• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Amen: Can Big Brother make you virtuous?

February 9, 2017
By George P. Matysek Jr.
Filed Under: Amen, Amen Matysek Commentary, Commentary

John Wooden, the endlessly quotable NCAA basketball coach who died in 2010, once famously observed that character is what you do when no one is watching.

Officials in Shanghai seem to be turning that maxim on its head with a new smartphone app released late last year that tries to encourage honesty and ethics by giving “public credit” scores to citizens.

Dubbed “Honest Shanghai,” the app collects personal information about users with the help of facial recognition software and national ID numbers.

According to a recent report by National Public Radio, the app sifts through 3,000 pieces of information from nearly 100 government entities to establish three possible “public credit” scores: “very good,” “good” or “bad.”

“A good score allows users to collect rewards like discounted airline tickets,” NPR reported, “and a bad score could one day lead to problems getting loans and getting seats on planes and trains.”

The Shanghai app, according to NPR, is but one piece in a larger master plan to erect a nationwide social credit system by 2020 in China. Traffic violations, failure to pay child support and speaking out against the government could all theoretically conspire to undermine a person’s score under the scheme. A poor score could severely affect everything from employment to housing.

Even if one assumes that the totalitarian Communist government of China is truly concerned with the welfare of its citizens and not with exercising Orwellian controls (a huge assumption, I know), there is a fundamental flaw with its approach: it won’t produce moral excellence.

When my wife and I brought our youngest daughter home from the hospital nine months ago, our little one started crying. Her big sister, then only 18 months old, immediately ran over to offer the wailing baby her most cherished possession, her stuffed pink “Bear-Bear.”

Our daughter didn’t present the gift to a sibling she just met because we asked her. She didn’t do it because she knew it would curry favor with Mommy and Daddy and result in some treat down the road. She didn’t do it in fear that we would punish her if she failed to soothe her little sister.

She did it because she knew it was the right thing to do. Whenever she needed to be cheered up, “Bear-Bear” was there for her. The virtuous course of action, plain even to a toddler, was to give that source of comfort to one who needed it.

The late Dr. Paul Bagley, one of my favorite professors at Loyola University Maryland, taught in a philosophy class more than two decades ago that moral virtue – as defined by Aristotle – is a disposition to act in the right way. It’s acquired, according to Aristotle’s reasoning, not through study or lectures, but through habits and actions.

A government can’t make its citizens virtuous by bribing them or threatening them with punishment. We become virtuous by acting virtuous for the sake of virtue.

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

George P. Matysek Jr.

George Matysek, a member of the Catholic Review staff since 1997, has served as managing editor since September 2021. He previously served as a writer, senior correspondent, assistant managing editor and digital editor of the Catholic Review and the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In his current role, he oversees news coverage of the Archdiocese of Baltimore and is a host of Catholic Review Radio.

George has won more than 100 national and regional journalism and broadcasting awards from the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, the Catholic Press Association, the Associated Church Press and National Right to Life. He has reported from Guyana, Guatemala, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

A native Baltimorean, George is a proud graduate of Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School in Essex. He holds a bachelor's degree from Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore and a master's degree from UMBC.

George, his wife and five children live in Rodgers Forge. He is a parishioner of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland.

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Question Corner: Jesus became man so I could become God?

The mental health crisis crosses all boundaries and ages

Hold the tuna casserole; pass the crab cake this Lent

Question Corner: Do we relax our Lenten fasts on Sunday?

Pope Francis: 10 titles for 10 years

| Recent Local News |

Sister Elizabeth Ellen Kane, O.S.F., dies at 81

RADIO INTERVIEW: Dining with the Saints

Archdiocese dispenses with meatless obligation for St. Patrick’s Day

Sister Mary Kathleen Marie Saffa dies at 86

Trainor to retire from post as Mount St. Mary’s president in 2024

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Legendary communist-era priest, Father Blachnicki, was murdered, Polish authorities confirm
  • Do not be afraid to be a witness to God’s love, pope says
  • Question Corner: Jesus became man so I could become God?
  • Papa: Acoger a migrantes y refugiados es el primer paso hacia la paz
  • Sister Elizabeth Ellen Kane, O.S.F., dies at 81
  • Welcoming migrants, refugees is first step toward peace, pope says
  • RADIO INTERVIEW: Dining with the Saints
  • Good politics brings people together, generates care for others, pope says
  • Wyoming becomes first state to ban abortion pills

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED