c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) On Tuesday of last week, just before the semester’s orchestra concert, someone went behind stage at my son’s school, found the bows used by cellists, and cut each bow in half. This took place at an arts magnet school where, in theory, every student has a passion for the arts.
Across town, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business announced plans to punish three dozen students for cheating on their work. This took place at a school striving for recognition as a training ground for tomorrow’s business leaders.
In the same week, school administrators across the country prepared to jettison school-provided laptops; it seems the students had used the computers to exchange answers during exams and to surf the Web for pornography.
None of these ethical lapses will merit the klieg lights now shining on grown-ups engaged in abuse of office or growing shareholder complaints about rapacious executives. But they are all of a piece.
Wealth might not “trickle down,” but an atmosphere of corruption certainly does.
When defiant government officials cling to jobs despite overwhelming evidence of incompetence and malfeasance, we shouldn’t be surprised when underlings at veterans hospitals in North Carolina coveted pay increases even as their institutions were flunking quality assessments.
When corporate executives pad already prodigious salaries, despite the shattering of trust that occurs when the rich get extraordinarily richer and everyone else gets credit-card offers and lottery tickets, we can expect that future “masters of the universe” will get the message.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman likens this era to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, when unfettered greed and ruthless tactics, backed by a compliant government, corrupted the American system in ways from which it hasn’t yet recovered.
That era’s excesses, we should remember, led to a four-year depression, a phony war against Spain, rising racial intolerance, anti-immigration nativism, bitter partisanship, land grabs, a boom in large and showy churches and utter scorn for have-nots. It should sound familiar, although not even Gilded Age examplar John D. Rockefeller could equal the hedge fund manager who paid himself $1.7 billion in 2006.
When high-profile grown-ups show so little restraint, why should we expect the young to seek a higher standard? Kids aren’t stupid. They see what pays off _ hence, an epidemic of plagiarism, gleeful breaking of copyright protections on music and videos, rampant underage drinking, and sexual promiscuity.
Hence also a mass flight away from science, mathematics, engineering and computer science _ the fields in which technological creativity blossoms _ and toward business school, finance and law, seen as pathways to easy wealth.
When staying long at the trough seems to outweigh any thoughts of civic-mindedness, it will be difficult to protect safety-net programs like Social Security, to promote soft agendas like cutting carbon emissions, to care for the wounded coming home from Iraq, or to honor America’s historic commitment to immigrants.
It will be difficult, in fact, to do any sustained good _ the good always collides with our human propensity for greed and self-serving. The good can only proceed by reining in get-mine attitudes and encouraging idealism and sacrifice.
Personally, I think it is time for a religious revival. I don’t mean another round of fix-the-other moralizing, or doctrinal orthodoxy, or showboat piety. I mean the teaching of sound ethics, setting a better example for the young, and not applauding the super-rich and their political toadies as they sacrifice our democracy for the gilding of lilies.
KRE/PH END EHRICH
