Observing others and examining how they respond to circumstances can be quite useful for helping to consider your own perspective. We don’t always get to experience every decision path and so we don’t get the opportunity to navigate novel or uncommon scenarios. This is why we study history, read biographies, watch television shows, and generally become invested in the “drama” of others. We get a cathartic release participating in the journey of others without having to stress over the stakes that they face.
I’ve noted this in the past few years as I faced stressful circumstances which were shared with friends, coworkers, and family members. We faced threat of job loss, perils to our health, and restrictions to personal freedom. It’s obvious to observe we did not all approach these circumstances with the same perspectives or objectives. It wasn’t until this summer when my own path had cleared that I had space to engage with someone who was navigating existential questions about their lifepath and career and realize how differently we all confront reality.
Many of us confronted systems and the people therein who claimed to operate in our best interests, actually prioritized themselves first. Two of the systems that have the largest impact on our daily lives are government and employers. For me personally, I had to come to terms that both of these systems which I relied on for financial stability and personal safety were incentivized to disregard that obligation to me as an individual. First I was frustrated, then angry, then detached as I resolved to become fully self-sufficient.
Now that the dust has settled a bit and I’ve come back to a more emotionally neutral frame of mind, I realize I’ve also settled back into a degree of relative comfort with a new status quo. But what about that fury and bluster held towards those systems who nearly ostracized me in pursuit of their own prosperity? I was reminded of that anger when someone confronted ethical ambiguity in their employer with a resignation even at the expense of their own financial security and prosperity.
When the individuals of a system subvert the objectives of the system for personal gain, I consider that corruption. I’ve reflected on the behavior of employers considering if the adverse outcomes for individual employees were byproducts of this type of corruption or instead just a business attempting to responsibly manage their operation. There is no doubt I’ve encountered individuals over the years more self-interested and less morally sound but I’ve also come to accept that this is simply a reality of human nature. Across a large enough population, there will be outliers who behave in a more corrupt manner by pursuing their own interests before any others.
There is then, no organization which can be completely free of corruption. This leads me to consider at what point we eclipse the threshold for acceptable corruption in an organization. At what point would you resign from a system given its disfunction at the hands of participants purely manipulating outcomes for their own enrichment? Turning this lens on my employer and my experience over the last few years I’ve determined their actions honorable by my own personal scale. In retrospect I see hard choices made based on business objectives and harsh realities. I concede I have a fair degree positive of bias given my own fate.
That same perspective turned towards our government produces only disgust. Its voting season if you hadn’t noticed and my mailbox and YouTube feed are filled with advertisements of the worst kind. Hateful attacks leveraging the most personal topics to manipulate public opinion in their favor. Then there is the doubt cast over the governmental reaction to a potential national health threat. We may only be able to speculate about the motives, intent, and design of the response but the outcomes are quite plain, profits and prosperity for those in command. All while most people have endured employment, health, and financial strife.
Unfortunately, simply refusing to endorse or participate in that system isn’t really an option. And this season’s campaigning candidates reminded me that voting for hateful people saying hateful things doesn’t solve anything either. So I suppose I have no conclusive answer here besides saying definitively that this system of government, while having produced wonderful amounts of prosperity and freedom, has long passed beyond my personal threshold for corruption. I sure wish the populace had a recall option constantly available so that we could discharge dysfunctional public servants once their ethical battery had been depleted, assuming they had one to begin with.
I leave you with a notion to consider how much corruption you’re willing to participate in, to reflect on the systems you support and their level of corruption, and to take action when you can to avoid participating in systems that make your stomach turn.
