Hot air balloons…is that what they’re using now?
When I was a kid, it was lifeboats. This was a common trick back in the 1960’s and 70’s, used by secular teachers to introduce “situation ethics” into the minds of the children they were teaching.
Usually, it went something like this: “Eight people end up in a lifeboat, but there is only food and water for five; so which three must be sacrificed for the good of the others?”
The typical list of passengers included a young woman who was going to be married soon; a young man about twenty or so who was on his way home to his wife; a brilliant heart surgeon; an old woman aged eighty with a blood condition; an old man aged seventy-five with a terminal disease; a single mother with five children at home depending on her; a paraplegic who also needs dialysis on a regular basis, and yourself.
It was up to the kids to each figure out who should go overboard, based on “their personal values”. Typically, most kids weren’t going to throw themselves overboard; and as for the rest, they figured it was reasonable enough that since the girl and the boy were young, with their whole lives ahead of them, they should be saved; as should the mother, because she had people depending on her; and the heart surgeon should be saved, because after all, he rendered a valuable service in his profession. The other three were old and/or sick, with their lives behind them, so naturally, into the drink they should go.
There were variations on this theme, of course, but the bottom line was that it was supposed to be up to each person to figure this out, based on his or her “personal values”. This was directly opposed, of course, by both the teaching of the Church, which states that all persons are of equal value, and by the rather commonsense idea that you could also ration the food and water in the boat, and nobody would have to go overboard, because there’s no telling when you might be rescued—it might be a couple weeks, or it might be half an hour, who knows? However, most high school kids weren’t savvy enough to figure out that the scenario, as presented, was a stacked deck, so they went along with the premise.
I remember making a teacher extremely angry one afternoon during the course of this game. The premise was presented pretty much as above, and then he went around the room and each student had to explain who, in his or her opinion, should go overboard, and explain the reasons why. Most of the kids in the class followed the Standard Party Line ™, although there were two or three who varied, usually trying to come up with a moral reasoning for their choice. These were met by a smug rejoinder from the teacher, who would smirk and say “Well, if you’re taking that position for Reasons A, B, and C, what about Reasons X, Y, and Z?”, which would embarass, confuse, and fluster the kid, since, as I say, the kid usually wasn’t savvy enough to figure out that the whole thing was ridiculous, based on a stacked deck.
Then he came to me, and I immediately said, “The young woman, the young man and the heart surgeon go overboard to save the rest of us.”
This caused the teacher to raise his eyebrows and say, “Well, that’s an interesting choice, to say the least. Would you care to explain your reasoning?”
And I said, “Sure. You said we’re supposed to make these choices based on our personal values, correct?” He nodded, and I said, "Well, just for the purposes of the exercise, let’s just say that I happen to be a fervent, dedicated Nazi.
"Now, the old man with the terminal disease ran a boarding house in Vienna in the old days, and was very kind to the Fuhrer when he lived there, so he has to be saved. The old woman is a devout Party member and regularly makes donations to the Nazi cause, so she has to be saved. The mother with five kids will provide five soldiers for the Reich, so she has to be saved; and the paraplegic is also a multibillionaire who supports the Nazi Party financially, so he must be saved.
"As for the young woman, yeah, she’s pretty, but she also happens to be a Jew, and so is the heart surgeon. The young man is a half-breed Slav of mixed blood with Gypsies, so this makes all three of them sub-humans who will eventually be exterminated anyway, so simply tossing them overboard now will save the time and expense of gassing them later.
“As a fervent, dedicated Nazi, those are my choices, based on my personal values.”
There was a shocked silence by the rest of the class, and the teacher was absolutely livid, but whether it was because he thought I was just being a smart-aleck or whether he recognized that I was turning the tables and using the same stacked-deck stupidity of his own foolish little game against him, I don’t know.
I’m kind of surprised however that this nonsense is still going on out there, actually. Pretty sad.
