Unlikely Inspiration

I’ve written about heroes and heroism in this space before, and these days I’ve been thinking about what inspires people to behave honorably — in matters both great and commonplace.

I’ve pointed out examples of ordinary people who rose to extraordinary heights of courage and integrity when the occasion demanded. They are inspirations to all of us.

Yet lately I’ve found inspiration in odd and unusual places, in the words of people I otherwise profoundly disagree with.

This year I won my second consecutive first- and second-place awards in the North Dakota Newspaper Association’s “Better Newspapers Contest” in our category, and was given the largest single raise within the newspaper staff’s memory.

I celebrated by resigning. Right now, instead, I’m driving a semi truck for harvest, hauling seed and grain from point to point on North Dakota rural roads, sleeping in the cab most nights.

My reason for resigning? Among other things, the newspaper’s editor did something I considered ethically questionable. It concerned an article on three college jocks accused, but not charged, with an assault that sent a local man to the hospital.

I didn’t actually have a big part in the story, though the editor magnanimously told me he‘d credit me. I just researched any criminal records of the boys — and found none. Nor did the injuries described add up to a mass beating.

As I found my doubts growing — and I still don’t know anything for sure — I researched further.

Finally I went to a source I trusted in the college administration and asked bluntly, “Did we do a hatchet job on those boys?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And they can’t say anything in their own defense because of a potential lawsuit.”

I further found that of the other two people in the newsroom, one old-timer thought for sure it was a hatchet job, but wasn’t saying anything. And I believe the sports reporter does too, but doesn’t want to get involved.

To make a long story short, I wanted to raise the subject at the next editorial meeting. The editor said he was dispensing with meetings — and no, we wouldn’t discuss his article. He also indicated in no uncertain terms he expected me to be a hatchet man.

I might mention that this editor is a young man laid off from a bigger paper that, like a lot of city papers these days, is downsizing. My guess is he’s looking for the big score that’ll get him out of our little town. I might also mention that he once “improved” an editorial of mine by identifying Neville Chamberlain as prime minister — of Czechoslovakia! (That was excruciatingly embarrassing; it was my name on it.)

Still, why did I resign? My publisher had told me she thought I could be a nationally syndicated columnist — a high compliment for someone who entered journalism this late in life. Now I’ve exposed my family to an uncertain future over a point of principle nobody will remember next year.

Thinking about it while bouncing down our state highways, I have to ruefully admit it wasn’t the example of Miep Gies or Steven Vincent, or the fictional John Galt. It was Walter Lippmann.

I detest most of what Walter Lippmann stood for. Lippman advocated that elites should lead the masses by “manufacturing consent” through the media. (And that phrase was adopted for the title of a book by two other intellectuals I detest: Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.)

“A man has honor,” he wrote, “when he adheres to a code of conduct when it is unpopular, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.”

Honor is one of the most misunderstood, abused, and often-corrupted concepts in history. After Lippmann’s definition, however, it will be very difficult to misunderstand, abuse, or corrupt the ideal of personal honor.

Stephen W. Browne is a writer, editor, and teacher of martial arts and English as a second language. He is also the founder of the Liberty English Camps, held annually in Eastern Europe, which brings together students from all over Eastern Europe for intensive English study using texts important to the history of political liberty and free markets. In 1997 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Yugoslav Movement for the Protection of Human Rights for his work supporting dissidents during the Milosevic regime. His regularly-updated blog is at StephenWBrowne.com.