Op-Ed: Combatting An Accusation Of Moral Hypocrisy

Op-Ed: Combatting An Accusation Of ethical Hypocrisy

On November 20, 2014, Chair of Swarthmore Board about Managers Gil Kemp published a feeling piece titled "Divestment an empty motion, college seeks better solutions. " Part of Mr. Kemp's argument to make why divestment is an "empty gesture" is quoted here: "Divestment's underlying success as a moral response is bound – if not completely negated : so long as its advocates continue to open the lights, drive cars a legitamate manufactured goods. "

I believe of the fact that Kemp's moral reasoning is chipped. Divestment is intended to put social problem on lawmakers and CEOs to national energy policy. Our vertueux right to exert this large-scale problem is not impeded by our single participation in the corrupt system. Fresh faces historical analogies should suffice:

- Would Kemp have told Quaker abolitionists in 1850, "Abolition's excellent as a moral response is limited : if not completely negated – as long as abolitionists continue to wear cotton garment produced by slaves? " In 1840, almost all cotton in the US was gathered by slaves. Quaker abolitionists gained no choice but to participate in the slavery-based textile market. And even if for every abolitionist had personally sworn apart cotton, it would hardly have bankrupted the gargantuan slavery enterprise (0). Instead, the abolitionists wisely found a "broad and deep" (1) change: they wanted to change the chance cotton was produced. They sought after cotton, but they wanted it gathered by paid labor. The for those who to FOSSIL iPhone 5 fuel divestment can direct: divestment activists want to use your lights and cars that are powered manufactured by clean energy, not fossil fioul.

2 . My namesake, biologist Rachel Carson, successfully fought chemical companies in Congress to outlaw the effective use of DDT, a pesticide that your darling discovered was killing and getting rid of children and animals. But before Carson's success, much of the food produced in north america . was sprayed with DDT. Key have been nearly impossible to tell whether ingredients you bought had been grown with DDT. So during Carson's fight within the Senate floor, would Gil Kemp have told her that she isn't morally entitled to advocate for systemic change in US agriculture until your darling stopped eating US-grown food? Surprisingly doubt it.

I have not taken part in divestment activism in the past. Sadly I think that will change now. I realize that the Board's opposition to divestment, as articulated by Chairman Gil Kemp, is not a standpoint I want to agree with. To wean the US along with FOSSIL iPhone 5 case fuels, we cannot sit and wait for lifestyle changes from the 300 million us residents. Instead, we need to pressure those who keep control on the source of the energy flowing about homes and businesses of these three million people.

Kemp attempts to prevent pro-divestment activism by telling associated with us (among several other arguments) that we capable advocate divestment if we turn on a person's lights. But I disagree. From the risk of sounding cheesy, I will double a song I learned inside of elementary school. "This little light about mine, I'm gonna let it come alive, "(2). I hereby declare i just will use fossil power to read through the night. I will use fossil power to tour home for Thanksgiving. And I will use fossil power for Internet and phone answering service and word processing as options in my advocacy for a clean electrical power future. I hope that one day, Steer clear of turn on the lights in my flat, my workplace, and my multiversity knowing that they are all powered by direct sun light, wind and tides. Until that period, I will use available energy sources throughout press for change.

(0) It has a small movement to forgo natural cotton, but it was largely ignored and thus was unsuccessful.

(1) "The board's decision not to divest is diverse and deep, " (Gil Kemp, idem)