When it comes to our ETHICS these days sometimes it’s less speaking and more hushed whispering or worse.        .        .a shushing

Are People Really Becoming Less Ethical?

A new study questions the common view that people are less kind, honest, and moral than they used to be.  .  .

Jill Suttie from Greater Good Magazine took a look behind the not so transparent ethical curtain to give us a different look at our ethics, or lack thereof.       .        .

When we read the news, it’s hard not to get depressed about the state of the world. Stories of vitriolic politicians, unethical CEOs, and indifference to the suffering of others fill its pages, leaving us feeling like goodness and morality are nowhere to be found.

According to a recent Gallup poll, people in the United States think that morality is at an all-time low. But, according to a new study, this belief is likely an illusion, based on the way our minds work—not a conclusion based on evidence.

In the study, recently published in Nature, researchers looked at several surveys of hundreds of thousands of Americans and people from 59 other nations around the world. In the surveys, participants had shared their views on whether honesty, ethical behavior, and moral values had been increasing or decreasing in their society or country.

In every country polled, people tended to think moral, ethical behavior was on the decline. This belief held steady no matter when the survey was given, too (whether 1949 or 2019)—suggesting that people always tend to see morality as waning in their lifetime. This perception seems unlikely to be true, says lead researcher Adam Mastroianni, formerly a postdoctoral student at Columbia University.

“You might think that people are sensitive to things happening around them or in their country, and that dictates what they think about people getting better or worse (from a moral conduct standpoint),” he says. “But it doesn’t seem that way, because pretty much whomever you ask, and wherever and whenever you ask them, people give you the same answer—people are less kind today than they used to be.”

To further study this, he and his coauthor, Daniel Gilbert, conducted their own surveys polling Americans about their views of present versus past morality. They asked people to rate how “kind, honest, nice, and good” people were then compared to past years (2, 4, 10, or 20 years earlier) or compared to when the participant was born or turned 20 years old. The researchers also considered the age, political orientation, gender, race, education, and parental status of the participants, to see how that affected their answers.

In all cases, people believed that morality was in steady decline. It didn’t matter if the comparison was made between now and two years ago or now and 20 or more years ago.

“It’s not just that people think the 1950s were great, and then it got worse in the ’60s, and it’s been bad ever since then,” says Mastroianni. “People think, even in the recent past, that people treated one another with more kindness and respect.”

Some people saw more moral decay than others, though. Politically conservative participants thought morality was dropping more precipitously than liberal participants did (though liberals also saw morality in steady decline). Older people tended to see more decline in morality than younger people, too. But it didn’t seem to be because of their age, but rather because they were considering longer stretches of time (for example, comparing current morality to when they were born).

“Older people do say over the course of their lives that there’s been more decline than younger people do; but, of course, their lives have been longer,” says Mastroianni. “Young people are basically on track to look like older people when they get older—which suggests that this isn’t about the idiosyncratic experiences of individuals, but about the way that human minds work.”

Is it all in our heads?

None of this proves that morality isn’t in decline, though. Perhaps people’s perceptions are accurate, and we really are becoming less kind and ethical over time.

But past evidence suggests otherwise. As psychologist Steven Pinker notes in his books, based on hundreds of studies and surveys on societal trends over time, there is less violence and fewer wars in the world than there used to be (despite what people think), and crime is generally down. At least some research finds that people tend to be less selfish these days than in the past, and common myths about generational character differences—that Boomers are selfish or millennials are more entitled—appear to be unfounded.

Adding to that evidence, Mastroianni and Gilbert analyzed some other available surveys: Between 1965 and 2020, over 4 million respondents around the world had reported on their own and others’ moral behavior, in response to questions like “Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?” and “Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful, or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves?” and “During the past 12 months, how often have you carried a stranger’s belongings, like groceries, a suitcase, or shopping bag?”

After analyzing these responses, Mastroianni and Gilbert found that, no matter the year, people saw their own behavior and the behavior of people around them as generally good, with little personal experience of immoral behavior to back up their belief that morality was slipping. This was true 90% of the time, says Mastroianni, and was true for both Americans and people from other countries.

This is why Mastroianni thinks that people’s views around moral decline are an illusion.

“If people are far less kind today than they used to be even just a couple years ago, it should be easy to find some evidence of that shift. So, if you ask people how they were treated today, fewer people should say ‘yes’ today than they did five years ago,” he says. “But we find no evidence of that going on. In fact, we find pretty strong evidence that it’s not going on.”

So, if morality isn’t going down the tubes, where does this misperception come from? There could be many reasons, but two stick out for Mastroianni: our tendency to focus more on the negative than the positive in life, which media exploit by emphasizing negative news; and our tendency to remember good things more fondly, while the badness of bad memories fades with time. When we are constantly bombarded with stories of unethical, immoral behavior from a handful of bad actors, we give them more weight than our own personal experience. Similarly, if we try to remember what the world was like in the past, we may look at it with rose-colored glasses.

“If you put these two phenomena together . . . you can produce an illusion where every day the world looks bad, but every day you also remember yesterday being better,” says Mastroianni.

Why we need to check our biases

Why does this matter? Mastroianni says that it’s important to know if society is actually in moral decline or not. We need goodness and kindness to function as a society, and if those are missing, we’ll need to focus on changing that.

On the other hand, if it’s an illusion, we could be spending time trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. He points to Gallup polls in which a majority of Americans say they think government should address the moral breakdown of the country—which might be a waste of time and money and take away from other important priorities.

Unfortunately, our biases, while leading us astray in some ways, are also fairly hard-wired—and for some good reasons. Being alert to negative news can make us more cautious and keep us safer, and looking at the past more benignly can help us feel good and move on from bad events in our lives that might otherwise keep us stuck.

Still, Mastroianni worries that if we have an overall pessimistic view about people’s morality, it may interfere with trusting others, which could lead to social problems. It might make it harder for people to do business with each other or have the courage to go on dates or form loving relationships.

While he wishes our daily news diet was less sensationalist and provided more context, he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon. But one thing people could do to lessen this warped view is to try practicing a bit more humility. When comparing the present to the past or past generations to younger generations, we should be a lot more cautious about making judgments about their morality or any other character trait.

“Just because a feeling comes to mind easily—like people are less moral than they used to be—doesn’t mean that you’re actually right,” he says. “The ease of thinking something is not an indication of its accuracy.”
BE CAREFUL OF THE LENSES YOU VIEW OTHERS.        .         .
Just SEE them in a way
that they feel
R     E     C     O     G     N     I     Z     E     D

S  O
do you agree
disagree
or do you have a better
two minute spiel.          .          .
Maybe what the World has been trying to tell us
not just NOW, but especially NOW
is that I really don’t care what you think
or what words you use
or how you arrange them
so much as
HOW DO YOU LIVE
how have you Verb’d them up for
O T H E R S
or maybe
N         O        T
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst
I don’t think you can tell the meaning of life in two minutes
IT JUST TAKES A SECOND
of your Caring Catalyst Self
to a Caring Catalyst Other.          .          .

SHE MAKES THINGS GROW

All ground is fertile
and she proved it
by taking what had no life
L I V E
She makes my soul her soil 
when she digs deeply
and prunes, sharply 
The ache is more of a yearning
Ahhhhhhhh
than a moaning Owwwwwwl
She makes things grow
out of nothingness
an Everythingness
hardly without notice
but never unnotable 

This is a poem I wrote a little over a week ago.  Its title is the one for my sixth chapbook that I just finished as a result of the SPRING poetry challenge that demanded 15 poems in 10 days that couldn’t exceed 15 lines.  It had a different theme of the day where one or two poems could be written on that given theme.  The theme for this poem on this particular day was EMERGENCE  

S  E  E  D  S
even in the most soiled of hands
have no chance of growing
no matter how warm the wish
or fervent the prayer
b     u     t 
BRING WHAT YOU HAVE
(who you are)
TO WHAT YOU’LL SERVE 
(who you love)
AND WHA-LA
You have a magical garden
S U R P R I S E
There’s no secret to a HAPPY MARRIAGE
I can’t give you the 12 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIPS
But showing up each day
with the goal to be a
BETTER ME
for a
BETTER HER
has never failed me
and it has failed me horrifically
WHEN I HAVEN’T BEEN A BETTER ME
or at least not given it a better than
half of a chance.        .         .
OUR BEST TIMES
HAVE BEEN OUR ROUGHEST TIMES
(an ohhhh, there have been some severely rough times)
because soaked, shaken and jostled about
we’ve always ended up stronger, more invincible and
     C      L      O      S      E      R
SHE MAKES THINGS GROW
especially when I’ve given her 
some-not-always-wanted-manure
and yet
that served as some of the richest fertilizer
to some of the
greatest growth
that could never really been imagined
.      .      .only experienced
37 Years ago, 
on June 9, 
the day after we got married
we were laying by the hotel pool we had all to ourselves
talking about the future;
we both assumed we’d never see 50 years together
because of our ages
and then
like now
have never been bothered much by how much time we’ve got
because of the time
WE  HAVE
(and so the message that I usually include in each wedding ceremony
I conduct, is the message we’ve always taken to heart)
.          .        .Marriage is
HARD WORK
but it’s the best job 
you’ll  ever had.          .           .
I may have seemingly had The World to give
but Erin’s always had the grace to
bring me HomeWe’ve been able to show each other
what we could have never seen alone.     .     .

SHE MAKES THINGS GROW
Pssssssssssssssssssssst:
Take it from a Drain
who’s been transformed into a
f      o     u     n     t     a     i     n.  .  .

]]> http://thecaringcatalyst.com/she-makes-things-grow/feed/ 0 5921 http://thecaringcatalyst.com/only-time-will-tell-tissues-may-be-required/ http://thecaringcatalyst.com/only-time-will-tell-tissues-may-be-required/#respond Mon, 13 Mar 2023 11:00:16 +0000 http://thecaringcatalyst.com/?p=5834

Only Time Will Tell By JJ Heller, David Heller and Andy Gullahorn

There’s not enough paper in this world There’s not enough ink to write it down No melody is sweet enough No metaphor is deep enough To describe the treasure I have found

I keep trying to tell you how I feel But I always come up short How beautiful you are to me But there aren’t enough words I keep trying to write a love song But it’s hard to say it well Love is a story that only time will tell

It’s one thing to say “for better or worse” And another when you find out what that means So much happens over time Some dreams come true and some will die How do you describe that kind of thing

I keep trying to tell you how I feel But I always come up short How beautiful you are to me But there aren’t enough words I keep trying to write a love song But it’s hard to say it well Love is a story that only time will tell

I’ve searched libraries And dictionaries Studied poets Still all I know is

I keep trying to tell you how I feel But I always come up short How beautiful you are to me But there aren’t enough words I keep trying to write a love song But it’s hard to say it well Love is a story that only time will tell Love is a story that only time will tell

PRETTY POWERFUL, STUFFS, huh, but not quite as powerful as the LOVE that’s shown here.  J J Heller, is an artist I’ve loved for a long time because the music that she and her husband, Dave create often create something in us, or at least shines a light on what’s been created and now needs some special noticing.

J J goes on to share, even more personally:

This video gets me every single time.

When we’re young we make vows imagining an easy and wonderful future. We say “for better or worse” even though we don’t know what lies ahead. We promise to be faithful, supportive and true no matter what. 

Making these promises is indeed an act of love, but living out this love in hospitals, worse-case diagnoses and late-night bouts with pain.. that’s a love on another level. A deeper, expanded love.

With that said, this beautiful video is dedicated to those fighting through intense physical challenges, and to those who love them fiercely and relentlessly.

A huge thank you to this brave couple who has allowed us to share part of their story with the world in hopes it will bring healing and encouragement.

And another giant thank you to Joy Prouty for capturing this sacred footage, both of their labor and delivery several years ago, and also of the recovery from a double mastectomy mere weeks ago. 

And thanks to Dave Heller and Andy Gullahorn for writing this beautiful song with me.

Love is a story that only time will tell. 

Just one Question:

WHAT
OF 
YOUR 
L O V E.          .          .          ?

Mark Twain
once said,
“The two most important days in your life are
THE DAY YOU ARE BORN
a n d
THE DAY YOU FIND OUT WHY”

We celebrate a person’s Birthday

Not because of the Day that they were born

But because of what they have born

Because of what they have given Birth in us. . .

I’ve celebrated well over 37
of my wife,
Erin’s Birthday’s
with her
And not one of them
has ever been without the over apparent
R E C O G N I T I O N
that I,
that many
are far more better
no so much
because she’s been Born
but because of what she has BIRTHED
in us.   .   .
Erin
creates
CARING CATALYSTS
in everyone she meets
or those who come across
her paths

which means that the best
Birthday Gift of all
Is what you cause to be born in others.      .      .
Your are the next Rung
on all of our Ladder’s
that take us Higher
.      .     .Always Higher
There’s no Candle on a Cake
that could ever illuminate more
and it’s
u n e x t i n g u i s h a b l e
Some actually powerfully prove
their Flicker
never compares to the
F L A M E
they ignite
and spread to others
.   .   .talk about a
fortunate inextinguishable inferno.      .       .

It’s not what we remember
So much as what we can’t
seem to ever forget

When you met me
my wings weren’t broken~~
They didn’t exist
Even before you could become
a magical wind
that could make Soar
You became my Wings
and I’ve never landed
or found a reason
to graze the ground
the same way

BIRTHDAYS
MARK YEARS;
M  O  M  E  N  T  S
make
L I F E T I M E S
(and I just can’t stop smiling YOU)

MERRY THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.          .          .
Here’s hoping your lights are still twinkling
you leftovers are still warm and tasty
you joy is still contagious

Years ago, Paul Simon was asked to name a song he wished he had written. The song he chose was “Silent Night.”

“Silent Night?” Really? But that wasn’t even a hit, ever. Was it?

Actually, yes. In 1935.

The story starts long before that, though. It starts with a poem written by Father Joseph Mohr in 1816, an assistant priest in Mariapfarr, Austria. Written in German, it was called “Stille Nacht.”

Two years later he was the priest of the St. Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg. On the day of Christmas Eve, 1818, he asked organist Franz Gruber to compose a melody for his poem. Because the recent flooding of the Salzach river damaged the church organ, it was unsure if it would be usable in time for Mass, so Mohr requested that Gruber write a guitar accompaniment for it that he could it.

The melody that Gruber composed is a beautiful, poignant one,  with the simplicity of a folk song. That simplicity — using only the fundamental changes (I, IV, V and VI) — seems to have been shaped by Gruber’s use of guitar. Had he composed it for organ, he might have created a far more complex melody, and one remembered and cherished by none. But the purity of this melody, with the beautifully holy words written by Father Mohr, resounds like a hymn.

That church was ultimately subsumed completely by the river and replaced with a church named after the famous song which was born there.

In 1935, Bing Crosby recorded it, and sold over ten million copies of it. “Silent Night” was a hit.

In 1966, Simon and Garfunkel recorded a version of the song for their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, called “Silent Night/ 7 O’Clock News.” In perfect two-part harmony, they sing the song to a piano accompaniment. Into that song bleeds the sound of a news announcer bringing news of the day, thus creating a sound collage of peace set against modern times. That news was actually scripted and read by Charlie O’Donnell, who was a radio DJ then and became the announcer on many TV game shows, including The Wheel of Fortune.

Topics covered in the lyrics which painted the summer of 1966 include the death of Lenny Bruce in Hollywood, a march in Cicero, Illinois by Martin Luther King, Jr., the indictment of Richard Speck for murder, and more. The full text is included below.

Simon and Garfunkel’s rendition of the song is simple and beautiful. Back in the day, we loved this version, merging in radical 60s style the hymn with the modern world. But we yearned to hear it without Charlie talking over it. Of course, back then that was impossible. Not anymore.  Here’s the full text:

This is the early evening edition of the news.

The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill. Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the measure without the votes of their strongest supporters. President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start and everyone in Congress knew it.

A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee. In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdoes of narcotics. Bruce was 42 years old.

Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero. Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out if it is held. King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.

In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment. The nurses were found stabbed an strangled in their Chicago apartment.

In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti- Viet nam war protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans.

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war. In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York, Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.

That’s the 7 o’clock edition of the news, Goodnight.

Silent night Holy night
All is calm All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
sleep in heavenly peace.

DO YOU REMEMBER THIS.          .          .          ?
It came out in 2001 and I remember watching it with my kids and laughing with them and wondering are toys the only things that are
M I S F I T S.        .        .
Go ahead, watch it again
and catch some of the things you most likely didn’t notice
or maybe just glossed over
OR MAYBE
just didn’t want to see or recognize.       .       .
It’s odd
This version of
RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSE REINDEER AND THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS

What about the bad guy named Mr. Cuddles, who kidnaps toys so kids will never outgrown them. Or, the blimp, a hippopotamus queen, all with Rudolph thinking about getting a nose job.  Rudolph and his friends show up at this misfit island, where they meet a cast of quirky toys, sequestered away in their shame.  There’s a CHARLIE-IN-THE-BOX, a bird that swims, and a cowboy who rides an ostrich.  And yes, there is a chorus of music that kind of normalizes it like all music tries to do.  They real each attribute that, in their own minds, gives them oddball status: There’s a spotted elephant, a choo-choo with square wheels, and a water pistol that shoots jelly.  Together, wail about their quirks through song and proclaim, not so proudly,
“We’re all misfits!”

Now here’s the thing, I think this part was suppose to be sad, but I kind of missed the memo when I was watching this.  A happy little island of honest misfits sounded like paradise to me.  Can you imagine belonging to a community like that?  Those who wouldn’t bother hiding THEIR WEIRD?

Wait.          .          .WHAT.          .          .
Oh, you’re a bird that swims in water?  Well, Yippee!  I ride an ostrich!  You feel weird about your polka-dot skin?  Well, check out my square wheels chugging down an off the track trail!
Seriously, in what universe would this be considered exile?  These misfits have found their people!  A truer tragedy would be faking perfect, hiding your spots, and trying to conform.  The misfit toys have created a hopeful haven, and it’s what I kind of pray to discover; to have for myself and you, others.          .          .
That by just showing up each day, BOLDLY BROKEN,
your very own island might form or maybe, just maybe 
we discover that we’ve never
NOT BEEN A PART OF IT ALL ALONG
All the same.           .        .
JOIN ME
R E C O G N I Z E
just how
W E I R D L Y
we are so much more alike
THAN NOT.          .          .

THE EMPTY CHAIR
Will stare you down
Glare back
Blink not
Because it holds the
h a l l o w e d
power of
M    E    M    O    R    I    E    S

ANGUISH:
The lack of Blindness
that illuminates
The Empty Chair
at a Holiday Table

The best thing about an
EMPTY CHAIR
At the Table
Is that it has a Meaning
No other Emptiness
Could ever hold
or Capture

It WHISPERS:
I’m still here
It SHOUTS:
Remember When

The Blessing
of an
EMPTY CHAIR
Is it cradles what can’t be held
No Hurt
No Grief
No Pain
No Loss
No Emptiness
That’s caused by a power
Much stronger than all of those things
Together:
L O V E

There’s nothing that shouts louder
Than a Silent Space
There’s nothing more full
Than an
EMPTY CHAIR
A heart will always Shout
What a mouth can’t Whisper
EMPTY CHAIR
That reminds of scents
That holds little sense
That makes no cents
But always keeps us
To what Was
Tortured to what Is
Foreigners to what
For an Ever
Will always be

And the worst of the worst
The baddest of the bad
The grievous of the grief
isn’t
THE EMPTY CHAIR

It’s the
s m a l l e s t
slow rusting rotting
EMPTY CHAIR
that holds
what never was
reminding us
painfully
of all of the memories
that’ll never be
created
experienced
imagined

Leaving us
not only
Empty Chair’d
But Spilled OUT
Off our Rocker
POURED OUT

The only thing worse than getting
EMPTY CHAIR’D
is being
NO CHAIR’D

Forever leaving blank the phrases:
I REMEMBER THE TIME:
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME:
or better yet,
WHAT ABOUT THE TIME:
.          .          .because the worst memories of all
ARE THOSE NEVER CREATED.          .          .          
EMPTY CHAIR’D

It’s a great Friday Blog Question:
IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE KIND TO EVERYTHING.        .       .         ?
or to poetically put it:
CAN KINDNESS BE BROUGHT TO AN EVERYTHINGNESS.          .          .

Driving
Defensively
Looking for hazards
Watching for water filled potholes
He appeared across my windshield
Inside
Traversing it’s clear continent
Owning it
Like an unexplored universe
Not yet known
Discovered
Far from knowing
He could be exterminated
Crushed not so carefully
From a runaway McDonald’s napkin
Snuggled between the car seat
But when arriving safely to my destination
We both escaped from unknown dangers
Never to be seen/known
By the other
Still alive
For a time
A  Kindly Kind-of-ness
Without a sacred
all relieving
Gratitude
Unoffered
But received
(With a Praise to be to the Universe Creator for not allowing it to be snake)