Bullying, Basketball, and Courage

What I consider to be some good news came out of my home state recently -- actually occurring a year ago, but back in public view again just this last week.  By now likely many readers have already glimpsed  in their news feeds the inspirational (but all too brief) story coming out of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

It is about three middle-school basketball players coming to the aid of one of their classmates -- a cheerleader with Downs syndrome who was being made fun of by some fans attending a game.  The players walked off the court in the middle of a game, and up to the stands, where they confronted those fans, and told them to "knock it off."  That would seem to both require and exemplify a certain kind, or at least measure, of courage.  It also raises a number of interesting questions, particularly when we add in some additional background information -- at least from a virtue ethics perspective.

Cultivating Virtues: Snapshots of Students

One of the shorter assignments my students tackled this semester required them to carry out some reflection on virtues and vices in their own lives and characters, aided by study of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (as well as many other discussions of virtue, vice, and dispositions earlier in the semester), building on some of our in-class lectures and discussions (for example, this one, this one, and this one).  I asked them to consider three questions:

• Which of the virtues which Aristotle discusses do you think you most fully possess?  Explain why Aristotle would say you do possess that virtue.  
• Which of the virtues Aristotle discusses do you think you most need to work on at the present time?  Why?
• Do you fit the descriptions of any of the vices?  Which ones? 

As I read through the responses of 41 students, I started to see some interesting patterns developing, and I was struck by the self-disclosure, reflective insight, and honest appraisals many of the students put down on paper.

Womens' Fashion, Mens' Sport, Goods -- but how good?

Prospero, one of the blog batches of commentators for the Economist, recently brought up several interesting points, in A Man’s Guide to a Woman’s Wardrobe.  One of these is that, although many would be tempted to write off sport and fashion as mere fluff, unworthy of the serious person, perhaps also vestiges of  gender roles and their assigned provinces, they are indeed goods — or really, whole ranges of interconnected and distinctive goods:

…  fashion is to many women what sport is to many men: a pastime, a passion, a shared language, a form of self-definition, and a temporary escape from the opposite sex, all rolled into one deeply satisfying whole.