Spring Reading: The Day of Judgment
I just finished reading a masterpiece of a novel about Nuoro, a town
in Sardinia: Salvatore Satta's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Day-Judgment-Salvatore-Satta/dp/0374526605" target="”_blank”">The
Day of Judgment</a>, </i>translated from the Italian by Patrick
Creagh. It's a very wise, witty, and sad novel. Here are a few
pearls of wisdom that shed light on local government ethics.<br>
<br>
"Being mayor meant seeing the Nuorese ... come forward hat in hand to
ask for something. ... Power meant conceding this certain something;
and this was all the more important because, in spite of
appearances, power is shown more by giving than by taking away."<br>
<br>
"Ludovico's trouble was that life would not allow him to dream; it
urged him to take part in reality; it exposed him to an exhausting
risk, exactly like that of a tightrope walker. He could get away
with making no response to [his mother] when she called him, but how
could he avoid responding to the demands of others, which are
constant, continuous, and inexorable?"<br>
<br>
"In Nuoro ... there was no hatred, and there was no love either.
There was the struggle with others, which became the struggle with
themselves. Love and hate balanced each other out, and converged in
the need to preserve others in order to preserve themselves."<br>
<br>
[Whenever anyone leaves Nuoro, the principal character, Sebastiano,
says they have gone "to look for bread made from better things than
wheat." This is how local officials and attorneys often seem to feel
about looking elsewhere for ethics reform ideas. Rarely do they look
outside their immediate area, where they are likely to find little.
As a bread baker and government ethicist, I know that they are many
things better than wheat, but they probably aren't being grown or
ground nearby. Government ethics should not be treated like
vegetables, where local is preferable.]<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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