NEC Meeting - No audio?

[Eclipse]

Character development? These cadets already have character. They do more than 99% of teenagers do. They put on uniforms, read textbooks, train, come to meetings, train more, perform SAR and DR and then train a bit more again and that's without any kind of pay. Character? I think that Character Development title is a slap in the face of cadets.

(I am not and never was a cadet)

I wouldn't go that far, though I have no idea why anyone thought this was important.

Its seems like just a lot of semantic background noise.

I suppose it has something to do with the term "morality".  While I can't find any definitive dictionary verbiage that supports this, the term morality has taken on a "churchy" feel in the last decade or so, and
the implication is that a Chaplain is the most qualified, preferred, person to moderate ML sessions, which can lead to further "churchifying" the discussions.

Changing it to CD is likely someone's idea that this will push CAP further into a non-secular environment.

I would really like to hear from someone who introduced the idea.

[Mustang]

As a former cadet and cadet squadron commander, I applaud the title change from ML to Character Development.  In the nearly 30 years I've been associated with the Cadet Program, Moral Leadership has never been about morals at all, but about developing the capacity to make good decisions that are right for one's followers.

Back when he was the Commandant of Cadets at the USAF Academy, Air University Commander Lt Gen Sam Lorenz appeared in the CAP DDR video, Choices Not Chances; something he said in that video has stuck with me ever since, and I quote the general every time I speak about Moral Leadership. He said, simply: "Character is build one decision at a time." So simple, but so true.  In this light, it's obvious we can't teach character to our cadets, but we CAN help teach them to make good decisions--good choices--for themselves and their troops.  We can do this by teaching them how to be discerning consumers of information, to be watchful for bias in the advice of others, and to be mindful of the needs of the minority when allowing the majority to make choices. 

Strong character is an essential facet of leadership, morality is a moving target that means entirely different things depending upon one's religious views (or absence thereof).  Unfortunately, many of our more devout members have taken the Moral Leadership title too literally and used it as a bullypulpit from which to preach their own morals to cadets, and I don't believe CAP has any business teaching morals to cadets--that's solely a parental responsibility, IMHO.

[flyguy06]

I agree with you to a point Mustang. CAP has no business teaching religion. But when they say morals, Ithink they mean things like do not steal, do not lie, do not do durgs.

But I think that goes back to what you are saying about making right choices. So I think youare saying the same thing they are just using different wording.

[John Bryan]

So the words change but not the program....so what changes.....let me make sure I understand.....

"CD" is more "PC" then "ML".....Pat I'd like to buy a vowel :angel:

[A.Member]

In the nearly 30 years I've been associated with the Cadet Program, Moral Leadership has never been about morals at all, but about developing the capacity to make good decisions that are right for one's followers. 

Really?!

Definition:
Moral

mor·al   [mawr-uhl, mor-]
–adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes. 
2. expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct, as a speaker or a literary work; moralizing: a moral novel. 
3. founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom: moral obligations. 
4. capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct: a moral being. 
5. conforming to the rules of right conduct (opposed to immoral): a moral man. 
6. virtuous in sexual matters; chaste. 
7. of, pertaining to, or acting on the mind, feelings, will, or character: moral support. 
8. resting upon convincing grounds of probability; virtual: a moral certainty. 
–noun
9. the moral teaching or practical lesson contained in a fable, tale, experience, etc. 
10. the embodiment or type of something. 
11. morals, principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct. 

So, what's different?  We are teaching Moral Leadership as it pertains to our organization.

Like many things that seem to happen in this organization, this name change was a solution is search of a problem.  I see no real need for the change.  The term "Moral Leadership" is appropriate and describes the objective to a "T".  

[A.Member]

So the words change but not the program....so what changes.....let me make sure I understand.....

"CD" is more "PC" then "ML".....Pat I'd like to buy a vowel :angel:

Ding, ding, ding.   Vanna, tell him what he's won...

[Eclipse]

So the words change but not the program....so what changes.....let me make sure I understand.....

"CD" is more "PC" then "ML".....Pat I'd like to buy a vowel :angel:

Ding, ding, ding.   Vanna, tell him what he's won...

An all-expense paid trip to Dilutedville, USA?

[John Bryan]

Dilutedville, USA........thats in central Alabama right?

[Chaplaindon]

As a chaplain, having read the preceding comments concerning "moral/s" and/or moral leadership vs. character development, I believe some clarification is in order.

The word "moral" (and its plural morals) has its root in the Latin word mores which actually means --in its original useage-- the same as the Greek word ethos from which we derive the English word "ethics."

Morals = ethics.

It was the philosopher Aristotle who --in his book Nicomachean Ethics --described the functional meaning of ethics/morals (in their original form) almost 2500 years ago. Aristotle was far from a Christian.

He saw ethics as a process of decision-making --using the reasoning capacities that separate humankind from plants and animals. An acorn, he posited, can only --at best-- become an oak tree (at worst, I suppose, brunch for a squirrel). A kitten can, at best, only become a cat.

Free people (he differentiated the free from the enslaved majority in his day) can use their mental/reasoning capacities to make choices that CAN lead to a "flourishing" (eudymonia) life or a unhappy one. Slaves, mind you, had no choice options at all.

So morals (as forseen by the person who coined the idea) was a process of decision-making that, if accomplished correctly, can lead to a wonderful ideal life ... or if done incorrectly, the antithesis.

This has direct bearing on the CAP ML/CD program. Although it is normatively led by a chaplain or, in the absence of a chaplain (and CAP is VERY short of chaplains)  by a qualified MLO, the intent is for it NOT to be churchy or "churchified."

It is to encourage cadets to make decisions and investigate the outcome in a safe setting. Kind of a "flight simulator" for societal decision-making. The hope is that they will subsequently make equally GOOD decisions outside of the CAP meeting when it comes to honesty, dating, drugs, driving and whatnot.

That's when it really counts.

MLs also serve, hopefully, to help cadets (and I think it important also for SMs) to find a "moral/ethical compass" to help guide their decision-making forthwith. In theory one could simply flip a coin to decide all of life's questions (I think that will very rarely, if ever, lead to eudymonia).

On the other hand, one could find a guiding fixture in their life (maybe their religious faith, or patriotism, or whatnot) that will be a constant reference to help them make decision on a more rational basis. Atheists can make sound moral decisions and religious people can make bad ones.

We need to put religion aside in this discussion about MLs. Chaplain-led or not, MLs are SECULAR activities.

BUT, if they're secular, why do we use chaplains (when/where) for ML/CD's?

Unlike the majority of SM officers, however, most seminary-trained chaplains possess graduate academic training in ethics, so they are often quite well suited to lead such secular discussions.

But there is a caveat ...

Chaplains who preach (whatever theological message Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, etc.) or who seek to direct ML sessions toward a specific religious doctrine or ideal, are not leading ML, they're doing devotionals (or teaching Sunday School).

There's an appropriate time and place for religious (NON-secular) worship services and devotionals within CAP activities. But that is not the role of MLs.

That having been said, religion CAN be a useful (even excellent/extraordinary) "moral compass," sadly, it too can be corrupted.  Look at the ostensibly Christian-on-Christian violence in Northern Ireland that punctuated, in blood and terror, much of the 20th Century.

Again a "churchified" ML/CD is not a ML/CD.

[Eclipse]

Dilutedville, USA........thats in central Alabama right?

Actually, its closer to Southern California.   

[Short Field]

Chaplain Don - excellent post.   :angel: