Situational Value & Situational Ethics

When I first returned to my beloved state of Oregon I was invited by a dear friend to attend a bi-weekly dinner gathering consisting of my friend's work colleagues. I was welcomed into the group even though over time as various colleagues who were not present at my first dinner would look at me and their facial expressions would lead me to think they were wondering who the hell am I? Since then I have been a reasonably consistent attendee at the dinners and feel reasonably well accepted.

The last dinner brought up an interesting concept I would like to present and discuss as best I can. It is a philosophical issue and a life issue. The conversation during the most recent dinner led to one attendee(prognosticator) bringing up a comment made at a previous dinner the stock market was due to make a nose dive. At the time of the present dinner the market had dropped around 800 points, give or take. Kudos were offered to the prognosticator in an email. The prognosticator replied, "You see, the biggest problem with the markets is what they are based on.  There is no earthly reason why they are as high as they are.  There's no value to support it other than masked inflation." I responded to the message agreeing with the prognosticator's point of view and dropping the term 'situational value' into the conversation. I am not aware of any following comments or questions to the email comment I made. Although I did state I would be blogging about the concept of 'situational value.'

Thinking about the term 'situational value' led me to consider what I know about situational ethics. I was first introduced to the idea of situational ethics while Marcia was in seminary doing her chaplaincy internship at Stanford Hospital.

Can we really talk about situational ethics without first laying the foundation, what is ethics?

Following are some precepts, rules, I am going to attempt to follow in the subsequent presentation regarding ethics and situational ethics. I will attempt transparency, to be clear, at all times. Clarity/transparency is owning a personal bias, for instance, or indicating just how ignorant I really am(and I know it?!).  Yes, I feel I am wading into uncharted waters and the water is up to the bottom of my feet. Here goes.

Ethics is, to my way of thinking, the development of a moral code for a body of people, a community, a country, a culture. I think the Ten Commandments is an excellent example of a moral code. The purpose of the moral code is to facilitate people living together including all it may entail, such as, intangibles, right versus wrong and, the great mystery.

The moral code then affects our behavior. Thou Shalt Not Kill so we don't, mostly, but those times we do there are consequences for violating the moral code.  And begins, a great body of knowledge.

Every document is a reflection of the culture from which it came and the culture's moral code. And the culture's people behave accordingly, which is their understanding of the "code."

And now it becomes situational. Thou Shalt Not Kill above indicates the situation. Our culture's consequence for murder is death. Wait, that's killing and the commandment says don't. Well, it's OK if everybody says it's OK. And we do. The combat soldier facing the choice of imminent death or kill his enemy is another example. And that's situational ethics in a nutshell.

Now we have a rudimentary, crude, understanding of situational. How does situational apply to value?  To answer the question I believe it necessary for me to apply my understanding of value. My thinking is shaped by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A great teaching story.

Imagine I am walking across my floor and I step on to something. I stop, because it hurts and I want to remove it. I bend down and pick up a piece of Lizzie's kibble. What is the value of Lizzie's kibble? Apparently a lot, as I was willing to stop and check it out. So what we invest is our time and effort, work, and is a measurement of value. Money is a measurement of our time and effort. The following might be an example(the book is not available to me right now) Pirsig used to illustrate value. He visited a friend's place many times and noticed, right away, a leaky faucet. It was always leaking when he visited. I cannot recall if someone complained about the drip drip or not. He certainly noticed. The dripping faucet has at least two differing values. The homeowner does not ascribe a whole lot of value to the dripping and can live with it. Pirsig sees it as a small effort fix. No more water waste and no more annoying drip drip. Does one perception have an intrinsic higher value? It would seem to rest on one's perception. The homeowner seems to be able to live with the drip drip. Pirsig, if I recall correctly(and probably don't), can live with it while there, knowing he doesn't have to live with it on a permanent basis. Pirsig's underlying value, it's a simple fix, regarding the drip drip doesn't change but his value while at his friend's house does shift to a 'I can live with it value.' Situational. In the same regard I am walking across my living room floor after the above incident and feel a piece of kibble. I ignore it and go get the vacuum and vacuum the rug. My reaction to stepping on the kibble a second time is situational.

August 27, 2015

The idea of taking on a subject, situational value, especially as it might relate to economics intimidates me. I have let it simmer on the back burner for three days. I am not anymore confident I can present my thoughts about the subject than three days ago. I do not pretend to be an economist, nor have I had any predilection to explore the subject in the past. Yet here I go.

August 29, 2015

Two more days have passed and instead of writing about situational value I have chosen to spend time rewriting a 10 minute play and going on a hike to a grove of old growth Doug Firs and competing in my first cyclocross race of the season and attending the 50th reunion of my high school class. Pretty good avoidance behavior, don't you think?

The whole idea of the stock market is situational. And the value today versus the value tomorrow can be manipulated. Ethically speaking I don't think value should be manipulated. My moral code finds the idea of monetary value being subject to manipulation repellant. The stock market's value is tracked on a daily basis. Every news source provides information on the stock markets current value. The measure of how one might feel on any given day can be reflected in the current value of the stock market.

And we wonder about people with a Bipolar diagnosis, yet don't think twice about how the current status of the stock market affects our daily perceptions and pursuit of life. The stock market goes up, we feel ebullient. The stock market goes down, we feel depressed.

One might proffer how we feel is a choice we make, yet our perceptions, values, experiences, are influenced by the culture in which we grew up. We value Christian influences greatly as witnessed by our reaction to Christmas time, no matter what we profess as our faith or not. I have grown up in a Judeo Christian culture. The Ten Commandments in my culture have a phenomenal influence on our perceptions, our way of life, whether or not we see ourselves as Jewish or Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or any of our world's other faiths.

One thing I want to make clear is I am not offering up one religion being better than another. As stated above one's choice of religion is as much a matter of where one was born and who their parents were than any superiority of one religion over all others.

If I have presented my thinking cogently then it should be clear if I have any biases.

Returning to situational value as it relates to the stock market then the influences on the markets current value are wide and fluctuating. I think of the movie Trading Places as an excellent example of a story where the market is manipulated. What drives the two opposing forces in the movie? A caveat, I haven't seen the movie in several years. The two brothers seem to be driven by greed. The characters Akeroyd and Murphy play, by revenge. The comeuppance for the bad guys, the rich brothers, is a Hollywood ending. The bad guys lose and the good guys win. Both sides manipulate the market to their own desired ends. The results justify the means in this movie. Situational values and situational ethics on display in a grand Hollywood story.

One point I believe I am making is situational ethics and situational value travel hand in hand. It is hard to separate the two in our lives. I certainly do not believe I have created any new insights to how the stock market works other than its fluidity and fluctuation is due to many, many, influences and manipulation. I believe it is hard to separate influence from manipulation or vice a versa. Our society will consequent manipulation of the stock market if it can be proven. To my perspective, easier said than done.

One last point relates to my stating I find the manipulation of the stock market's value as repellant. Repellant is a personal value. I justify its use as it seems to me any one entity manipulating such a behemoth as the stock market has evil intention, another personal value. Does anyone have the right to manipulate all of us? I understand the opportunity to do so is available to anyone desiring to manipulate all of us, but it is not a right as defined in our constitution. It is simply a choice one can make. How the rest of us react to the choice is based on our personal ethics. How our culture, our society, reacts is also based on our collective ethics and values. Evil intent is not something we as a culture proscribe to. And yet, how we think about any issue can be manipulated so evil intent may be presented as good for the culture.

Thank you for reading.