09-06-2019, 05:16 PM
(09-06-2019, 08:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: When lying and cheating are successful strategies, moral decay is almost a given. New leadership that sets a higher moral tone can reverse that, but it takes a long time to get there. That only means that it should have begun long ago, but now is better than never.
We need only go back to the integrity of Obama for President -- but it takes more than the President. It will also take a public that rejects demagogues who make contradictory but nebulous promises, business administrators who care about customers and subordinates, politicians who head constituents more than they heed lobbyists. journalists who put objective truth above a rigid agenda, and perhaps even creative people who inculcate the idea that destructive behavior ruins the destructive person. Education? Very simply, we need to teach that there is more to life than quick thrills, chemical highs, sex, material indulgence, bureaucratic power, and mind-numbing entertainment.
I think of the honor codes of the Service Academies, worded differently but meaning much the same: "Do not lie, do not cheat, and do not steal; do not tolerate lying, cheating, and stealing by others". It seems obvious for any professional (except perhaps in marketing/sales): accountants, engineers, teachers, physicians, pharmacists, research scientists... It can be difficult to obey at times, but it can save lots of problems.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.