[Vision2020] The Virtues Come First

[Donovan Arnold]

Mr. Gier,

Thank you for your response. However, I wish to
clarify a few things.

First, you wrote:

". . . I was sharing the podium with a social worker
who was working with Seattle drug addicts. Her office
had sufficient resources for therapy and money to
address living conditions, but still she found that
she was making very little headway with her clients."

The super majority of the people that are poor in
Moscow are not drug addicts and the super majority of
drug addicts are not impoverished. Most people are
poor because they cannot get decent paying jobs or
have had to give up working to take care of loved
ones.

We do not have adequate housing for people in Moscow,
and the poor do not have access to government programs
nor do they have the means to lift themselves from
poverty. 

Poor people are NOT lacking virtues, they are lacking
transportation, food, medical care, and most of all,
decent housing. 

Second, I fully support programs to promote virtues. I
think that churches, schools, and parents/guardians
should teach virtues. I also think that giving some
money, or vouchers, to impoverished and disabled
children to go to a school better suited for that
child would help.

I would favor a government funded program to expand
the teaching of virtues. However, spending $75,000 as
a starting point for a program with no valid
quantifiable data when we cannot bus kids to schools
or keep our homeless shelter open is a bit extreme.

How about start off with $5,000 for supplies and use
some volunteers from the $120 million University we
have? Then if we see some success, add funding to the
program. What meets the needs for drug addicts in
Seattle may not work for the impoverished in Moscow.
Other than Vision 2020, and my neighbor's kids, I
think Moscow Residents have decent virtues already. 

Donovan J Arnold





Greetings Visionaries:

Rose and Donavan raise legitimate concerns about
whether the City of Moscow should be spending its
money on the Virtues Project.  They make good
arguments that limited city funds should be used for
more immediate needs.

Some years ago I was at a conference in Seattle and I
was sharing the podium with a social worker who was
working with Seattle drug addicts. Her office had
sufficient resources for therapy and money to address
living conditions, but still she found that she was
making very little headway with her clients.  She
discovered that the main problem was that her clients
had very few skills to overcome the temptations that
led to drug use.  Sending them to counseling and
giving them a better place to live did nothing to
address this problem.

My paper "Non-Violence as a Civic Virtue" was next,
and initially I did not see how I was going to make
any connections to her paper, but now the link was
obvious.  Rose and Donavan are focusing on the
symptoms of a broken society, which we definitely
should address, but we also need to attend to the
reasons why so many people lack the basic skills to
lead good lives.

The ancient Greeks, Buddhists, and Confucians realized
that the virtues are those requisite skills, and if
they are not taught early in life, and if there are no
good role models for the virtues, then your society is
drifting down that notorious creek without a paddle.

By the way, I want to commend Dan Weaver for his
excellent column on Virtues and Character (Daily News
June 5&6).  He even mentioned Aristotle!

For a draft of my essay "Moscow as a City of Virtues"
see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/moscowvirtue.htm

Yours for a City of Virtues,

Nick Gier

--- Nick Gier <ngier at uidaho.edu> wrote:

> Greetings Visionaries:
> 
> Rose and Donavan raise legitimate concerns about
> whether the City of Moscow 
> should be spending its money on the Virtues Project.
>  They make good 
> arguments that limited city funds should be used for
> more immediate needs.
> 
> Some years ago I was at a conference in Seattle and
> I was sharing the 
> podium with a social worker who was working with
> Seattle drug addicts. Her 
> office had sufficient resources for therapy and
> money to address living 
> conditions, but still she found that she was making
> very little headway 
> with her clients.  She discovered that the main
> problem was that her 
> clients had very few skills to overcome the
> temptations that led to drug 
> use.  Sending them to counseling and giving them a
> better place to live did 
> nothing to address this problem.
> 
> My paper "Non-Violence as a Civic Virtue" was next,
> and initially I did not 
> see how I was going to make any connections to her
> paper, but now the link 
> was obvious.  Rose and Donavan are focusing on the
> symptoms of a broken 
> society, which we definitely should address, but we
> also need to attend to 
> the reasons why so many people lack the basic skills
> to lead good lives.
> 
> The ancient Greeks, Buddhists, and Confucians
> realized that the virtues are 
> those requisite skills, and if they are not taught
> early in life, and if 
> there are no good role models for the virtues, then
> your society is 
> drifting down that notorious creek without a paddle.
> 
> By the way, I want to commend Dan Weaver for his
> excellent column on 
> Virtues and Character (Daily News June 5&6).  He
> even mentioned Aristotle!
> 
> For a draft of my essay "Moscow as a City of
> Virtues" see 
> www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/moscowvirtue.htm
> 
> Yours for a City of Virtues,
> 
> Nick Gier
> 
> >
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