Duke University Office of the Provost) and co-sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, provided an intellectual oasis in the Durham summer heat this week for grateful community members. 

Taylor, former regional director for the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in the Southeast, talked about the need to check corporate power in the United States through institution-building and reconnecting with faith-based groups, rural communities and military veterans. 

During Taylor’s time at the IAF, the organization pursued a similar strategy of investing in communities and neighborhoods in cities such as San Antonio, Baltimore, and New York.  He singled out the Durham CAN network of congregations, associations, and neighborhoods as pursuing such a strategy in the Triangle.

Left unchecked, Taylor warned, corporate power can lead to abuses that can ruin an individual’s financial credit, jeopardize their personal information on social media, and destroy the historic fabric of the communities they live in.

Taylor regretted that the progressive liberal establishment today no longer invests in relationship-building with churches, unions, or rural communities, which was common during the height of the historical populist movement that peaked in the 1890s, before corporate power was concentrated in the steel, railroad, and oil industries. Pointing to this historic, if short-lived example of Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and other white and black churches organizing together for policies to benefit all citizens, he emphasized the importance of understanding faith communities’ influence on all aspects of their members’ lives, and finding ways to work together for the common good.

Duke faculty and students, coming from multiple departments, Religious Life, and the Duke Faculty Union joined members of various local faith communities, schools, and nonprofits for the conversation. Participants continued to talk and make connections with one another informally even after the event ended, and expressed appreciation for this dynamic discussion.

 

 

The Ethics of Now with Adriane Lentz Smith continues next year.

For Fall 2019, Professor Hu will offer her course, “Data & Democracy: Foreign Interference in US Elections and Cyber Ethics.” 
For more information about Technically Right, visit dukeethics.org

Just because we can do a thing, MUST we?  This question was the subtext to Dr. William Hurlbut’s (Stanford University Medical Center) talk on the ethical perils of human gene editing to an engaged audience this week.  Organized by the Arete Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and co-sponsored by the Trent Center for Bioethics and the Duke Program in Genetics and Genomics, the talk focused on the ethical perils and human costs of rapid advances in gene editing techniques in recent years.

Editing genetic material found in cells used to take years.  With the advent of new, cheap, quick and easy to use tools that use a modified bacterial system to edit and delete animal genes, the process can now be shortened to months or weeks.  Hurlbut ventured to say that such advances could have clear benefits for all of humanity.  Imagine preventing disease by engineering infectious agents or cancerous cells out of existence? 

Why then should we be worried?  Among the troubling aspects of this new technology is the hubris of thinking we as a species can do better than evolution at designing living things. Hurlbut cautioned against replacing the ancient Galenic paradigm of healing as an end to medicine with a new “liberation” paradigm, in which we can rid ourselves of traits we deem inconvenient or socially harmful, but which do not pose a medical threat. 

The implications of more profound experiments with germ cells (those cells that have reproductive ability such as sperm or eggs) run from the horrific (the creation of human-animal mutants) to the more morally ambiguous (Should we bring species back from the dead? Or send those to extinction we deem harmful?)  

What are our medical standards in the emerging field of gene editing? By what principles will we operate?  Hurlbut recounted his experience working with and befriending He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who altered the genome of twin girls in an attempt to protect them against HIV, as a way of providing possible answers to such questions.

Despite repeated pleas not to pursue gene editing on human embryos, including many conversations with William Hurlbut, He decided to go ahead with the experiment.  In 2018, He Jiankui announced that he had successfully used germ-line genetic editing on human embryos to create twins who no longer carried the gene CCR5 – the absence of which has been shown to convey a measure of resistance against contracting the virus that causes AIDS. 

While much still remains unknown about He’s laboratory procedures in this case, Hurlbut indicated that the regulatory environment in China, where “Shenzen Speed” (a phrase referring to the pressure placed on scientists like He Jiankui to produce results) may have contributed to dubious research protocols.  In sharp contrast, the United States has a long and public history of  bioethical debate over research involving stem cells or human embryos.  Having served on President Bush’s Council for Bioethics from 2002-2009, Hurlbut walked his listeners through the legislative and executive actions taken to prevent experimentation on human embryos in the Clinton and Bush administrations.  President Bush signaled the importance he placed on human dignity and limiting experimentation with human embryos by convening the bioethics commission which Hurlbut served on.

As the Chinese case study demonstrates, it is difficult to have confidence in the global scientific community’s ability to self-regulate their research on the basis of bioethical norms.  Only governments, in global coordination, can provide appropriate regulatory oversight.  Without such safeguards, human gene editing may become widespread and dangerous.

The Arete Initiative sponsors scholarship and learning opportunities that are focused on recovering and sustaining the virtues in contemporary life, especially in the workplace, the university, and the public square. “Arete” is a Greek word that connotes moral virtue or, more broadly, human excellence.

In a packed house, members of the Duke community came together to hear Margarita Mooney (Princeton) talk about why personalism, or being human in the modern world, has value in education.  Farr Curlin, Director of the Arete Initiative at Kenan, introduced Mooney as being well-aligned with this series of speakers who explore how best to live a good and worthy life in the public sphere.  In specific reference, Arete guest speaker Christine Wampole (Princeton) focused her discussion last semester on universities as laboratories for innovation and experimentation to nurture their students’ well-being and character. 

Criticizing the “burnout culture” she described as rampant in the American university, Mooney blamed the misplaced focus on education as a credentialing opportunity, rather than an opportunity to grapple with moral virtues to discover each individual’s “inner vitality.”  This focus on grades and competitive metrics created profound unhappiness among her students who complained to Mooney of the huge discrepancy between the college experience they hoped for and the one they actually received.  This disillusionment, Mooney argued, leads to burnout and a rise in incivility, conflict and mental health issues across America’s campuses.

In response to this crisis, Mooney founded the Scala Foundation (a reference to the Benedictine rule that in order to ascend to God’s presence, one must be prepared to step down in humility) to support her students in forming authentic friendships and character building.  Drawing on the work of French philosopher, Jacques Maritain, and German phenomenologist, Max Scheler, Mooney’s project critiques the modern university’s pedagogical approach as one designed to accommodate the pragmatic instincts of many students. Since these impulses are often driven by base instincts such as power, sex, or nourishment—all at the expense students’ humanity.

Throughout her talk, Mooney repeatedly emphasized that while the university does many things well, it cannot and should not try to do all things well.  Misplaced efforts to shape students’ will or character may deform rather than construct if pressed too much.  In contrast, the Scala method emphasizes an approach based on human freedom by means of Socratic and experiential techniques to explore concepts of hospitality, charity and authentic friendship, serving to bridge the alienation and conflict often encountered on campus.  Furthermore, it guides students towards practical applications that improve their well-being and that of others around them. The Institute is trying to do just that with the new What Now: The Duke Guide to Happiness, Purpose & Well-Being in partnership with Trinity College. 

Ultimately, Mooney warned her audience that if students (and professors) are not taught to embrace the freedom and reason intrinsic to being human, then all that remains are those base desires and challenges to experiencing pleasure. We can help—and must—students integrate what they learn in the classroom to the big and small daily practices that make up a fulfilling human life. Mooney noted an alumni’s praise and endorsement for these concepts for forcing him to “reread and restructure his life in light of intellectual formation.” 

This event was co-sponsored by Center for Christianity and Scholarship.

The What Now network of first-year seminars creates a community organized around (really!) big questions and building the skills to not only begin to answer them but live better in the process. Through the network, you’ll take a seminar led by engaged faculty. You’ll also regularly connect with students and faculty in related courses. By taking one course, you’ll have access to a wider array of ideas and students than is usually possible in a single seminar.