Hubris, Nemesis, and Government Ethics

In the October 28 issue of the New York Review of Books, there is an essay by the excellent South African novelist J. M. Coetzee on Philip Roth's series of four novels, concluding with the brand new one, Nemesis. Coetzee shows how Roth has dealt in these novels with the classical concept of Nemesis, "the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris," as it is defined in Wikipedia ("hubris" is a combination of pride and arrogance). Nemesis (a goddess) involves fate, humbling, and indignation at perceived injustice (two of the other four Roth novels are called The Humbling and Indignation). A modern word for the result of Nemesis' retribution would be "comeuppance."

This sounds like something out of an ethics scandal. Local boy moves from the council into the mayor's office, with hopes for higher office. He's fought hard to get where he's gotten and, to get what's due to him and help him move on, he sets up a pay-to-play program, making sure that developers and contractors not only give him more money than he needs to get re-elected (so he can hand it around and get a lot of IOUs), but also give to his favorite charities, including the Mayor's Cup golf tournament, which give people throughout his area, not to mention celebrities, a warm feeling about him.

He slips up, or someone gets fed up and leaks the story, or some little accident of fate occurs. Nemesis strikes, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

In ethics scandals, it is often the politician's indignation at perceived injustice that does more damage than the actual ethics violation. Instead of admitting what his hubris led him to, the hubris leads him to deny what happened or to defend himself by, for example, saying that what he did was legal, or that the whole thing is just a political vendetta, an act of malicious envy.

Better that the mayor take his dose of nemesis as a humbling, accept his fate, whether it be a big fine or resignation, and use the occasion as the warning it should be to others in his position. When he does this, there will likely be a few acts left after the play seems over.

Whatever happens, the public loves to watch the comeuppance. There is a hubris of the public, as well, a feeling that we are better than they are, and that they can't be trusted to run the community (but we would be). The public also likes to play the role of Nemesis, clamoring for retribution. The public likes to look up to giants, but also likes to see them fall, especially when they've shot themselves in the foot.

The tragedies of old, when the son of a king could accidentally kill his father and marry his mother, through no fault of his own, and end up blind, destitute, and in exile (see Oedipus Rex) — these don't happen often in modern ethics matters. I suppose an equivalent would be a mayor who sells city land to one developer (whom he's figuratively in bed with, and unbeknownst to him is his mother), thereby killing the project of another developer (who happens to be his father). Someone makes an anonymous tip, he ends up before an ethics commission, and he is forced to resign and leave town ("Sure, you didn't know she was your mother!"). This story line doesn't rise above the level of soap opera.

A major change has occurred that seriously changed things for us Americans:  the Protestant view that people are responsible for what happens to them, which became the American view. That is also the predominant view held by the protagonist of Roth's novel Nemesis. The classical view isn't that everything that happens to us is our fault. It's that if we seek to fly too high, and take pride in and enjoyment from our flight, we're bound to fall. It's fate, not guilt that's at issue.

Roth's protagonist does the opposite of what too many politicans do:  he immerses himself in guilt, concerned with how he brought down others' lives. Refusing to take the chance of polluting others with what he feels is his badness, he exiles himself from all those who loved or admired him, and pretty much everyone else, as well.

This too is not the best way of dealing with one's humbling. Here too no one learns anything, or wouldn't have if someone else hadn't told the story. But at least there is compassion here, a concern for those one hurts, even when one doesn't mean to. If only politicians with hubris would think about the effect their conduct has on others, they might realize that government ethics isn't about being good, but about doing what best preserves the public's trust in those who manage their community.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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