Deciding What’s Right and Wrong Starts to Get Old

Parenting has been tough lately. With the 4-year-old it’s just business as usual: We do not put crayons in our mouth, we do not sit on the cat. But with the 14-year-old, the problems are more complex: We not only want him to do well, we want him to do right--to think right.

But how do you help them if you’re stumped on what “right” is? The older I get, the less sure I am.

The other night my family caught a “Dateline” TV report about a controversy in Arizona. A parent of a black student wanted to ban “Huckleberry Finn” from the classroom because Mark Twain uses the “n” word in the nickname for one of his main characters.

I didn’t have any problem figuring out the school principal goofed with his solution: He ruled anyone who found “Huck” objectionable could go study in the school library during that period. That was just a terrible decision and unfair pressure on any protesting students. But what was the right decision?

I’ve always been taught that book burners were the bad guys. If Mark Twain isn’t fit for the classroom, who in the world could be left? On the other hand (a phrase you learn well your first year of journalism school), if some students find a racial reference offensive, who is to tell them their perceptions don’t deserve consideration?

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Then there is the movie “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” Flynt is the Hustler magazine pornographer who won a 1st Amendment rights battle when the federal courts ruled it was OK to parody famous people. (Flynt had depicted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in a drunken, incestuous encounter with his own mother.)

Many say it’s good entertainment. But I was impressed with recent public comments by feminist journalist Gloria Steinem condemning the movie. (An aside is needed here: When I was a young man in the Army in Chicago, Steinem came to the city to give a speech. She displayed a personal kindness to my military friends and me that week--and an understanding of our Vietnam frustrations--that I’ve never forgotten, though I’m sure she wouldn’t remember. That may well influence why I listen to her more carefully than I would someone like Naomi Wolf, a best-selling feminist author who often talks over my head.)

Steinem argues that most of us wouldn’t be paying money to see this movie if Flynt’s primary offense had been the degradation of African Americans or Jews. But we look the other way when his magazine’s main thrust is to degrade women (his “Chester the Molester” cartoons, rape cartoons and once even a photo layout depicting the sexual mutilation of Steinem herself). Steinem is particularly vexed that the movie’s director, Milos Forman, defends the film by citing his own memories of Nazi censorship in Europe.

So should I skip this movie, as Steinem suggests? Or go to see just what all the controversy is about?

Some dilemmas are more local, and more deeply felt:

Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock has granted O.J. Simpson custody of his two children, instead of leaving them with their maternal grandparents in Dana Point. The Browns are the parents of their murdered mother.

Appalling, of course, is that some sickos have made threats against the judge just for doing her job. Anybody who thinks Judge Wieben Stock had anything but the best interests of those two children in mind simply doesn’t know anything about Orange County’s judges.

But a serious question remains: Well-intentioned people want to recall the judge because of her Simpson decision, as well as another controversial custody case she handled. I’ve long believed judicial recalls are bad form. We must have an atmosphere where judges are free to make decisions unpopular with the majority.

Otherwise, as local appellate Justice Edward J. Wallin often preaches to me, we might as well just have robots or machines on the bench. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights, my favorite college professor used to say, is to protect us from the majority.

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On the other hand, when I read Wieben Stock’s 11-page decision in the Simpson case, I thought the world had turned upside down. Even though we’ve been told most judges would have made the same ruling, I could barely find a paragraph I didn’t disagree with to the point of heartburn. Murder and wife beating did not make the same impact on Wieben Stock as salient issues that they did with me.

Finally, there’s the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, which kicks off its American tour at the Orange County Performing Arts Center next month. The sponsoring group is the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, which does terrific things to help bring classical music to thousands of local students. And landing the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic here is a major accomplishment.

But the Vienna Orchestra won’t permit women to join. That would be unheard of for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, or the Pacific Symphony here. It would create such a brouhaha, they’d probably have to shut down or change their ways. But is it OK because it’s just these Viennese folks, and all-male orchestras have been a tradition in Europe?

Some local feminists say no, and plan a protest. The Vienna orchestra is feeling so much heat internationally on this issue that it might well change its policies even before it appears here.

One argument I find compelling: What kind of free society would we have if we banned everybody we disagreed with? But then, I think back to Gloria Steinem’s comments about the Larry Flynt movie. If the protest instead was aimed at the Vienna orchestra’s ban on ethnic or racial minorities, would the local sponsors still look the other way? Steinem’s point is that too often we find an offense less offensive when the victims are only women.

I wish I were still in my 20s. I never had trouble forming quick opinions then. Maybe the best you can do is teach your children that on most issues there will be an “on the other hand” for them to consider.

Wrap-Up: The best way to know whether Steinem would use the “Flynt” argument on the Vienna orchestra was just to ask her. I wrote her about it, and she sent back a reply, which said in part:

“It’s just as offensive to exclude all women from the Vienna Philharmonic as it would be to exclude Jewish or Christian groups, or any group of men. Music can’t be a universal language if it’s used dishonestly to divide.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com