Meet the Authors Series: Yale Magrass

Tuesday, February 24, 12:30 - 2:00 pm
Board of Trustees Room, Foster Administration Building

About the Series

Created and launched by Suzanne E. Joseph, a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Meet the Author series brings authors and the wider university community together to discuss the authors’ newly published books that address social, historical, philosophical, literary or artistic issues of interest to the broader campus community.

The next event on Tuesday, February 24 from 12:30 to 2 PM will feature Yale Magrass, Chancellor Professor of Sociology. He will discuss his new book, Morality Wars: How Empires, the Born-Again, and the Politically Correct Do Evil in the Name of Good, read a few selections, and answer questions from the audience. The event will be held in the Board of Trustees room located in the administration building on the third floor. If you have any questions, contact Suzanne Joseph at sjoseph@umassd.edu or 508.999.8138.

About the Book

Princes, paupers and the rest of us are guilty of using immoral morality, which we define as principles and judgments that help justify illegal or unethical behavior. In this book, we focus on Princes - American political and religious elites- who use immoral morality to ensure the loyalty of their followers and to legitimate socially harmful policies. George W. Bush invaded Iraq to free the world from terrorists; no, prevent a dictatorial madman from using weapons of mass destruction; no, provide democracy to the oppressed people of the Middle East; no, secure American access to the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf in the name of protecting global prosperity and Western civilization itself. The powerful seldom find that naked self-interest provides sufficient justification for their actions. Instead, they need to bring the rest of society to believe they must unite in a mission to fulfill higher moral purpose.

This moral exhortation -the core of the immoral morality (IM) that this book explores - can be all the more convincing if the powerful come to believe it themselves. For thousands of years, the world‘s great empires insisted they brought their subjects peace and advanced civilization. The Romans offered Pax Romana; the British carried the White Man's Burden. American Southern slave owners rescued Blacks from African savagery and saved their souls through Christianity. The Nazis tried to rescue the master race from decadence and eliminate the infestation of impure inferior races with a narrative of being morally born again. The United States, perhaps the most powerful empire in the history of the world, is no different. It denies being an empire at all; instead, it is the beacon of freedom, democracy and prosperity for the rest of the world to emulate.

IM is a kind of “moral doublethink”, resembling the chilling propaganda of Orwell‘s Big Brother. It is an effort to monopolize public discourse on what is right and wrong, using the state to silence views that challenge ruling powers. But it is not the same thing as lies or spin and can often involve moral sincerity. Nonetheless, it is different than other moralities because it is laced with internal contradictions, shrouding hegemonic power in values and spiritual talk that departs radically from the walk of the rulers, but still can resonate deeply with the people.

Three ancient codes of Immoral Morality- those of Empire, the born again, and the politically correct -intensified and converged in recent decades to create a perfect moral storm in America. IM has consumed the Republican Party and the Right, which are the traditional bearers of IM. But much of the Democratic Party and some of the Left have also become entrapped in their own immoral morality, with Democrats supporting Empire and the Left its own Political Correctness opposed to Right Political Correctness.

From the back cover.

About the Author

Yale R. Magrass is a Chancellor Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where he teaches “Social Theory,” “Political Sociology,” and “The Social Impact of Science and Technology.” He is the author of two other books Power in the Highest Degree (with Charles Derber and William Schwartz) and Thus Spake the Moguls. He has also writen more than thirty articles, including encyclopedia entries, served on the board of six journals, has been a recipient of several grants, and participated in numerous international forums.