Euclid's Morality

Transforming Words: The goal, perhaps even the definition, of a sermon is words that transform attitudes and behavior. Transforming Words is also the title of a book of essays on preaching. In this book the sometime Unitarian Universalist Minister, David O. Rankin, writes, "... whether I speak in the historic meetinghouses of New England or in the magnificent cathedrals of the West or in the rural frame buildings of Georgia and Minnesota or in the rich adornments of Tulsa and Manhattan, there is always the identical feeling: I am so afraid!" As a lay-preacher over the past five years I too have learned that this fear is real and continuing. But I've also learned that it can be deflated a bit by talking over what I'm going to say with my family, friends, and just anybody who happens to seem interested.

I have to tell you that this little strategy backfired this year. I got comments like: "Euclid's Morality," What does that title mean? You should change it. Who's Euclid? Wasn't he that Greek guy who invented geometry, and what's he got to do with morality--nobody will understand what you're driving at? I tried to explain--patiently- that I hoped that the title would arouse some curiosity, that I knew that I would have to explain all these things and that I had real faith in my listeners' ability to "get it"! Finally one person got beyond the title and asked about the content of the sermon and after hearing my halting and ill-formed explanation surprised me by saying, "Oh, that's a good idea; but you should have a discussion after the sermon." So that's where we are this morning: I hope to cover a little about Euclid, what Euclid's connection is with late twentieth century morality, as I see it; and, finally, I have to get these ideas across clearly enough that we can hope to have a good discussion. So I'm really counting on you to help make this sermon work this morning!

So let's start with Euclid. Euclid was active and teaching in Alexandria, Egypt about 2300 years ago. In that era Alexandria had become a leading academic center for two reasons: first because of the enlightened political leadership of Ptolemy and second because the inexpensive papyrus produced in the region made the large scale production of books possible. The library at Alexandria was justly renowned for its large collection of scholarly works until its destruction in the first century B.C.E. Although Euclid is mostly known for geometry, his book, titled simply, "Elements," was actually a summary of the mathematics of the time, which included algebra and the theory of numbers in addition to geometry. "Elements" is the most widely used text the world has ever produced even if it has fallen out of use in this century. Medieval universities taught their entire mathematics curriculum from the "Elements." Almost nothing is known about the person Euclid. He was probably Greek, but may have been Egyptian. Even the exact dates of his life are not known.

However, I was able to dig up one story about Euclid which I'll share with you: Alexandria was a growing center of commerce and had become a little too crowded and noisy to suit Euclid's studious lifestyle. So he decided to move his family to the nearby countryside. Euclid's wife, knowing that Euclid was a little dotty and quite absent minded, realized that he would be absolutely useless on the move. So she packed him off to the Academy to teach and think while she directed the move. She was also certain that Euclid would forget that they had moved, so she wrote down the new address on a small piece of papyrus, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to Euclid. He reached in his pocket, found the piece of papyrus on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of papyrus away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Alexandria, of course). When he got there he realized that his entire household had moved, that the piece of papyrus with his new address was long gone, and that he had no idea where they had moved. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and Euclid decided to ask her where he had moved. So he went up to the little girl saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me: I'm Euclid, the geometer, and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes Daddy, I do: Mommy thought you would forget."

After telling that tall-tale perhaps this might be a good time to say a few words about morality. The story that I read to you this morning, "The Silent Couple," came from a collection of stories entitled The Book of Virtues designed to teach moral behavior to the young. The editor of this book, William Bennett, is a well-known conservative; but praise for this book and others of its type has come from across the broad spectrum of political and religious belief. Indeed the call for the development of individual character and moral behavior has been well-trumpeted by the media throughout America. I agree that this is a good thing and well worth our attention. However, I do have a quibble with this approach and also a more serious criticism.

First the quibble: Let me read you a short anecdote written by a father about confronting his son who was trying to sneak into the house. The father says,"Where did you go? In classic teenage fashion the son replys,' I did not go anywhere." "Come now," his father chides, "be a man. Don't stand about in the public square, or wander about the boulevard ... Go to school. ... I night and day am tortured because of you. Night and day you waste away in pleasures." As modern as this sentiment may seem it came from a Sumerian clay tablet written about 4000 years ago by an unknown author. Since the Sumerians are generally credited with inventing writing it can be fairly said that older generations have been complaining about the morality of the young for at least as long as human beings have been able to write! Yet, somehow the world has managed to get on.

And now the criticism: We live in an age dominated by institutions. Everything these days is organized, even super-organized. In part this is just a function of numbers. If you had been alive in the United States in 1800 you would have been one person in seven million; in 1900 one person in seventy-six million; and by estimates in 2000 you will be one person in two hundred and seventy five million. Placing all the emphasis on individuals in an age in which the influence of individuals is declining and that of institutions is growing seems like an extreme position to me. Individual morality is clearly the place to start but one must also consider questions of social organization and the influence of institutions. Underlying this call for individual virtue is an assumption that by producing upright and moral individuals a good and just society will be created. This is what I am calling "Euclid's Morality" for it follows Euclid's axiom that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. That is, moral behavior by individuals equals a moral society. Experience, it seems to me, tells us otherwise. While moral behavior by individuals is necessary to produce a good and just society it's not sufficient--something more is needed. I'll say more about that in a moment.

Albert Einstein tells a story about an academic colleague who wrote to his faculty senate with more courage than grace as follows: "The senators are good men; but the senate is a beast." Einstein then continues: "Communities tend to be guided less than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. How much misery does this fact cause humankind! It is the source of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs, and bitterness. And yet nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the disinterested cooperation of many individuals."

Einstein has described a real human dilemma: Something happens to individual human beings when functioning in groups that tends to lower standards of morality and yet we need groups of cooperating individuals to achieve much of what we regard as truly valuable. Too often when acting in a group and our sense of right and wrong is challenged we act like the silent couple in this morning's story. We are expecting something from the group such as money, power, or recognition; and perhaps we believe if we speak out that we will lose our wager.

Because of our history Americans tend to feel the tensions between the individual and the group, between the private and the public in a very intense way. I'd like to illustrate these tensions with a couple of historic examples.

First, I'd like to share with you a portion of a book review that I came across recently. Here's what it said: "On March 2, 1859 436 black slaves went on the auction block in Savannah, Ga., because an absentee cotton planter had fallen behind on his bills. Cotton Belt farmers, their fortunes built on the backs of slaves, were, on average, four times as wealthy as farmers in the North. Cotton was king; the prices of slaves who picked it had reached new heights. A Northern newspaperman, posing as a planter at the Savannah auction, wrote of buyers pulling open the mouths of slaves to inspect their teeth, pinching their limbs, reckoning young women for their "future issue." Yet Southerners defended slavery as fervently as abolitionists condemned it. Slave owners, it was argued, had introduced these beknighted African heathens to Christianity. They supported slaves from cradle to grave, caring for them better than free blacks did for themselves. As for any failings of the "peculiar institution," these were best chalked up to errant masters, not slavery itself. Besides, slavery was God's will; had he not better suited blacks to the high, hot sun of the cotton fields and rice swamps? Today we see cruelty, indifference, self-interest and self-delusion in such arguments. Yet they were couched in resolutely moral terms--in high-flown rhetoric, biblical injunctions and appeals to Right."

An important lesson that can be gotten from this reading is that institutions are not just government, commercial enterprises, churchs etc.; but rather a complex interconnection of these groups. Slavery was supported and justified by law, religion, economics--the very fiber from which Southern society was woven. Another important lesson is the endurance of ideas. Many of the ideas associated with the justification of the "peculiar institution" continue to enslave our society today.

I think it's fair to ask what are our moral blindnesses in the late twentieth century? What "peculiar institutions" will future generations see that we have been dancing the moral twist around? Economic justice is, in my opinion, certainly one of them. The maldistribution of wealth in what the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board recently termed a "golden age" in terms of our economic performance is a festering social sore which needs to be attended to. At a recent national conference of religious leaders convened to discuss poverty the President of the UUA, John Buehrens, quoted the UU theologian James Luther Adams as follows: "We of the middle class are tempted, indeed, almost fated, to adopt the religion of the successful. This religion of the successful amounts to a systematic concealment of and separation from reality--a hiding of the plight of those who in one sense or another live across the tracks. ... The religion of the successful turns out then to be a sham spirituality, a cultivated blindness, for it tends to reduce itself to personal kindliness and philanthrophy costing little. Thus it betrays the world with a kiss."

Now I would like to return to our little discussion of history in order to obtain just a little insight into the development of the emphasis on the individual in our society. The moral question of slavery was, as we know, not resolved peacefully. And a great war, the Civil War, was fought over this issue. My great grandfather Henry Edward Milham enlisted in the Union Army when he was not yet eighteen years old. His cavalry unit was sent from his home state, Illinois, to put a stop to raids by Southern troops from the slaveholding state of Missouri into Kansas which was a free state. This was a small skirmish in a large war, but still quite bloody and violent. When the war ended, Henry and his unit were not immediately mustered out, but were sent farther west into Kansas to fight against the Indians. Henry and some of his fellow soldiers, having seen all the fighting they could endure, refused to fight and were marched back to eastern Kansas under arrest. Henry received an honorable discharge, but he did not return to Illinois. Perhaps he and his fellow soldiers had created a scandal back home by their refusal to fight. Whatever the reason, Henry stayed in Kansas and homesteaded near Abilene, a town which is well known in our wild-west lore. Henry built a home, and married Eliza McGlothern. Together, Henry and Eliza created a working farm out of the prairie, raised a family, fought grasshoppers, and survived droughts. Eventually they had to sell out the homestead to satisfy a debt. Pioneer or immigrant stories like that of Henry and Eliza speak very directly to our American psyche and are one of the wellsprings of our sustained, deep belief in individualism. We are only a few generations away from this experience and we cling tenaciously and hopefully to these stories while our real power as individuals in modern twentieth century life continues to ebb. Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on ... [the] shoulders of giants." Today we might well say that we stand on the shoulders of our networks: our network of friends, coworkers and colleagues; our communications network; and our computer network. The reality of how we accomplish things is in direct contradiction to our feelings of "do it on your own" derived from our involvement in the pioneer/immigrant spirit. I don't think that it is going too far to suggest that today pioneer-style individualism has become mostly myth. It is our belief in individualism that clouds our ability to see the reality of the social context in which we live and leads us to emphasize individual morality and neglect institutional morality.

Well, what's the future to be? I see our institutions in the late twentieth century merging, growing larger and becoming more interconnected. Every day seems to bring news of a new corporate merger of already giant businesses, and nations are joining together in ever larger free trade, economic and military associations. Everywhere one looks this building up of institutions on a vast scale is proceeding at a rapid pace. With every such step the need to address the morality of institutions becomes ever more crucial because the possibility of real permanent damage to the total human community is also growing. Now is the time to teach very clearly and directly that one of the biggest moral challenges to individuals is the often subtle ability of institutions to blunt our moral sensitivities.

During the last century mathematicans developed non-Euclidian geometries, which showed that Euclid's formulation of geometry was not unique. What we need at the end of this century, it seems to me, is to develop a non-Euclidian morality: a morality in which institutions become fully accountable for their behavior. A principal moral problem to be addressed in such a reform of institutional thinking is exploitation both of individual human beings and also of our common home, the earth.

I wish I had some powerful answers for achieving this goal. I don't. But I have some suggestions about how we might begin. First, we need to change our thinking about the nature and source of morality. Our society is a very diverse one in terms of ethnicity, religion, culture, and ideas. So posting the ten commandments in every court room and board room is not going to work. We need to free ourselves of the notion that the source of all morality is theological. I believe that a significant beginning could be made by choosing as a base of our common morality humanistic principles amongst which I would include our Unitarian Universalist principles. I would have our institutions generally recognize the inherent worth and dignity of individuals, the right of conscience, the use of the democratic process, and deal with people on the basis of justice, equity and compassion. I believe that the most immediately useful and acceptable way to procede with such a program would be to be intentional and forceful in advocating the use of the democratic process in society at large.

Just imagine opening the business pages of your newspaper and reading that General Motor's Detroit bureaucracy has announced that it is giving up its opposition to the cooperative, democratic management system pioneered at its Saturn division. GM's management believes that the product and economic success at Saturn can be applied throughout the enterprise and that Saturn is the model for reorganizing the entire corporation. Analysts say that the power and control exercised by GM's central bureaucracy will be greatly reduced as a result of this decision. A nearby article explains that the giant drug company, Merck, has announced that since success in their industry comes primarily from their research and development efforts, executive salaries will be capped at thirty percent above that of the average researcher. The capital freed by the reduction in executive salaries will fund more research to develop life-saving drugs.

These imaginary examples are really quite trivial. Can you truly imagine the real benefits that would accrue to our society if our legislators, business executives, and other leaders of our institutions were guided to their decisions by considering the inherent worth and dignity of every individual, and made justice, equity and compassion in human affairs a top priority? Ideally, these considerations would become a part of our institutional culture. In our prelude today Gilbert and Sullivan have Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty, sing in his pompous fashion, "And I thought so little that they rewarded me by making me the ruler of the Queen's Navee." All too often our society rewards those who think so little about worth, dignity, justice, equity and compassion.

To end this sermon in a traditional manner, I would like to quote a little from scripture. These words are from the book of Ecclesiasticus: Vain hopes delude the senseless and dreams give wings to a fool's fancy. It is like clutching a shadow, or chasing the wind, to take notice of dreams. What you see in a dream is nothing but a reflection like the image of a face in a mirror. When I look in the mirror I do see the face of such a dreamer. But not to dream such dreams is to abandon hope and to accept ultimate defeat. And this I cannot do. May it ever be so.