The Horns of a Dilemma

How do you produce a culturally sensitive person of integrity without tipping the balance so far to the right that you end up with a Pat Buchanan clone? It may sound like an easy task to simply state that while I might understand why certain areas of Africa practice female circumcision, it is a morally abhorrent behavior. The Religious Right accuses the schools of promoting secular humanism and avoiding the inculcation of moral truth. Yet, much of the clearly immoral cultural rituals found throughout the world are the consequence of the limited autonomy of women, particularly resulting from issues of reproductive sovereignty. I do not believe it is necessary to remind the open-minded reader to recall how and with whom the Religious Right has voted when invited to participate in world population conferences.

Despite the perception that when we were growing up the moral rules were quite clear, I believe that our young people are not the only ones employing a "supermarket, eclectic approach to moral decision-making." Attend a high school parent meeting on class ranking and observe the dynamics of absolute moral truth versus whatever works.

Partisan politics aside, the recent United Nations conference on women's rights highlights clear cases of moral outrages committed against women in the name of religion and culture. The genital mutilations, the honor killings, female slavery and denial of bodily autonomy represent clear examples of morally wrong assaults on human dignity. In fact, I have difficulty even considering these behaviors as legitimate studies for the morally neutral social scientists. [Women's Human Rights Resources- http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/ ]

I have been retired from the classroom for three years and I am still searching for the educational mechanism that will create the self-confident, but tolerant individual. It is a search that is hindered by partisan rhetoric, exploitive media and the increased specialization required by today's highly technical dot.com world. The well-rounded Renaissance generalist is not in great demand today. A great deal of knowledge of specifics prevents the student from seeing the forest, so get those damn trees out of the way!

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