Ethics Boy

By Matt Whiteman

This morning, the internet asked me “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?”  I had to be able to answer in 100 words or less.

A few friends and colleagues have jokingly started to refer to me as “ethics boy” for working at this job and spending my whole day thinking and talking about ethics. I also haven’t written a post in a while, so I thought the timing on this one was rather appropriate, if not mocking. Thanks, universe.

Some may see this as a naïve or perhaps pointless question. But Sir Ken Robinson, a world-famous British-American educator, points out that it is our capacity for imagination that truly distinguishes us from the other creatures on this planet, and it’s a muscle we need to exercise regularly. His initial definition of imagination is “the power to bring to mind things that are not present to our senses.” Duh, you say.

“We are free”, he continues, “to revisit the past, free to reframe the present, and free to anticipate a whole range of possible futures” [1]. Better futures, says I.

Anyway, after briefly considering all of the sweet (yet definitely more selfish and hedonistic) superpowers I could choose from, I settled on the following; 100 words exactly:

I would like to grant the ability to photosynthesize to anybody who wished it so.

We. Could. Eat. Light.

This way, we could tap into a nearly infinite energy source, consume fewer natural resources, shrink our carbon footprint and use it to alleviate pressure on global food systems. We could also use it as a tool to advocate for more responsible food production; less high-fructose corn syrup = fewer cases of Type II diabetes.

I would have a sidekick who could purify water without producing any negative externalities, all but eliminating several of the most deadly diseases in the world.

Naïve? Maybe. Corny? A bit (no pun intended). Pointless? I don’t think so. We ask questions like this all the time: “If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and you could only bring one ________, what would it be?”

We ask absurd questions like this all the time – I think – as a way of  searching for something deep within. Perhaps we invoke the notion of superpowers as an allegory for interventions we don’t have the ability or perhaps especially the will to conduct ourselves, as individuals or as a society. Perhaps we also ask ourselves these questions as a way of pointing to the things we value, though I think Sir Ken would add: or merely the things we value the idea of. If a genie popped out of a lamp and gave whoever was standing there one superpower, I’m sure some people would no doubt say they would turn invisible and sneak into places they didn’t belong. In greener years, I probably said the same thing.

We say to our disgustingly talented friends: “I would love to be able to play the piano the way you do”. No, Robinson says, you only love the idea of it. If you actually loved it, you’d be doing it. Important distinction.

We can state the things we value the idea of without actually taking responsibility for acting on them, because questions like the one above are framed as being purely hypothetical. I feel what follows too often from these allegories, however, is  a rationalization of apathy or inaction, since some issues seem so hopeless that we imagine they would need supernatural intervention to remediate.

Anyway, I feel like my posts always turn out this way… This was supposed to be optimistic. Maybe a better name for me would be “Rant Boy”…

To me, this comes back to something my mentor, Dr. Shafik Dharamsi, says all the time: Learning something implies responsibility for it.  Knowledge allows you not only to see the world differently, but also to be in the world differently.

I feel that internalizing an identity of critical consciousness means being more intentional when I think about questions like this, even if they are just meant for fun. If you change the way you conceptualize something, you will naturally start talking about it differently and then naturally by extension, usually your actions will follow. My degree helped to change the way I view my role in this world, and so I think I got my money’s worth – no need to have the power to create wads of cash at a snap of the fingers.

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[1] Robinson, Ken (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. New York: Penguin, p. 58.