When The Foundations Are Destroyed
In Search of the Good Life 
 

Americans have attempted the fiction of raising children by precept and not by example-- "Do as I say, not as I do."  This concept demonstrates a common lack of understanding of some of the basic principles of child rearing and learning methodologies; this lack of understanding cuts across the racial and socioeconomic divide in this nation. All classes of society practice this precept-but-not-example concept with little regard for the consequences of their actions and with little seeming understanding of those actions.

Precept without example has always been a major part of this society. Blacks have known that reality since antebellum times, and they have always understood American behavior as not necessarily good for black life and have clearly classified certain behaviors as white behaviors, hence, things we would not do. But the world has changed a great deal and blacks are changing with it. Certain changes are good, but certain changes should not occur, regardless of how they permeate society.

James Baldwin once said that we, African Americans, have always known white America; we have had to know them for our own survival sake. But they have not known us, they, heretofore, have not had to. But now they have to get to know us for their own survival sake and for the sake of this nation.

Since they have to get to know us, we should not allow that acquaintance to mean that our values, so essentially African American, are put in abeyance, and we should not embrace behaviors that are antithetical to our existence and our identity.  Certainly, we have classified duplicity as a general behavioral pattern that we would practice, except when the techniques of compliance were employed when our survival was at stake.  Duplicity, like other behaviors, has consequences; and those consequences are usually not good.

For years, blacks have been major trendsetters in this country. However, since times have brought about a change, we see our trend setting abilities are now in the hands of the 27% underclass of blacks. Those are ones most media sought after by the media; those are our inner city youths engaged in behavior that does not show blacks in their best light. Of course, that is the group the white media seeks to project. When it can use that stereotype as a comparison, then it can always show the weaknesses in the black community.

Inner city youths with duplicitous ethics are those who have too often  learned them from  TV and the everyday news events.  They represent a type of ethical madness on autopilot or amuck in a society without societal consciousness of its state. Yet the problem of duplicitous ethics  harms children and a people.

Most of what people learn is through imitation. We see and we do as we see others do. This principle is true in child-rearing and their pedagogical experience in school. Children see their parents' behavior and imitate that behavior. In school they study the experiences of others, and we try to replicate those experiences. As they replicate those experiences, they are comfortable enough to experiment beyond replication. This principle is also true in social behavior--we see the behavior of others, and we want to replicate that behavior, and then exceed it.

After the Los Angeles-Rodney King disturbances, gang members were interviewed; throughout much of those interviews, they made frequent references to such persons as Ivan Boski, Michael Millkin, Charles Keating and other high profile white-collar criminals. Although these characters were, seemingly, far removed from them, they impacted upon their behavior, if for nothing more than for justification of their own lives and behavior. Young gang members were aware of these men's illegalities and their profits.

The information explosion, with our immediate access to news and events, links us closely together.  We now know what each other does, what each other wears, what each other thinks, what each other possesses, and often how each other got his/her possessions. The standard and scope of our knowledge is national and global. What one person does in Calcutta impacts another in California. Geographical locations are just factors that once had no impact on us.

Today, one sees through our media, a standard to replicate and exceed.  Now that which we see is global. And it does not make a difference whether we are able to read or not, television will show it, radio will tell it, and computers and telephones will spread it. All sectors of society get the message and the standard is set.   Indeed the Boski's,  Keating's,  Millkin's are prime examples of this imitation of behaviors.

Just as financiers see the behavior of others and they imitate, this process trickles down to young blacks who see behavior they are able to replicate and exceed--and they do. During the 1980's there was a fancy for excess in conspicuous consumption  built upon sand, and many youths saw that excess and realized that the foundation of that wealth acquisition was unimportant. The important thing is wealth, not how one acquired it. Since many wanted to possess things that they considered a part of the good life--fancy cars, lots of money, etc.--and they were unprepared to possess those things through the socially accepted and  approved methods, they went after them with the verve of youth but none of the prepared skills.

Many of our young black males took to possession-acquisition in abandonment of the rules and sometimes in total disregard for human life or human well-being. The consequences of that effort was to leave a remnant in every inner city community--a young man in a wheel-chair for life and lives that just waste away, unable to ever get started. This picture can be found in every urban ghetto today as a result primarily of the desire to acquire possession.  Their options were not those of a Charles Keating, et al., but their desires were the same and their abandonment and disregard for other-people's adverse consequences were the same.

Then, young black males were killing each other at a rate that exceeds war time rates, and they were stuck in a cycle from which they found it difficult to extricate themselves. Part of that problem was the consequences of the ethical problems of America. Young inner city youths reasoned, if most of society is living lives that are contradictory and being accepted without question about their income sources, their behavior need not comport any differently than the whites who have had all of the systems government working in their favor and they still lie and cheat to get ahead. This abnormal standard became the standard for too many inner city, young black males.

Today, televisions and movie houses show hyperbolic violence, duplicity, undisciplined and unrestricted behavior, the glorification of possessions, and the devaluing of human life and human feelings to get those possessions. The guns are bigger and more deadly, the killings are stylistic, and all are without consequences. There is an absence of moral purpose in lives and actions.  The good life is the purpose for many lives and nothing more, and it is to be attained by any means necessary.[]

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