Interesting thing, isn’t it? Interesting notion. Interesting subject.
We, of course, are not corrupt. Our society is not corrupt. Our systems are not corrupt. Our people are not corrupt. Our officials are not corrupt. There’s nothing corrupt here……
Or is there?
We like to think – and I always automatically think when the subject first comes to mind – that ‘corruption’ exists elsewhere, not here.
But it doesn’t hold up when we think about it. It doesn’t.
One of the most obvious images that we get to represent the lamentable ‘corruption’ in other countries is that of policemen being paid cash to turn a blind eye to this or that – traffic offences, maybe, licence infringements or such – the kind of thing that the tourist will perhaps see and be told about – minor officials taking bribes before you can get a permit, things like that.
We think this is terrible and proves the point: ‘they’ are corrupt, we are not. And what does ‘corrupt’ mean? It means ‘not pure’, doesn’t it?
It is from a Latin root meaning ‘to destroy’ and there’s a whole swag of definitions you can find but they all mean about the same thing, there’s no quibble about it, it is well understood, ‘corrupted’ means destroyed in some way, which I express as saying ‘having the purity diminished’.
And for an image I imagine things like a sheet of shiny iron with rust flecks on it, beginning to eat through it – I see rust as a ‘corruption’ of the metal.
So what is the purity that has been corrupted? That has been despoiled?
Quick answer: the Law. THE LAW in all its capitalistic majesty. The last refuge of the scoundrel they said, was ‘patriotism’, but I think an equal argument could be made for ‘THE LAW’.
More evil is committed in the name of the Law by the filthiest and most unworthy who hide behind ‘The Law’ than has been committed in any other way.
Just think of the Inquisition. And then think of totalitarian regimes anywhere, everywhere in the world. Think of Nazi Germany. Think of Stalin’s Russia.
Everywhere murderers stomping around killing and destroying – always in the name of ‘The Law’.
What I mean by this is that it is demonstrably virtually impossible to taint, to destroy the virtue, to compromise the purity of ‘The Law’ – for it historically has none.
‘The Law’ itself is a meaningless, virtue – less phrase.
The phrase is applied to any code of conduct or list or rules or regulations that any crazy despot and his hordes of eager murderous allies, henchmen, aides, care to apply it to.
They seek to sanctify their actions by saying they are ‘The Law’.
There is no such sanctity.
That should be, at a moment’s reflection, crystal clear.
If anyone cannot see that they should consider these words and this discussion, this thread, this argument, no longer.
Instead they should go back to the beginning and work over it again and again, asking themselves ‘where is the purity, the sanctity, the reason, the right, the truth and the good in the words ‘The Law’ when applied to rules, regulations, procedures, actions, policies, people that murder, torture, oppress, cripple, torment and inflict living hells upon our fellow people?
No. There’s no sanctity, no purity, ipso facto, in ‘The Law’, hence it is not ‘The Law’ that is corrupted.
So what are we looking at? A corrupt individual? May be. It may well be. Perhaps this individual is ‘corrupt’ and that is what we mean. And ‘they’ are ‘corrupt’ and we are not.
But what is the individual’s corruption? Simply, they are not doing their job according to (what we think) the rules of how it should be done.
So he/she’s corrupt. Because they are not doing their job.
Yes. Well might be. But not, I think, how we usually view the word ‘corrupt’. We don’t call bad workers ‘corrupt’. We don’t call ourselves ‘corrupt’ when we fail to do the job entirely correctly.
By that standard a murderous villain in a brownshirt torturing and killing on the orders of the Nazi regime and acting entirely within those orders would not be ‘corrupt’.
So that’s wrong. Reprehensible as it may be to not do your job properly and corrupt as you may be as an individual, the word ‘corrupt’ is not used to describe you simply because you don’t do your job properly – ‘properly’ being used to mean, here: ‘as detailed’ or ‘as ordered’. Which in fact is probably an improper use of the word… but put that aside for a while.
So if the individual has not been corrupted and it is not ‘The Law’ that has been corrupted then where is the corruption?
It is in the society. In our social organisation. In our ‘social contract’ with each other.
We have joined together in a society for the mutual good, for the good of us all collectively and for the good of us all individually.
Sometimes we’ve deliberately joined this society, other times we were simply born into it – but then we could say there comes a time, an age, when we choose to remain rather than leave. So that ultimately we are all supposed to be here by choice and we’ve all made an agreement to live together amicably according to certain rules, regulations, restrictions, codes, practices in the interests of the benefit of us all, collectively and individually.
And it is this agreement, this structure, this edifice that has been corrupted. This is where the corruption lies. This is what is being destroyed. This is what is tarnished. This is what is rotting away.
Now, having established that, let’s get to the nitty gritty and not mince words: it is our love for each other that is being corrupted, tarnished, damaged, eroded.
This ‘social contract’ represents a care and attention directed to each and every one of us by the rest, by consensus, by the organisation the social structure as a whole – and that ‘care and attention’ can best, most easily, be summed up in the word ‘love’.
Which no one would ordinarily like to use. But I will. Why not.
‘Love ye one another as I have loved you’ is supposedly what JC said and we are nominally a Christain country. We simply shrink from overt demonstrations or professions of mimsy-wimsy-rosy scented ‘love’.
But in fact that is what it is. Our care for each other.
Our society is constructed with care for each other as the essence, the centre of it, the whole mainspring, the whole reason for its existence.
Care for each other. Love.
And what gets corrupted when a country or a social organisation is corrupted (or even a small group, small organisation – a family perhaps) – is love. Care. Mutual respect. ‘Help ye one another’.
That is what gets corrupted.
So now consider the ‘corruption’ of those minor officials and traffic policemen in those ‘corrupt’ societies.
Consider your discussion with them regarding the mitigating circumstances, the precise reasons, the extenuating circumstances…..
Consider their position and remuneration in their society – frequently a position required to sort social problems of all kinds with sometimes most dramatic consequences – as is true of any minor official or policeman anyway – and generally poorly remunerated and yet held responsible for the maintenance of a large extended family – which is not the case in our society but is the case most nearly always in these other societies.
Go check it out.
And when you check it out you may well find that every case is considered on its merits and that charges (bribes, fixes) are adjusted to suit the individual in question and that the official does support his extended family in countries with no welfare, no pensions, no benefits whatever, and does not grow rich him/herself.
And you may find that much can be done by almost anyone and most can be done by those that have cultivated good responsible behaviour and have a history of helping people and are known for it.
People are considered as people and every incident is seen as an interaction between people in a people world, the functionary the citizen meets does not pretend to be anything other than a person.
A person who can be bribed, we would say. A rather crude way of putting it but okay. It is the very fact that they are presenting themselves as persons, people, fellow citizens, fellows in this social organisation that makes them approachable in this way, bribable, gives hope of perhaps reaching an accommodation with them.
Our thoughts on ‘corruption’ are all mixed up, I’d submit. We mix up paying off a Thai policeman for a traffic infringement with paying off a Nazi thug demanding monies to protect against persecution.
Very different things.
Generally these ‘corrupt’ people in these ‘other’ countries are as far removed from Nazi thugs as you can imagine. They don’t come to you and arbitrarily demand and threaten in the same breath. The populace at large is not afraid of them.
What they are doing, mainly, that we are calling ‘corruption’ is letting people go. Letting people off. Freeing people. As un-Nazi as you can get.
Everywhere in these ‘corrupt’ countries things can be done, freedoms and mitigations can be got via these ‘corrupt’ officials and their interpretations of their jobs, of the rules.
And in this way the love of each other in those countries is kept alive. Is manifest. As it has to be.
I’m sure that’ll raise a laugh. At first. But reflection on the situation by those who’ve travelled to these places and watched and noted will subdue the laughter and give rise to a changed perception of what’s happening.
And now contemplate our own situation.
Consider the traffic cop. Who says he’s just upholding the law. And imposes harsh penalties for whatever infringement or supposed infringement – and who you daren’t even speak to in a normal manner with your normal fluidity because he’s likely to take offence at any time and escalate everything.
A cowboy in tinted glasses carrying an enormous gun and riding the highways looking for trouble – bringing the trouble to you.
And how much justice? How much truth? How much reason? How much fairness? The police and the Courts are Daily (!) perpetrating injustices upon the public. Not some airy fairy ‘sense – of – fairness’ injustice but hard, solid, factual illegalities. Read about unjust radar gun fines.
Our whole road safety thing is insane. Everyone encouraged to believe and to travel at the speed limit !! How good is that? At the limit!! Nowhere does it ever suggest that the limit is a limit, an end, the final bit, the top, the furthest.
It is just posted. A dumb number. There are no other warnings, nothing more is said.
And the game, the insane game, is that we travel AT THAT SPEED and if we go over it by 1 km/hr that’s an offence!
And traffic police will prosecute (so to speak, on spot fine) immediately and they are not approachable. It is an OFFENCE to approach them as human beings – i.e. in this ‘other country’ way, to try to plead your way out of it and offer money.
They hide immediately and wholly behind ‘The Law’, which, we’ve seen, is an ass.
Now I’m tired. I’ve been writing this for a long time. Not being very good at writing I don’t manage to say things pithily, quickly, succinctly, so I rave on for hours and hours and still don’t get it said – sometimes I even reach the end of what I’m saying only to realise I’ve forgotten what it was I wanted to say!
So I will say little more.
But consider: Our traffic fines are, it seems, almost certainly totally invalid, illegal. Our speed cameras and radar guns are fallible and, it seems, often, often wrong.
Our drug laws mimic the USA where there’s been a ‘war on drugs’ that everyone now agrees has totally failed and has (though they don’t say this as loudly or as often, though it is still agreed) created a monster that has killed and crippled thousands upon thousands and has distorted the whole face of America for the worse.
And everything is policed and maintained by authorities and police who hide behind a faceless anonymity and an implacable machine-like implementation of penalties and robotic judgements…….
Unless you are really rich… and then you can have any freedom you wish.
Which society is corrupt? Where is the corruption?