RSS Feed
Ethics (and Hubris), Illinois Style
I watched, mesmerized, as Rod Blagojevich, the Governor of my state, Illinois, made the announcement of his appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. I watched Burris accept. It was like watching a production of John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress," especially the machinations of two characters from that parable, "Obstinate and Pliable." The Governor is playing the role of "Obstinate," and Roland Burris the role of "Pliable." "Mr. Legality" (another Bunyan character) is, of course, waiting in the wings.
You can run from ethics, but in the end, there are some eternal truths. The mystery of human existence is that we as individuals and as a species have to learn these lessons over and over and over. From Bunyan in the 17th century until today, "Obsinate" and "Pliable" are enduring characters in the human ethical drama.
I have been reading the three-part series "The Crash, What Went Wrong" that has been running in the Washington Post this week. It is remarkable how much overlap there is between the skewed ethics that fueled the financial meltdown of 2008 and politics as practiced in Illinois.
The financial series begins with this ethical analysis, "Greed on Wall Street and blindness in Washington certainly helped cause the financial system's crash."
Greed and blindness, the root of obstinacy, certainly characterize the actions of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The IL Governor is the national poster-child for greed, having apparently tried to auction off the IL Senate seat vacated by the election of Barack Obama. But now Blagojevich has gone further into ethical default. Despite having been arrested this month on federal corruption charges, he went ahead and appointed, Burris, a former IL Attorney General, anyway.
What we need to recognize is that both the IL Governor and the major actors in the financial meltdown were not simply greedy, and regulators or citizens were not simply blind.
The real ethical default in both cases is hubris, sometimes translated as pride. Hubris doesn't just mean being proud, however, it means the errors that human beings commit because they forget they are finite and limited.
This is what the writers of the series about the financial meltdown make clear is the real reason our economy was driven off the rails, and they use a theological analysis. The deep story of the financial crisis, they maintain, is "a parable about people who thought they could outwit competitors and market forces alike, and who behaved as though they were uniquely positioned to sidestep the disasters that had destroyed so many financial dreams before them."
In short, the financial analysts at Financial Products who invented these innovative financial methods were always the smartest guys in the room and they believed they could beat the system. What they wanted to do was invent new methods to get rid of debt and free up more cash, and do so in a relatively risk free way. They were computer geeks. In the end, they relied too heavily on the computer programs they themselves had often written and forgot the fundamental fact of human existence: what can go wrong, will go wrong.
The Governor of Illinois has forgotten this ethical truth as well. As the Illinois parable unfolds, this will become even more clear.
Human freedom is not infinite. When any human being believes he or she has infinite freedom, the error of hubris is bound to follow. "Obstinate" and "Pliable" are eternal characters in all walks of human life, from Wall Street to Michigan Avenue and even along Pennsylvania Avenue.
.
By
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
|
December 31, 2008; 11:47 AM ET
Share This: 
Technorati
| Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: The Most Predictable Story Ever Told |
Next: US Jews, Muslims Need New Playbook
Posted by: paultaylor1 | January 7, 2009 10:01 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"In the end, they relied too heavily on the computer programs they themselves had often written and forgot the fundamental fact of human existence: what can go wrong, will go wrong." In addition, the progressive politicians relied on their dogmatic principle of giving out financial favors (this time, mortgages via threats to prosecute alleged violations of the Community Reinvestment Act by institutions not meeting their progressively-set quotas for mortgages along with political pressure on Fannie and Freddie to assist in the dangerous scheme) heedless of the possibly adverse impacts of such behavior. And the same breed of computer geeks who brought us the financial meltdown also are telling us their Climate Change models predicting Anthropogenic Global Warming are reliable. How much more wealth and human potential will have to be wasted before America as a whole wises up to these progressive panderers of PC-driven poverty-producing economic policies?
Posted by: DoTheRightThing | January 6, 2009 9:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
There would be no greed and no blindness if we all would just live by "The Golden Rule". That's all is needed.
Posted by: ThishowIseeit | January 5, 2009 8:12 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I believe the governor is innocent until proven guilty. In the meantime, he has a job to do. I don't see how this appointment lacks any legal force or validity just because the governor has been indicted.
Yeah, I know the governor is a crook and a dirtbag. He still happens to be in the right legally. And we are a nation of laws, not a nation of image. So the appointment has image problems, so what, it's legal and that's what counts. We can't go twisting the law in order to fit our public relations needs.
Posted by: ZZim | January 5, 2009 7:55 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The comments to this entry are closed.
Well, it is still true that Blagojevich is Governor. And he is free to continue to govern. No limitations have been imposed on him.
So let's swallow our pride and our personal or collective ethical indignation for the moment and let reality continue to run its course.
I personally would not have chosen Mr. Burris for this job. But it would be difficult to argue against him. And the Democrats, in the end, will find this to be rather inconveniently and uncomfortably the case.