Q: I am a new reference librarian. During the week in which Confederate Memorial Day falls, our library remains open, but each employee can get a day off with pay. The racial tension in this area is appalling, and I think this holiday exacerbates it. Since I disagree with the holiday’s premise should I refuse the day off?
– Trent Hanner, Anderson, S.C.
A: Take the break. To accept a paid day off authorized by state law is not to endorse that which the holiday commemorates. I skip work on Arbor Day despite my irrational hostility to oak trees. OK, Arbor Day is not a paid New York state holiday, I receive no paid vacations and I’m actually quite fond of the noble oak, but you get the idea.
The Christmas vacation is available to Jews, Muslims and nonbelievers; it is not an affirmation of faith. The Fourth of July is a legitimate vacation, even for diehard Tories. What matters is how you observe the day. It would be one thing if you joined in celebrations of slavery and secession, quite another if you donated that day’s pay to a civil rights organization or worked with other South Carolinians eager to repeal this holiday.
Or you could achieve a kind of moral neutrality by doing something akin to the way we traditionally honor Lincoln and Washington on their holiday – shopping for sheets and towels.
Update: After discussing this with his more senior colleagues, both African-American and white, most of whom simply take the holiday for granted, Hanner followed their lead and accepted the day off.
…
Q: My son just turned 15 and, although he is underage, I have been teaching him to drive. I let him drive us down a few levels in a parking structure, and another driver backed into us. The accident was clearly her fault, as she acknowledged. My knee- jerk reaction was to let her assume that I’d been driving. If my son had been at fault, I’d have taken financial responsibility, but given the circumstances, was this deception acceptable?
– Anonymous, California
A: It was not, although I assert this reluctantly. The consequences of honesty, to you financially and to your son legally, would have been sadly disproportional to the minor offense you committed. But that’s the thing about honesty: It can be pricey. That the accident may have been the fault of the other driver is not the only factor, and it is something nobody can be sure of. Perhaps if you’d been at the wheel, you could have averted it.
Responding as you did meant lying to the police, to the other driver and to her insurance company – each lie a wrong in itself – and more lamentably, you had to do so in front of your son. It is hard to imagine how you could justify your behavior in terms meaningful to a 15-year-old.
Full disclosure: Like your son, I was the happy beneficiary of a father who tolerated – encouraged! – underage driving. A year before I was old enough for a learner’s permit, he asked if I’d like to head for a big unused parking lot and learn to drive. It was the only time I saw this fastidiously honest man deliberately break a law, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. But I believe that he’d have faced the consequences forthrightly if I’d gotten into a fender bender.
Write to Universal Press Syndicate 4250 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail ethicist@nytimes.com.
