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Yahoo
09-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion - Calculating the moral guilt of the MAGA faithful
In 1972, the Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer challenged us with a thought experiment of particular relevance today. Imagine that, on the way to the office, you saw a child drowning in a pond. Would you think that you had to save the child? What if you were wearing a new suit and be late to a business conference because of the time it took to save the child? Would that affect your response? Singer didn't just have some putative child and passerby in mind. He meant that more affluent and privileged people and countries had a moral obligation to help those in need, be they individuals, groups or countries 'drowning' in metaphorical ponds, especially if aid involved minimal discomfort, such as a ruined suit or late attendance at a meeting. In today's transactional Trumpian world, Singer and his good Samaritan would be suckers. Seen in this light, the question they failed to consider is: What's in it for me? An ounce of moral satisfaction. At what cost? The suit was probably worth several hundred dollars. Lateness could jeopardize your chances of getting a promotion. So a child dies? Big deal. All that matters is the deal! Besides, the child had 'no cards.' As Harry Lime tells his morally encumbered friend atop Vienna's Great Ferris Wheel in the 1949 film 'The Third Man,' 'Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax: the only way you can save money nowadays.' The cynical Lime fully understood the moral implications of his criminal behavior, selling fake penicillin in post-war Vienna. He didn't pretend to be morally obtuse. He knew exactly what he was doing and was indifferent to the fate of the people whose lives he was destroying. His honesty, although distressing and not in the least exculpatory, was at least sincere. Not so with America's president and his supporters. They must know, deep in their hearts, that in slashing foreign aid, in deporting undocumented immigrants, in letting Elon Musk run amok and in cutting social services, they are diminishing the life chances of millions of needy people throughout the world — as well as in America. But instead of accepting moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they claim that millions of victims represent a small price for the 'golden age' that awaits us at the end of the rainbow. This is where Trump and his acolytes differ from Harry Lime. Trump insists that he will revolutionize America and the world, ushering in utopia. No matter that his knowledge of America and the world is woefully limited. All that matters is that he is God's emissary who naturally knows the truth about all. In contrast, Lime was no revolutionary, just a self-serving crook who plied his trade with a small circle of corrupt Viennese. Like all revolutionaries, Trump has a fanatical following. They implicitly trust their leader, as the Germans did Adolf Hitler and as the Russians did Joseph Stalin. Vladimir Putin, also a revolutionary in his own way, enjoys widespread Russian support today. In all four cases, unwavering popular acclaim is grounded in a quasi-religious faith in the greatness of the Great Man and in his ability to make his country as great as he is. Unsurprisingly, there's no arguing with true believers of this kind. Such unalloyed hero worship does have moral consequences, however, as Singer might note. Germans bore responsibility, and perhaps even guilt, for World War II, the Holocaust and the slaughter of innocent Jews, Roma, Ukrainians, Poles and Belarusians. Russians bore responsibility if not guilt for the Gulag, the Great Terror and the Holodomor. And, like it or not, they bear responsibility if not guilt for Putin's genocidal war against Ukraine. Which brings us to Trump's Cabinet, his advisors, and his Republican Party. The transactional morality they practice makes them all responsible if not guilty for every undernourished African child, for every Ukrainian death, for every American who has lost his or her job, income and future. Naturally, the MAGA movement's guilt is far less than Trump's, but, like the bloody stain on Lady Macbeth's hands, it is there. The problem with supporting a golden age uncritically is simple. If it turns into a stone age instead, you will be held — and will in fact be — responsible. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as 'Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires' and 'Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
09-04-2025
- General
- The Hill
Calculating the moral guilt of the MAGA faithful
In 1972, the Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer challenged us with a thought experiment of particular relevance today. Imagine that, on the way to the office, you saw a child drowning in a pond. Would you think that you had to save the child? What if you were wearing a new suit and be late to a business conference because of the time it took to save the child? Would that affect your response? Singer didn't just have some putative child and passerby in mind. He meant that more affluent and privileged people and countries had a moral obligation to help those in need, be they individuals, groups or countries 'drowning' in metaphorical ponds, especially if aid involved minimal discomfort, such as a ruined suit or late attendance at a meeting. In today's transactional Trumpian world, Singer and his good Samaritan would be suckers. Seen in this light, the question they failed to consider is: What's in it for me? An ounce of moral satisfaction. At what cost? The suit was probably worth several hundred dollars. Lateness could jeopardize your chances of getting a promotion. So a child dies? Big deal. All that matters is the deal! Besides, the child had 'no cards.' As Harry Lime tells his morally encumbered friend atop Vienna's Great Ferris Wheel in the 1949 film 'The Third Man,' 'Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax: the only way you can save money nowadays.' The cynical Lime fully understood the moral implications of his criminal behavior, selling fake penicillin in post-war Vienna. He didn't pretend to be morally obtuse. He knew exactly what he was doing and was indifferent to the fate of the people whose lives he was destroying. His honesty, although distressing and not in the least exculpatory, was at least sincere. Not so with America's president and his supporters. They must know, deep in their hearts, that in slashing foreign aid, in deporting undocumented immigrants, in letting Elon Musk run amok and in cutting social services, they are diminishing the life chances of millions of needy people throughout the world — as well as in America. But instead of accepting moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they claim that millions of victims represent a small price for the 'golden age' that awaits us at the end of the rainbow. This is where Trump and his acolytes differ from Harry Lime. Trump insists that he will revolutionize America and the world, ushering in utopia. No matter that his knowledge of America and the world is woefully limited. All that matters is that he is God's emissary who naturally knows the truth about all. In contrast, Lime was no revolutionary, just a self-serving crook who plied his trade with a small circle of corrupt Viennese. Like all revolutionaries, Trump has a fanatical following. They implicitly trust their leader, as the Germans did Adolf Hitler and as the Russians did Joseph Stalin. Vladimir Putin, also a revolutionary in his own way, enjoys widespread Russian support today. In all four cases, unwavering popular acclaim is grounded in a quasi-religious faith in the greatness of the Great Man and in his ability to make his country as great as he is. Unsurprisingly, there's no arguing with true believers of this kind. Such unalloyed hero worship does have moral consequences, however, as Singer might note. Germans bore responsibility, and perhaps even guilt, for World War II, the Holocaust and the slaughter of innocent Jews, Roma, Ukrainians, Poles and Belarusians. Russians bore responsibility if not guilt for the Gulag, the Great Terror and the Holodomor. And, like it or not, they bear responsibility if not guilt for Putin's genocidal war against Ukraine. Which brings us to Trump's Cabinet, his advisors, and his Republican Party. The transactional morality they practice makes them all responsible if not guilty for every undernourished African child, for every Ukrainian death, for every American who has lost his or her job, income and future. Naturally, the MAGA movement's guilt is far less than Trump's, but, like the bloody stain on Lady Macbeth's hands, it is there. The problem with supporting a golden age uncritically is simple. If it turns into a stone age instead, you will be held — and will in fact be — responsible. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as ' Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires' and ' Why Empires Reemerge
New York Times
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
An Irish Clock Museum Welcomes the Cuckoo
'How often do you get the chance to buy a whole museum?' asked Colman Curran, a retired lawyer turned horologist, as he delicately attached a pair of hand-carved bone hands ('probably cow or horse') to the dial of a wooden cuckoo clock. In January 2024, he did just that, traveling to England with representatives of the Irish Museum of Time here to buy more than 600 19th-century cuckoo clocks — what he described as 'the finest collection in the world to go on public display.' The 1 million pound price of the collection, which had been displayed at a private museum in Cheshire, in northwestern England, was provided by an anonymous patron. Now the Cuckoo Clock Experience, as the new attraction has been named, is scheduled to open in September in an annex to the Waterford museum. As Mr. Curran, 69, twiddled with the clock's hands (they had been removed during shipping) he explained that the wall clock was made in the mid-19th century by Johann Baptist Beha, a premier cuckoo clock maker in Germany. Many people associate cuckoo clocks with Switzerland. (And sometimes not kindly. As Orson Welles, playing Harry Lime, said in the 1949 noir thriller 'The Third Man': 'In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.') But the clocks actually originated in the Black Forest, a region in southwestern Germany near the borders with France and Germany. And the first ones were made in the late 18th century, Mr. Curran said, when residents, mainly farmers and hunters, had little to do during the harsh winters and took to carving the elaborate cases and creating mechanical movements. 'In the 20th century, cuckoo clocks became very commoditized,' he said. 'They became cheap and cheerful tourist tat. They were not terribly well made, whereas the ones from the 19th century are all different, they're all hand carved, the mechanisms in some are superb and some are cuckoo and quail clocks — the cuckoo does the hour, and the quail does the quarters.' A Blackbird's Song On a bright February day, I arrived at Mount Congreve, a stately home owned by the Irish government, where the clocks were stored while their future home in the city center was prepared. Four rooms were filled with hundreds of bulky packages bearing big red 'Fragile' stickers. Inside were lumpy mounds of plastic packing sheets, wrapped around clocks, parts and some tools. They had traveled in five vans to Holyhead, a port in Wales, then were shipped across the Irish Sea to Dublin — all of them arriving by December, despite Brexit paperwork and a demand from the Irish government — since withdrawn — for a costly import tax payment. As Mr. Curran unwrapped one lump, he uncovered a clockwork bird in a cage that, when wound, moved and sang realistically. (It reminded me of 'The Nightingale' fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.) 'It was probably made in Triberg by a maker called Griesbaum,' Mr. Curran said. He explained that the music, meant to sound like a blackbird's song, was generated by a bellows and flute arrangement in the base. 'It's exquisite,' he said. A cuckoo in another package was not in such good condition. 'But he's still got his wings.' The clocks had been collected and restored over the past 50 years by Roman and Maz Piekarski, brothers who operated Cuckooland, a private museum in an old Cheshire schoolhouse. They had always been fond of the cuckoo style, Maz Piekarski said, as they learned to tell time from a cuckoo clock in their childhood home. When they began buying the clocks in the 1970s, they found they could pick them up relatively cheaply because cuckoos were considered unfashionable. A couple of years ago, the brothers decided to sell the clocks and retire. 'Roman was very poorly,' said Mr. Piekarski, 70, 'and things were slowing down. Visitors to the museum kind of hit a dead-end when Covid came along.' (Roman Piekarski died in June 2024.) The Piekaraskis' one condition was that the collection be kept together. 'Waterford came in just at the right time,' Mr. Piekarski said. 'What a fabulous way to end it.' Six Elves At Mount Congreve, Mr. Curran checked on the most valuable clock in the collection, an elaborate five-foot-tall cuckoo that he had unwrapped earlier and was sitting on the floor. 'I call this the Kaiser Wilhelm clock, and it is certainly of a size and scale that indicates it was probably made for a royal patron around 1879,' he said, adding that it was rumored to have hung in a Dutch hunting lodge owned by Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany after his abdication in 1918. 'More research to be done!' he added. The clock had an extra-large seven-inch wooden cuckoo — cuckoos generally are only about three inches tall — and a mischievous theme. 'These are fantastic carvings of six elves who are fixing and winding the clock,' Mr. Curren said, indicating the figures surrounding the dial. But not every cuckoo has such decorative detail. While about half the collection's clocks feature abstract imagery (what Mr. Curren described as 'rococo designs with carved spirals') or themes from nature (such as 'carvings of edelweiss, leaves or flowers, animals frolicking around'), others have unexpected motifs. For example, the collection's walnut table cuckoo clock dating from about 1860 has a standard cuckoo, but on the base there is a picture of a lion whose eyes move from side to side with each tick, a design called an 'eye catcher' clock. 'There are over a dozen eye catchers in the collection,' Mr. Curran said. 'Some are animals such as lions, tigers or dogs and there are a couple of creepy ones featuring male portraits. People like them or hate them. I think they are fantastic, and I want a section in the new building where we will have a number running all the time. Kids will love them!' Into the Black Forest The collection's new home, the Irish Museum of Time, opened in 2021 in a refurbished Gothic-style church in Waterford's Viking quarter. Most of the museum's more than 400 antique Irish timepieces were donated by Mr. Curran and his wife, Elizabeth Clooney, and David Boles, a fellow collector who is a pharmacist in Dublin. The museum, which markets itself as the country's only horological museum, was created by Éamonn McEneaney, a historian who at the time was the director of Waterford Treasures, a six-museum group that includes the Museum of Time and is owned by the Waterford County Council. He had retired in June 2023, but returned to work in March 2024 when the Waterford Treasures board asked him to establish the Cuckoo Clock Experience. Once it has opened, a museum visitor will be able to walk directly into the cuckoos' exhibition area, a room of about 1,450 square feet, where the walls will be covered in 16-foot-high screens displaying photos of Black Forest trees in various seasons. (The museum commissioned the images from a specialist in forestry photography.) About two-thirds of the collection's clocks are to hang there, with the Kaiser Wilhelm clock hung on its own in a small side room and the rest of the collection kept in storage. 'It's going to be like stepping into the Black Forest,' said Mr. McEneaney, 70, as he stood, surrounded by scaffolding and ladders, in the early 19th-century building, which had been a Methodist chapel and, more recently, a private theater. The first exhibit visitors will see is a Black Forest fairground organ, built by Gebrüder in 1825 to play more than 50 tunes. The eight-foot-tall organ, part of the cuckoo collection, is to be suspended about nine feet off the museum floor and a hologram of a child will appear to wind it three times a day. 'Kids will like this,' Mr. McEneaney said, 'I'm very conscious of getting children interested in history. The cuckoo clocks will be interesting for them because of all the beautiful carvings. And, of course, the cuckoos themselves!' (Once the cuckoo attraction is opened, entry to both the museum and the cuckoo attraction will be 10 euros for adults, free for children younger than 12.) Mr. McEneaney and Rupert Maddock, a local architect, are overseeing the building's refurbishment, estimated to cost €1 million. They started moving the first clocks from Mount Congreve to the museum in March, but Mr. McEneaney noted it would take months to hang them all. 'It's an absolutely huge job.' Mr. Curren said he was confident the collection would enhance Waterford's reputation as the center of horology in Ireland. 'There are plenty of naysayers, but this is creating jobs in this community,' he said. 'More than 115,000 people bought tickets for the museums in 2024, and Waterford has a population of around 60,000. It's a cultural endeavor, but it has an economic purpose for this city.' And Mr. Boles, a lifelong collector who grew up with a cuckoo clock on the wall of his childhood bedroom, echoed the comment. 'Clocks can sound a bit stodgy to some people, but cuckoo clocks sound a lot more exciting.'
The Guardian
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Before Sunrise review – Richard Linklater's brief encounter defies romantic convention
Not a romcom, not a romantic drama, but just … a romance, a brief encounter on a train without heartache, a strange and wonderful moment-by-moment miracle that never seems cloying or absurd. Richard Linklater's film from 1995 is now re-released for its 30th anniversary, a stretch of time that gives us a chance to ponder the characters' time-travel musings about their future selves. The two sequels Before Sunset (in 2004) and Before Midnight (in 2013) famously reunited the leads and gave us an episodic study of their growing old as a couple welded together by that amazing moment in Vienna; it was an ambitious approach which Linklater brought to its fullest success with his time-lapse portrait Boyhood, which he was working on around the same period. The goateed and sweetly conceited twentysomething Jesse, played by Ethan Hawke, is on a train to Vienna when the smart and beautiful Céline, insouciantly played by Julie Delpy, sits down opposite him and they start talking. Everyone is reading books and even newspapers in 1995, not looking at phones, or posting Instagram selfies – so striking up flirtatious conversations is not quite as difficult, but still a gamble; you can feel Jesse's heart-thumping nerves as he suggests to Céline that she forget about her plans to go to Paris and instead get off the train with him to hang out in Vienna for 24 hours – with no money for a hotel, literally wandering around with him all night, never revealing their surnames. Of course, the comical or cynical or commonsense worldview can see a thousand ways in which this would probably or, rather, definitely go wrong. But it doesn't – and that itself doesn't seem wrong. They never have a serious row and then make up, there are no serious personal revelations which emerge, nothing that catches either of them in a lie which then demands a cathartic apology and moment of self-knowledge. Before Sunset refuses to conform to screenplay-seminar rules. And they have a long scene up in Vienna's Riesenrad ferris wheel without at any time mentioning The Third Man. In fact they just talk … and it isn't insufferable. I can hardly think of a single film which sports so elegantly with the idea of unresolved sexual tension over such an extended stretch of time. When they are in the record shop listening booth (another amazing period touch), smiling, trying not to catch each other's glance, you can see the thought in the face of each. Do we kiss? Do we leave it till later? Would kissing now spoil everything? They actually kiss up in the ferris wheel, and then carry on walking and talking down at ground level, with the unresolved sexual tension taken up a notch. Sex al fresco would be a challenge. Again, you can each see each having the same thought: is what we have right now actually better than sex? It's a pleasure to notice again, or for the first time, all the incidental details. Jesse has a sister, for example, a character destined to be Céline's sister-in-law. Maybe Linklater was considering a film about her. It is the lightness of this film which is still charming; Jesse and Céline are free from everything, free from work worries or family cares, but they are also free from the gravity of cause-and-effect, the world of consequences and responsibilities. They bounce and float around the streets of Vienna like astronauts of love. Before Sunrise is in UK cinemas from 31 January.
