Nonviolence and Government Ethics V – Modeling Corruption

In his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, Michael N. Nagler talks about two models for looking at violence that are also relevant to government ethics, the medical model and the educational model.

The Medical Model
The first is the medical model, which sees violence as disease, and peace as health. Corruption can be usefully seen as a disease of democracy, in two ways. One, in the way it spreads through government. And two, in the way it spreads in the public's imagination.

If corruption is the virus, loyalty is the thing that allows the virus to spread through a government organization in much the same way as a cold or a stomach flu. The difference is that while both kinds of virus are invisible, we often don't see even the symptoms of the spread of corruption. And when we do, most people are afraid to do anything about them.

Another difference is that we don't have a cure for an unhealthy government. Nor do we even have a name for a healthy government, at least nothing so simple as "peace." It isn't enough to say, as we do when we're sick, that we want to "get better." Dealing responsibly  with conflicts may make officials better people, but this is far more difficult than taking a pill. In fact, the real cure isn't to get rid of corruption. It is to prepare people to deal with corruption in their midst, and with the feelings in each of us that we have obligations to our families and others, especially when those others remind you of your obligations to them.

That's the thing with government ethics. These feelings, these obligations, are in all of us. Think of them like stress in health. Stress doesn't cause a disease, but it helps to undermine our immune system. If we had no obligations to anyone, there would still be selfishness and greed. But these become far stronger when we can justify our selfishness and greed by telling ourselves that we are helping our family, friends, and business associates live a better life. And these are in addition to the obligations we feel to party and government colleagues. Just as stress increases our susceptibility to disease, obligations increase our susceptibility to acting unethically, to putting our obligations to others ahead of our obligations to the public.

To counter stress, we exercise, take vacations, meditate, and talk out our problems with spouse, friends, clergy, or psychotherapist [Disclosure: my wife is a psychotherapist.] What do we do to counter obligations? Exercising can be a good time to stop and think through what we're doing at work, but exercise itself won't help, nor will taking a vacation. Meditation is good for whatever ails you. In fact, Nagler sees it as an essential daily activity for the practice of nonviolence, to discipline yourself to handle anger and fear when you need to. He feels that it is "the very root of judgment, character and will," the way to win the war within us all.

But for those who choose not to practice meditation or self-hynosis, discussion is the best way to counter obligations. Discussion with ourselves, with those to whom we have obligations, and with our colleagues at work. If many officials in each government organization were to openly discuss their obligations and how to deal with them responsibly, there would be no corruption. Not because everyone would nod their heads and say how wonderful it is to be honest, open, and responsible (although many more would do this). But because even the hopeless officials would know they couldn't get away with anything, and that their colleagues would simply laugh at their excuses.

The other way that corruption spreads is in the public's imagination. A local, state, or federal ethics scandal often multiplies in citizens' minds and undermines their trust of officials at all levels. With the internet, we are increasingly aware of what is going on elsewhere, so that we are constantly bombarded by ethical viruses and bacteria that formerly we would not have encountered. But the cures have not advanced along with the disease's ability to spread.

That is why it is so important now that government ethics practitioners join together to start establishing best practices that can be embraced nationally, at all levels. Responding to local instances of corruption is no longer enough. Officials in every jurisdiction need to recognize the advantages of an ethics program. Which brings us to the second model, the educational model.

The Educational Model
In the educational model, violence is seen as a kind of ignorance. Violence is "a failure of imagination," an inability to imagine another way to a peaceful resolution. This is true on the personal and on the institutional and national levels. When someone strikes out violently, he has lost sight of alternatives. When a nation moves toward war, its people lose sight of the alternatives, and those who support peaceful resolutions are silenced or silence themselves.

An ignorance of history and a failure of imagination also lie behind the principal criticism of nonviolence:  it doesn't work. The fact is that it has worked, as Nagler showed, and as others have shown in their histories of the use of nonviolence (e.g., the histories of Mark Kurlansky and Peter Ackerman & Jack DuVall), and its results are usually not only more peaceful, but also more democratic than the use of violence. Even when it fails, nonviolence works, because it sets a good example for others. Violence teaches only horrible habits. Even when it works, it is still a failure.

Teaching Moral Imagination
Both unethical conduct and opposition to strong government ethics programs are also kinds of ignorance and failures of the imagination. A couple of years ago, I wrote a post called Ethical Decision-Making, in which I quoted from Jonah Lehrer's book on how the brain works (How We Decide). In his chapter "The Moral Mind," he shows that ethical decision-making requires "taking other people into account. ... Doing the right thing means thinking about everybody else, using the emotional brain to mirror the emotions of strangers. ... At its core, moral decision-making is about sympathy.  We abhor violence because we know violence hurts.  We treat others fairly because we know what it feels like to be treated unfairly."

Government officials who participate in unethical conduct and who do nothing when they see others acting unethically have poorly developed moral imaginations. They cannot imagine how what they or others are doing could be hurting others. They can see themselves being treated unfairly, they can see themselves not trusting others, but they cannot see how others feel they are being treated unfairly or how others feel a lack of trust in them.

Looking more deeply at this sort of ignorance leads us back to the medical model. In a recent post called A Lack of Empathy, I looked at this inability to imagine how others are thinking and quoted Lehrer saying recently that "the absence of empathy ... is psychopathy." The principal characteristics of psychopathy are a lack of empathy and of guilt, the manipulation of others, pathological lying, and a failure to take responsibility for one's actions.

This is not to say that officials who participate in unethical conduct are murderous psychopaths. Murderous psychopaths are at the far end of the continuum. But there is a need not just to educate officials about ethics rules, but also about moral imagination and its role in ethical decision-making.

Teaching Government Ethics
People are always saying that you cannot teach people to act ethically. This is only true if you don't understand what government ethics is, that is, if you don't understand that government ethics is limited to conflicts of interest, and that dealing responsibly with conflicts is more about analyzing situations, seeing them from the outside, and acting professionally than about being good. The process of learning how to use your moral imagination is one area that does help an individual act ethically, but it is unfortunately a process generally lacking from government ethics training.

There is also a great deal of ignorance about government ethics and how it works. For example, people are generally not willing to spend much money on government ethics, because they see it as not very productive. They don't understand that getting officials to follow government ethics rules will save a local government millions of dollars a year both in money and in productivity, because contracts and jobs will not be given on the basis of relationships, but rather on the basis of what is best for the community. Nepotism destroys morale, scandals undermine a community's ability to attract businesses, and competent people do not want to work for corrupt governments.

Of course, the benefits of government ethics are not limited to monetary benefits. The participation of citizens in a government they trust is invaluable. Equally, on the individual level, thinking of others actually feels good. This is how our brains are designed.

Nagler says that "violence is a mechanical 'solution' that cheats us of an opportunity to grow." This is equally true of the use of intimidation in a government organization. It is the easy, unimaginative way to push one's weight around (or, actually, the weight of one's office). And it cheats not only those who are put in fear of their jobs and reputations, but also those who do the intimidating.

I think there is also a failure of the imagination in the government ethics community. Practitioners do not seem to believe that they can band together and make an important difference in how government ethics is understood and treated in local governments across the country. Local government officials of all kinds, lawyers, lobbyists, employees all band together to seek (or prevent) valuable changes. Only local government ethics practitioners do not believe they can make a difference. They of all people should have the imagination and the courage to try to make a difference, not only in their local government, but in the great majority of local governments that lack any government ethics practitioners.

How Unethical Conduct Educates
Violence has its own educational process. "Every time we use violence to solve a problem we send the signal that violence is the way to solve problems." The more violence they experience, the more people are desensitized to it. This is equally true of unethical conduct. Government officials and employees come to accept it as part of the environment, and they come to accept increasingly harmful conduct.

According to Nagler, it is a task of nonviolence "to awaken sleeping consciences by making people aware of the pain they're causing — making them feel it empathetically." This should also be a task of government ethics.

The Timeline of Education
Like education, government ethics doesn't work overnight. Acts of courage in government ethics can have an enormous effect on the immediate situation, an enormous effect on the local government ethics environment and, if it becomes a news story, it can even have an effect outside of the community. But short of Watergate, no single scandal has led to huge changes outside of the particular locality or state. And most of the time, any changes are minor and sometimes short-lived. But that doesn't mean government ethics is not working. It means that its timeline is long, like education. Patience is a major virtue in both pursuits.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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