Understanding Right and Wrong

50 Pages·2019·4.391 MB·English

by  Michael Rosen, Annemarie Young

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Understanding Feminism
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Understanding Gender TA
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Understanding Humanism IG
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Michael Rosen and Annemarie Young
New York
This edition published in 2020 by:
The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
29 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rosen, Michael. | Young, Annemarie.
Title: Understanding right and wrong / Michael Rosen and Annemarie Young.
Description: New York : Rosen Central, 2020. | Series: Social justice handbook | Includes
glossary and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781725346864 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781725346871 (library bound)
Subjects: LCSH: Ethics—Juvenile literature. | Right and wrong—Juvenile literature. |
Values—Juvenile literature. | Decision making—Moral and ethical aspects—Juvenile
literature. Right and wrong—Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC BJ1012.R67 2019 | DDC 170—dc23
Manufactured in the United States of America
Copyright © 2020 Wayland, a division of Hachette Children’s Group
Editor: Nicola Edwards
Designer: Rocket Design [East Anglia] Ltd
Artwork by Oli Frape
Picture acknowledgements:
Cover photo: Ariel Skelley / iStock / Getty Images Plus. Cover design element: CS Stock /
Shutterstock; p5 (clockwise from top left): © Claude Schneider; © Walter White; © Jon Armstrong;
Richard Rieser; br Wikimedia Commons; p6 Courtesy of Goldsmiths, University of London; p7
Wikimedia Commons; p8t Anthony Robinson, b Wikimedia Commons; p13 Wikimedia Commons; p14
and p15t (backgrounds) Shutterstock.com; p14 Shutterstock.com; p15 (both) Wikimedia Commons;
p17 Wikimedia Commons; p19 Adam Kliczek/Wikimedia Commons; p21 Sergey Kohl / Shutterstock
.com; p22 Richard Rieser; p24 nikolpetr / Shutterstock.com; p25 Shutterstock.com; p27 Igor Grochev
/ Shutterstock.com; p28 © Jon Armstrong; p29 A. Ricardo / Shutterstock.com; p30 Shutterstock
.com; p32 © Claude Schneider; p33 Michael Candelori / Shutterstock.com; p34 Shutterstock.com;
p35 Shutterstock.com; p37 Wikimedia Commons; p39 Wikimedia Commons; p40 © Walter White;
p43 Wikimedia Commons; p45 Shutterstock.com.
Contents
What Is This Book About? 4
Michael Rosen^ 6
My Experience:
Annemarie Young 8
My Experience:
What Do We Mean by Right and Wrong? 10
Where Do Values Come From? 12
What Is Society? 14
What Is Democracy? 16
What Is Justice? 18
The Difference Between Prejudice and Discrimination 20
Richard Rieser 22
My Experience:
How Does Fairness and Unfairness Affect People? 24
How Does Inequality Affect Educational Opportunity? 26
Tulip Siddiq^ ^ 28
My Experience:
Is There a Right and Wrong Way to Use Language? 30
Laura Bates^ ^ 32
My Experience:
How Does Right and Wrong Work on a Global Scale? 34
Is It Ever Right to Go to War? 36
How Do Children Learn about Right and Wrong? 38
Alex Wheatle^ ^ 40
My Experience:
How Disasters Make Us Question What’s Right and Wrong 42
What Are Your Values? 44
Glossary 46
Further Information 47
Index 48
What Is This Book About?
very day we make decisions that are underpinned by our ideas of what
Eis right and wrong. But where do these ideas come from? Where do our
values come from and who decides which values are used in a society?
This book is not going to tell you what to think. Our aim is to get you to think for
yourselves about these and many other related questions.
We think it’s important that everyone should think about life’s big questions,
and never just accept what they are told. This doesn’t mean that you can’t
continue to hold the ideas or values that you had, but if you do, you’ll know
that those values are your own and not just an unthinking acceptance of
someone else’s ideas.
How does the book work? Of course, we couldn’t possibly fit
into this one book all the information
We’ve chosen topics that are strongly you need in order to answer all the
connected to the values people hold questions. Instead, we’ll provide you
and to their ideas of what is right and with information about some key
wrong, such as democracy, justice, principles and institutions – such as
fairness, prejudice and discrimination, the rule of law, and the key principles
education, climate change, and war. of democracy – and other aspects of
We’ll give you information about each the questions, such as information on
topic and ask questions related to wars or climate change.
them to get you thinking about your
own values.
How can the problems of pollution and climate change be solved? When air pollution in cities is often too bad
for children to play outside, should governments ban the combustion engine and phase in electric cars?
4
We’ll also ask you to find out more Laura Bates
about some of the issues and how they Alex Wheatle
relate to your life and your values. For
example, if your country went to war,
would you take part? If your country
was invaded, would you resist?
The people in the book
We’ll tell you about ourselves, and
how we developed our own ideas and
values. You will also hear from four
people – Laura Bates, Richard Rieser,
Tulip Siddiq, and Alex Wheatle – who’ll
discuss their own experiences and
thoughts about right and wrong. In
addition, there are quotes from other
people spread through the book.
Richard Rieser
Tulip Siddiq
At the end
On the last two pages, we’ll ask you to
reflect on what you’ve read, and on the
discussions you’ve had while reading
the book. We’ll ask:
“To be neutral in a
D id you change your mind about
situation of injustice
anything?
is to have chosen
W hat principles and values do you
sides already. It is think can best convey your ideas
about right and wrong?
to support the
W hat can we do to bring about what
status quo.” we believe is right?
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
5
My Experience
Michael Rosen was born in 1946.
He’s a writer for adults and children,
a broadcaster, and Professor of
Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths,
University of London.
Ideals hasn’t always worked. This tells me
several things about right and wrong:
Every one of us has an idea of what it’s a complicated mix of “ideals” and
the words “right” and “wrong” mean. actions; we can learn from experience;
The ideas about “right” are sometimes it’s not easy to live up to ideals, but for
called “ideals.” This means they are the sake of equality and fairness, it’s
ideas about the best ways to behave, better to try than not try.
although we may not always be able to
live up to them. Where do ideas about right
and wrong come from?
We may not be able to write down all
our ideas about right and wrong, but
As you’re reading this, you could ask
we have another way of expressing
yourself, “Where do I get my ideas
right and wrong – through our actions.
about right and wrong from?”
Sometimes what we say is right or
wrong and what we actually do are
When I ask myself this, I can see that
different. People call this “hypocritical”
to start off with, the biggest influence
which is itself often described as
on my life was my parents. When they
“wrong.”
were children, they were very poor but
they studied hard and both of them
For example, when I was at school, I
became teachers. They rejected the
would have said that bullying is wrong
religion of their grandparents and
and yet sometimes I teased people
tried to work out their own “universal”
in a bullying sort of a way. Then I
principles: things like, all people should
changed schools, someone teased me,
be equal, people shouldn’t exploit each
and I hated it. This showed me I had
other or discriminate against each
been hypocritical. It showed me that
other, and people have the right to build
something I had done was wrong and I
this equal world. That was the “ideal.”
tried to change. If I heard myself being
The big problem for them was that in
like that I tried to check myself but it
6
In the 1960s in Selma, Alabama, people marched in support of equal voting rights for black people in the USA.
countries where some leaders said they mostly) that talked of these things, and
were building this new “right” society, I studied writers and thinkers.
they were exploiting and discriminating
I argued with my parents about some
all over again!
of this. Sometimes I influenced them,
As I was growing up sometimes they influenced me. I was
very lucky: even though we argued, they
As I was growing up, they told me about loved me and I loved them. And here I
all this. am, helping to write a book about right
and wrong, inviting you to think and talk
In 1960 I was 14, so the 1960s covered
about it! I like to think they would think
my late teens and early twenties. It was
that was “right.” This tells me that love
just when the world was in ferment
has a lot to do with right and wrong, too.
about civil rights, feminism, war, work,
poverty, inequality, domination of one
set of countries over other countries.
TH NK
I
At school and university, I loved having
conversations about all this. We about
talked about the rights and wrongs
of education, work, society, and war. I
went to meetings and conferences and Talk to your parents or
took part in demonstrations. I went to other people at home
see plays, listened to music (songs, about their ideas of right
and wrong. What are
“… love has a lot to do
they and where did your
parents get them from?
with right and wrong.”
7
My Experience
Annemarie Young was born in 1950.
She was a publisher, and she now writes
stories and information books for children
and young people.
My parents’ influence Another influence was being the
child of immigrant parents. I grew up
My earliest ideas about right and feeling very much an outsider, and
wrong came from my parents, this made me empathize with those
particularly from my mother, who was treated as the “other.”
very clear about her notions of justice
and fairness and right or wrong, Witnessing injustice
especially in our treatment of others.
My father shared her fundamental On a trip from Australia to Europe
values, but they sometimes disagreed in 1970, my parents were shocked
on details, and when they did, their by the day-to-day manifestations of
discussions were always interesting! apartheid in Durban in South Africa,
where the ship briefly docked. They
My parents’ values were reinforced
were appalled at the “Whites Only”
by the nuns at school. Many of those
benches and the inferior facilities
ideals were positive and sensible:
reserved for “Blacks.”
being kind to others, especially those
less fortunate, doing no harm (the
Golden Rule, see page 12).
But as I got older I found that other
ideas and practices – for example
ones that implied women were
secondary to men – contradicted
what I believed to be right. I began to
question other Catholic teachings and
finally realized that I was a humanist
This was one of the signs used in apartheid-era
and didn’t believe in religion.
South Africa.
8
However, my father couldn’t believe
that his beloved adopted country,
The White Australia
Australia, could also be racist. I had policy
to convince him that parts of the
Australia’s long-term immigration
White Australia policy (see panel)
policies effectively barred people
still existed. He also found my
of non-European descent from
descriptions of government policies
entering the country. Things slowly
on Aboriginal people hard to believe changed from 1949 until the Racial
because they were so blatantly unjust. Discrimination Act of 1975 made
racially-based selection unlawful.
Campaigning for justice
The Stolen Generations
My sense of fairness and justice
Between 1910-1970, the government
developed into a belief that I should
forcibly removed many Aboriginal
actively campaign for justice. I children from their families “for
started by supporting groups against their own good”– these children are
apartheid in South Africa and those known as the Stolen Generations.
This racist and inhumane policy
seeking justice for Aboriginal people
was based on the assumption of
in Australia. Then I joined the
the superiority of white culture.
campaign against the Vietnam War,
particularly Australia’s role in it.
My values continued to develop
as I grew older. Many experiences Putting values into practice
reinforced my notions of justice. Once,
while I was living in China in 1983, an
I now write books with my husband,
open truck drove past full of men with
Anthony Robinson, to give a voice to
crosses marked on the backs of their
children who are usually not heard.
shaved heads. I was told they were
We have written books in which
being taken for public execution.
refugee children, street children,
I still shudder at the image. I believe
and young Palestinians living under
the death penalty is always wrong,
occupation in the West Bank, tell their
that it is state-sanctioned murder.
stories.
Worst of all, what if an executed
person turns out to be innocent? I don’t always live up to my own
ideals, but I try! For me, the most
important issue is identifying
unfairness and injustice and
“My values continued to determining what I can do to combat
them, while recognizing that we
develop as I grew older.”
cannot do everything for everyone.
9